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Budget, Daily Bread, Legislature, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.23.24: Four Billion’s a Lot of Money to Be Left Unused

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset is 4:25, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 43.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1688, as part of the Glorious Revolution, King James II of England flees from England to France after being deposed in favor of his son-in-law and nephew, William of Orange and his daughter Mary.

The State of Wisconsin has both a general fund surplus and a rainy day fund, with the surplus now at $4,500,000,000. It is, after all, a lot of money:

Gov. Tony Evers announced Friday that Wisconsin’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, which is published by the Department of Administration, recorded a $4.5 billion positive balance in the state’s general fund at the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year. 

In addition to the general fund, the state’s Budget Stabilization Fund — or “rainy day” fund — ended the fiscal year at the highest level in state history with a balance of $1.9 billion. The rainy day fund has set a new record every year since Evers took office in 2019.  

“For thirty consecutive years, our state’s checking account ran at a deficit. Thanks to our efforts to pay down our state’s debt and work across the aisle to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars, Wisconsin has never had a deficit since I took office,” Evers said in a statement. “This is great news for the people of Wisconsin and our state’s economy.” 

The balance in the general fund — a budget surplus — will likely be a major point of discussion next year as Evers and lawmakers begin work on the state’s next two-year budget.

See Baylor Spears, Wisconsin’s annual financial report records $4.5 billion budget surplus, Wisconsin Examiner, December 21, 2024.

The inability of lawmakers to agree on a plan for the use of the general fund surplus is unsurprising. These are the men who gerrymandered, backed grossly wasteful projects, pretended a pandemic was safe, and endorsed election conspiracies for so long as conspiracists did not level accusations in their own direction.

Honda and Nissan start merger talks in historic pivot:

Honda and Nissan have started talks toward a potential merger, they said, a historic pivot for Japan’s auto industry that underlines the threat Chinese EV makers now pose to some of the world’s best known car makers.

Daily Bread, Foxconn, Legislature, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 12.19.24: The Wisconsin Man Who Backed Foxconn Now Brings You Government Efficiency

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 29. Sunrise is 7:21 and sunset is 4:23, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 79.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1776, Thomas Paine publishes the first of a series of pamphlets in The Pennsylvania Journal entitled “The American Crisis.”

Of past performance, consider from 2017: Vos: Foxconn Deal Will Be Good For Taxpayers. And yet, and yet, these are ahistorical times, where past performance is ignored:

MADISON – A new Assembly committee will focus in the next session on government efficiency, inspired by a similar federal department to be run in part by Elon Musk.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said in a Wednesday interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the new committee will be known as GOAT: Governmental Oversight, Accountability and Transparency Committee.

See Laura Schulte and Hope Karnopp, Robin Vos to create government efficiency committee inspired by Elon Musk’s DOGE, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 18, 2024.

Binary star system found near monster black hole:

A pair of stars orbiting one another has been found near the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT).
Full Story: Astronomers discover 1st binary stars orbiting supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way

Daily Bread, Legislation, Legislature, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 12.18.24: That ‘Bipartisanship’ Didn’t Last Long — Because It Was Never There

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:21 and sunset is 4:22, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, Secretary of State William Seward proclaims the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting slavery throughout the United States.

Five days ago (less than a single week for those with calendars), one read that Wisconsin’s Senate Democrats had hope for a more bipartisan politics. This libertarian blogger had his doubts (see The Glistening Optimism of Wisconsin’s Senate Democrats).

Along comes Wisconsin Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) to confirm my skepticism:

New-elected Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said Tuesday that she hopes for more bipartisan conversations next year, but that her caucus plans to operate in the same way it has previously, since Republicans still hold the majority in the Wisconsin Legislature, even after losing a handful of seats this election year. 

The Legislature will return with closer margins next year following elections under new legislative maps. Republicans will have an 18-15 majority in the Senate, down from their previous 22-seat supermajority.  In the Assembly Republicans will hold  a 55-45 majority. Felzkowski made her comments during a WisPolitics panel Tuesday alongside Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and two strategists — Keith Gilkes, a consultant and former chief political advisor for Republican former Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic strategist Tanya Bjork.

“Make no mistake, we still hold the majority,” Felzkowski said. “I hope we have better conversations. I hope we have better negotiations.” 

See Baylor Spears, ‘Make no mistake, we still hold the majority’ says Wisconsin GOP Senate president, Wisconsin Examiner, December 18, 2024.

Again, as before: “For a decade, Wisconsin was the most gerrymandered state in the country, the WISGOP still controls both chambers of the Legislature, and the GOP will soon control all three branches of the federal government (the single most powerful human institution on Earth).”

Those aren’t the sort of people in a genuinely compromising mood.

California driver safe after car plunges into fitness center pool:

A driver in California escaped with minor injuries after they crashed through the glass wall of a fitness center and plunged into a swimming pool.

Daily Bread, Technology, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.17.24: Landlines (Remember Them?) on the Way Out

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 38. Sunrise is 7:20 and sunset is 4:22, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1835,  the second Great Fire of New York destroys 53,000 square meters (13 acres) of New York City’s Financial District.

One could guess that telephone landlines were in decline, but a recent story drives that point home:

AT&T plans to discontinue its traditional landline telephone service in Wisconsin and most states in its service area by the end of 2029. 

….

The company says only 5 percent of its residential customers still use copper technology and it’s working with them to ensure they do not lose voice or 911 services. The company has introduced a new service that works like a traditional landline, but connects using wireless networks or broadband.

In Wisconsin, roughly 15 percent of households still had a landline as of 2022, while roughly 5.5 percent of adults still primarily used their landline and 3 percent rely entirely on landlines, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. 

The vast majority of households used only wireless telephones in 2022 — 83.7 percent in Wisconsin. That number has come up substantially over the last few decades as advancements in cell phone technology have led to consumers increasingly ditching traditional landline service.

For comparison, about 12.8 percent of American households only had wireless phones in the latter half of 2006, according to federal data.

See Joe Schulz, AT&T to discontinue traditional landline service in Wisconsin by the end of 2029, Wisconsin Public Radio, December 17, 2024.

Rare tornado rips through Northern California town:

Agriculture, America, Daily Bread, Federal Government, Legislation, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.16.24: Slow Going on the Farm Bill (From Those Who Say the Farm Bill Matters)

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:19 and sunset is 4:21, for 9 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board goes into closed session shortly after 6:15 PM and resumes open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Library Board also meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1773,  members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawk Indians dump hundreds of crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

If rural America matters, and if it needs what advocates for rural America insist it should have1, then there’d be a new Farm Bill by now. The best that these advocates and professed defenders of rural America will produce, however, is likely to be a second extension of the existing legislation:

Wisconsin’s federal lawmakers are blaming the other side of the aisle for getting in the way of extending the farm bill.

The legislation is renewed every five years to fund programs around agriculture, conservation and food assistance.

Congress failed to pass a new farm bill in September 2023 and have instead extended the 2018 bill in order to keep programs operating. After making little progress on new legislation this year, federal lawmakers are expected to pass another extension as part of a deal to fund the government into early 2025. 

See Hope Kirwan, Partisan approach to farm bill delaying updates for Wisconsin farmers, Wisconsin Public Radio, December 16, 2024.

Rescuers seek cyclone survivors in devastated Mayotte:

Emergency workers race to find survivors and restore services to the French overseas territory of Mayotte, where hundreds, possibly thousands, are feared dead from the worst cyclone to hit the Indian Ocean islands in nearly a century.

_____

  1. Not what this libertarian blogger insists rural America should have, but what professed advocates of rural America (from both parties) insist rural communities should have. ↩︎

Daily Bread, Legislation, Legislature, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 12.13.24: The Glistening Optimism of Wisconsin’s Senate Democrats

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 22. Sunrise is 7:17, and sunset is 4:21, for 9 hours, 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1972, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt begin the third and final extra-vehicular activity (EVA) or Moonwalk of Apollo 17. To date they are the last humans to set foot on the Moon.

For a decade, Wisconsin was the most gerrymandered state in the country, the WISGOP still controls both chambers of the Legislature, and the GOP will soon control all three branches of the federal government (the single most powerful human institution on Earth). And yet, and yet, Wisconsin’s Senate Democrats are hopeful they can work ‘across the aisle’ with the WISGOP:

Wisconsin Senate Democrats knew going into this year’s elections that their opportunity to flip the Senate wouldn’t come until 2026, but they had a goal of flipping four seats and keeping every seat already held by a Democrat. They succeeded, and now the caucus is preparing for a legislative session with high hopes for bipartisan work.

Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) told the Wisconsin Examiner in a year-end interview that her 15-member caucus is bringing “a lot of energy, enthusiasm and honesty” to the Senate and is looking forward to working next session. She said the bolstered caucus is returning for the next two-year session with “a lot of good ideas.”

….

With a more evenly split Legislature, Hesselbein said there will be the potential to get more things done in a bipartisan way. She noted that last session several big pieces of legislation, including funding renovations at the stadium where the Milwaukee Brewers play, investing in the state’s local government funding and overhauling the state’s alcohol licensing, had bipartisan support.

See Baylor Spears, Senate Democrats aim to work across the aisle, Wisconsin Examiner, December 13, 2024.

What’s the counter-argument to Senate Minority Leader Hesselbein’s optimism for legislative bipartisanship?

The Wisconsin Assembly Speaker is… Robin Vos.

Perseverance Rover Panorama of Mars’ Jezero Crater:

Travel along a steep slope up to the rim of Mars’ Jezero Crater in this panoramic image captured by NASA’s Perseverance just days before the rover reached the top. The scene shows just how steep some of the slopes leading to the crater rim can be. The rover used its Mastcam-Z camera system to capture this view on Dec. 5, 2024, the 1,349th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. At the time, the rover was about 1,150 feet (350 meters) from, and 250 feet (75 meters) below, the top of the crater rim – a location the science team calls “Lookout Hill.” The rover reached Lookout Hill on Dec. 10 after a climb of 3½ months and 1,640 vertical feet (500 vertical meters).

Crime, Daily Bread, Law, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.11.24: National Election Doesn’t Nullify Wisconsin Law

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 28. Sunrise is 7:16, and sunset is 4:20, for 9 hours, 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 81.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1972,  Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and final Apollo mission to land on the Moon.

First, an update to an earlier post (Imperfect Justice): Alex Jones keeps Infowars for now after judge rejects The Onion’s winning auction bid. Jones doesn’t deserve the site, but its next ownership is now unclear.

Second, it turns out (properly) that the results of a national election do not nullify Wisconsin’s criminal law:

Wisconsin prosecutors filed 10 additional felony charges Tuesday against two attorneys and an aide to President-elect Donald Trump who advised Trump in 2020 as part of a plan to submit paperwork falsely claiming that the Republican had won the battleground state that year.

Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s attorney in Wisconsin, Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who advised the campaign, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020, all initially faced a single felony forgery charge in Wisconsin. Those charges were filed in June.

But on Tuesday, two days before the three are scheduled for their initial court appearances, the Wisconsin Department of Justice filed 10 additional felony charges against each of them. The charges are for using forgery in an attempt to defraud each of the 10 Republican electors who cast their ballots for Trump that year.

See Scott Bauer, Trump lawyers and aide hit with 10 additional felony charges in Wisconsin over 2020 fake electors, Associated Press, December 10, 2024.

Aerial video captures Franklin Fire impacting thousands in Malibu:

Daily Bread, Democrats, Education, Elections, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 12.8.24: A Challenge (from the Left) in the State Superintendent Race

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 50. Sunrise is 7:13, and sunset is 4:20, for 9 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, President Roosevelt declares December 7 to be “a date which will live in infamy,” after which the U.S. declares war on Japan.

Jill Underly, Wisconsin’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, faces a challenge from the left in her race for re-election:

Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly, who is running for her second term in office with the backing of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, faces a challenge from Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright, a Democrat who says he wants to improve DPI’s communication. 

Elections for the state superintendent are technically nonpartisan. Candidates run on the same ballot in the February primary, and the top two advance. The primary is Feb. 18, 2025 and the general election is April 1. No other candidates have entered the race so far.

….

