Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with 42. Sunrise is 6:23 and sunset is 5:49, for 11 hours, 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 38.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Starin Park Water Tower Committee meets at 6 PM and the Landmarks Commission meets at 7 PM.
On this day in 1770, at the Boston Massacre, five Americans, including Crispus Attucks, are fatally shot by British troops in an event that would contribute to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War five years later.
The Democratic Party of Wisconsin is working to tie state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel to Elon Musk with an ad campaign titled the “People v. Musk.”
The move comes as Musk’s prominence has grown in national politics for his role cutting government spending under President Donald Trump, and after groups backed by Musk have spent millions attacking Schimel’s opponent, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford.
The first ad from what the state Democratic Party is calling a “seven-figure” campaign references the firing of air traffic controllers and federal funding cuts initiated by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The ad repeatedly shows video of video of Musk making a straight-armed gesture on the day of Trump’s inauguration.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with afternoon showers and a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:25 and sunset is 5:48, for 11 hours, 23 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 27.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.
Wisconsin is a small Midwestern state of under six million people. She’s also a state that punches far above the weight of a small Midwestern state of under six million people. It’s true yet again:
President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk’s policies will get their first major test at the ballot box this spring in an election that will determine who controls the Wisconsin Supreme Court and shape the future of abortion rights and union power in the swing state.
Two years ago, liberals gained a 4-3 majority on the court after 15 years of conservative control. They threw out legislative maps that gave Republicans commanding majorities in the statehouse, reinstated the use of absentee ballot drop boxes and accepted cases that will decide whether abortion remains legal in the state.
But with a liberal justice retiring this year, conservatives now have a shot at regaining the majority. If they do not, liberals are poised to control the court until at least 2028, and interest groups are expected to file redistricting litigation that could give Democrats one or two more seats in Congress.
Firefighters are struggling to contain a wildfire in north-eastern Japan which has been burning for seven days. A number of homes have been burned in a small coastal town near Ofunato city in Iwate prefecture, and thousands of people have been evacuated. Largest wildfire in decades rages in Japan as authorities warn it could spread.
Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 6:26 and sunset is 5:46, for 11 hours, 20 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 17.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
[At Brad] Schimel’s “Hispanic roundtable” Thursday, the state Republican Party was fully engaged. Republican Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Brian Schimming and former Republican candidate for attorney general Eric Toney were in attendance, rubbing elbows with the John Birch Society members.
“Because people in this state and people in this city and people on the South Side need somebody who’s gonna have them top of mind and protecting victims and doing the right thing, stand up for the rule of law, all the things that we all want,” Schimming said. “And you would expect that would be easier for people to do, but it really takes somebody of great courage, somebody who’s honest and somebody who’s forthright, to step up at times like this.”
One attendee, filming Schimel’s remarks, wore #LoomersArmy hat, merch that can be purchased on the website of the Laura Loomer Fan Club. Loomer is a right-wing media personality and activist whom U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has called “extremely racist.”
Schimel was introduced at the event by Marty Calderon and Mariano Garcia, two pastors on Milwaukee’s South Side who have been involved in the creation of the Republican Party’s office in the neighborhood.
In his opening prayer, Garcia criticized Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ people.
Schimel’s campaign is wholly political, and he’ll win or lose based on his strength with MAGA, Dark MAGA, Burnt Orange MAGA, Mango Tango1 MAGA, whatever.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 35. Sunrise is 6:28 and sunset is 5:46, for 11 hours, 18 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Brad Schimel’s political positions shift audience to audience, but he attracts a crowd among which expressions like ball and chain, little woman, the wife, and hausfrau are, let’s say, probably not uncommon. That’s his crowd, those are his people. He needs them in April.
And so, and so, there’s no surprise that he sees liberal women on the Wisconsin Supreme Court as overly emotional. Here’s Schimel on a radio show recorded in November:
“The other thing that I noted, there were times that when that camera went on several of the liberal justices, they were on the brink of losing it. You could see it in their eyes, and you could hear it in the tone of their voice,” he told conservative talker Meg Ellefson on WSAU-AM (550) and its sister stations in Wausau and Stevens Point. “They are being driven by their emotions. A Supreme Court justice had better be able to set their personal opinions and their emotions aside and rule on the law objectively. This is — we don’t have that objectivity on this court.”
“It’s plainly clear that that one of the justices, at least, was not able to stay objective. She had lost control of her emotions,” Schimel said after a roundtable talk at the GOP’s Hispanic center in Milwaukee. “Men do that, too, but she could not stay objective. In that case, she was literally yelling at an attorney.”
And which justice was that? Schimel clarified, “The one that was yelling at the attorney was Justice Karofsky. She was plainly yelling.”
It’s only ‘plainly clear‘ in Schimel’s mind, and the minds of those who share his outlook. Schimel knows that few in his crowd will review the full recording of oral argument at the court, and even if they were to do so, they’d not have a statewide or national context for what they saw.
They’ll simply take Schimel’s unreliable word for it.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 29. Sunrise is 6:30 and sunset is 5:44, for 11 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
What are some skywatching highlights in March 2025? March has great opportunities to spy fast-moving Mercury, stay up late to enjoy a total eclipse of the Moon, and learn about the dark side of the Moon! 0:00 Intro 0:11 Planet observing 0:34 Spot Mercury 1:24 Total lunar eclipse 2:32 Dark Side of the Moon 3:41 March Moon phases.
Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:31 and sunset is 5:43, for 11 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1844, a gun explodes on board the steam warship USS Princeton during a pleasure cruise down the Potomac River, killing six, including Secretary of State Abel Upshur. President John Tyler, who was also on board, was not injured from the blast.
Brad Schimel, a judge and candidate for a place on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, is pickled in politics. There’s not much more to him. And so, and so, he’ll say what he feels he needs to say, one audience to the next:
Schimel’s exposition of his judicial philosophy has shifted when he speaks to different audiences.
Speaking to law students and Milwaukee voters at the Marquette event, when asked about federal judges’ role in thwarting Trump’s executive orders to end birthright citizenship, give Musk access to massive troves of personal data and stop congressionally appropriated funds from being disbursed, Schimel said it’s a judge’s role to define the limits of executive authority.
“When there’s a dispute about whether that exercise of power is legitimate or not, well, then it may have to be the court that resolves that dispute,” he said.
However, in a radio appearance with right wing host Vicki McKenna, he accused federal judges of “acting corruptly” for issuing temporary restraining orders against the dismantling of federal agencies.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander captured stunning views of the moon from about 62 miles (100 km) above the surface. The footage, sped up 10 times, was captured on Feb. 24, 2025 during its third orbital maneuver.
Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 6:33 and sunset is 5:42, for 11 hours, 9 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
A key aspect of Old Whitewater was that it was a status-based culture. Who’s who mattered a lot. Which family, etc. I’ve satirized that outlook (‘town squires,’ ‘town notables’) only because it was, and is, nuttily narrow. We are a town of fifteen-thousand equal & ordinary people, not fifteen important people. (If everyone in this town had always felt on this point as I do, there would have been less community need for Excedrin and Korbel1.)
And yet, and yet, if I’ve thought it absurd, others have taken that status-based view of the world, that hierarchy, as though a law of nature. They grew up with it, were assured by their parents that it would be unchanging, and that they in their time would be as influential as their parents were in the generation before.
It hasn’t worked out that way.
Our present time, in Whitewater, in Wisconsin, and America has a different outlook. Ours is an unsettled time, where nice hierarchies no longer matter. Over the last decade, that old way has faded in this town2, and the fading has left older men grasping for their placed in a changed city.
There’s another problem the remaining status-based old guard faces: they have not developed skill at reasoned argument (as it was unnecessary if one could simply demand a result based on status). Their idea of an argument is sometimes little more than words wrapped around a question: DYKWIA?
Good argumentation is hard, and takes time, to produce. Indeed, it’s hardest for those who are truly skillful, as they can see how much can (and should) be done.
_____
Potable, and popular here in Wisconsin, but there’s better available. ↩︎
It’s faded across all America, honest to goodness. We’re a freer and more egalitarian society for it. ↩︎
Whitewater in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 5:41, for 11 hours 6 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1815, Napoleon escapes from exile on the island of Elba (in the brig Inconstant with about 1,000 men and a flotilla of seven vessels).
Speaker Robin Vos wants Wisconsin, America, and the Whole Wide World to know that he’s now “tight” Trump:
Just a few years after President Donald Trump backed a primary challenger against Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the Rochester Republican says he and the president are “tight.”
