Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:39 and sunset is 8:22, for 14 hours, 43 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1965, Bob Dylan goes electric at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major…
Elections
Daily Bread, Elections, Legislature, Politics, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 7.23.25: A Better Wisconsin Politics Requires a Better Wisconsin Legislature
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny with a high of 91. Sunrise is 5:37 and sunset is 8:24, for 14 hours, 47 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1829, William Austin Burt patents the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.…
Budget, Daily Bread, Elections, Legislature, Wisconsin, WisDems
Daily Bread for 7.21.25: “If Wisconsinites want a better budget…”
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:35 and sunset is 8:26, for 14 hours, 51 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13 percent of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater Common Council & the Whitewater Unified School District Board meet jointly at…
Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 7.17.25: Wisconsin Justice Rebecca Bradley’s Career Options Narrow
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 70. Sunrise is 5:32 and sunset is 8:29, for 14 hours, 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 55.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM. On this day in 1821, the…
Daily Bread, Elections, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Wisconsin, WISGOP
Daily Bread for 7.16.25: Out-of-State Billionaires Seek Attention of Another Out-of-State Billionaire
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with scattered afternoon thunderstorms and a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:31 and sunset is 8:30, for 14 hours, 59 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 66.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.…
Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 7.15.25: Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley’s Career Prospects
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 86. Sunrise is 5:30 and sunset is 8:31, for 15 hours, 1 minute of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 76 percent of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Innovation Center Advisory Panel meets at 8:30 AM. The Whitewater School Board’s Policy…
Daily Bread, Elections, Law, Litigation, Musk, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 6.12.25: Musk Sued in Wisconsin Circuit Court
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:15 and sunset is 8:34, for 15 hours, 18 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Commission meets at 5:30 PM. On this day…
Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 5.24.25: Chris Taylor Enters Wisconsin Supreme Court Race
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 66. Sunrise is 5:23 and sunset is 8:20, for 14 hours, 56 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 9.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1844, Samuel Morse sends the message “What hath God wrought”…
Congress, Daily Bread, Elections, Gerrymandering, Law, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 5.13.25: Probable Consequences of Redrawn Wisconsin Congressional Maps
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:33 and sunset is 8:09, for 14 hours, 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated. The Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM, and the Whitewater Common Council…
Campaign Ads, Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 5.12.25: $100M Wisconsin Court Elections
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:35 and sunset is 8:08, for 14 hours, 33 minutes of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated. The Whitewater School Board moves into a closed-session meeting shortly after 5 PM. Whitewater’s Plan…
Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.29.25: Fusion Voting
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 61. Sunrise is 5:51 and sunset is 7:53, for 14 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1986, a fire at the Central library of the Los Angeles Public Library damages or destroys 400,000 books and other items.
Voters in Wisconsin could be seeing double on Election Day if the practice of fusion voting — which allows the same candidate to appear on the ballot under multiple party lines — makes a comeback in the battleground state.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday seeks to legalize the practice, saying it would empower independent voters and lesser-known political parties at a time of increasingly bitter partisanship between Republicans and Democrats. The lawsuit comes just four weeks after the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, which broke records for spending and saw massive involvement from the two parties and partisan interests.
Common in the 1800s, fusion voting means a candidate could appear on the ballot as nominated by Republican or Democratic parties and one or more lesser-known political parties. Critics argue it complicates the ballot, perhaps confusing the voter, while also giving minor parties disproportionate power because major-party candidates must woo them to get their endorsements.
Currently, full fusion voting is only happening in Connecticut and New York. There are efforts to revive the practice in other states, including Michigan, Kansas and New Jersey.
See Scott Bauer, Same candidate, two parties. A Wisconsin lawsuit aims to bring back fusion voting, Associated Press, April 25, 2025.
Wisconsin voters can understand a fusion ballot, as much as voters in New York and Connecticut, leaving possible confusion as an unpersuasive objection. Beyond that, it’s hard to tell how this might shape Wisconsin elections in the near-term. New York and Connecticut seem to have managed; we could, too.
Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Musk, Scott Walker, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.10.25: That Was Walker’s Plan? Well, It Was Dumb Enough to Be Walker’s Plan…
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:21 and sunset is 7:31, for 13 hours, 11 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 837, Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth at a distance equal to 0.0342 AU (3.2 million miles).
Yesterday’s post here at FREE WHITEWATER was about Scott Walker’s irrelevance to current Wisconsin politics. See Scott Walker, Man from Another Era. Bruce Murphy, at Urban Milwaukee, has a revealing post about how Walker tried, and failed miserably, to become relevant again. (As Murphy perceptively notes, the story depends on accepting the veracity of Walker’s account of Walker’s behind-the-scenes conduct.) Murphy lays out the details:
Musk’s approach, if we can believe Scott Walker, came from a plan hatched by Walker and the former Republican governor’s political consultant Keith Gilkes. Their pitch was for Musk to get involved in the Wisconsin race as he did in the presidential race in November. “You were effective in Wisconsin, and you can be effective in this race again in Wisconsin,” Walker said he told Musk.
Except. Musk spent money on a presidential race that polls showed was very close and with Trump leading. A relatively safe investment. And a race so close that the Musk super PAC canvassing voters door-to-door could get a big return from turning out a relatively small number of voters compared to the total number voting in Wisconsin and other swing states in November. Trump won Wisconsin by just over 29,300 votes, a margin of less than 1 percent.
Which is a very different situation than the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin. The state’s previous high court race, in 2023, with the abortion the key issue, was an 11% loss for the conservatives, with liberal Janet Protasiewicz defeating conservative Dan Kelly by more than 203,000 votes. Granted, Schimel was a better candidate than Kelly, but abortion was still going to be a major issue in this year’s election. Moreover, we now know that Republicans knew Crawford was ahead in the race and their polls showed Schimel’s high point in the polls was five points behind. In short, this would not be like the presidential election, where a relatively small increase in turnout could decide the election.
See Bruce Murphy, How Much Did Musk Pay Per Vote?, Urban Milwaukee, April 8, 2025.
Astonishing. This could have been Walker’s plan: it is, after all, Foxconn-level thinking. If Walker is to be believed, Walker was able to persuade Musk to waste tens of millions on a race that Schimel was losing and was likely to keep on losing once the radioactive Musk became involved.
Walker likely did concoct this plan, and get Musk to go along. There is, after all, no evidence whatsoever that the only person who could have concocted a worse plan was involved in the Wisconsin election.
Advice from cattosbeingcattos:
City, Daily Bread, Elections, Schimel, School District, Susan Crawford, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.2.25: Statewide and Local in Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 68. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 7:22, for 12 hours, 48 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM, the Public Arts Commission at 5 PM, and the Starin Park Water Tower Committee meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1865, Union troops led by Philip Sheridan decisively defeat Confederate troops led by George Pickett, cutting the Army of Northern Virginia’s last supply line during the Siege of Petersburg.
The Wisconsin event of the moment: Susan Crawford — intelligent, knowledgeable, and of a proper judicial temperament — won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. In every way that could possibly matter, she was the better candidate.
The statewide race wasn’t close, as Crawford won by over 200,000 votes and ten percentage points. See Patrick Marley, Liberal projected to win Wisconsin Supreme Court race in blow to Trump, Washington Post, April 2, 2025 and Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Result, New York Times, April 2, 2025.
How did Crawford do in the City of Whitewater?
| Crawford | 2,562 | 68% |
| Schimel | 1,189 | 32% |
How did the School District Referendum fare only in the City of Whitewater (passing by a smaller margin districtwide)?
| Yes | 2,097 | 61% |
| No | 1,357 | 39% |
How did the Police & EMT Referendum fare in the City of Whitewater?
| Yes | 1,880 | 54% |
| No | 1,599 | 46% |
Judge Crawford ran ahead of either referendum.
Although a good day, other and challenging days lie ahead for the nation, state, and city.
Planets, Lyrid meteors, the moon and more in April 2025 skywatching:
America, Authoritarian Populism, Authoritarianism, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.1.25: Wisconsin’s Election Is Only One Moment in a Long Conflict
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 6:36 and sunset is 7:21, for 12 hours, 45 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1865, Union troops led by Philip Sheridan decisively defeat Confederate troops led by George Pickett, cutting the Army of Northern Virginia’s last supply line during the Siege of Petersburg.
At the Journal Sentinel, Craig Gilbert writes How the election for Wisconsin Supreme Court became ‘a giant political science experiment’:
It’s also — to borrow a phrase I’ve heard more than once from people close to the campaign — a “giant political science experiment.”
What happens when you spend far more money than anybody ever has on a judicial election?
What happens when you do it in America’s most competitive state?
What happens when you do it at a moment of extreme political polarization?
What happens when the world’s richest man makes the election his personal project?
What happens when voters are told that an election for Wisconsin Supreme Court is really about Donald Trump (at a time when Trump is gradually becoming more unpopular)?
What happens when all this occurs in the fever pitch of the most turbulent launch of an American presidency in anyone’s memory?
We’ll find out.
See Craig Gilbert, Gilbert: How the election for Wisconsin Supreme Court became ‘a giant political science experiment’, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 1, 2025.
Gilbert’s implication that these questions are meaningful is false, and worse than false, it’s nonsense.
We are well past the point of ordinary political assessments through the concepts of conventional political science (let alone a political consultant’s views, honest to goodness). There are serious men and women who look at these days and see attempts to overturn the constitutional order. America now has a large authoritarian movement, a large authoritarian party, obedient to an authoritarian leader.
Gilbert, like many of yesterday’s men and women, cannot grasp how much the nation has changed. Poor man lost his paradigm and can’t see as much. Less political consulting and more political philosophy might have avoided this myopia. America, Wisconsin, and Whitewater are chock-a-block with people like this1.
Many other men and women, across all America, will make the difference in the years ahead. A few national figures are familiar, but many others will emerge, in places and circumstances yet unknown to us.
______
- Especially: Those who seek bipartisanship with jackals, hyenas, and wolves will only find themselves no longer bipedal. Every town has too many versions of Senator Schumer. ↩︎
Icelandic town and Blue Lagoon spa evacuated after volcanic eruption: