FREE WHITEWATER

Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 2.16.24: Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run

 Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 30. Sunrise is 6:49 and sunset 5:28 for 10h 38m 23s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1960, the U.S. Navy submarine USS Triton begins Operation Sandblast, setting sail from New London, Connecticut, to begin the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.


Scott Bauer reports Republican businessman Hovde to enter Wisconsin US Senate race against Baldwin

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Multimillionaire Republican businessman Eric Hovde is planning to launch a bid for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwinnext week.

Hovde campaign spokesperson Ben Voelkel said Thursday that Hovde, 59, will get into the race next week after months of preparation.

….

Hovde’s business empire includes Hovde Properties, a real estate development company founded by his grandfather in 1933, and three banking companies. He is CEO of Sunwest Bank, has appeared in television commercials for them that air out west, and owns a $7 million estate in Laguna Beach, California, in addition to his property in Madison.

He returned to Madison in 2011 after living in Washington, D.C., for 24 years.

Baldwin campaign spokesperson Andrew Mamo derided Hovde as a “mega millionaire California bank owner” who will try to “buy this Senate seat.”

“We look forward to comparing Eric Hovde, a man who was named one of Orange County’s most influential people three years in a row, to Tammy Baldwin, a public servant with a proven track record of standing up to the wealthy and well connected on behalf of middle-class Wisconsin families,” Mamo said in a statement.

Scott Mayer, a Franklin businessman, and former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke are also considering Senate runs. Other higher profile Republicans, including U.S. Reps. Tom Tiffany and Mike Gallagher, opted against running.


Robotic arm catch — Space station astronauts pick up a Cygnus spacecraft

Daily Bread for 2.15.24: Dairies Decline in America’s Dairyland (But Lesser Decline in Milk Cows)

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset 5:26 for 10h 35m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 38.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1862, Confederates commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd attack General Ulysses S. Grant’s Union forces besieging Fort Donelson in Tennessee. Unable to break the fort’s encirclement, the Confederates surrender the following day.


Madeline Heim reports Wisconsin lost 10% of farms, 30% of dairies in 5 years, U.S. agriculture census shows:

Wisconsin lost nearly 10% of farms, 30% of dairies since 2017

Wisconsin had 58,521 farms in 2022, census data show, representing a nearly 10% loss since 2017.

Dairy farms, long the state’s calling card, continued to plummet. There were 6,216 dairy farms in Wisconsin in 2022, down from just above 9,000 in 2017. Further, state data show the number has dropped more since the census data was recorded. As of Feb. 1, Wisconsin had 5,644 milk cow herds.

As the number of farms decrease, existing ones are getting bigger. The average Wisconsin farm in 2022 was 236 acres, the largest it’s been in more than two decades. And it’s not just acreage. Herd sizes are getting larger as well. The number of milk cows in the state declined less than 2% since 2017, despite the drop in dairy farms.


Private US moon lander launched into space:

Daily Bread for 2.14.24: Speaker Vos Rushes While the Rushing is Good

 Good morning.

Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset 5:25 for 10h 32m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 28.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2018, a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 17 injuries.


Baylor Spears reports Legislature adopts Evers’s maps in second attempt to choose before state Supreme Court (‘Most Democrats vote no, saying they don’t trust Republicans’):

Six parties submitted maps to be considered and consultants recently said that the two sets of legislative maps submitted by Republican lawmakers and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) amounted to more partisan gerrymandering.

The consultants did not pick a preferred map, but said the other maps, including Evers’ submission, were “nearly indistinguishable.” Those proposals have been projected to reduce Republican control of the Legislature from its current near-supermajority status 

Republicans lawmakers have found Evers’ maps, which would likely keep a Republican majority, although a smaller one, in the Legislature, preferable to the other submissions before the state Supreme Court. 

“Republicans were not stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Sen. Van Wannggard (R-Racine) said in a statement about the vote. “It was a matter of choosing to be stabbed, shot, poisoned or led to the guillotine. We chose to be stabbed, so we can live to fight another day.” 

….

Vos, who was the only representative to speak during the floor session, also rejected the idea that the move was a legal strategy.

Ahead of the floor sessions, some Democrats expressed concerns that Republicans wanted to pass Evers’ maps and then back a federal legal challenge before Republican-nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, formerly a conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Such a challenge “could ultimately keep the state with its current gerrymandered maps, Democrats told the progressive news platform Democracy Docket

“If we get these new maps, the governor’s maps, signed by the Republicans, it’s more than likely that there’ll be a challenge in the 7th Circuit Court,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said over the weekend. “We’re fearful the Republicans are finally trying to come around to do what they should have done in the first place, but they’re doing it with — I guess the technical term would be ‘with sh-t-eating grins on their faces.’ We can assume that this is not done because of the idea of good government.”

Evers’s maps would be an improvement, but Vos’s trustworthiness is discernible only with an electron microscope. Delays in Evers’s maps, either as implementation within the legislation or by litigation against implementation, would be objectionable. 

Vos does objectionable quite well. 

Note to the special-interest men (movers & shakers, lobbyists, p.r. men, whatever) in Whitewater: looking up to Robin Vos is like looking up to the pigeon that’s gonna relieve itself on a car. Normal people do not respect the men, or the pigeons, who do that.


Ukraine’s forces claim to have destroyed a large Russian landing ship in the Black Sea

Daily Bread for 2.11.24: Wisconsin’s Mike Gallagher Heads for the Exits

 Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:56 and sunset 5:21 for 10h 24m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.9% of its visible disk illuminated. 

On this day in 1979, the Iranian Revolution establishes an Islamic theocracy under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.


 Joe Schulz reports Green Bay Congressman Mike Gallagher will not seek reelection (‘Announcement comes less than a week after Gallagher voted against impeaching Homeland Security secretary’): 

After four terms in Congress, Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Green Bay, announced Saturday that he will not seek reelection.

The announcement comes less than a week after Gallagher was one of only four Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote against impeachingHomeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The vote failed 214-216.

Gallagher has faced backlash for his vote from other House Republicans, and local Republican Party chapters in his district. Some prominent figures on the right even called for Gallagher to face a primary challenge.

Well, yes, but Gallagher had already decided months ago not to challenge U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, so there has been ample evidence that his political ambitions were temperate rather than hot.

The Paul Ryan route is less contentious and more lucrative:

Paul Ryan was appointed to the Fox Corporation Board of Directors in March 2019 . He is a general partner of the private equity firm Solamere Capital, LLC and chair of the firm’s Executive Partner Group. He is Vice Chairman of Teneo Strategy LLC and also serves on the Advisory Boards of Robert Bosch Gmbh and Paradigm Operations L.P. and the Boards of Directors of Xactus (formerly UniversalCIS) and SHINE Medical Technologies, LLC. Mr. Ryan served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Executive Network Partnering Corporation from 2020 to 2022. He has been a Professor of the Practice, Political Science and Economics, at the University of Notre Dame since 2019. 


Volcanic eruption in Iceland subsides, though scientists warn more activity may follow:

Daily Bread for 2.9.24: A February Tornado in Wisconsin

 Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:59 and sunset 5:18 for 10h 19m 39s  of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.


  Wisconsin Public Radio reports First-ever February tornado recorded along Dane-Rock County border:

For the first time on record for February, a tornado touched down Thursday night near Edgerton along the Dane-Rock County border.

The National Weather Service confirmed the tornado at 6:00 p.m. and said it was a dangerous storm and to “seek immediate safe shelter if in its path.”

A tornado warning was issued for northeastern Rock, southeastern Dane and southwestern Jefferson counties in effect until 6:30 p.m.

Videos show portions of last night’s storm:


Orcas trapped in sea ice off Japan’s coast have escaped:

Daily Bread for 2.8.24: Bossam Kimchi & Mbakbaka

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 55. Sunrise is 7:00 and sunset 5:17 for 10h 17m 04s  of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1971, the NASDAQ stock market index opens for the first time.


  Dongjoon Choi: Bossam Kimchi | Wisconsin Life:

For Dongjoon (DJ) Choi of Plover, making kimchi as a child was a family affair. Kimjang, the Korean tradition of preparing and sharing kimchi, is something Choi remembers fondly from his childhood in South Korea. Choi is now determined to keep the kimjang tradition alive in his home.

Zainab Hassen: Mbakbaka | Wisconsin Life:

Mbakbaka is a hearty, one-pot Libyan tomato-based pasta stew. It features short pasta, both dried spices and hot peppers, and traditionally, a choice of chicken or beef, in a flavorful tomato broth. Zainab Hassen shares this dish that was a staple of her childhood.

Daily Bread for 1.31.24: Vos’s Truancy Plan Looks Speculative

 Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 43. Sunrise is 7:09 and sunset 5:06 for 9h 57m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 72.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1961, the chimpanzee Ham travels into outer space on Project Mercury’s Mercury-Redstone 2 flight. 


  Speaker Vos, having cycled futilely through several political and cultural issues in search of a winner, now offers Wisconsin a truancy plan. Corrinne Hess reports Truancy could mean being held back a grade under new proposal

Wisconsin students who miss 30 or more days of school could be held back a grade, under a new proposal. 

If the legislation is approved, beginning in the 2025-26 school year, public school students and students at private schools that receive state money who miss a month or more of class would not advance to the next grade.

Currently, state law requires school boards to have policies stating what conditions a student must meet to be promoted from third to fourth grade, fourth to fifth grade and eight to ninth grade.

The bill, and five other truancy-related proposals, are the result of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’s Task Force on Truancy. If passed by the Legislature, the legislation would need approval from Gov. Tony Evers.

The state’s attendance rate reached a new low of 91 percent in the 2021-22 school year and nearly a quarter of students missed at least a month of school, according to data from the state Department of Public Instruction. 

New truancy data won’t be released until March 2024.

Vos aims to solve a socio-economic problem that varies across hundreds of Wisconsin districts with uniform state statutes. Success seems doubtful. Alternatively, Vos aims to convince the delusionally gullible WISGOP base that He’s got this, Wisconsin! Your dawg Robin’s on it! 

The alternative explanation is the more probable. 


‘Like a moth to a flame’ — this strange insect behavior is finally explained

Daily Bread for 1.29.24: $3,250,000,000 is Still a Big Number

 Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 40. Sunrise is 7:11 and sunset 5:04 for 9h 52m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 86.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1936, the first inductees (Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson) into the Baseball Hall of Fame are announced


 Robert D’Andrea reports Wisconsin’s budget surplus is shrinking but still large:

Wisconsin’s budget surplus will be less than what was projected six months ago. 

The state is predicted to have a surplus of $3.25 billion by the end of the current budget cycle, according to a new estimate of the state’s general fund from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. 

That’s nearly $800,000 less than what was projected when the current budget was signed last June. 

Three billion, two-hundred fifty million is still a big number…


French farmers overturn truck carrying red peppers:

Quick replies: (1) Don’t waste food, (2) don’t start fires, (3) don’t overturn trucks.

Daily Bread for 1.28.24: The Wisconsin Amphicar

 Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:12 and sunset 5:02 for 9h 50m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1813, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is first published in the United Kingdom.


Wisconsin Life | The Ultimate Land and Water Adventure:


Why Apple Isn’t Happy About App Store Changes:

Daily Bread for 1.25.24: Now is Whitewater’s Time to Seize an Improving National and State Economy

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 7:17 and sunset 4:59 for 9h 43m 36s of daytime. The moon is full with 100% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 5 PM and the Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 6 PM

On this day in 1945, the Battle of the Bulge ends in an Allied victory. 


When the national economy is poor, it’s unlikely that Whitewater (having for years lagged the national economy) would do well. When the Wisconsin economy is poor, it’s unlikely that Whitewater (having for years lagged the state economy) would do well. Even when the national economy was doing well years ago, Whitewater was behind

As it turns out, happily, the state and national economies are again doing well. Those favorable economic conditions are an opportunity for Whitewater — now’s the time to join in America’s and Wisconsin’s achievements. Of those national economic gains, there’s more good news from across a continent with 340 million people. Ben Casselman reports U.S. Economy Grew at 3.3% Rate in Latest Quarter (‘The increase in gross domestic product, while slower than in the previous period, showed the resilience of the recovery from the pandemic’s upheaval’):

The U.S. economy continued to grow at a healthy pace at the end of 2023, capping a year in which unemployment remained low, inflation cooled and a widely predicted recession never materialized.

Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was down from the 4.9 percent rate in the third quarter but easily topped forecasters’ expectations and showed the resilience of the recovery from the pandemic’s economic upheaval.

The latest reading is preliminary and may be revised in the months ahead.

Forecasters entered 2023 expecting the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign of interest-rate increases to push the economy into reverse. Instead, growth accelerated: For the full year, measured from the end of 2022 to the end of 2023, G.D.P. grew 3.1 percent, up from less than 1 percent the year before and faster than in any of the five years preceding the pandemic. (A different measure, based on average output over the full year, showed annual growth of 2.5 percent in 2023.)

Emphasis added. 

Now’s the time. 


Rare double brood of cicadas will emerge this spring:

Daily Bread for 1.21.24: Water Quality on Mississippi River Improving

 Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 17. Sunrise is 7:18 and sunset 4:53 for 9h 35m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 84.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1960, Little Joe 1B, a Mercury spacecraft, lifts off from Wallops Island, Virginia with Miss Sam, a female rhesus monkey on board.


Some good news about — literally on and in — the Upper Mississippi: Hope Kirwan reports Water quality on Mississippi River ‘improving, with a ways to go’ (Report looks at contamination levels, other water quality measures over last three decades’).  Kirwan writes 

Water quality on the upper Mississippi River has largely improved over the last 30 years, but action is needed to address different contaminants than those seen in previous decades.

That’s the takeaway from a new water quality report by the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association, or UMRBA, which represents Wisconsin and four other states.

The same report was first completed in 1989, when the river was largely polluted around urban areas, according to UMRBA’s executive director Kirsten Wallace.

She said this year’s version highlights the impact from years of work to reduce contamination from wastewater treatment plants, agricultural land and other sources throughout the river basin.

“We’re seeing declining trends in total (sediment and algae), metals and particles that attach to the sediment like phosphorus,” Wallace said. “So that all has been good.”

But Wallace said the monitoring data, collected from sites along the river between 1989 and 2018, shows there are some pollutants that have increased in the last three decades.

Levels of nitrogen, a nutrient that often comes from runoff of farm fields and other lands, have increased in the section of the river along Wisconsin.

Emphasis added. 

See also Upper Mississippi River Basin Association’s 2023 How Clean is the River? Report and 2023 How Clean is the River? Executive Summary.

A community that expects beneficial development keeps harmful waste to a minimum, exports its waste to places where it cannot harm other humans or animals, and does not import others’ harmful waste into its borders.  Three times since FREE WHITEWATER began publishing officials in this city’s government have recklessly considered plans to bring others’ waste into this city. Each plan was, at last, sensibly abandoned when repeated studies showed the impracticality of the plan (while not addressing all of the obvious environmental risks to Whitewater’s residents). 

If there should one day be a fourth effort, then it will fare no better than the last three. 


Penguin selfie offers bird’s eye view:

Daily Bread for 1.19.24: Wisconsin Assembly’s Queen of Crackpottery Comes Up Short (Yet Again)

 Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 11. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset 4:51 for 9h 31m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 66.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1983, the Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced.


Credit where credit is due, including credit for recognizing that the attempts to impeach the Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe are baseless (where baseless properly excludes drunken delusions, chanting voices in one’s head, or congenital cognitive deficiency). Scott Bauer reports Wisconsin Republican leader derides GOP impeachment attempt targeting state’s top elections official:

In the Assembly, state Rep. Janel Brandtjen has introduced a resolution to impeach Wolfe. As of Thursday, it had just five co-sponsors in addition to Brandtjen. It would require 50 votes to pass.

Brandtjen tried in vain on Tuesday to be recognized to speak in an attempt to get a vote on her proposal. Brandtjen, who has endorsed discredited conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, accused Republican leaders of being “Administrator Wolfe’s PR team.”

