#Wisconsin National Guard

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Scrambled Eggs and Tear Gas Used in Milk War," Kingston Whig-Standard. May 23, 1933. Page 11. --- Direct action seems to be the dominant note in the Wisconsin dairy-farmer's strike, if these pictures count for anything. Lower is an egg truck upped over by strike pickets in the highway near Milwaukee. Upper photo shows U. 8. National Guardsmen, gas-masked and armed with billies, pursuing strikers they routed with tear gas bombs after they had foiled an attempt to hold up a milk truck.

[wausaupilot]

Should the National Guard step in at Wisconsin’s understaffed prisons? Some think so.

Some advocates and families are asking Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers to deploy the Wisconsin National Guard in prisons throughout the state to relieve chronic staffing shortages.

by Devin Blake / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, Wisconsin Watch December 22, 2023 A version of this story was originally published by the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service. Some advocates and families are asking Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers to deploy the Wisconsin National Guard in prisons throughout the state to relieve chronic staffing shortages.   According to the most recent data from…

[dark0ta]

Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk Taken: 7/26/24

[meret118]

If you live in Milwaukee, be careful this week! Please stay home as much as possible, especially if you appear anything other than white, male, cis, and straight. I'm afraid this could be another Charlottesville.

[chaddavisphotography]

Law enforcement boats in the Wisconsin River during the 2024 Republican National Convention.

[reasonsforhope]

Kamala Harris just announced that her vice president will be Minnesota governor Tim Walz. Based on the coverage so far I'm really reassured by this decision.

The Washington Post did an obviously great job of making a prepared article for each option, considering how long an article they had up 7 minutes after the announcement.

((Okay technically it's not an official announcement yet it's "according to three people familiar with the pick, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that is not yet public." But listen. I am 99% sure this is a weather balloon. (Meaning: a deliberate leak to gauge reaction.) Because the sheer weakness or incompetence on the part of the Harris campaign that it would take for three people to all confirm that within a few hours hours of each other and the planned announcement it is massive.))

-via The Washington Post, August 6, 2024

Honestly this decision, from everything I've read and can tell, looks like it's brilliant politics.

Important Context: The vice president(ial candidates)'s job in an election is not to be similar to the president. The vice president's job on the ballot is very, very much specifically to be different from the president. Why? So they can cover each others' weaknesses. Especially regionally.

(Sidenote: I feel a bit ridiculous saying this. But genuinely if you want to get a stronger understanding of how US elections really work. Go watch seasons 6 and 7 of The West Wing. Genuinely, a lot of politicians have said - especially back in its day - that that was the most accurate depiction of an election they'd ever seen. Also specifically features an entire arc about a contested Democratic primary convention, so also very good if you're interested in understanding weird nominating convention shenanigans.)

From the article:

"Harris’s choice for a running mate was among the most closely watched decisions of her fledgling campaign, as she sought to bolster the ticket’s prospects for victory in November and rapidly find someone who could be a governing partner. In picking Walz, she has selected a seasoned politician with executive governing experience and signaled the importance of Midwestern battleground states such as Wisconsin and Michigan.

Walz’s foray into politics came later in life: He spent more than two decades as a public school teacher and football coach, and as a member of the Army National Guard, before running for Congress in his 40s. In 2006, he defeated a Republican to win Minnesota’s 1st Congressional District--a rural, conservative area--and won reelection five times before leaving Congress to run for governor.

Walz was first elected governor in 2018 and handily won reelection in 2022. Though little-known outside his state, Walz emerged publicly as one of the earliest names mentioned as a possible running mate for Harris, and in the ensuing days he made the rounds on television as an outspoken surrogate for the vice president...

“These are weird people on the other side. They want to take books away, they want to be in your exam room. … They are bad on foreign policy, they are bad on the environment, they certainly have no health care plan, and they keep talking about the middle-class,” Walz told MSNBC in July. “As I said, a robber baron real estate guy and a venture capitalist trying to tell us they understand who we are? They don’t know who we are.”

Walz also has faced criticism from Republicans that his policies as governor were too liberal, including legalizing recreational marijuana for adults, protecting abortion rights, expanding LGBTQ protections, implementing tuition-free college for low-income Minnesotans and providing free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren in the state.

But many of those initiatives are broadly popular. Walz also signed an executive order removing the college-degree requirement for 75 percent of Minnesota’s state jobs, a move that garnered bipartisan support and that several other states have also adopted.

