Crime, Daily Bread, Elections, Law, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.24.25: Wisconsin Judge Rules Against Trump Aides in Felony Case
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 69. Sunrise is 6:11 and sunset is 7:42, for 13 hours, 31 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1970, Vietnam War protesters bomb Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, resulting in the death of a postdoctoral researcher and injuries to three others.
National headlines continue to surge with far-right populist maneuvering, and yet there remain pending Wisconsin criminal cases from the 2020 presidential election. On Friday, a Wisconsin judge rejected motions to dismiss charges against Trump aides for submitting false electoral documents:
A Wisconsin judge Friday declined to dismiss felony charges against two attorneys and a former aide to President Donald Trump who advised Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland rejected the motions to dismiss the 11 felony charges filed against the three defendants. The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump that year.
Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020, all were initially charged in June 2024. The case has stalled as the judge considered their attempts to have the charges dismissed.
Each of the 11 of the felony charges they face carries the same maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
“Troupis does not show that the First Amendment protects the right to commit forgery, does not show that the government violated his right to due process by entrapping him into that forgery, and does not show prosecutors must exercise discretion to charge an accused of his preferred offense,” the judge said in rejecting the motions to dismiss.
…
The state charges against the Trump attorneys and aide are the only ones in Wisconsin. None of the electors have been charged. The 10 Wisconsin electors, Chesebro and Troupis all settled a lawsuit that was brought against them in 2023.
See Scott Bauer, Wisconsin judge rejects motions to dismiss charges against Trump aides, Associated Press, August 22, 2025.
The case is State of Wisconsin vs. James R Troupis, No. 2024CF001295 (Wis. Cir. Ct. Dane Cnty. June 4, 2024).
Hainan, China braces for Typhoon Kajiki:
Daily Bread, Gov. Evers, Laws/Regulations, Legislature, State Government, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.23.25: Legislature Blocks Evers Administration Rulemaking
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:10 and sunset is 7:43, for 13 hours, 34 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1775, King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St James’s stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion.
There’s an update to this week’s decision of the Evers Administration, relying on a decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in July, to review and advance backlogged agency regulations. The Legislature has now moved to block publication of those regulations:
The Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted by paper ballot along party lines Friday afternoon to direct the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish any rule that hasn’t gone through a review by the Legislature in accordance with Wisconsin law.
Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. There are 27 administrative rules, including one to address the state’s policy on gray wolf management, that Evers submitted to the LRB for publication. Of those, 13 have not been reviewed by a standing legislative committee and are yet to be published.
It’s the latest step the administration has taken in testing the bounds of the recent Evers v. Marklein II ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The majority found in the case that the state laws giving the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules broad powers to block administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.
See Baylor Spears, GOP lawmakers direct Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish Evers’ rules, Wisconsin Examiner, August 22, 2025.
The Evers Administration will have to decide whether to mount a legal challenge, an action that would seek a broader application of Evers v. Marklein II (Tony Evers v. Howard Marklein, 2025 WI 36, No. 2023AP2020-OA (July 8, 2025)).
Tiny flier could soar through the mesosphere powered only by light:
Daily Bread, Sports, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.22.25: From Special Olympics Athlete to Disability Rights Champion
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:09 and sunset is 7:45, for 13 hours, 36 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2004, versions of The Scream and Madonna, two paintings by Edvard Munch, are stolen at gunpoint from a museum in Oslo, Norway. Both paintings are later recovered.
Wisconsin Life | Special Olympics athlete becomes disability rights champion:
Bear breaks into South Lake Tahoe ice cream shop, prefers strawberry:
Cats, Science/Nature
Friday Catblogging: Salmiak Cats
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, August 26th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Just a Bit Outside: The Story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers
by JOHN ADAMS •
Tuesday, August 26th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Just a Bit Outside: The Story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Sports/Baseball/Documentary.
Two hours (2024).
Hopefully, by the time you read this, the Brewers will be thick into this season‘s Race for the 2025 pennant! This is the chronicle of the City of Milwaukee and the State of Wisconsin and their 55 year love affair with the Milwaukee Brewers, and the incredible yet heartbreaking run in the 1982 World Series. (Our day will come). You’ve got to believe!