Prior to winning her first term in 2021, Underly served as the superintendent of Pecatonica School District, a rural district in southwestern Wisconsin. She has also previously worked as a principal, a teacher and a state consultant to Title I schools in Milwaukee and across the state.

Wright, who launched his campaign about a month after Underly, has served as the superintendent of Sauk Prairie School District since 2019 and was named Administrator of the Year in 2024 by the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance. He also previously served as a principal in Chicago. He hasn’t held public office before, but has run unsuccessful campaigns in 2016 and in 2018 for the state Assembly. 

Wright said in an October interview with the Examiner that he probably aligns closely with the current superintendent on many issues, but he thinks there is currently a “disconnect” between DPI and schools.

“They’re not bringing the people together from the teachers’ union, the administrators’ associations and other groups to have an active conversation about what concrete steps are we taking right now to get this work done,” Wright said. “Schools want to know what’s happening at the DPI. We don’t want to be surprised by changes. We want to be in conversation so that it’s very clear that we’re working on the same team.”

See Baylor Spears, State superintendent race kicks off: Underly faces challenge from Sauk Prairie superintendent, Wisconsin Examiner, December 5, 2024.

Underly has the backing of the state’s Democratic Party, and Wright has the backing of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC) Political Action Committee and Kirk Bangstad’s Minocqua Brewing Company SuperPAC.

I’m not a Democrat (rather a Never Trump libertarian who supported Harris-Walz), but it’s hard for me to see how these political action committees can overcome the organizational strength of a major political party. There’s as yet no announced Republican candidate in the race, but there is sure to be at least one (for an office that is, nominally, non-partisan).

Admittedly, any campaign, against almost any incumbent, is likely to make headway with the contention that the public has a lack of information (or in the case of the DPI, technical information that’s been made readily comprehensible to most residents). No one ever went broke, so to speak, by arguing that government statistics were opaque. Still: an outsider’s climb against an organizationally-backed candidate is uphill.

Watch this bird-inspired robotic drone leap into the air:

Courts, Daily Bread, Law, Legislation, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.3.24: Act 10 Ruled Unconstitutional, These Years Later

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 30. Sunrise is 7:08, and sunset is 4:21, for 9 hours, 13 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1947, the first TV station in Wisconsin, WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee, is established. The seventeenth television station in the country, WTMJ-TV is the first in the Midwest.

We live in time when past judicial decisions are discarded, at the federal and state level. It should not surprise, although it still does, that prior legislation and prior court rulings to it are again set aside. And so, as one would have expected since July, Act 10 has been ruled unconstitutional:

Judge Jacob Frost ruled that Act 10, passed by the state Legislature’s Republican majority in 2011 and signed by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in his first year in office, was unconstitutional in making some public safety workers exempt from the law’s limits on unions but excluding other workers with similar jobs from those protections.

The ruling essentially confirmed Frost’s ruling on July 3, 2024, when he rejected motions by the state Legislature’s Republican leaders to dismiss the 2023 lawsuit challenging Act 10.

In that ruling, Frost declared that state Capitol Police, University of Wisconsin Police, and state conservation wardens were “treated unequally with no rational basis for that difference” because they were not included in the exemption that Act 10 had created for other law enforcement and public safety employees.

For that reason, the law’s categories of general and public safety employees, and its public safety employee exemption, were unconstitutional, Frost wrote then.

Frost reiterated that ruling Monday. “Act 10 as written by the Legislature specifically and narrowly defines ‘public safety employee,’” Frost wrote. “It is that definition which is unconstitutional.”

In addition, the judge rejected the suggestion that Act 10 could remain in effect without the law’s public safety employee carve-out, and that either the courts or the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission could resolve a constitutionally acceptable definition in the future.

“The Legislature cites no precedent for this bold argument that I should simply strike the unlawful definition but leave it to an agency and the courts to later define as they see fit,” Frost wrote. “Interpreting ‘public safety employee’ after striking the legislated definition would be an exercise in the absurd.”

See Erik Gunn, Judge strikes down core parts of Act 10 that stripped most public workers’ union rights, Wisconsin Examiner, December 2, 2024.

