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Courts, Daily Bread, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Law, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 7.10.25: Plaintiffs File New Challenge to Wisconsin’s Congressional Maps

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:26 and sunset is 8:34, for 15 hours, 8 minutes of daytime. The moon is full with 99.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 5:30 PM, and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Commission also meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1832, construction of Fort Koshkonong begins:

On this date General Henry Atkinson and his troops built Fort Koshkonong after being forced backwards from the bog area of the “trembling lands” in their pursuit of Black Hawk. The Fort, later known as Fort Atkinson, was described by Atkinson as “a stockade work flanked by four block houses for the security of our supplies and the accommodation of the sick.” It was also on this date that Atkinson discharged a large number of volunteers from his army in order to decrease stress on a dwindling food supply and to make his force less cumbersome. One of the dismissed volunteers was future president, Abraham Lincoln, whose horse was stolen in Cold Spring, Wisconsin, and was forced to return to New Salem, Illinois by foot and canoe.

In late June, without explanation, the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed challenges to the state’s Congressional district boundaries.

This was not only a setback for Democrats, but also a setback for anyone who wanted fair maps for Wisconsin’s Congressional districts.

Undaunted, new plaintiffs have come forward with a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A new lawsuit seeking to redraw Wisconsin’s congressional district boundary lines was filed on Tuesday, less than two weeks after the state Supreme Court declined to hear a pair of other lawsuits that asked for redistricting before the 2026 election.

The latest lawsuit brought by a bipartisan coalition of business leaders was filed in Dane County circuit court, rather than directly with the state Supreme Court as the rejected cases were. The justices did not give any reason for declining to hear those cases, but typically lawsuits start in a lower court and work their way up. 

This new lawsuit’s more lengthy journey through the courts might not be resolved in time to order new maps before the 2026 midterms.

The Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy argue in the new lawsuit that Wisconsin’s congressional maps are unconstitutional because they are an anti-competitive gerrymander. The lawsuit notes that the median margin of victory for candidates in the eight districts since the maps were enacted is close to 30 percentage points.

“Anti-competitive gerrymanders are every bit as antithetical to democracy, and to law, as partisan gerrymanders and racial gerrymanders,” the lawsuit argues. “This is because electoral competition is as vital to democracy as partisan fairness.”

See Scott Bauer, New lawsuit seeks to redraw Wisconsin’s congressional maps before 2026 midterms, Associated Press, July 9, 2025.

See also Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy, et al v. WEC, Law Forward, July 8, 2025 and Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief, Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2025CV002252 (Wis. Cir. Ct. Dane Cnty. July 8, 2025).

In Japan, rare bobtail cats are considered good luck. Nagasaki is filled with them:

In Japan, bobtail cats are considered good luck and Nagasaki is the place to find them. They are known as “omagari neko (bent-tail cats)” or “kagi neko (hook cats)” and have their own society of admirers and even a dedicated Shinto shrine. Their tails come in varieties including hook-shaped at the tip, curved or in a bun, explained Kazuya Hideshima, a worker at Omagari Neko Shrine and member of the Nagasaki Cat Society.

Past findings have indicated bobtails accounted for nearly 80% of the cats in Nagasaki, twice the occurrence of anywhere else in Japan. Japanese cats are believed to have come from China in the 6th century with Buddhist monks, serving as rat hunters to protect religious scriptures on ships.

Nagasaki residents hope the cats bring in tourists and help business.

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Legislature, Litigation, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 7.9.25: Wisconsin Supreme Court Again Restores Traditional Executive Authority

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:25 and sunset is 8:34, for 15 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

View of Starfish Prime through thin clouds, as seen from Honolulu, 825 miles away. By US Gov – US Gov, Public Domain, Link.

On this day in 1962,  Starfish Prime tests the effects of a nuclear test at orbital altitudes:

Starfish Prime caused an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that was far larger than expected, so much larger that it drove much of the instrumentation off scale, causing great difficulty in getting accurate measurements. The Starfish Prime electromagnetic pulse also made those effects known to the public by causing electrical damage in Hawaii, about 900 miles (1,450 km) away from the detonation point, knocking out about 300 streetlights, setting off numerous burglar alarms, and damaging a telephone company microwave link. The EMP damage to the microwave link shut down telephone calls from Kauai to the other Hawaiian Islands.

