Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 20m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1944, the Battle of the Philippine Sea concludes with a decisive U.S. naval victory. The lopsided naval air battle is also known as the “Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”
Improvement, but why?
Rapid inflation has been a problem in the United States for more than two years, but the tide appears to be turning. Annual inflation is now less than half of what it was last summer. Jeanna Smialek, who covers the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for The Times, discusses whether the decline is a result of careful policymaking, or more of a lucky accident.
We just got back from WonderFest, an annual scale modeling convention, where we met John Sabean and his five-foot long Rebel Blockade Runner model! This build, which took the better part of a decade to complete, recreates the massive studio scale model that ILM built for the opening sequence of Star Wars. John and his collaborators meticulously recreated the miniature using as many original kitbashed parts as possible, and updating it to take advantage of modern electronics and 3D printing.
Monday in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 20m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, slaves in Galveston, Texas, United States, are officially informed of their freedom. The anniversary was officially celebrated in Texas and other states as Juneteenth. On June 17, 2021, Juneteenth officially became a federal holiday in the United States. See alsoThe Story We’ve Been Told About Juneteenth Is Wrong (‘The real history is much messier—and more inspiring’).
LA CROSSE – Wisconsin’s top state legislative Republican continued his attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the state’s public universities, calling the programming “the single most important issue” and claiming he was embarrassed to be a University of Wisconsin System alumnus because of it.
“This is probably to me the single most important issue that we are facing as a people, as a nation and as, really, humanity,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in remarks Saturday at the state Republican Party convention.
Vos, of Rochester, relabeled the DEI acronym “division, exclusion and indoctrination” and suggested the UW System, and in particular UW-Madison, the state’s flagship university, puts an outsized emphasis on diversity efforts, which he sees as a waste of taxpayer money and source of racial division.
If Robin Vos doesn’t like what the UW System has done, and how embarrassing System policy has become for him, he might want to make changes to his legislative profile page, burn his diploma, shred his university apparel, and throw away all his memorabilia.
There is, however, much worse than embarrassment that encrusts Assembly Speaker Robin Vos: he’s remained speaker because he serves in one of the most gerrymandered legislatures in America. So often he talks as someone who earned his position after a fair legislative election with fair maps. It’s been over a decade since Vos has served in a legislature with fair district boundaries.
Vos speaks and acts as though he’s earned his position honorably. He hasn’t.
In this, Robin Vos is much like a thief who steals a Rolex and then lectures others on the benefits of hard work. History will remember him that way, if it remembers him at all.
The official audio of Max Roach’s “Freedom Day” from the newly remastered album We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite. At once an avant-garde masterpiece, a vocal-instrumental suite, and a work of collective improvisation directly addressing the racial and political issues of its day, We Insist! Max Roach’s Freedom Now Suite is one of the most important artistic statements of the Civil Rights Movement and one of the most groundbreaking jazz albums of all time.
Father’s Day in Whitewater will be partly cloudy, with afternoon showers, and a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM for 15h 20m 14s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1812, the War of 1812 begins when Pres. Madison signs a declaration of war against the United Kingdom.
The ‘do not disturb’ sign is on for this pack of javelinas. Doug Parsons posted this cute footage of the desert family camping out right in front of a trail cam in Tucson, AZ. They must have sensed someone filming them because they quickly got out of their slumber and were ready to get on the move.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM for 15h 20m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.5% 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.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM for 15h 19m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1911, IBM is founded as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in Endicott, New York.
As an ideological matter, one would not expect a libertarian to find inspiration in Franklin Roosevelt. That would be a mistake, as this libertarian blogger finds much to admire in Roosevelt apart from the New Deal. Indeed, there’s not one of Roosevelt’s speeches, whether read, heard, or seen that I do not find inspirational in some way. As Lincoln was transformative of America in the 19th century, so Roosevelt was in the 20th. They were, in ways more thorough and profound than their contemporaries, both shaped and shapers of America.
Recently, Jamelle Bouie mentioned favorably Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address (commonly called his ‘Four Freedoms’speech). Bouie’s right: it does pop, each word, line, and paragraph:
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression–everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way–everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want–which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants-everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear–which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor–anywhere in the world.
That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.
To that new order we oppose the greater conception–the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.
Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change–in a perpetual peaceful revolution–a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions–without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.
This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.
To that high concept there can be no end save victory.
We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.
For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.
Of his critics, Roosevelt expresses no hatred, but boldly welcomes their opposition, even their hatred:
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.
There, in full: a worthy man. Words and convictions that are inspirational this century later even to ordinary people as we are.
Wednesday, June 21st at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Triangle of Sadness @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Comedy/Drama
Rated R (language, sexual content)
2 hours, 27 minutes (2022)
On an eventful cruise for the super-rich on a luxury liner, social hierarchy turns this voyage into a literal ship of fools. Think “Love Boat” meets “Survivor.” Winner of Best Film at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for 3 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Stars Woody Harrelson and an international cast.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM for 15h 19m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1846, the Oregon Treaty extends the border between the United States and British North America, established by the Treaty of 1818, westward to the Pacific Ocean.
MADISON – For years, it was far from clear that a bill to boost funding for cities, towns, villages and counties in Wisconsin would make it to the finish line — or even the starting line, for that matter.
But on Wednesday, state lawmakers passed the controversial legislation that keeps Milwaukee from entering a fiscal crisis in a bipartisan vote that pushed 12 Republicans to vote against the legislation and 19 Democrats to vote in favor — splitting from the majority of their respective caucuses.
The legislation, sought by local officials for years, required the Democratic governor and Republican legislative leaders to set aside an icy relationship and a history of fierce disagreement and negotiation.
Obvious point: the state’s withholding of billions as surplus benefits none of the ordinary residents who made a surplus possible. Distribution (return to residents, truly) is acceptable in many ways; withholding vast amounts is unacceptable in every way.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with a chance of late afternoon showers, and a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:34 PM for 15h 19m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
The city and school district’s Aquatic Center Subcommittee meets at 6 PM.
For over two years, Whitewater’s residents have waited, with hope, for access to a $1.9 million housing fund that would support owner-occupied housing in the city. Now, at the last moment, a few interested men have proposed to the Community Development Authority that the fund should be available to landlords or non-occupant investors to subsidize rental properties in a city that is, already awash in rental properties.
No, and no again. There is a notable temerity (lit., an excessive confidence or boldness; audacity) in those who would ask a Community Development Authority for a special interest purpose on behalf of rental properties in a city flooded with rental properties. Worse, of course, would be any agency claiming to represent community development, or professing to be a common council, that allowed even a dime’s diversion for so-called ‘investor-owned’ properties.
This community needs and wants more residents living in their own single-family homes. This is a nearly universal understanding. There are few topics in Whitewater so clear to residents as this one.
Below, I have embedded a copy of the changes that a local banker has reportedly made to the original draft. One sees where he (and perhaps those few of his ilk) have removed, in red strikethroughs, each and every requirement for owner-occupied housing, thereby opening the door to landlords and so-called “non-occupant investors.” Toward the end of these revisions, he strikes the requirement that recipients of this public money be part of a public meeting process. (It’s a convenient way for landlords and non-occupant investors to take public money while shielding themselves from public notice.)
This edited draft is both exemplar and parody of regulatory capture, where special interests manipulate a public process for their own private ends. To adopt these revisions, and allow landlords to take from this housing fund (when we have a glut of rental properties), would create a crisis of legitimacy for the Community Development Authority and Whitewater Common Council. Individual members of the CDA and Common Council should recognize that serving a particular interest like this, when the result is both unwanted and unnecessary, would be a fundamental break from responsible policy and representation of the community. No one is appointed, and no one is elected, to serve only a few men. That’s what one-horse southern towns are for.
The chairman of the Whitewater Community Development Authority, the president of the Whitewater Common Council, and all the members of each, have an obligation to preserve their institutions’ reputations in conformity with good policy and public expectations. Adopting these revisions, for those who would do so, would be a fundamental break with their own community. No one in office took an oath to serve a special interest; the oath is for public service.
People choose freely, sometimes well and sometimes poorly. Some poor choices, however, are fundamentally wrong, and impossible to rectify or repair. Such wrongs change irrevocably an official’s or institution’s legitimacy within a community. If the Community Development Authority should choose wrongly, and if the Common Council should choose wrongly, those doing so will not be able to say that so many in the community, one libertarian blogger among them, did not caution them against that wrongful choice.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 64. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:34 PM for 15h 18m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1777, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette lands near Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.
Federal Reserve officials received an encouraging inflation report on Tuesday as a key price index slowed more than expected in May, news that could give policymakers comfort in pausing interest rate increases at their meeting this week.
The Consumer Price Index climbed 4 percent in the year through May, slightly less than the 4.1 percent economists had expected and the slowest pace in more than two years. In April, it had climbed 4.9 percent.
While that remains about twice the rate that was normal before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, it is down sharply from a peak of about 9 percent last summer.
The fresh data offer the latest evidence that the Fed’s push to control rapid price increases is beginning to work. Fed officials have been raising interest rates since March 2022 to make it more expensive to borrow money, in bid to slow consumer demand, tamp down a strong labor market and ultimately cool rapid inflation. They have lifted borrowing costs for 10 meetings in a row, to just above 5 percent, and many officials have suggested in recent weeks that they could soon take a pause to give themselves more time to assess how those adjustments are working.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM for 15h 18m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 31.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 9 AM, and the full school board meets in closed session shortly after 6 PM, resuming open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1944, American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division secure the town of Carentan, Normandy, France.
Situated in what is expected to be a key 2024 battleground state, Door is one of nine counties across the country that have backed the presidential winner in every election since 2000.
“We voted for Bush twice, Obama twice, the other guy and Joe Biden — hopefully Joe Biden twice,” Kris Sadur, chair of the Door County Democrats, said at a May pie-auction fundraiser, prompting chuckles. “All eyes are on Wisconsin, and it’s a very exciting time to be in Door County.”
….
Farming, manufacturing and tourism — all fields bolstered by newcomers — have shaped Door County. Over the years, seasonal laborers transformed the region into one of the country’s biggest cherry suppliers. Out-of-town recruits have filled shipyards in Sturgeon Bay, the county seat, constructing military vessels during World War II and, more recently, a superyacht that Italy confiscated last year from a Russian oligarch. The peninsula’s quaint beach towns and forest trails draw admirers from Milwaukee, Chicago and other blue cities — many of whom have snapped up vacation homes or opted to retire here.
The result: a reliably purple region.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Door County by 292 votes. Four years earlier, Trump bested Hillary Clinton by 558 votes, and four years before that, President Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney by 1,229 votes. (While The Post’s analysis of bellwether counties focused on election results since 2000, Door’s streak goes back to 1996, when the county voted for President Bill Clinton.)
The county’s bellwether status has applied to state races, too. A majority of voters in April supported Democratic-backed judge Janet Protasiewicz, whose victory flipped control of the state Supreme Court to liberals. In the 2022 midterms, Gov. Tony Evers (D) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R) both prevailed by slim margins here and in the state overall.
“We’re kind of an indicator of what’s going to happen,” said Stephanie Soucek, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Door County. “It makes me nervous to see the results here. More pressure on us.”
Interesting, but hardly compelling.
(Soucek seems to imply that what happens in Door County somehow influences what happens in America, but that’s impossible. The results in Door County won’t change any other outcome except, in small measure, the statewide total. The success of one party or another won’t jinx the result nationally, as though failure in Door dooms a party in America. Door County’s politics may be representative of trends elsewhere, but they are not causal of results elsewhere.)
Bellwethers, though, as microcosms of the national scene, will be tested depending on the GOP nominee, America’s reaction in 2024 to that nominee, Trump’s waxing criminal indictments, the influence of abortion as a national topic, and in Wisconsin how voters may respond to state court decisions on abortion and gerrymandering, etc.
However much Door County may have in the past mirrored national results, there’s no certainty, let alone magic, in looking closely there again.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM for 15h 17m 35s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 41.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.