One can find more information about Just a Bit Outside: The Story of the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers at the Internet Movie Database.
Daily Bread, Gov. Evers, Laws/Regulations, Legislature, State Government, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.21.25: Evers Administration Advances Rulemaking
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:08 and sunset is 7:47, for 13 hours, 39 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 3.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM and the Community Development Association meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1883, an F5 tornado strikes Rochester, Minnesota, leading to the creation of the Mayo Clinic.
The Evers Administration, relying on a decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in July, is urging state agencies to review and advance backlogged agency regulations:
In an Aug. 12 letter to state agency leaders, Evers said a 4-2 ruling from the Supreme Court means there “no longer remains any statutory requirement to wait for legislative committee review before promulgating a rule once I have approved it.”
“I respectfully request that you analyze areas in which the Legislature’s prior abuse of power forestalled, delayed, or halted prior rulemaking in service of the people of our state,” Evers said.
In July, the Supreme Court struck down parts of state law that allowed the Republican-controlled Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules, or JCRAR, to indefinitely suspend rule changes.
See Rich Kramer, In rule overhaul blitz, Gov. Tony Evers tells agencies not to wait for GOP committees (‘Evers says July Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling means Republican lawmakers can’t block rules on wolf management, water protections’), Wisconsin Public Radio, August 21, 2025.
Gov. Evers is applying the Wisconsin Supreme Court decision from July to other stalled rule changes, and here he’s likely to prevail in any possible litigation with the Legislature. The same reasoning that Wisconsin’s high court applied in July would apply to other administrative rules as well.
The politics will depend on how one views the rules advanced by the Evers Administration and may influence the 2026 gubernatorial race.
Why Getting Rid Of FEMA Could Get Expensive:
Agriculture, Business, Daily Bread, Dairy, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.20.25: Wisconsin Dairy Farms Struggle Under Tariffs
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 6:07 and sunset is 7:48, for 13 hours, 42 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 8.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1968, Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring. East German participation is limited to a few specialists due to memories of the recent war. Only Albania and Romania refuse to participate.
This was supposed to be a new golden age, but for Wisconsin’s dairy farms (and so many other businesses), it’s not turning out that way:
The Trump administration’s recent tariff actions could make it difficult for Wisconsin dairy farmers to export excess milk products and for beef producers to access Chinese markets, state farm leaders told WPR’s “Wisconsin Today.”
Consumers are contending with the highest average effective tariff rate since 1933, at 18.6 percent, according to the most recent estimate from the Budget Lab at Yale.
President Donald Trump’s recent tariff modifications are part of his goal “to take back America’s economic sovereignty by addressing the many nonreciprocal trade relationships that impact foreign relations, threaten our economic and national security, and disadvantage American workers,” according to a White House press release.
But Wisconsin Farmers Union President Darin Von Ruden said dairy farmers rely on international trade to export excess milk.
Wisconsin exported over $3 billion of agricultural products in 2024, according to a report from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Extension Farm Management program.
“We’re currently coming out of our highest milk production part of the year,” Von Ruden said. “When you have that scenario, plus these new tariffs coming on, countries not being able to afford our products … it stays here, which just then adds to that problem of lowering the price that farmers receive for their products.”
See Anna Marie Yanny, Wisconsin farmers grapple with recent tariffs from the Trump administration (‘Dairy and beef industry leaders share how the Trump administration’s economic policies influence small farming operations across the state’), Wisconsin Public Radio, August 19, 2025.
Wisconsinites understandably want to save dairy farms — Trump’s tariffs will do the opposite.
Hurricane Erin looks huge in views from space station:
Daily Bread, Elections, Law, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.19.25: Trump’s Proposal to End Mail-In Voting Meets with Wisconsin Opposition
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:05 and sunset is 7:50, for 13 hours, 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 15.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1944, the Liberation of Paris begins as Paris rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.
Pres. Trump wants a movement to end mail-in voting, but leaders from both of Wisconsin’s major parties know that ending mail-in voting would be a bad idea:
“I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS, and also, while we’re at it, Highly ‘Inaccurate,’ Very Expensive, and Seriously Controversial VOTING MACHINES,” Trump wrote.
…
Neither the president nor the federal government has the authority to manage election administration in this way. The law gives individual states broad power to decide how to run their own elections.
After Trump’s post, the Democracy Defense Project-Wisconsin board, which includes former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, former Attorney General JB Van Hollen, former U.S. Representative Scott Klug, and former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate, said in a statement that such an action would increase inaccuracy in the state’s elections.
“The Constitution is clear: the federal government does not administer elections at the state level,” the group said. “In fact, improved access to voting methods, including the electronic machines Wisconsin uses that produce paper ballots and are unable to be connected to the internet, have benefitted Republicans just as much as Democrats. Wisconsin has displayed time and time again that our elections are safe and secure, and while we can always make them more efficient, there is no tolerance for inaccuracy in our results.”
See Henry Redman, Bipartisan group of former Wisconsin leaders criticize Trump election proposal, Wisconsin Examiner, August 18, 2025
Trump has gone back and forth on mail-in voting, and the GOP spent millions last year supporting mail-in voting. In any event, Trump’s executive order will not have the force of law across states that administer their own elections. Some may act to end mail-in ballots, but others will see that both major parties have benefited from the practice.
It’s likely Trump knows that mail-in voting will continue in many states, and the purpose of his campaign against them is to claim falsely that a vote next year against him will have been fraudulent. Mid-cycle redistricting, complaining about ballots, compelling private media to toe his line: all of these efforts and more are designed to preserve his authoritarian project against voters’ will.
NISAR’s Record-Breaking Antenna Reflector Deployed in Space:
The reflector is one of NASA’s key hardware contributions to the NISAR mission. Short for NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, NISAR is collaboration between NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation). The mission will use an advanced, dual-band radar system — with complementary radar instruments provided by each agency — to collect high-resolution, near-global coverage of Earth, providing insights into natural hazards, agriculture, glacier and ice sheet movement, and more. The reflector plays a crucial role for both radars, which is why the successful deployment of the hardware is such a significant milestone.
Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.18.25: Will It Matter That Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Bradley is Self-Indulgent?
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:04 and sunset is 7:51, for 13 hours, 47 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 24.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, guaranteeing women’s suffrage.
Justice Rebecca Bradley didn’t attend the investiture ceremony for Susan Crawford this August1, but she has been visiting locales farther afield:
Since being appointed to the court by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, Bradley has reported that several conservative groups or legal centers have picked up nearly $52,000 in lodging, meals, airfare and other expenses so she could attend 20 out-of-state conferences and seminars since 2015.
No other sitting justice reported receiving even a third of Bradley’s travel expenses covered by outside groups.
In 2023 alone, Bradley’s excursions took her to conferences at The Royal Hawaiian resort in Honolulu, the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, Alaska, and the Henderson Beach Resort in Destin, Florida. A Virginia-based legal center footed the $12,000 cost for Bradley to attend those three events.Bradley, an outspoken conservative, has also had her expenses covered to go to seminars in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Park City, Utah; and Laguna Beach, California, records show. In 2019, she even attended a three-day “Symposium on the Law and Economics of Marijuana Legalization” in Denver. Marijuana is not legal in Wisconsin.
See Daniel Bice, Justice Bradley has taken $52K in judicial junkets to resorts in Hawaii, Alaska and Florida, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 18, 2025
Justice Bradley hasn’t formally announced a campaign for re-election, but if she chooses to run, will her wanderlust be a campaign liability?
Yes, it will. While widespread self-indulgence has not been a polling liability at the federal level, Wisconsin is a small state whose electorate will not relate well to big travel.
A race between Justice Bradley and Wisconsin District IV Court of Appeals Judge Chris Taylor, if there is one, will center on issues beyond travel. As in so many races across America, the Wisconsin contest will serve as a referendum on federal policies. Trump will, in effect, be on the ballot in races big and small across America.