(Citations omitted.)

Less than a month ago, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unanimously when striking down a law enacted in 2018 that required the Wisconsin Department of Justice to obtain approval from the Joint Finance Committee before settling many civil cases. See Kaul v. Wisconsin State Legislature, 2025 WI 23, No. 2022AP000790 (June 17, 2025).

Yesterday, the Legislature saw another clawback of its Walker-era authority when Wisconsin’s high court curtailed, in a 4-3 decision, a legislative committee’s power to stop executive agency regulations:

State laws that let a 10-member committee of the Legislature override regulations are unconstitutional, a majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The ruling hands the administration of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers a victory in an ongoing battle with the Legislature’s Republican leaders.

….

The ruling finds five statutes, granting power to the Legislature’s committee that reviews and periodically suspends administrative rules, violate the Wisconsin Constitution.

Taken together, wrote Chief Justice Jill Karofsky for the four justices making up the Court’s liberal wing, the statutes give the Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules the power to effectively change state laws without going through the full legislative process.

“The ability of a ten-person committee to halt or interrupt the passage of a rule, which would ordinarily be required to be presented to the governor as a bill [to block the rule], is simply incompatible with Articles IV and V of the Wisconsin Constitution,” Karofsky wrote.

….

The Evers administration argued that five statutes granting JCRAR the power to review, object to and block rules before or after they are promulgated violate the state Constitution. Those include a law enacted in December 2018, after Evers was elected governor but before he took office, that allows the committee to lodge “indefinite” objections blocking a rule.

The Court majority agreed with the administration’s argument.

The Wisconsin Constitution requires that for a law to be enacted, it must pass both the Assembly and the Senate and then be presented to the governor to be signed or vetoed.

“By permitting JCRAR to exercise discretion over which approved rules may be promulgated and which may not, the statute empowers JCRAR to take action that alters the legal rights and duties of persons outside of the legislative branch” without going through the lawmaking process, Karofsky wrote.

See Erik Gunn, State Supreme Court curtails legislative committee’s right to stop regulations, Wisconsin Examiner, July 9, 2025.

An email newsletter from the Wisconsin Examiner offers this hysterical, histrionic quote from Sen. Steve Nass:

“The liberal junta on the state supreme court has in essence given Evers the powers of a King.” 

– State Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), chair of the Legislature’s Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules

A few remarks:

1. These powers of the Legislature (now curtailed) are not ancient rights of the people: they are Walker-era changes that the WISGOP pushed through quickly before Tony Evers first took office.

2. Nass is still a state senator? Bulking up that state pension, right?

3. Nass lists his district as R-Whitewater, but that’s only through part of the Town of Whitewater, not the city proper. Nass doesn’t live in, and would never be elected from, the City of Whitewater.

4. So Trump assumes authoritarian power unto himself, and becomes the subject of No Kings rallies across America, but Nass thinks Gov. Evers — Tony Evers, of all people — now has the essence of royal powers?

5. Nass says it’s a liberal junta that did this? Isn’t this overwrought legislator supposed to be speaking English-only like the native born? A Spanish language borrowing should be of concern to each and every blood-and-soil nativist. I thought Mr. Trump issued an executive order on that very matter.

Perhaps one of them will check Nass’s playlist for Yeri Mua.

See Tony Evers v. Howard Marklein, 2025 WI 36, No. 2023AP2020-OA (July 8, 2025):

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See the close encounter between a paddleboarder and two sharks:

A man had a close encounter with two sharks while paddleboarding off the coast of Florida.
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Budget, Daily Bread, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 7.8.25: How Fair Maps Concentrate the WISGOP’s Mind

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon showers with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:24 and sunset is 8:35, for 15 hours, 10 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5:15 PM.

On this day in 1776, church bells (possibly including the Liberty Bell) are rung after John Nixon delivers the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence.

There’s a story today from reporter Baylor Spears about two Democrats running for the 17th Senate District seat that Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) now holds. This post isn’t about the Democrats1 mentioned in that story; it’s about the district in which they’ll be running. Spears reports on the political composition of the district before and after redistricting toward fairer maps:

Marklein won the district with 60% of the vote in 2022, but Senate District 17 changed considerably under the new maps. According to an analysis by John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette University, the district leaned Democrat by 1 percentage point in the 2024 presidential election and by over 4 percentage points in the 2024 U.S. Senate race. 

See Baylor Spears, Democratic Rep. Jenna Jacobson launches challenge to one of GOP’s top senators (‘Seat in 17th Senate District among those eyed in 2026 campaign to topple Legislature’s Republican majority’), Wisconsin Examiner, July 8, 2025.

Sen. Howard Marklein accepted the budget deal with Gov. Evers. He did so because, like other officeholders in the WISGOP, he needed that budget deal if he were to have any hope of remaining an officeholder next year.

The loss of a gerrymandered 60% district to a -1% to -4% district has a way, it seems, of making WISGOP legislators more amenable to compromise. Underlining Marklein’s supposed bipartisanship is little more than a political incumbent’s survival instinct.

_____

  1. Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon) and Lisa White. ↩︎

Zooming into the site of a double detonation supernova:

Astronomers have obtained the first visual evidence of a white dwarf that exploded not once but twice. Credit: ESO

Budget, Daily Bread, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 7.7.25: ‘Bipartisanship’ in Wisconsin Is Simply the Vulnerability of the WISGOP Under Fair Maps

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:24 and sunset is 8:35, for 15 hours, 11 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1928, sliced bread is sold for the first time (on the inventor’s 48th birthday) by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri.

There’s much exuberance, all of it unfounded, that the agreement between Gov. Evers and WISGOP legislators means bipartisanship has returned to the Badger State. If bipartisanship means genuine congeniality and cooperation from legislators in both parties (and that’s the proper connotation), then Wisconsin does not have bipartisanship.

Instead, Wisconsin has a better political environment because the WISGOP that profited from gerrymandering now faces fairer districting across the state:

But the negotiation process that led to the latest biennial budget was drastically different than in previous budget cycles since Evers took office in 2019, which were largely conducted on party-line votes without significant negotiations. 

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky said last year’s redistricting was one key. Under the new maps, Democrats failed to win a legislative majority in November, but gained 10seats in the Assembly and four in the state Senate.

“With the slimmed-down (Republican) majority, they had to lean on Democrats because they could not pass the budget with just their own members, and that transformed the negotiations compared to what we’ve seen in previous budgets,” Chergosky said.

The final budget vote in the Senate was 19-14, with four Republicans voting in opposition. Without the votes of Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein, the compromise would have fallen apart.

See Rich Kremer, Experts, Dems say new voting maps laid groundwork for Wisconsin budget compromise (‘With smaller state Senate majority, Republicans cut a deal with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’), Wisconsin Public Radio, July 7, 2025.

That’s it: When the WISGOP lost their gerrymandered majorities, and when national policies incited protests across the state this year, Speaker Robin Vos came to a deal because he was too weak to do otherwise.

See also Vos Admits That Worry Over National GOP Policy Compelled WISGOP Deal With Evers, On the State Budget Deal, Evers Seems to Win Most, and It’s Not a Wisconsin Budget Negotiation, It’s Another WISGOP Display of Bad Faith Claims.

Tesla shares fall as Musk’s ‘America Party’ riles investors:

(Businesses require an attention that ketamine-fiend Musk seems to lack. In any event, there’s only room for one dysfunctional daddy in the GOP, and it’s not gonna be Musk…)

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, July 8th, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, My Old Ass

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Tuesday, July 8th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of My Old Ass @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Coming of Age/Comedy/Drama

Rated R (language). 1 hour, 29 minutes (2024)

An 18th birthday mushroom trip brings free-spirited Elliott face to face with her wise-cracking 39 year old self. But, when Elliott’s “old ass” starts handing out warnings about what her younger self should and shouldn’t be doing, she realizes she has to rethink everything about her family, life, and love during this transformational summer.

One can find more information about the film at the Internet Movie Database.

Birds, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.6.25: Mealtime Along Alaska’s Colville River

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered morning showers with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:23 and sunset is 8:35, for 15 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1885,  Louis Pasteur successfully tests his vaccine against rabies on Joseph Meister, a boy who was bitten by a rabid dog.

Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration concludes today at the Cravath Lakefront:

Carnival Only – Last chance for rides and a wrist band session.
Christman Family Amusements Wrist Band Special: 12 to 4 PM, $25 each

Mealtime along Alaska’s Colville River:

Watch as a pair of Rough-legged Hawks work together to raise their chicks, in this excerpt from our documentary on the raptors of the Colville River Special Area, Alaska. Cornell Lab cinematographer Gerrit Vyn takes you up onto a steep cliffside for intimate views of the mom tending her growing chicks during the long days of the Arctic summer. Watch the full Colville River Raptors documentary and learn more: https://allaboutbirds.org/news/alaska…

A Cat of Yore:

Birds, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 7.5.25: Pigeons (Often Underrated, Seldom Appreciated)

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with evening thunderstorms and a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset is 8:36, for 15 hours, 13 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1937, Spam, the luncheon meat, is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation:

Ken Daigneau, the brother of a company executive, won a $100 prize that year in a competition to name the new item. Hormel states that the meaning of the name “is known by only a small circle of former Hormel Foods executives,” but a popular belief is that the name is a contraction of “spiced ham”. It has also been speculated to be an acronym for “shoulder of pork and ham.”

Spam musubi variant which includes egg. Spam musubi may take many forms, either with the spam on top of rice, or sandwiched between rice. Other possible additions include pickled radish and furikake. When having egg, it is commonly known as potama, especially in Okinawa (Japan). By Dllu – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link.

Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration continues today at the Cravath Lakefront:

Christman Family Amusements Wrist Band Sessions 12-4 PM, 5-9 PM: $25 
Civic Organization Food Vendors 12 PM to 11 PM
40th Annual Car Show 2-6 PM
Live Music at the Frawley Amphitheater:
12-1:30 PM Brian Matteson
2 PM Sawyer Road
5 PM Gebel Girls
8 PM Brightside

Fireworks 10 PM

Note: Weather may lead to a change in the fireworks schedule, including an earlier start time, if conditions permit. See Whitewater’s Annual Fourth of July Celebration @ Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BxVHxdBLJ/, for updates.

Pigeons:

See Ben Crair, This Reviled Pest Is the Unsung Hero of Every Major City in the World, New York Times, June 24, 2025.

Watch as a dust storm hits in Las Vegas:

America, City, Daily Bread, History, Liberty, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 7.4.25: Happy Independence Day

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see scattered morning showers giving way to sunnier afternoon skies and a high of 89. Sunrise is 5:22 and sunset is 8:36, for 15 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 66.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence.

Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration continues today at the Cravath Lakefront:

Whippet City Mile: 9:45 AM along parade route
4th of July Parade: 10 AM
Civic Organization Food Vendors: 10 AM to 11 PM
Christman Family Amusements: 12-4 PM Wrist band Session
Live Music at Frawley Amphitheater:
After the Parade – enjoy one of the bands in the parade on stage!
2 PM Jeff Winard Polka Party
5 PM Rural Route 3
8 PM Stetsin and Lace
Fireworks: 10 PM

Jennifer Rubin of The Contrarian considers passages from the Declaration:

We know it as an aspirational document (“We hold these truths…”). We understand it as a repudiation of tyranny (“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”). It is both those things, but it is also a compendium of complaints, a description of an autocrat’s offenses against a free people. And that was the part I found strangely relevant to our times.

The signers railed about exclusionary immigration policies that hurt the colonies (“He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither”). They inveighed against barriers to trade (“cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world”). And they condemned imposing “Taxes on us without our Consent,” which, if we remember that unilaterally imposed tariffs are a consumer tax, also sounds familiar. Tyrants, then and now, seek to dominate and micromanage commerce to the detriment of ordinary people seeking a better life.

And notice the common problem, then and now, when a tyrant attempts to corrupt the rule of law by seeking to intimidate and threaten members of the judiciary (“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice…. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices”); seeks to impair due process (“depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”); and even ships people out of the country for punishment (“Transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences”). The tyrant playbook has not changed much in nearly 250 years.

See Jennifer Rubin, Check out the Declaration’s list of grievances, The Contrarian, July 3, 2025.