During a news conference before Thursday’s session, Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said Brandtjen’s proposal would not be voted on because it doesn’t have enough support to get out of committee or be approved by a majority of the Assembly.

“We have a process that has been utilized in this building for decades of how to bring a bill or a resolution to the floor,” August said. “And that’s the process that we’ll continue to use.”

August said if Brandtjen has enough support to bring the measure forward for a vote, she can.

“But the fact is she doesn’t,” August said. “Our caucus is focused on real things, not grifting and not making a big show for the cameras. And that’s all she’s interested in doing.”

Now, I’m not inclined to agree that the WISGOP is focused on real things, but it’s indisputable among non-lunatics that Brandtjen is focused on unreal things. A low bar, yes.

And yet, and yet, among the 5.8 million Wisconsinites, Brandtjen is not the state’s only crackpot, although she now seems to sit on the crackpottery throne. (Where Michael Gableman is these days I do not know, as Arkham Asylum is a fictional place. )  

By Mikel Janín / DC Comics – [1], Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54136917


Amish man, horses help pull SUV out of snow in Ethridge, Tennessee:

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Daily Bread for 1.18.24: No, Wisconsin’s Presidential Primary Won’t Matter

 Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 15. Sunrise is 7:20 and sunset 4:50 for 9h 29m 34s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1977, scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease.


  So, one reads this morning the question Will Wisconsin’s presidential primary matter? Experts say we’ll see:

While presidential primaries began this week with the Iowa caucuses, both parties may have already selected their nominees by the time Wisconsin voters have a say. 

Wisconsin’s primary elections take place April 2. Most experts expect the nominations to be decided by then, barring some unforeseen event that reshapes the race. 

Most experts are probably right expecting the nomination to be decided by April, without needing a “we’ll see.” Epistemologically, it’s correct to say the significance of the April 2nd presidential primary in Wisconsin will depend on the vote tally on that day measured against any claims about that vote tally. In this way, “we’ll see” is the right answer from either experts or laypeople. “We’ll see,” however, in the title of the story so evades consideration of probabilities (including those from experts cited in this very story) that it’s not much of an answer.

This libertarian blogger will wade into these waters: the April 2nd Wisconsin presidential primary will not matter to the outcome of either major party’s nomination contest. 


Kobe the Husky Saves Philadelphia Neighborhood from Potentially Explosive Gas Leak:

Daily Bread for 1.17.24: Sure Enough, That ‘Bipartisan’ Marijuana Possession Bill Is Going Nowhere

 Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 14. Sunrise is 7:21 and sunset 4:48 for 9h 27m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 44.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM and the Library Board at 6:30 PM

On this day in 1944, Allied forces launch the first of four assaults on Monte Cassino to break through the Winter Line and seize Rome, an effort that would ultimately take four months and cost 105,000 Allied casualties.


  Yesterday, I posted on a story about a ‘bipartisan’ marijuana decriminalization bill that seemed unlikely to go anywhere. See On Decriminalizing Marijuana Possession, Bipartisan Bills Don’t Assure Passage (“Success for this bill will not come from those who have proposed it, but instead only if opponents on both sides of decriminalization (‘no’ and ‘more’) are prepared to accept the proposal of a few legislators working in bipartisanship. (As of 12.22.23, the bill had only a few sponsors.)”).

Commenter Joe noted that “Nonetheless, the dinosaur abolitionists in the state senate are persisting and will likely sink Vos’ bill. Evers offering to sign it was probably the kiss of death. No way the Senate R-Team will want to be seen actually cooperating on a matter of high public support with the dreaded Dems.”

Sure enough, later yesterday Speaker Vos proved that he wanted the mere claim of supporting a bill he knew would not pass:

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos doesn’t plan to compromise with Senate Republicans who oppose his plan to create a medical marijuana program in Wisconsin.

Vos, a Republican from Rochester, told reporters Tuesday he won’t amend a bill from Assembly Republicans to create the program to address concerns Senate Republicans have with the legislation.

 Change awaits redistricting. 


The world’s largest iceberg