And yet, and yet, opposition video after opposition video of the exotic travel locales she’s visited would only diminish Justice Bradley’s image as a tireless warrior for conservative populism.
The self-indulgence that works in the White House or Mar-a-Lago won’t work for a Wisconsin candidate.
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- Conservative Justices Ziegler and Hagedorn did attend. ↩︎
Drone footage shows Spanish village destroyed by wildfires:
Music
Monday Music: From the Musical Chess (1984)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP
Daily Bread for 8.17.25: It’s Still Early in the Wisconsin Gubernatorial Race
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 80. Sunrise is 6:03 and sunset is 7:53, for 13 hours, 50 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 34.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2008, American swimmer Michael Phelps becomes the first person to win eight gold medals at one Olympic Games.
It’s one year until the Wisconsin primary for the 2026 gubernatorial race, and fifteen months until the general election. Other than Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, no major candidate has announced in either party.
So far this summer, it’s been vanity statements about the possibility of running from Walker and Thompson, WISGOP long-shot announcements from Bill Berrien and Josh Schoemann, and now an announcement from beer vendor Ryan Strnad.
Those who have not followed every announcement (notably those from Walker and Thompson) have done themselves a favor. We’re a small state, and with relatively inexpensive media, there’s time and money enough to flood the Wisconsin many months from now.
When the field takes shape, it will be under the constant influence of federal issues and federal pressure. It’s hard not to see every competitive race in America as having that federal influence. Wisconsin’s 2026 gubernatorial race will be something like three-quarters Wisconsin and one-quarter federal (perhaps generously expressed in favor of Wisconsin).
All politics is local has become a quaint slogan.
Hurricane Erin – Air Force flies through the eye and see satellite views:
Daily Bread, Weather, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.16.25: A Rescue from Wisconsin’s Menomonee River
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 89. Sunrise is 6:02 and sunset is 7:54, for 13 hours, 52 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 46 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1916, the United States and Canada sign the Migratory Bird Treaty.
A rescue from the Menomonee River:
Toll rises as wildfires continue to burn across southern Europe:
Budget, Daily Bread, State Government, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.15.25: Wisconsin State Budget Returns to Typical Margins
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 6:01 and sunset is 7:56, for 13 hours, 55 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 56.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1944, Allied forces land in southern France in Operation Dragoon.
Wisconsin has had large state budget surpluses rarely, and the recent years of those surpluses are now coming to an end:
With this budget, the state has now used most of the surplus that has formed the backdrop for the last few budgets. The surplus, [communications director and policy researcher at the Wisconsin Policy Forum Mark] Sommerhauser said, was mostly the result of federal pandemic aid and was also created in part by an increase in tax revenue, especially through the sales tax, as a result of inflation. At one point the surplus had grown to over $6 billion.
“[A large surplus is] not business as usual in Wisconsin,” Sommerhauser said. “More often you see the opposite. You see shortfalls that lawmakers are having to scramble to figure out a way to bridge.”
Sommerhauser said that with the smaller reserves, the next budget is likely “going to be kind of coming back to Earth.”
By July 1 2027, Wisconsin’s general fund balance is projected to be $770.5 million — a drop of about $3.6 billion and the lowest balance since 2018. The state will also have $2.1 billion in its rainy day fund.
This leaves Wisconsin with a projected $2.8 billion in its reserves — about 11% of Wisconsin’s net general fund appropriations in fiscal year 2027, Sommerhauser said.
“That’s certainly not disastrous. It’s not cataclysmic at all. It is more than the state has had in reserve for many years prior to the pandemic,” Sommerhauser said. “Of course, it’s a lot less than the last couple of budgets here.”
See Baylor Spears, Wisconsin’s surplus is waning. Next budget will mean ‘coming back to Earth.’, Wisconsin Examiner, August 14, 2025.
One shies from calling Wisconsin’s politics normal, yet perhaps it’s reasonable to say smaller surpluses will be a return to the conventional.
Why did researchers stick a rubber duck to a rock? To show off their super glue:
Read the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s4158…