Sophia Smith Galer on words for wine:

Budget, City, Daily Bread, Gov. Evers, State Government, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 7.3.25: Vos Admits That Worry Over National GOP Policy Compelled WISGOP Deal With Evers

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 88. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset is 8:36, for 15 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 57.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1863, the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates in Confederate defeat following Pickett’s disastrous charge.

Whitewater’s Independence Holiday celebration begins today at the Cravath Lakefront:

Christman Family Amusements Wrist Band Session: 5-9 PM, $25 each wrist band
Family Day Sponsored by Generac 4-7 PM
Karaoke at Frawley Amphitheater: 4-6 PM
Miss Whitewater Pageant at Frawley Amphitheater: 6:30 PM
Civic Organization Food Vendors: 4-11 PM

There’s a new state budget, despite grumbling about the terms from many Democrats and some Republicans. I’m neither a Democrat nor a Republican (nor of any political party), and perhaps that makes it easier to discern insightful reporting from the stenography of posturing and whining. Fortunately, Anya van Wagtendonk accurately reports on the underlying WISGOP weakness that Gov. Evers exploited:

That speed [in adopting a budget] was motivated by a deadline out of Washington, as Congress works to pass President Donald Trump’s signature “Big Beautiful” budget bill before a self-imposed July 4 deadline. That far-reaching tax and immigration legislation includes massive cuts to Medicaid, including a cap on how much money states can request from the federal government through hospital assessment fees. 

The Wisconsin state budget passed Wednesday night raises its assessment fee to the maximum amount. By passing the budget before the Trump bill is signed into law, Wisconsin lawmakers dodged the new cap.

Earlier in the day, Assembly Speaker Vos said legislative Republicans and Evers’ office were aligned in trying to pass the budget quickly for that reason.

“We all understand that once the signature goes on at the federal level, it really limits the options for us to capture that federal revenue,” he said. “I think that’s one area we found pretty widespread agreement.” 

As he signed the bill into law early Thursday morning — a contrast to past budget cycles, when he has acted days after passage, during the day and often flanked by kids — Evers referred to the truncated timeline, too. 

“We want our health care system to be in good shape, and in order to do that, we’re going to need help from the federal government, and whatever we can do before they pass through … the federal budget, we will be able to access help from them to keep our hospitals afloat,” he said. “It’s absolutely critical for us to do that.”

(Emphasis added.)

See Anya van Wagtendonk, In wee hours, Legislature passes and Evers signs 2-year, $111-billion state budget, Wisconsin Public Radio, July 3, 2025.

That’s it: national Republican policy made state Republicans vulnerable to a looming deadline (a vulnerability that Evers exploited with dispatch). Vos was weak, not strong or ‘bipartisan’; Evers shrewdly exploited that weakness.

In Whitewater, the city’s declining and aged special interests look to Vos as patron and exemplar. In this, their judgment is weak and their prospects poor.

Sierra Nevada red fox spotted on camera in California’s Lassen Volcanic National Park:

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Legislation, Legislature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 7.2.25: Wisconsin Supreme Court Majority Rules That Last Fifty Years of Wisconsin Abortion Legislation Effects a Repeal of 1849 Abortion Ban

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:21 and sunset is 8:36, for 15 hours, 16 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress adopts the Lee Resolution severing ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain, although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not adopted until July 4.

Following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), overturning Roe v. Wade (1973), the application of an 1849 Wisconsin statute became a legal controversy in Wisconsin. Did that old statute come into force after Dobbs as a ban on abortion, was the statute more limited (and so not a general ban on abortion), or was the 1849 no longer effective under some other principle of law?

In 2023, a Dane County Circuit Court ruled that the 1849 law was limited in scope, and so did not work as a ban on Wisconsin abortions. Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski appealed that circuit court decision, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court took the case directly on appeal.

Today, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, ruled that the 1849 law has been repealed impliedly through fifty years of more recent Wisconsin legislation on abortion. The Legislature retains the right to draft new legislation on abortion policy in the state.

