Good morning.

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.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

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.

Spears writes:

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.

See also That ‘Bipartisanship’ Didn’t Last Long — Because It Was Never There (12.18.24) and The WisDems’ Bipartisan Delusion (1.23.25).

Rescuers save man buried alive in Vail Pass, Colorado avalanche: