Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 19m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 5.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1948, the first supply flights are made in response to the Berlin Blockade.
Michael Kimmelman, the architecture critic of The New York Times, traveled to Houston to observe an approach to chronic homelessness that has won widespread praise.
Houston, the nation’s fourth-most populous city, has moved more than 25,000 homeless people directly into apartments and houses in the past decade, an overwhelming majority of whom remain housed after two years.
This has been achieved through a “housing first” practice: moving the most vulnerable from the streets directly into apartments, instead of shelters, without individuals being required to do a 12-step program, or to find a job.
Delving into the finer details of the process, Kimmelman considers the different logic “housing first” involves. After all, “when you’re drowning, it doesn’t help if your rescuer insists you learn to swim before returning you to shore,” he writes. “You can address your issues once you’re on land. Or not. Either way, you join the wider population of people battling demons behind closed doors.”
Tuesday, June 28th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Moonfall @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Action/Adventure/Science Fiction
Rated PG-13, 2 hours, 10 minutes (2022)
Time for some summertime science fiction fun! Once again, It’s the End of the World, as we know it. Our world stands on the brink of annihilation when a mysterious force sends the moon hurtling from its orbit, on a collision course with Earth. A former NASA astronaut (Halle Berry) has a solution—but, gee, there are skeptics! Directed by Roland Emmerich (“Independence Day,” “Midway”).
Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 19m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 10.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1910, Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird premieres in Paris, bringing him to prominence as a composer.
WASHINGTON – After initially claiming to be “basically unaware” of an effort by his staff to get fake presidential elector documents to Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson said Thursday he coordinated with a Wisconsin attorney to pass along such information and alleged a Pennsylvania congressman brought slates of fake electors to his office — a claim that was immediately disputed.
Evidence presented this week by the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol showed Johnson’s chief of staff tried to deliver the two states’ lists of fake presidential electors for former President Donald Trump to Pence on the morning of the U.S. Capitol insurrection but was rebuffed by Pence’s aide.
Johnson initially told reporters this week he did not know where the documents came from and that his staff sought to forward it to Pence.
But he said in a Thursday interview on WIBA-AM that he had since discovered the documents came from Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, and acknowledged he coordinated with Dane County attorney Jim Troupis and his chief of staff by text message that morning to get to Pence a document Troupis described as regarding “Wisconsin electors.”
Kelly’s office immediately pushed back on Johnson’s claim, saying: “Senator Johnson’s statements about Representative Kelly are patently false.”
“Mr. Kelly has not spoken to Sen. Johnson for the better part of a decade, and he has no knowledge of the claims Mr. Johnson is making related to the 2020 election.”
On Thursday, Johnson said Troupis contacted him by text message on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, to get a document on “Wisconsin electors” to Pence.
Johnson said he then introduced the attorney to his chief of staff by text message to handle the request. He said he did not know what the document was or intended to accomplish.
Children are better liars than Johnson. Wholesale revision — admission of culpability, really — in about a day. One hopes that politicians don’t lie, but if they are to lie, then it’s better that their lies collapse quickly.
Johnson’s feeble explanations amount to a house of straw.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 92. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 19m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 17.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1916, Mary Pickford becomes the first female film star to sign a million-dollar contract.
The Supreme Court on Friday eliminated the constitutional right to obtain an abortion, casting aside 49 years of precedent that began with Roe v. Wade.
The decision by Justice Samuel Alito will set off a seismic shift in reproductive rights across the United States. It will allow states to ban abortion, and experts expect about half the states to do so.
In one of the most anticipated rulings in decades, the court overturned Roe, which first declared a constitutional right to abortion in 1973, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which re-affirmed that right in 1992. The decision followed the leak in early May of a draft opinion showing that a majority of the justices were privately poised to take that step. On Friday, they made it official.
The decision came in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to a Mississippi law, passed in 2018, that bans virtually all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. The law carves out exceptions for medical emergencies and cases involving a “severe fetal abnormality” but does not make exceptions for cases involving rape or incest. It has never gone into effect, however, because the lower courts – including the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit – blocked the state from enforcing the law. Friday’s decision reversed those rulings and upheld the law.
But by overturning Roe and Casey, the decision also opens the door for states to enact far more dramatic abortion restrictions, including outright bans on the procedure. Mississippi itself has indicated that it will enforce a different state law, passed in 2007, that prohibits virtually all abortions, except to save the life of the mother or in cases involving rape. A dozen other states have passed similar legislation, known as “trigger laws” because they were drafted to go into effect if Roe and Casey were overturned. An analysis by the Guttmacher Institute predicts that 26 states are likely to ban all or nearly all abortions.
The vote to overturn Roe was 5-4, with Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joining Alito’s opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts filed a separate opinion, agreeing with the court’s decision to uphold the Mississippi law but arguing that the court should not have decided the broader question of whether the Constitution protects abortion at all. The court’s three liberals, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, filed a joint dissent.
No certainties except this: For as long as Americans have contended over Roe, we will find ourselves contending over Dobbs.
A woman was eaten by her 20 cats after she collapsed at her home and was not discovered by cops for two weeks.
Police were horrified when they discovered the partially eaten remains of the woman – who has not been named – after receiving a call from a concerned co-worker.
The woman was a cat breeder who kept the 20 giant Maine Coon pedigree cats in her home.
Cops were alerted by one of her employees who said she could not contact her boss.
Inside her home, police found her partially eaten body surrounded by the hungry cats.
Police believe she had been dead for two weeks as they probed her decomposing remains.
She was found at the property in Bataysk, Rostov region, Russia.
“The cats were left alone on their own for two weeks, there was no food, so what else to eat?” said one animal rescue expert who cared for some of the surviving cats.
“It’s understandable right? They ate what there was.”
Let it not be said — because it would be false to say — that there’s no good news in all this. The Sun reports that “some of the healthier cats have now been rehomed to new owners for just £29 each.” That works out to a re-homing fee of only $35.60 — a bargain if ever there were one.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 88. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 20m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 26.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. holds a business meeting at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1969, IBM announces that effective January 1970 it will price its software and services separately from hardware thus creating the modern software industry.
This week, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot revealed that Johnson’s chief of staff tried to deliver to Vice President Mike Pence a slate of fake electors backing Trump, raising questions about the Wisconsin Republican’s role in a deliberate and coordinated plan to block Biden’s win and give Trump the presidency.
The disclosure also underscores the extent of Johnson’s role as one of Congress’s most prominent election deniers and Jan. 6 apologists — spreading conspiracy theories about rigged votes and playing down the severity of the violent assault on the Capitol as mostly “peaceful,” while floating the idea that it might have been an inside job by the FBI.
….
Johnson has denied his involvement in the plan to deliver to Pence fake Trump electors. A text message shown at the hearing, from Johnson chief of staff Sean Riley to Pence aide Chris Hodgson and sent minutes before the joint session of Congress to certify the Biden win, said “Johnson needs to hand something to VPOTUS please advise.”
Later, Johnson left the Capitol trailed by reporters asking him about the text messages. Johnson held his phone to his ear and said he was on a call, but a reporter challenged the senator, saying that he could see the screen and knew Johnson wasn’t talking to anyone.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 20m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 34.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Tech Park Board meets at 8 AM, and the Park Board meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1944, President Roosevelt signs into law the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill.
Whitewater will be looking for a new city manager and a new police chief. A few remarks:
These are not sudden developments. The city manager previously interviewed for a job in Fort Atkinson; the same consulting firm has now found him a position in Dodge County. The police chief has been on administrative leave for about half a year; the common council had a closed-session agenda item about his employment on May 3rd (‘Consideration of the terms of a Release and Employment Disposition Agreement between the City of Whitewater and the City of Whitewater Police Chief’). None of this is sudden, and consideration of the release pre-dates recent press coverage about the Whitewater Police Department. If residents are surprised, it’s because their local government has not informed them properly.
It’s easy to say ‘we can’t talk under the advice of counsel.’It’s so easy that it’s become a trope. No one needs a lawyer to say he can’t talk — laypeople can keep quiet on their own (although they sometimes need reminding). The value of good representation comes when clients don’t talk but their lawyers craft careful statements with the news that can be said. It’s only all or nothing for those who don’t see there are informative middle positions.
Whitewater worries about who, but she would do better to think about what and how. Find the right principles, with a leader who knows how to achieve them, and then government will function more smoothly. It’s not the person, it’s the policy.
For public roles: Whitewater does not need a surrogate brother, she needs a city manager. Whitewater does not need a surrogate uncle, she needs a police chief. Whitewater does not need a surrogate sister, she needs a superintendent. Whitewater does not need a surrogate grandparent, she needs a chancellor.
In all cases, government should be responsible and limited, so that private life may flourish most fully.
As it is, in a country with serious debates and conflicts over fundamental rights, as would have been true other times in our past, local government has both (1) a general obligation to run well and also (2) a particular obligation in these times to run well so that it does not add to ideological or economic burdens now gripping residents.
It’s not a personal role, but officials fulfilling their public roles with expressed policies of what and how that the community now needs.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 97. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:37 PM for 15h 20m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 46.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School District’s Policy Review Committee meets at 9 AM, and the Whitewater Common Council at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1942, a Japanese submarine surfaces near the Columbia River in Oregon, firing 17 shells at Fort Stevens in one of only a handful of attacks by Japan against the United States mainland.