As reporter Anya van Wagtendonk catalogs, and Wisconsinites remember, it wasn’t always this way:
The comments from Vos about Trump were hardly a surprise, but they followed years of tension between the two GOP leaders that nearly resulted in Vos losing his job.
Trump regularly criticized Vos for not doing more to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin, a step election law experts said was both unconstitutional and impossible. And after the 2022 midterms didn’t go as well for Republicans as they’d hoped, Vos urged the party to move on from Trump.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 49. Sunrise is 6:36 and sunset is 5:39, for 11 hours 3 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, Soviet NKVD forces in Hungary abduct Béla Kovács — secretary-general of the majority Independent Smallholders’ Party — and deport him to the USSR in defiance of Parliament. His arrest is an important turning point in the Communist takeover of Hungary.
Perhaps after at least thirteen children with four women, and who knows how many failed dalliances, furtive assignations, and meaningless encounters, Elon Musk1 doesn’t care much for telling one woman apart from another. It’s probably especially difficult for him when he’s asked to identify an accomplished professional woman (or any woman) in daylight.
And so, and so, predictably Musk’s political action committee has confused Judge Susan Crawford of Dane County with another woman of the same name:
One of the first attack ads launched by a Elon Musk-backed group in the hotly contested state Supreme Court race has landed with a resounding thud.
That’s because the ad that Building America’s Future is currently running on social media doesn’t feature Susan M. Crawford, the liberal Dane County judge running for the high court against conservative Brad Schimel.
Rather, the digital ad has a large photo of Susan P. Crawford, a law school professor at Harvard University. It appears Building America’s Future lifted her picture from her Wikipedia profile.
“Susan Crawford: Wrong for Wisconsin,” the ad says.
Ok, but which Crawford?
Perhaps, more accurately, it should read, “Wrong Susan Crawford for Wisconsin.”
One brown-haired woman’s like another, right? All women lawyers are the same, don’t you know? The name on a Wikipedia page matters more than the bio from that page, isn’t it obvious? Massachusetts and Wisconsin are so similar, aren’t they?2
That’s top-notch discernment from America’s shadow president.
Top notch.
______
Musk is a petulant man — more needy adolescent than worthy adult — an appetitive boy. ↩︎
Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset is 5:58, for 11 hours 0 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 15 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, and resumes open session at 7 PM.
On this day in 1917, the U.S. ambassador Walter Hines Page to the United Kingdom reports to Pres. Wilson on the contents of the German Zimmermann Telegram, in which Germany pledges to ensure the return of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona to Mexico if Mexico declared war on the United States.
Populism is a restless and relentless group movement, historically sometimes of the left, sometimes of the right. In our time, we have conservative populists, Trumpists, MAGA, or however else they choose to describe themselves. Their restlessness, their insatiability for ever-purer expressions of the movement, leads to splintering into new factions. (Dark MAGA is like this: Trump no longer gives some of these gentlemen the thrill that Musk now does.)
Nor does a moment like this does respect institutional boundaries; on the contrary, it seeks to overturn institutional standards no matter how sound.
WASHINGTON – At a recent campaign stop, conservative state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel acknowledged a “turf war” playing out among Wisconsin Republicans.
He said the party is “at risk of becoming divided” but suggested the time to have those discussions is after the high court election on April 1.
“This battle is going on,” Schimel said, according to audio obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “My message to everybody is … I need 100% of the conservative vote. We all have to grab an oar and work at this. If we don’t, we lose.”
“So can you shut it down for 49 more days, and let’s win this race,” he added. “And then you know what? Then duke it out.”
The infighting Schimel referenced is a behind-the-scenes clash between the conservative dark money group Turning Point Action and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
The simmering tensions between the two camps are largely over the party’s infrastructure and leadership in the key battleground state. It’s a spat that has grown increasingly public following the November election and appears to be coming to a head as county parties and congressional districts elect their leadership for the next two years.
In his plea, Schimel reveals himself a nervous politico first, and a judge second. That’s unsurprising, because he admits that as a judge, he’s been slothful. SeeBrad Schimel’s Work Ethic (“I’m home for dinner most nights now,” he said. “I shoot in two sporting clays leagues. Or I was until I made this announcement (to run for the Supreme Court). I was shooting in two shooting clays leagues a week. I was doing all this, playing band rehearsals.”)
From an October 2015 tweet by Adrian Bott (@cavalorn) that went viral: “I never thought leopards would eat MY face,” sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.
Researchers have been eavesdropping on an unusual family of crows in Spain, collecting data on hundreds of thousands of different sounds the birds made. Small microphones recorded a variety of soft calls, far quieter than the familiar ‘caws’ people usually hear. The team then used AI to analyse the sounds and group them together. The researchers hope is to one day be able to understand the meaning of the birds’ vocalizations and perhaps even try to speak their language.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 36. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 5:37, for 10 hours, 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1778, Baron von Steuben (Friedrich Wilhelm August Heinrich Ferdinand von Steuben) arrives at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, to help train the Continental Army.
People booed and jeered at U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman as he walked into the Algoma Town Hall just outside Oshkosh Friday morning.
The Republican congressman from Glenbeulah was there for a town hall meeting with around 100 constituents. After the building hit full capacity, around 50 more stood outside.
He started by commenting on President Donald Trump’s executive orders since taking office a month ago.
“This is moving very quickly compared to other administrations, and I think, across the board, he’s done some very good things,” Grothman said.
New video shows the moment a father and his 12-year-old son were rescued from a steep cliffside in Snow Canyon in Utah. The pair was rescued after surviving on supplies that were left behind by another hiker who was previously stranded in the same location. NBC News’ Camila Bernal has the story.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 27. Sunrise is 6:41 and sunset is 5:36, for 10 hours, 55 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 31 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1946, the “Long Telegram,” proposing how the United States should deal with the Soviet Union, arrives from the US embassy in Moscow.
This California town elected a dog as mayor. Meet Mayor Max, the golden retriever leading Idyllwild! Since 2012, a lineage of golden retrievers has held office, with Max III now running the town alongside his deputy dog mayors. But can a dog really be a great leader? We go behind the scenes with Max’s owners, Phyllis and Glenn, to see how this ‘paw-litical’ system works, and why animal mayors are becoming a trend across the U.S.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 25. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset is 5:34, for 10 hours, 52 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 42 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Elon Musk’s super PAC just dropped $1 million on increasing voter turnout for conservative Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel, according to state election records.
America PAC, an unregistered committee, is spending $1 million on canvassing and field operations to aid Schimel in his race against liberal Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford. The winner of the April 1 election will decide the ideological bent of the high court.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and Space X, has provided most of the funding for America PAC, which focuses on turning out low-propensity and first-time voters. The super PAC was active in Wisconsin before the November general election, helping President Donald Trump narrowly win the state.
In Fort Atkinson, Warm Belly Farm combines technology with sustainable agriculture under horticulturist Erin Warner’s guidance. The operation features 18,000 hydroponic strawberry plants in raised gutter systems, making picking accessible to all visitors. The farm monitors for optimal growing conditions while minimizing environmental impact.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 21. Sunrise is 6:44 and sunset is 5:33, for 10 hours, 49 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 51.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1933, Hitler secretly meets with German industrialists to arrange for financing of the Nazi Party’s upcoming election campaign.
At the Wisconsin Examiner, reporter Baylor Spears writes of Assembly bills that passed along partisan lines. See Baylor Spears, Assembly passes bills to regulate test scores, school spending, cell phone policies, Wisconsin Examiner, February 20, 2025. Wisconsin does not have, and is not likely soon to get, a bipartisan spirit. We are a divided state, with divided cities, towns, and villages. Those places are divided between each other, and within themselves.
Wisconsin Republicans in the state Assembly passed a package of education bills Wednesday to implement new standards for standardized test scores, school funding allocations, responding to curriculum inspection requests and for keeping cell phones out of schools.
Spears also quotes the remarks of Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson):
Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said she was voting against the bill [AB 6, requiring in part that school boards assure that 70% of operating money would be spent on direct classroom expenditures] — — and others on the calendar — because they appeared to be written without “meaningful input” from teachers, administrators, superintendents, parents, students or community members.
“I’m here to let you know that if you want support in the educational community for any education bill, you should do your homework,” Fitzgerald said, “including having conversations with the public and reaching across the aisle.”
Fitzgerald said Franklin’s bill would take away local control from school districts and school boards and criticized the bill for including “vague” wording and “undefined terms,” saying the bills are unserious.
The men who profited by gerrymandering for over a decade will not reach willingly across the Assembly aisle until their portion of the chamber is smaller. Then, and only then, will they be interested in deal-making.
Until then, the Wisconsin Legislature has more a wall than an aisle.
