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Trumpism

Daily Bread for 3.17.25: Nativism Will Rationalize Anything for the Cause

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 49. Sunrise is 7:02 and sunset is 7:04, for 12 hours, 1 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM, and the full board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, returning into open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1776, the British Army evacuates Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.


Lauren Villagran reports This Wisconsin man voted for Trump. Now his wife sits in an ICE detention center:

Bradley Bartell and Camila Muñoz had a familiar small-town love story, before they collided with immigration politics.

They met through mutual friends, had a first date at the local steakhouse, married after two years and were saving to buy a house and have kids. Muñoz was already caring for Bartell’s now 12-year-old son as her own.

But last month, on their way home to Wisconsin after honeymooning in Puerto Rico, an immigration agent pulled Muñoz aside in the airport.

“Are you an American citizen?” asked the agent. She answered no, she wasn’t. She’s from Peru. But she and her husband had taken the legal steps so that one day she might get U.S. citizenship.

….

Before agents led her away, Muñoz pulled off her wedding ring, afraid it might get confiscated. She shoved it into her backpack and handed it to Bartell.

He shook as he watched her disappear. He thought, “What the f— do I do?”

Bartell, however, still supports Trump’s overall immigration policy, while his wife is held in detention:

The money the couple saved for a down payment on a home has evaporated into attorneys fees and savings to pay a bond for her release, if she’s given that chance.Both of them have been thinking a lot about Bartell’s vote for Trump.

“I knew they were cracking down,” he said. “I guess I didn’t know how it was going down.”

He imagined the administration would target people who snuck over the border and weren’t vetted.

But his wife, “they know who she is and where she came from,” he said. “They need to get the vetting done and not keep these people locked up. It doesn’t make any sense.”

See Lauren Villagran, This Wisconsin man voted for Trump. Now his wife sits in an ICE detention center, USA Today, March 16, 2025.

Take a Wisconsin nativist’s new bride, hold her detention in Louisiana (for four weeks so far), in a room with eighty others, and let him talk to her by phone now and again.

How does Bartell feel about all this?

“They need to get the vetting done.”

Bradley Bartell is still supportive of Trumpism, while futilely describing a vetting process that now means nothing to the second Trump Administration. Bartell might simply have said that he wants to see his wife again, and said no more. Instead, he endorsed the general deportation policy.

Nativism will rationalize anything for the cause.

Daily Bread for 3.14.25: Schumer Gets the Criticism He Deserves

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 74. Sunrise is 7:08 and sunset is 7:00, for 11 hours, 52 minutes of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, the Royal Air Force drops the Grand Slam bomb in action for the first time, on a railway viaduct near Bielefeld, Germany.


There’s national discussion about Sen. Chuck Schumer’s decision to vote in favor of a Republican-supported continuing resolution in the Senate. I’m not a member of the Democratic Party, but as I am a Never Trump libertarian aligned with them on policy toward Trump, Democrats’ frustration with Schumer is understandable to me (although I’ve never thought much of him).

From Bluesky, here’s Democrat Josh Marshall writing about Schumer:

Here’s a scatological comment on reactions to Schumer’s capitulation from comedian, actor, and writer Michael Ian Black:

Indeed.

There’s a local angle in all this. A day or two ago, some Democrats were standing along Main Street in Whitewater with signs protesting recent Trump decisions. Some of them seemed about Schumer’s age, but there they were, lawfully expressing their opposition. Good for them.

And yet, and yet, in every town, including Whitewater, there’s at least one Democratic man of Schumer’s age who would behave as Schumer is behaving, capitulating, yielding, or even carrying the message of the very rightwing populists who would gladly bring about that man’s ruin. (These diffident types would have, of course, one self-serving rationalization or another for their servile behavior.)

Marshall’s words apply to such types as these: foolish and weak men.

They are unsuited to the times. The sooner they fade from the scene the better.


‘Blood moon’ lunar eclipse seen across South America:

Moongazers gathered in Chile, Argentina and Venezuela to observe a total lunar eclipse. The events happen when the moon, Earth and sun align just so. The Earth casts a shadow that can partially or totally blot out the moon

Daily Bread for 3.13.25: The Crawford-Schimel Debate

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 60. Sunrise is 7:09 and sunset is 6:59, for 11 hours, 50 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, an Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves is passed by Congress, effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.


Last night, Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel met in the only debate of their campaign for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court:

Several times, Crawford accused Schimel of saying different things to broader audiences than to audiences made up of his political allies. She called attention to reporting by the Washington Post that Schimel said Trump was “screwed over” by the Supreme Court in its decisions regarding the 2020 election, and reporting by the Wisconsin Examiner that he had told a group of canvassers he’d be a “support network” for Trump. 

“He is not impartial, and he says different things in front of a broad audience like this, where he knows it’s going to be televised, than he’ll say when he’s talking to his political allies,” she said. “He is not trustworthy.” 

On the campaign trail, access to abortion has been one of the most prominent issues. The Court is currently considering a lawsuit that would have the state’s 1849 law declared invalid, while another lawsuit is pending in the lower courts asking if the state’s Constitution grants a right to abortion access. 

Schimel has said he personally opposes abortion, that both of his daughters are adopted and he believes the 1849 statute is a “valid law.” In the debate he repeated what he’s said during the campaign on the issue — that it should be up to the state’s voters. Wisconsin doesn’t allow voters to influence state law through a referendum process. 

See Henry Redman, Supreme Court candidates continue accusations of partisanship in sole debate, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 13, 2025.

Schimel likely knows, if he’s worked up the energy to read the law after his habitually light work schedule, that a voters’ referendum would be advisory,1 and to overturn Wisconsin’s 1849 statutory abortion ban would require a proposed state constitutional amendment2 that the WISGOP legislature would never put before voters.

Schimel being untrustworthy is an axiom. See FREE WHITEWATER, We Now Know that Schimel Has Lied at Least Once (Could Be More!), March 28, 2025.

Shrewd moment of the night came from Crawford:

At one point, in a remark that Crawford said was a “slip of the tongue,” she referred to Musk as “Elon Schimel.”

Worth running an add with that moniker for Schimel…

______

  1. As with a proposed advisory referendum in 2024 that, in fact, never made it out of the Wisconsin Legislature. ↩︎
  2. Gov. Evers has proposed the ability of voters to adopt or repeal state laws without the Legislature, but the WISGOP won’t approve that, either. ↩︎

How to see Thursday’s night, Friday morning’s lunar eclipse:

Look to the sky late Thursday evening to spot a rare blood moon lunar eclipse. The total lunar eclipse will be visible in North America, South America, western parts of Europe and Africa from Thursday, March 13 to Friday, March 14. As the moon passes through the Earth’s innermost shadow, light from the sun passing through the Earth’s atmosphere will be filtered in just the right way to bathe the moon in a reddish, orange hue. Totality – when the moon is completely within the Earth’s inner shadow and turns reddish – will start at 12:26 a.m. EDT and 11:26 p.m. PDT and last about 65 minutes. The phenomenon is visible by the naked eye, but for the best viewing experience, find a dark environment and grab a pair of binoculars or a telescope. According to NASA, another total lunar eclipse won’t be visible in the U.S. until March 2026.

Daily Bread for 3.12.25: Trump Runs for Wisconsin Supreme Court

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 55. Sunrise is 7:11 and sunset is 6:58, for 11 hours, 47 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1989,  Sir Tim Berners-Lee submits his proposal to CERN for an information management system, which subsequently develops into the World Wide Web.


Musk pays for ads that boost Schimel for Tump:

“Conservative Brad Schimel will support President Trump’s agenda!” says the new flyer. “Together, we won the White House. Now it’s time to win the courthouse!”

A mailer supporting conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel is paid for the America PAC, a super PAC started by billionaire Elon Musk to support Donald Trump during his campaign for the presidency..

The campaign literature features a picture of Trump being sworn in as president with his hand upheld and a second photo of Schimel with the Wisconsin Capitol in the background. It then urges voters to elect Schimel to the Supreme Court next month.

America PAC, the Musk super PAC, and a second Musk group, the nonprofit Building America’s Future, have reported spending more than $10 million on TV ads, digital ads, mailers, voter turnout and canvassing.

(Emphasis in original.)

See Daniel Bice, New Musk mailer says Brad Schimel will ‘support President Trump’s agenda’ from bench, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 12, 2025.

Brad Schimel, circuit court judge, isn’t running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court; Trump’s dutiful foot soldier is running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Trump will have to split his time between golfing, buying cars on the White House Lawn, and trying to stay awake during sessions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.


Dollar for dollar’: Canada announces 25% tariffs on nearly $30bn in US imports:

Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, announced retaliatory tariffs on US imports, including steel and aluminum, amid a growing trade war.

Daily Bread for 3.11.25: Doubling Down on Ignorant Economics

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset is 6:57, for 11 hours, 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1941, President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.


Monday in America: The Rapidly Declining Economic Climate.

Tuesday in America:

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will double his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% for Canada, escalating a trade war with the United States’ northern neighbor and showing an indifference to recent stock market turmoil and rising recession risks.

Trump said on social media that the increase of the tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday is a response to the price increases that the provincial government of Ontario put on electricity sold to the United States.

“I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social.

After a brutal stock market selloff on Monday and further jitters Tuesday, Trump faces increased pressure to show he has a legitimate plan to grow the economy instead of perhaps pushing it into a recession. But so far the president is doubling down on the tariffs he talked up repeatedly during the 2024 campaign and throwing a once stable economy into utter turmoil as investors expected him to lead with deregulation and tax cuts instead of colossal tax hikes.

See Josh Boak, Rob Gillies, and Michelle Price, Trump doubles planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% as trade war intensifies, Associated Press, March 11, 2025.

Update, 3.12.25: Only hours later on Tuesday, Trump reversed course. (Trump defines decisive down.)

The reporting is sound: tariffs do act as tax hikes, and Trump’s tariffs will be, in effect, colossal tax hikes on consumers and businesses. All America will feel them.


See Firefly’s Blue Ghost moon lander drill, vacuum and deploy electrodes:

The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost moon lander has begun its work on the moon using its drill, vacuum and electrodes. Blue Ghost has drilled into surface to determine heat flow from interior of Moon. It has deployed four tethered Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) electrodes and an 8-foot mast to study the deep interior of the moon. Also, it’s Lunar PlanetVac collects lunar soil and more using pressurized nitrogen gas.

Daily Bread for 3.10.25: The Rapidly Declining Economic Climate

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 66. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset is 6:55, for 11 hours, 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 2017, the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye of South Korea in response to a major political scandal is unanimously upheld by the country’s Constitutional Court, ending her presidency.


Whitewater is in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is in America. The economic outlook for America is in decline. Whitewater will not escape national and state trends.

A man with six business bankruptcies now won’t rule out a recession in 2025:

“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump said when pressed about the possibility of a recession during a recorded interview that aired on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”

….

The rosy economic outlook that greeted Trump’s return to the White House has dimmed in recent weeks. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% in February, boosted by firings in the public sector. And consumer confidence fellby the most in any given month since August 2021. 

American consumers share concerns that tariffs will raise prices on everyday goods, while corporate CEOs are eager for clarity as the president has continually announced and then rolled back new tariff packages. His moves last week, levying and then delaying 25 percent tariffs on a major chunk of Mexican and Canadian goods until April, are just the latest example. The confusion has sent markets scrambling. The S&P 500 fell by more than 3 percent on the week.

See Gregory Svirnovskiy, Trump won’t rule out a recession in 2025, POLITICO, March 9, 2025.

The conservative populists have no sound grasp of economics, as theirs is a movement of cultural revenge, not economics. Trump’s first term was an economic failure, yet many of them delusionally imagine him as an economic guru.

Truth in advertising: Come for the culture war, stay for the recession.


Stocks take another tumble after Trump’s weekend comments on inflation:

Daily Bread for 2.26.25: Sure, Whatever, but Trump Is Only ‘Tight’ with Trump

Good morning.

Whitewater in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 5:41, for 11 hours 6 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1815,  Napoleon escapes from exile on the island of Elba (in the brig Inconstant  with about 1,000 men and a flotilla of seven vessels).


Speaker Robin Vos wants Wisconsin, America, and the Whole Wide World to know that he’s now “tight” Trump:

Just a few years after President Donald Trump backed a primary challenger against Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the Rochester Republican says he and the president are “tight.” 

As reporter Anya van Wagtendonk catalogs, and Wisconsinites remember, it wasn’t always this way:

The comments from Vos about Trump were hardly a surprise, but they followed years of tension between the two GOP leaders that nearly resulted in Vos losing his job.

In 2022, Trump backed Republican Adam Steen in his bid to defeat Vos, calling the speaker a “RINO,” short for Republican In Name Only, on social media and on the campaign trail. Vos narrowly escaped the primary before easily winning that year’s general election.

Trump regularly criticized Vos for not doing more to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, a step election law experts said was both unconstitutional and impossible. And after the 2022 midterms didn’t go as well for Republicans as they’d hoped, Vos urged the party to move on from Trump.

See Anya van Wagtendonk, Despite rocky past, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says he’s ‘tight’ with Trump White House, Wisconsin Public Radio, February 25, 2025.

Vos bullies the vulnerable, but is, himself, easily bullied. Trump, by contrast, easily bullies.

Vos will find himself a target yet again.


New Jersey officer rescues dog from frozen lake:

Daily Bread for 2.23.25: Expect More of This

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 36. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 5:37, for 10 hours, 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1778,  Baron von Steuben (Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben) arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to help train the Continental Army.


What happens when criticism of controversial policies comes before one of America’s most awkward Congressmen? Nick Rommel reports US Rep. Glenn Grothman faces hostile crowd at Oshkosh town hall meeting:

People booed and jeered at U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman as he walked into the Algoma Town Hall just outside Oshkosh Friday morning.

The Republican congressman from Glenbeulah was there for a town hall meeting with around 100 constituents. After the building hit full capacity, around 50 more stood outside.

He started by commenting on President Donald Trump’s executive orders since taking office a month ago.

“This is moving very quickly compared to other administrations, and I think, across the board, he’s done some very good things,” Grothman said.

Boos and shouts erupted around the room. When Grothman praised orders ending birthright citizenship and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, the crowd only got louder.

See Nick Rommel, US Rep. Glenn Grothman faces hostile crowd at Oshkosh town hall meeting (‘Constituents ask congressman about Medicaid funding, power of Elon Musk’), Wisconsin Public Radio, February 21, 2025.

Outside the town hall:

Inside the town hall:


New video shows stranded father, teen son rescued from Utah mountain:

New video shows the moment a father and his 12-year-old son were rescued from a steep cliffside in Snow Canyon in Utah. The pair was rescued after surviving on supplies that were left behind by another hiker who was previously stranded in the same location. NBC News’ Camila Bernal has the story.

Daily Bread for 11.23.24: Half a Million’s Not Nearly Enough for a Cabinet Post

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:57, and sunset is 4:25, for 9 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 44.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1644, John Milton publishes Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.


One reads this morning that the family of Tim Michels, an out-of-state-livin’ man with an in-state business, gave $500,000 to Trump and yet a cabinet nomination still fell through:

Michels, his two brothers and each of their spouses gave a total of $503,600 to a Trump-aligned political action committee, a Trump fundraising committee and the Republican National Committee — all on the same day in late September.

Less than two months later, Trump — known for his transactional approach to politics — offered Michels a position in his cabinet as head of the U.S. Department of Transportation last Saturday, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The deal fell through, however, when Trump’s transition committee insisted that Michels divest his holdings as co-owner of Michels Corp., the family-owned construction business worth an estimated $3.9 billion. At that point, Trump pivoted and selected former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy for the post.

See Daniel Bice, Tim Michels was offered Trump cabinet job after his family donated more than $500,000, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 22, 2024.

That’s it? A mere half million? Michels spent far more than that trying to buy the governorship. He and his family should have understood that a Trump nomination for someone of means requires much, much larger donations than a half million.

Trump’s cabinet nominee Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling owner, received a nomination as Secretary of Education despite being named in a pending lawsuit over her alleged awareness of sexual abuse of boys as young as thirteen. The case is still in litigation, but she received a nomination anyway.

McMahon gave over ten million to Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC in 2024 alone.

Michels should have known: if eight figures will overcome pending allegations that McMahon ignored the sexual abuse of children, then seven or eight figures surely would have overcome a conflict of his business interests.

How odd about Michels: billions, and yet he still thinks small.


Voyagers’ Mission to the Outer Solar System (1977 Vintage Video):

From the archives of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this short film from 1977 describes the mission of the two Voyager spacecraft before they launched on their journey to Jupiter and Saturn later that year. It features early computer graphics, artist’s concepts of the outer solar system, and vintage footage of the antennas from NASA’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California, as well as mission control and a clean room at JPL. Voyager 1 and 2 are now the most distant human-made objects from Earth and the longest continually operating NASA spacecraft. After the twin Voyagers visited Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune as well. Both spacecraft are now in interstellar space, the space between stars.

Daily Bread for 11.22.24: Wisconsinite Offers Problem-Solving Skills Worthy of the Next Federal Administration

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:56, and sunset is 4:25, for 9 hours, 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 54 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1963, President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald, who also kills Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit after fleeing the scene. U.S Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States afterwards.


Doubtless, the next Trump Administration will be looking to fill thousands of federal positions with supporters who have the same level of judgment as Mr. Trump himself. Wisconsin, it turns out, can supply a candidate for one of those positions. Alyssa Guzman reports on a fine gentleman from Green Lake who’d fit right in:

Screenshot from Borgwardt’s own ‘proof of life’ video from someplace far, far away. Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Via DailyMail.com.

Ryan Borgwardt, 45, purposely flipped his kayak on Green Lake on August 11, dumping his phone and belongings in the water before paddling to safety on an inflatable boat and e-biking more than 50 miles to Madison overnight, the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office said on Thursday. 

They learned in October that Borgwardt had crossed the border into Canada a few days after his disappearance and had been communicating with an Uzbek woman who spoke Russian. 

….

Before his disappearance, he changed all the email addresses linked to his bank accounts and moved money to a foreign bank account.

Borgwardt’s devastated wife, Emily, and their three children, have been grieving their loss, believing for months he was likely dead.

She is now being urged to join support groups for women with ‘runaway husbands’ as her friends and community rally around her.

See Alyssa Guzman, Wisconsin husband who faked kayak accident death films ‘proof of life’ video after running away with mistress, Daily Mail, November 21, 2024.

‘An Uzbek woman who spoke Russian.’ Heart of gold, I wouldn’t wonder.

Borgwardt needs to return to America, find a word processor, and spiff up his résumé. He’s possessed of the top-shelf judgment that will fit well in the new federal administration.


Drone footage shows New Delhi cloaked in thick haze of toxic smog:

Daily Bread for 2.19.23: More Trump than Trump, Coming Soon to a Midwest Community Near You

Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 5:32 PM for 10h 47m 21s  of daytime. The moon is new with 0.8% of its visible disk illuminated.  On this day in 1954, the Politburo of the Soviet Union orders the transfer of the Crimean Oblast…

Daily Bread for 1.29.23: Trump’s Social Network Littered with Ads for Miracle Cures, Scams, Fake Merchandise

Good morning. Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 19. Sunrise is 7:11 AM and sunset 5:04 PM for 9h 53m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 59.5% of its visible disk illuminated.  On this day in 1845, “The Raven” is published in The Evening Mirror in New…