In Madison, parents are removing students from St. Maria Goretti, a prekindergarten through eighth-grade school, over changes in curriculum. Although the departures are over changes in Catholic teaching, the enrollment declines show the willingness of parents (whether religious or secular) to leave a program they don’t like. Where fifty years ago one might have expected parents to endure changes they didn’t abide by, that’s not true now. In either Catholic or public schools, families will walk if they don’t like what’s happening and they can find an alternative.
Exact figures are hard to come by, but enrollment for the 2022-23 year is projected to be between 100 and 120, down from more than 400 during the 2020-21 year and about 330 at the beginning of 2021-22, according to parish or former parish members. [Principal Bob] Schell said enrollment last school year was about 300 but declined to speculate about what it would be next year, saying “much can happen during the summer months.”
The school had 40 staffers most recently, Schell said, and next year there were will be somewhere around 14, to align with reduced enrollment.
The pandemic pushed some Whitewater families and students to become more vocal (on both sides of the debate about masks), but parents, generally, were becoming more assertive long before the pandemic.
Madison has many alternatives, but also in Whitewater, parents (especially those living on the edges of the district) have choices elsewhere for their children. Open enrollment for public school students is a good policy, as it gives families some choices they would not otherwise have if bound only to their home community’s schools. That good policy means that public schools have to try harder to retain students.
One would prefer to retain as many students as possible, but retaining students because those families have no choices for their children harms both families and the schools from which they cannot leave.
Trapped in a bad arrangement is bad educational policy.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 92. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 20m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 56.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM and the Library Board at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1893, Lizzie Borden is acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother.
In communities big & small, most residents have similar standards for their towns: good schools, good roads, safe streets, clean air & water. There’s much more to life, but that’s a foundation on which large and small places together hold agreement. It would be better for society if residents could and would privately measure the conditions of their towns, but into the gaps where better does not dwell, regulation steps.
Wisconsin will likely see its first standards for so-called forever chemicals known as PFAS now that Wisconsin Republicans have posed no objections to the rules.
An aide for Republican Sen. Steve Nass, who chairs the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules, told the Associated Press Monday that the committee would allow the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources to implement the proposed standards.
PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of thousands of synthetic chemicals found in firefighting foam and everyday products like nonstick cookware and stain-resistant clothing. Research has shown links to serious health effects that include increased risk of kidney and testicular cancers, thyroid disease and fertility issues. The chemicals have also been tied to reduced response to vaccines.
Elected officials, environmental groups, residents, industry and water associations have been at odds over how to regulate the chemicals and at what level. As state standards move forward, they will bring new testing requirements while federal regulators are updating their health advisories for the chemicals.
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The DNR has said sampling for PFAS is required for community water systems, as well as non-transient non-community systems. They include systems that serve cities, mobile home parks, apartment complexes, businesses and schools.
Father’s Day in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 20m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 67.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1865, enslaved people in Galveston, Texas are officially informed of their freedom. The anniversary, now a federal holiday, was celebrated in Texas and other states as Juneteenth.
Michael Gableman’s role as a legislatively-appointed special counsel has been a political embarrassment, but it should not continue as an embarrassment to the legal profession. Gableman (a lawyer and former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice) should receive discipline from Wisconsin’s Office of Lawyer Regulation for recent courtroom insults against a sitting judge and an attorney in a civil action. The Associated Press and Rich Kremer report Dane County Judge calls for disciplining Michael Gableman over ‘misogynistic comments’ (Special counsel probing 2020 election also to be fined $2K per day for not following open records law):
A Dane County judge said former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman should face disciplinary action for disrupting a hearing and making “misogynistic comments” about a fellow lawyer.
The recommendations were contained in a ruling that comes nearly a week after Gableman’s Office of Special Counsel probing 2020 election results was found in contempt for not following the state’s open records laws.
In a scathing written ruling, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Frank Remington said Gableman’s conduct during a June 10 contempt hearing and court recess was “an affront to the judicial process” and an insult to Attorney Christa Westerberg.
Westerberg is representing liberal watchdog American Oversight in its lawsuit demanding records from the special counsel’s 2020 election investigation.
During a June 10 court hearing in which Gableman was to answer questions about his office’s refusal to provide records to American Oversight, he refused to testify.
Gableman then accused Remington of abandoning “his role as a neutral magistrate” and “acting as an advocate” during the hearing. Gableman was caught on a live courtroom microphone during a subsequent court recess insinuating that Westerberg could not do her job without consulting on strategy with the judge in his chambers.
“The Court will ignore the personal insult,” Remington wrote. “However, the Court cannot ignore Gableman’s disruptive conduct and misogynistic comments about a fellow lawyer.”
See Gableman’s remarks on audio and video. Gableman (1) complains childishly about adverse rulings from the judge, (2) baselessly implies illicit conduct between judge and counsel as the cause of those adverse rulings, and (3) claims that he, Gableman, never acted improperly as a judge when, as anyone can see, he’s acting improperly as an attorney and as special counsel when he’s knowingly speaking this way on an open microphone in court.
Gableman is bound by the rules of a profession that has a duty to review and, if he is found culpable, punish him for his misconduct. The Legislature may be stuck with Gableman for eons yet to come, but the legal profession should no longer endure his breaches of professional duty.
Six adorable baby beavers were born at the Minnesota Zoo. The zoo says everyone is doing well and the beaver kits are expected to emerge from their enclosure in July. more >>
Wednesday, June 22nd at 1:30 PM, there will be a showing of Roma @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Drama
Rated R (language/nudity), 2 hours, 15 minutes (2018), Spanish/Mexican language, with English subtitles. (Rescheduled from February 22: a snow day!)
A year in the life of a middle-class family and their maid in Mexico City in the early 1970s. A slice-of -life film that you won’t soon forget. Filmed in black and white. Three awards, 2019: Best Foreign Film, Best Cinematography, Best Director.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 20m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 77.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1815, the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher defeat Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, forcing him to abdicate the throne of France for the second and last time.
Before his testimony to the January 6th Congressional committee (statement, testimony), conservative former federal judge J. Michael Luttig spoke to Frontline. His interview with Frontline describes his thinking about the 2016 election, the Trump presidency, the 2020 presidential campaign, and the effort to prevent certification of the 2020 presidential results.
The interview offers a lengthy and detailed account of Luttig’s views.
The former federal judge J. Michael Luttig, who counseled then-Vice President Mike Pence’s team in the days before the 2021 U.S. Capitol attack, spoke to FRONTLINE ahead of his anticipated House Jan. 6 committee appearance.
“The plan was to overturn the election through the exploitation of what I’ve called the institutions of democracy and the instruments and instrumentalities of our democracy,” Luttig told FRONTLINE in a May 25, 2022, interview — his first for television.
Luttig served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1991 to 2006. Prior to his time on the bench, Luttig was assistant counsel to the president under Ronald Reagan and clerked for then-judge Antonin Scalia and for Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger. He also served as assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice under George H.W. Bush.
After leaving government service in 2006, he entered the private sector, where he has worked for both Boeing and Coca-Cola. He is currently retired.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 20m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 86.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
“Here we are, then, on this so renowned river, all of whose peculiar features I have endeavored to note carefully.” It’s important to recall that Marquette and Joliet did not discover the Mississippi: Indians had been using it for 10,000 years, Spanish conquistador Hernan De Soto had crossed it in 1541, and fur traders Groseilliers and Radisson may have reached it in the 1650s. But Marquette and Joliet left the first detailed reports and proved that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, which opened the heart of the continent to French traders, missionaries, and soldiers. View a Map of Marquette & Joliet’s route.
Why don’t communities move from government solutions to private ones? (A point about Whitewater that is key to understanding both private initiative and the city: there is no one private path. Business people talk endlessly about business uplift, as though there were a choice merely between government programs and business growth. That’s a myopic view of private life. Many private activities are cultural or charitable, and are significant parts of a thriving community.)
For now, back to the question as applied to Whitewater: why doesn’t Whitewater move past fixation on government activity (of the city government and school district)?
An answer: community leaders either (1) falsely tout local government’s ability to uplift the city (and so draw attention to supposed public solutions) or (2) make a hash of projects and proposals (and so attract attention to public mishaps).
The first is boosterism, the second is bungling, and they both keep the focus on public, not private, actions. Private activity struggles to take hold in a place where government takes up so much social space in a small town.
Appointed public officials who promise too much or deliver too little make themselves a burden on residents. Whitewater is a low-income community; many residents have enough to address without public officials’ commotions. Appointees should be afforded ample coaching, but they should not be coddled. (I am convinced that, however uncomfortable it may seem at first, willing and sincere people can be coached to handle all sorts of intense encounters.) If they’re receptive to good advice, and follow it, then so much the better for everyone.
The libertarian concern, so to speak, is that government should be limited, responsive, and humble so that a myriad of private accomplishments and associations become possible. Well-ordered public institutions should do only so much as to allow for a private, spontaneous order, an order that forms and grows to meet human needs and desires.
And until public institutions are limited & humble, there’s a need for a critique, so that they might not be millstones around the community’s neck.
Whitewater does not have a margin for empty public promises, hollow public achievements, or chronic public controversies.