Video captures cliffside rescue in San Francisco:

This video captured the California Highway Patrol rescuing a man trapped on the side of a cliff above Baker Beach in San Francisco. The man was hoisted safely to the beach below.

Agriculture, Daily Bread, Economy, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 12.2.24: Wisconsin Agriculture Grows More Slowly than Rest of State’s Economy

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 28. Sunrise is 7:07, and sunset is 4:21, for 9 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 2001, Enron files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Hope Kirwan reports that while the Wisconsin agriculture industry grew over a 5-year period, agriculture became a smaller part of Wisconsin’s overall economy:

Wisconsin’s agriculture industry has grown over the last five years. But new data shows farming and food’s contribution to the state’s economy has gotten smaller.

The study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that agricultural production and food processing contributed $116.3 billion in revenues to the state’s economy in 2022.

That’s nearly 11 percent higher than the same report from 2017, growth that’s been celebrated by Gov. Tony Evers’ administration and the ag industry.

The study also found that farming and food processing made up 14.3 percent of the state’s total revenues, which is 2 percentage points less than in 2017.

Steve Deller, UW-Madison professor of agricultural and applied economics and co-author of the report, said that’s because the state’s overall economy is growing.

“The size of the pie is getting bigger,” Deller said. “Agriculture’s slice of that pie is also getting a little bit bigger, but it’s not growing at the same pace as the state’s economy is growing.”

See Hope Kirwan, Report: Wisconsin farm, food industry grows slightly behind the rest of state’s economy, Wisconsin Public Radio, December 2, 2024.

Wind power is making a comeback in shipping:

Animals, Daily Bread, Science/Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.30.24: Studying Wisconsin’s Black Bears

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 24. Sunrise is 7:05, and sunset is 4:22, for 9 hours, 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1939, the Soviet Red Army crosses the Finnish border in several places and bombs Helsinki and other Finnish cities, starting the Winter War.

Wisconsin Bear Research:

Researcher Jennifer Price Tack leads the largest bear project in Wisconsin.

So, why build a muon collider? A three minute guide:

For physicists, there’s been one answer that has worked for nearly one hundred years – take two particles and smash them together as hard as you can. But the current generation of massive colliders like the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, haven’t produced the flood of new particles some scientists were expecting. So attention is turning to a new type of experiment, using a particle that has never been collided before; muons.

Daily Bread, Economy, Travel, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.27.24: Big Travel for Wisconsinites (and What It Reveals About the Economy)

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 40. Sunrise is 7:02, and sunset is 4:23, for 9 hours, 21 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 12 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1924, in New York City, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is held:

The Parade first took place in 1924, tying it for the second-oldest Thanksgiving parade in the United States with America’s Thanksgiving Parade in Detroit (with both parades being four years younger than Philadelphia’s Thanksgiving Day Parade). The three-hour parade is held in Manhattan, ending outside Macy’s Herald Square, and takes place from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Thanksgiving Day, and has been televised nationally on NBC since 1953.

And so, and so, one reads that over a million and a half Wisconsinites plan to travel over Thanksgiving:

A record number of Wisconsinites are expected to travel for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, according to AAA. The group says nearly 1.6 million residents are expected to drive or fly this week.

Wisconsin’s last record for Thanksgiving travel recorded by AAA was set in 2019. Midwest Public Affairs Director Nick Jarmusz told WPR that holiday travel overall declined in subsequent years due to concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic. 

….

Between Tuesday and Monday, Dec. 2, AAA projects more than 1.4 million Wisconsin residents will hit the roads for their Thanksgiving holiday festivities. Around another 115,000 are expected to fly to their family gatherings.

….

“It’s a reflection of what we’ve seen throughout the year with other travel holidays during the summer that we monitored, and just you know, a reflection of people’s improving confidence in the economy and their ability to spend the money necessary to take trips like these,” [American Automobile Association Midwest Public Affairs Director Nick] Jarmusz said.

See Rich Kremer, AAA predicts record-breaking Thanksgiving travel in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Public Radio, November 25, 2024.