“What a monster. Kids are eating and having full bellies, so they can go learn, and women are making their own health-care decisions,” Walz said sarcastically in a July 28 interview with CNN when questioned whether such policies would be fodder for conservative attacks, later adding: “If that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the [liberal] label.”

Walz also spoke at a kickoff event in St. Paul for a Democratic canvassing effort, casting Trump as a “bully.”

“Don’t lift these guys up like they’re some kind of heroes. Everybody in this room knows--I know it as a teacher--a bully has no self-confidence. A bully has no strength. They have nothing,” Walz said at the event, sporting a camouflage hunting hat and T-shirt.

Walz has explained that he felt some Democrats’ practice of calling Trump an existential threat to democracy was giving him too much credit, which prompted his decision to denounce the GOP nominee instead as being “weird.”

“I do believe all those things are a real possibility, but it gives him way too much power," Walz said on CNN’s “State of the Union” regarding the Democrats’ rhetoric. “Listen to the guy. He’s talking about Hannibal Lecter, shocking sharks, and just whatever crazy thing pops into his mind.”

If Walz is elected vice president, under state law, Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan (D) would assume the governorship for the rest of his term. Minnesota Senate president Bobby Joe Champion, a Democrat, would become lieutenant governor."

-via The Washington Post, August 6, 2024

--

This guy. Sounds like. fucking Moderate swing-state/rural/Midwestern/southern/"heartland"/working class white voter catnip. He sounds like he's also a very smart politician and strong campaigner. And he's apparently genuinely a good guy with a good record, too.

He sounds like he's going to do a really good job of appealing to voters in several of the big deal swing states without being from any of them specifically. Which means it doesn't feel like pandering to one of the states involved (and thereby spurning the others), which is also great.

(Also he was the one who started "weird" @ conservatives and I think we should take that seriously as a very good political instinct/move. Judging in large part by how it has so clearly hit an actual nerve with conservatives like so little else. Also hugely relevant: that post going around about how part of why conservatives are so upset about "weird" is because in the Midwest, "weird" specifically also implies anti-social or harmful behavior.)

Officially feeling more optimistic about Trump not winning in November

[usaac-official]

An O-47A of the 126th Observation Squadron, Wisconsin National Guard in flight, 1941

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 6, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 07, 2024

Today Vice President Kamala Harris named her choice for her vice presidential running mate: Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota. Walz grew up in rural Nebraska. He enlisted in the Army National Guard when he was 17 and served for 24 years, retiring in 2005 as a command sergeant major, making him the highest-ranking enlisted soldier ever to serve in Congress, according to the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.  

He went to college with the educational benefits afforded him by the Army, and graduated from Chadron (Nebraska) State College. From 1989 to 1990, he taught at a high school in China, then became a social studies teacher in Alliance, Nebraska, where he met fellow teacher Gwen Whipple, who became his wife. They moved to Minnesota, where they both continued teaching and had two children, Hope and Gus, through IVF. 

Walz became the faculty advisor for the school’s gay-straight alliance organization at the same time that he coached the high-school football team from a 0–27 record to a state championship. The advisor “really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married," Walz said in 2018. 

Walz ran for Congress in 2005 after some of his students were asked to leave a rally for George W. Bush because one of them had a sticker for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Walz won and served in Congress for twelve years, sitting on the House Agriculture Committee, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Voters elected Walz to the Minnesota state house in 2018, and in his second term they gave him a slim majority in the state legislature. With that support, Walz signed into law protections for abortion rights, supported gender-affirming care, and legalized the recreational use of marijuana. He signed into law gun safety legislation and protections for voting rights, and pushed for action to combat climate change and to promote renewable energy. 

Strong tax revenues and spending cuts gave the state a $17.6 billion surplus, and the Democrats under Walz used the money not to cut taxes, as Republicans wanted, but to invest in education, fund free breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren, make tuition free at the state’s public colleges for students whose families earned less than $80,000 a year, and invest in paid family and medical leave and health insurance coverage regardless of immigration status. 

While MAGA Republicans are already trying to define Walz as “far left,” his votes in Congress put him pretty squarely in the middle.  His work with Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan to expand technology production and infrastructure funding in the state was rewarded in 2023, when Minnesota knocked Texas out of the top five states for business. The CNBC rating looked at 86 indicators in 10 categories, including the workforce, infrastructure, health, and business friendliness. 

Walz checks a number of boxes for the 2024 election, most notably that he hails from near the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and comes across as a normal, nice guy. He favors unions, workers’ rights, and a $15 minimum wage. He is also the person who coined the phrase that took away the dangerous overtones of today’s MAGA Republicans by dubbing them “weird.” As a student of his said: “In politics he’s good at calling out B.S. without getting nasty or too down in the dirt…. It’s the kind of common sense he showed as a coach: practical and kinda goofy.”

Walz is also a symbol of an important resetting of the Democratic Party. He has been unapologetic about his popular programs. On Sunday, July 28, when CNN’s Jake Tapper listed some of Walz’s policies and asked if they made Walz vulnerable to Trump calling him a “big government liberal.” Walz joked that he was, indeed, a “monster.” 

“Kids are eating and having full bellies so they can go learn, and women are making their own health care decisions, and we’re a top five business state, and we also rank in the top three of happiness…. The fact of the matter is,” where Democratic policies are implemented, “quality of life is higher, the economies are better…educational attainment is better. So yeah, my kids are going to eat here, and you’re going to have a chance to go to college, and you’re going to have an opportunity to live where we're working on reducing carbon emissions. Oh, and by the way, you’re going to have personal incomes that are higher, and you’re going to have health insurance. So if that’s where they want to label me, I’m more than happy to take the label.” 

Right-wing reactionary politicians have claimed to represent ordinary Americans since the time of the passage of the Voting Rights Act—on August 6, 1965, exactly 59 years ago today—by insisting that a government that works for communities is a “socialist” plan to elevate undeserving women and racial, ethnic, and gender minorities at the expense of hardworking white men. 

Historically, though, rural America has quite often been the heart of the country’s progressive politics, and the Midwest has had a central place in that progressivism. Walz reintegrates that history with today’s Democratic Party. 

That reintegration has left the Republicans flatfooted. Trump and J.D. Vance expected to continue their posturing as champions of the common man, but on that front the credentials of a New York real estate developer who inherited millions of dollars and of a Yale-educated venture capitalist pale next to a Nebraska-born schoolteacher. Bryan Metzger, politics reporter at Business Insider, pointed out that J.D. Vance tried to hit Walz as a “San Francisco-style liberal,” but while Vance lived in San Francisco as a venture capitalist between 2013 and 2017, Walz went to San Francisco for the first time just last month. 

Head writer and producer of A Closer Look at Late Night with Seth Meyers Sal Gentile summed up Walz’s progressive politics and community vibe when he wrote on social media: “Tim Walz will expand free school lunches, raise the minimum wage, make it easier to unionize, fix your [carburetor], replace the old wiring in your basement, spray that wasp’s nest under the deck, install a new spring for your garage door and put a new chain on your lawnmower.” 

Vice President Harris had a very deep bench from which to choose a running mate, but her choice of Walz seems to have been widely popular. Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who are usually on opposite sides of the party, both praised the choice, prompting Ocasio-Cortez to post: “Dems in disconcerting levels of array.” 

Harris and Walz held their first rally together tonight in Philadelphia, where Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had been a top contender for the vice presidential slot, fired up the crowd. “Each of us has a responsibility to get off the sidelines, to get in the game, and to do our part,” he said. “Are you ready to do your part? Are you ready to form a more perfect union? Are you ready to build an America where no matter what you look like, where you come from, who you love, or who you pray to, that this will be a place for you? And are you ready to look the next president of the United States in the eye and say, ‘Hello, Madam President?’ I am too, so let’s get to work!”

Pennsylvania is a crucial state, and Shapiro issued a statement offering his “enthusiastic support” to the ticket. He pledged to work to unite Pennsylvanians behind my friends Kamala Harris and Tim Walz and defeat Donald Trump.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mur-art]

Mur's WTTT Art Master Post (Part 1)

A compilation of all my Welcome to the Table/Ben Brainard-verse art (so far), sorted by topic and character. I think I covered everything! I tried to organize them the best I could but some categories were hard to define. If I missed anything, plese lmk! WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD!

(GEN) COMICS/MULTI-CHARACTER SCENES:

---> Weekend at Congress (Florida, Loui, Gov)

---> Baby's First Hurricane! (Florida, California, Mother Nature)

---> Pile O' Corners (Four Corners)

---> The Gambler, The Family Man, and The Stoner (Nevada, Utah, Colorado)

---> A Family Affair (IDC, Penn, Gov)

---> Gator Onesie (Florida, Gov)

—> Surfin’ USA (California, Hawai’i, Alaska)

—-> To the Town of Agua Fria Rode a Stranger One Fine Day (Texas, Arizona)

FLORIDA AND CALIFORNIA ANTICS:

Continued under the cut...

---> Karaoke Night at the Statehouse

---> Halloween Horror Night

---> What is This "Moun-tan" You Speak of?

---> "Whatcha readin', Safe Space?"

—> Cali’s Gonna Yeet Him off a cliff

—> The One Where They Work at In-N-Out

INDIVIDUAL WTTT CHARACTERS:

Alaska

---> Good View From Up Here (Alaska + Hawai'i)

---> I Was Born Under a Wan'drin Star... (tw: blood)

Arkansas

---> Pirate Kansas!

California

(This diva has his own category; see below)

Colorado

---> Snowy Selfie

Florida

—> Florida!!! (Mur’s Version) (TW: Blood)

—> Emotional Support Alligator

---> Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

---> The Price of Freedom

---> Gator Onesie

Gov

---> You Should See The Other Guy (tw: blood)

---> "I Was So Worried" (Gov + IDC)

---> Gator Onesie

Hawai'i

---> Good View From Up Here (Alaska + Hawai'i)

---> Gossip Girls (California + Hawai'i)

IDC

---> "I Was So Worried" (Gov + IDC)

Louisiana

---> <3 Heart Eyes <3

Massachusetts

---> Spiked Dunks!

---> I Started a War!

---> Dunks Onesie! (feat. New York)

Michigan

---> "I Brought Salad!"

Montana

---> Treasure State // Big Sky Country

National Guard

---> POV You're Late to Your Date w/Natty Guard

Nevada

—> Playing With Fire (Nevada and Utah)

—> Vegas Vic (collab with @freshwolfhell)

—> Circus, Circus (collab with @freshwolfhell)

—> “Wait, YOU don’t have a lottery?” (Utah and Nevada)

---> Neon Showgirl

---> Caution, Do Not Dig (semi-nsfw)

---> Oh, You're Actin' So Holy (Utah and Nevada)

---> MOBvada

---> Being an Absolute Mood

New Jersey

---> Stick 'Em Up! (tw: blood)

---> Bad Boy (tw: smoking)

New York

—-> Emotional Support Pigeons

Oregon

---> Get In Loser, We're Dying of Dysentery

Utah

—> “Wait, YOU don’t have a lottery?” (Utah and Nevada)

---> "I'm Not Like Other States, I'm a COOL State!"

---> Oh, You're Actin' So Holy (Utah and Nevada)

Washington

---> Get In Loser, We're Dying of Dysentery

---> Judgy Washing Machine

Wisconsin

—> Go Pack Go!

SHIPS/DUOS:

Texas/California

---> Dios Mio, Erán Vaqueros!!

—> “Stay Still, Idiot!” (Hurt/“Comfort”)

—> OMG They Were Cowboys!

---> "Let Him Kiss Me..." (nsfw)

---> I Hate Everything About You

---> Not-So-Lone Star (semi-nsfw)

---> Wildflowers

---> Saw Your Face in a Dusty Daguerrotype

---> "It Suits You, You Know" (Cali/Austin)

Florida/Louisiana

---> Summer Afternoon Flirting

—> Karaoke Night at the Statehouse

---> "Mornin', Sunshine" (semi-nsfw)

---> OMG They Were Pirates!

---> Bisou Ur Face

---> Those eyes, damn those eyes

---> "Hey Loui-- <3"

Utah/Nevada

—-> Playing the slots (slot canyons)

Florida/Gov

—> Send Me a Selfie

California/Nevada

—> “Fighting” Over the Remote

---> California is a Big Spoon (nsfw)

---> 99 Problems

California/New York

---> First Meeting (“I’m Not Here For Your Silly Rocks”)

—-> Working Late

---> Straight Gay Espresso Morning

---> "Get Loved, Idiot"

---> Can't Handle the Cold

New York/New Jersey

---> "What the [bleep] are you lookin' at?"

Massachusetts/Virginia

—> The Gentleman and the Sailor

---> Kingdom of Days

Oregon/Washington

---> Get In Loser, We're Dying of Dysentery

---> May 18, 1980 (tw: blood)

Alaska/Hawai'i

---> Good View From Up Here

Massachusetts/New York:

—> I am NOT Wearing That!! (The Dunks Onesie Saga continues!)

A SECTION just for CALIFORNIA since I draw him so much (whoops):

---> Money, Power, Glory (CA Statehood Day Art 2023)

---> Fem!Cali

---> Looking for the Golden Light

---> Two Sides of the Same Coin/King of Diamonds (NorCal + SoCal)

---> Twelve Atmospheric Rivers Later...

---> "I am California, Can't You See?" (CA Statehood Day Art 2022)

---> Gossip Girls (California + Hawai'i)

---> Firebender Cali

NON-CANON CHARACTERS/OCS:

Jefferson

---> Abolish the Police...Birds? (feat. Austin)

San Diego and San Francisco

---> CA's Favorite/s?

[usafphantom2]

Golden hour flying 🌅

An F-35A Lightning II aircraft assigned to the Wisconsin Air National Guard's 115th Fighter Wing takes off during Exercise Northern Lightning at Volk Field Air National Guard Base, Wisconsin.

@theF35JPO via x

[wausaupilot]

The Wisconsin National Guard cleared her 4 times. She still wants to know why she was fired

She found several deficiencies at the base, including issues related to the electrocution of a Guardsman, and tried to implement changes. Then, she was fired.

by Katelyn Ferral / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch June 12, 2024 Click here to read highlights from the story Col. Leslie Zyzda Martin was fired in November 2021 after being the subject of three complaints. Yet four internal military investigations couldn’t substantiate any of the claims. Zyzda Martin took command at Volk Field in the wake of allegations of a culture of sexual harassment in…

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Arthur Delaney at HuffPost:

Ahead of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign went back to the well. On Monday morning, the campaign held a press call with Tom Behrends, a retired command sergeant major who served in the National Guard with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president. Behrends has become famous in conservative circles for his attacks on Walz, whom he replaced as the unit’s command sergeant major when Walz retired.

“When the nation called, Tim Walz hung up and ran the other way,” Behrends said, reiterating claims he’d made in 2018 when Walz first ran for governor, in 2022 when he ran for reelection and in August, after he first accepted the vice presidential nomination. “When his 500 soldiers needed him most, he deserted his post and his unit.” Allies of Walz are decidedly OK with this line of attack. “There’s a group of, like, four right-wing guys who served with Walz, and every single time we run they do this,” a source close to the Minnesota governor said. “Obviously, it doesn’t land.” Republicans’ reliance on recycled attacks has been part of the recipe for Walz to become the most popular member of either presidential ticket, allowing him to follow the first rule of being a vice presidential nominee: Do no harm. Though he has not fundamentally changed the election, he’s becoming a reliable campaigner for the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, especially in Wisconsin and Michigan, two states where the cultural milieu is similar to Walz’s Minnesota. “He came from a humble background,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) told HuffPost. “I think people, once they have time to know him, have liked him, and that’s because he’s true to himself.”

The goodwill Walz generates has helped him fend off waves of GOP attacks on his honesty. In 538’s polling average, 40% of Americans have a favorable opinion of Walz while just 36% have a negative opinion heading into Tuesday’s debate, when he will face off with the distinctly unpopular Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio). Vance’s favorability sits at just 35%, while 46% have an unfavorable view of Trump’s running mate.

Vance, an Iraq War veteran, picked up the National Guard story the day after Harris picked Walz as her running mate last month, calling it “shameful” Walz retired before his unit went to war. Republicans were clearly hopeful it would devastate Walz, with Trump campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita expressly comparing the attacks to the infamous “Swift Boat” lies he pushed against then-Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in his 2004 campaign against President George W. Bush.

Democratic VP nominee and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) weathered a right-wing swiftboating attempt regarding his National Guard career, and the right has struggled to land a blow on Walz.

[lesterpubliclibrary]

Blocking the Sun by Lester Public Library Via Flickr: Rawley Point Lighthouse Day, Friends of Point Beach State Forest hosted public tours of the keeper's quarters and lighthouse grounds. Coast Guard personnel and relatives of the last lighthouse keeper were on hand to share the rich history of the Rawley Point Lighthouse, Sunday, October 20, 2024. At 111 feet tall, it is the tallest lighthouse on the Wisconsin Shore and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Point Beach State Park, Two Rivers, Wisconsin