Today’s opinion, Josh Kaul v. Joel Urmanski, 2025 WI 32, No. 2023AP2362 (July 2, 2025), with concurrences and dissents, appears below:

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The Night Sky for July 2025:

Some months are astronomically quiet others are bursting with a variety of interesting events to try and see, keeping in mind the moon phases and weather. This year, July is somewhere in the middle; throughout the July night sky, you’ll have the chance to spot planets, shooting stars, and even some deep-space objects. In any case, there are plenty of reasons to get out and enjoy the night sky this month, and I hope you take full advantage of them. Whether you’re heading out on your own, trying out some new equipment, or bringing family or friends out to share the wonders of the universe with them, here are the best events in the July night sky to plan your stargazing sessions around.
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Budget, Daily Bread, State Government, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 7.1.25: On the State Budget Deal, Evers Seems to Win Most

by  • 

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset is 8:37, for 15 hours, 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 37.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1863, the Battle of Gettysburg begins.

There’s a deal this morning between Gov. Evers and the WISGOP legislature over much of the next biennial state budget. The news comes only this morning, and involves only part of the budget. With those caveats, a review of published accounts of the deal suggests that Evers has managed negotiations with the WISGOP well. There are four principal terms of the deal:

[1] Evers and Republicans agreed to $1.3 billion in income tax cuts largely targeting the middle class. More than 1.6 million people will have their taxes cut an average of $180 annually. 
The deal would expand the state’s second lowest income tax bracket and make the first $24,000 of income for people age 67 and over tax-free. It also eliminates the sales tax on electricity, saving taxpayers about $156 million over two years. 

….

[2] The Universities of Wisconsin would see a $256 million increase over two years, the largest funding increase for the UW system in about two decades. UW Regents had asked for an $855 million overall increase and Republicans in June floated the possibility of an $87 million cut.

The deal also imposes a faculty minimum workload requirement and calls for an independent study on the system’s future sustainability.

….

[3] There will be $200 million in additional tax revenue to pay for transportation projects, but Evers and Republican leaders did not detail where that money would come from. 

The agreement increases funding for child care programs by $330 million over two years, a third of which will be direct payments to providers. The money will replace the Child Care Counts program started during the COVID-19 pandemic. That program, which provides funding to child care providers, expired on Monday. Evers, Democrats and child care advocates have been pushing for additional funding to address child care shortages throughout the state.

Funding for K-12 special education programs will increase by $500 million.

State employees, including at the university, would get a 3% raise this year and a 2% raise next year.

….

[4] Once the budget clears the Legislature, Evers will be able to make changes using his expansive partial veto powers. But his office said Evers would not veto any budget provisions that were part of the deal he reached with Republicans.

Evers, who is midway through his second term, has said he will announce his decision on whether to seek a third term after he has signed the budget. He has 10 business days to take action on the spending plan once the Legislature passes it.

See Scott Bauer, Wisconsin’s Democratic governor reaches budget deal with Republicans to cut taxes, fund university, Associated Press, July 1, 2025.

Devil’s in the details, yet this looks like a good deal for Evers. Some in the WISGOP will balk, but Evers will have enough Democratic legislative support to overcome any WISGOP defections.

French wildfire smoke engulfs highway:

Wildfires broke out in France’s southwestern Aude department, where temperatures topped 104 degrees Fahrenheit, burning 988 acres and forcing some evacuations, authorities said.

Animals, Daily Bread, Nature, Photography

Daily Bread for 6.30.25: Summer from the Nature Conservancy

by  • 

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 5:20 and sunset is 8:37, for 15 hours, 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 29.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1934, the Night of the Long Knives, Hitler’s violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.

These frogs think you’re up to something:

Bear spotted on airport tarmac in northern Japan:

A bear was spotted running across the tarmac at Japan’s Yamagata airport on Thursday morning. Akira Nagai, deputy manager of Yamagata airport, told reporters that the runway was temporary closed and over 10 flights were affected.

Music

Monday Music: The United States Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps, On Parade

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Why red coats:

The musicians of this unit recall the days of the American Revolution as they perform in uniforms patterned after those worn by the musicians of General George Washington’s Continental Army. Military musicians of the period wore the reverse colors of the regiments to which they were assigned. The uniforms worn by the members of the Corps are dated circa 1784, and consist of black tricorn hats, white wigs, waistcoats, colonial coveralls, and distinct red regimental coats.