This many would not have been traveling over the summer of 2024 and would not travel over Thanksgiving 2024 if economic conditions were poor. The summer of 2024 and Thanksgiving 2024 precede January 20, 2025. It’s not until then but instead right now that we have good economic conditions.

Trail walk:

Conspiracy Theories, Daily Bread, Gableman, Legislature, Misconduct, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.26.24: Vos Right at Least Once! (But He Was Originally Wrong About Even This)

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 36. Sunrise is 7:00, and sunset is 4:23, for 9 hours, 23 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 18.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1838, the Legislature assembles in Madison for the first time:

[A]fter moving from the temporary capital in Burlington, Iowa, the Wisconsin Territorial Legislature assembled in Madison for the first time. Two years earlier, when the territorial legislature had met for the first time in Belmont, many cities were mentioned as possibilities for the permanent capital — Cassville, Fond du Lac, Milwaukee, Platteville, Mineral Point, Racine, Belmont, Koshkonong, Wisconsinapolis, Peru, and Wisconsin City. Madison won the vote, and funds were authorized to erect a suitable building in which lawmakers would conduct the people’s business. Progress went so slowly, however, that some lawmakers wanted to relocate the seat of government to Milwaukee, where they also thought they would find better accomodations than in the wilds of Dane Co. When the legislature finally met in Madison in November 1838 there was only an outside shell to the new Capitol. The interior was not completed until 1845, more than six years after it was supposed to be finished.

One might imagine that Speaker Robin Vos has never been right about anything. It’s not true! He’s right about at least one thing:

In a Sunday morning interview on WISN-TV’s “Upfront,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos repeated calls for former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who he hired, then fired, to investigate the 2020 election, to be disbarred and “never allowed to practice law in Wisconsin again.”

“I certainly hope Michael Gableman loses his law license. I hope he goes back to work at Home Depot, where he was working prior to working for us,” Vos said. “As I look at what the Office of Lawyer Regulation is saying happened, it’s an embarrassment for anybody who practices law.”

The Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation filed a disciplinary complaint Tuesday alleging Gableman violated the Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys, including engaging in “disruptive behavior” during a court hearing, making false statements about the integrity of a judge and violating the state’s open records law.

Emphasis added.

See Hope Karnopp, Robin Vos again calls for Michael Gableman to be disbarred after 2020 election review, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 25, 2024.

Vos is right that Gableman should lose his law license, but it was Vos, himself, who hired Gableman: “working for us.”

Even on the rare occasion that Vos proves right, it turns out he’s to blame for the original wrong.

Quick snack:

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.25.24: Wisconsin’s Next Election

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with afternoon showers and a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:59, and sunset is 4:24, for 9 hours, 24 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 26.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM, and the full board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, resuming open session at 7 PM. The City of Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30.

On this day in 1783, the last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris.

The next statewide election in Wisconsin will go to a spring general election in April. For the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s open seat (Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is retiring) there are two declared candidates. Note the contrast, as one of the candidates speaks in her own voice and the other speaks through his campaign:

….

In a statement, the Schimel campaign said “leftist judges in Wisconsin and around the country are failing to enforce our laws,” and called the Nov. 5 election “a repudiation of the left’s radical agenda that made life more dangerous and expensive for Wisconsinites.”

“From opening the border, to releasing criminals on our streets, to rogue judges on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court breaking norms to advance their radical agenda. Brad Schimel is a judge of the people who will stop the madness and defend what is right,” the statement said.

….

In a statement, Crawford said the state needs a court that is “committed to upholding the rights and freedoms of all Wisconsinites.”

“I’ve spent my career standing up for Wisconsin values like safe communities, reproductive rights, clean air and water, and fair elections. As a prosecutor, I took on tough cases to hold criminals and sex offenders accountable and bring justice to victims. As an attorney, I fought for working people, families, and teachers when their rights were threatened and being trampled on,” she said. “Now, as a circuit court judge, I work every day to deliver justice impartially, keep our communities safe, and treat everyone fairly under the law.”

See Jessie Opoien, Fresh from a bruising Nov. 5 election Wisconsin turns to a battle over the Supreme Court, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 25, 2024.

Wisconsin Life | Fred Smith’s concrete wonderland: