Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:38, and sunset is 4:38, for 9 hours, 59 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 43.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1972, American pay television network Home Box Office (HBO) launches.
Wisconsin Life | Inside the den: DNR researchers track Wisconsin’s black bears:
Aerial footage shows scale of wildfires burning in California:
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:37, and sunset is 4:39, for 10 hours, 2 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 33.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1910, the first air freight shipment (from Dayton, Ohio, to Columbus, Ohio) is undertaken in a Wright (Brothers) Model B.
The Associated Press reports Wisconsin turnout in presidential race nears 73%:
About 73% of Wisconsin’s voting-age population cast ballots in the 2024 presidential race, with the raw number of voters topping out at the highest in state history, based on unofficial results.
Nearly 3.4 million people in Wisconsin cast ballots in the presidential race won by President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday, and the number is likely to increase slightly as the few remaining outstanding ballots are tabulated. Just over 3.3 million voted for president in the 2020 election.
The turnout percentage of 72.6% in Wisconsin, with a voting-age population of just under 4.7 million people, is just below the 72.9% seen in 2020.
The highest turnout percentage since at least 1948 was 73.2% in 2004, based on records from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Fewer people voted in the two other statewide contests in this year’s election. About 30,000 fewer people voted in the race for U.S. Senate between Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican Eric Hovde. And more than 193,000 fewer people voted for a constitutional amendment limiting voting to U.S. citizens.
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:36, and sunset is 4:36, for 10 hours, 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 23 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1971, the United States Atomic Energy Commission tests the largest U.S. underground hydrogen bomb, code-named Cannikin, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutians.
Eight years ago, after an election night, I wrote a post entitled Unexpected and Expected. The first paragraph from that post, with a few changes, is fitting yet again:
Last night’s election results are both [generally] unexpected (nationally) and expected (locally), I’d say. Few thought that Trump would win the presidency, but many of the other results for Wisconsin or Whitewater were easier to predict.
Trump’s victory nationally will be the big topic for years, first about its cause and then about its effects. Because I believe that national shapes local (and that purely hyper-local assessments are short-sighted), Trump’s win (coupled with a Republican Congress [Senate and possibly House] and a conservative Supreme Court) will transform this city as it will much larger places.
None of us can say how this story unfolds, and in any event it matters still more how we in this small city respond to what unfolds. Each day, one begins anew, confronting the challenges of the moment.
For national, state, and local election results see AP Election Results and Journal Sentinel 2024 Wisconsin General Election Results.
NASA’s Perseverance rover captures Martian moon Phobos eclipse the sun:
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will see afternoon showers with a high of 66. Sunrise is 6:34, and sunset is 4:41, for 10 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 15.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1872, in defiance of the law, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time, and is later fined $100.
Fireball lights up skies over Ohio, Pennsylvania and Toronto:
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 60. Sunrise is 6:32, and sunset is 4:44, for 10 hours, 12 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 4.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1943, five hundred aircraft of the U.S. 8th Air Force devastate Wilhelmshaven harbor in Germany.
Here’s Part Two of best to have a plan, best to adopt the plan before the election. Rich Kremer reports US DOJ sending staff to monitor Wisconsin election Tuesday:
The U.S Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division will post election monitors in four Wisconsin locations Nov. 5. The news comes as Wisconsin’s top elections administrator says local clerks have been preparing for any potential election day problems since 2020.
The DOJ announced Friday it will “monitor compliance with federal voting rights laws” in the cities of Milwaukee, Wausau and the Rusk County Towns of Lawrence and Thornapple during Tuesday’s presidential election.
The DOJ sued the Towns of Lawrence and Thornapple in September, accusing local officials of breaking federal law for not making at least one accessible voting machine available to voters with disabilities during elections in April and May. The Town of Thornapple is currently appealing a preliminary injunction requiring it to bring the accessible voting machine back for the upcoming election.
In Wausau, the Wisconsin Department of Justice has taken over an investigation into whether the city’s mayor broke the law by removing a ballot drop box outside city hall Sept. 22.
Wisconsin wouldn’t need federal monitors it didn’t have crackpots and conspiracy theorists interfering or lying about voting in the state. Yet, as we do have crackpots and conspiracy theorists interfering and lying about voting here, it’s best to have monitors.
“We Made Glastonbury Festival’s Biggest Spider”:
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 57. Sunrise is 7:31, and sunset is 5:45, for 10 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 1.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The UW-Whitewater Homecoming Parade takes places at 10 AM, beginning at the corner of Prince and Main and ending at the corner of Prairie Street and Starin Road.
On this day in 1960, Penguin Books is found not guilty of obscenity in the trial R v Penguin Books Ltd, the Lady Chatterley’s Lover case.
Best to have a plan, best to adopt the plan before the election. Baylor Spears reports that the Wisconsin Elections Commission approves presidential recount guidance:
Commissioners unanimously approved the communication, which includes information about recount deadlines, information needed to determine recount fees, minor revisions to the recount manual and about how commission staff plans to compile unofficial county results to track recount margins.
A recount must be requested within one business day of the elections commission receiving all the completed county canvasses. The deadline for a recount would be Nov. 30.
“We’ve presented a timeline that shows exactly when the various aspects of a recount would take place, so that again our local election officials and any potential parties to a recount would be able to prepare for that possibility and understand when that recount could potentially occur,” Wolfe said.
The communication will also include information to help clerks make preliminary estimates of the cost of a recount. Wolfe said election officials should plan ahead so that if a candidate is within the recall margin and asks for a recount, officials can produce a cost estimate quickly, which the candidate must pay for. In 2020, former President Donald Trump paid $3 million for recounts in Milwaukee and Dane Counties, which confirmed President Joe Biden’s victory.
“We don’t want to be thinking about it for the first time when there is some type of recount pending,” Wolfe said. “We want to think about it ahead of time and make sure that everybody’s prepared to provide that information in a very expedited way.”
Wisconsin has a decentralized election system with 1,850 Municipal clerks and 72 County clerks — a total of 1,922 local election officials. On election night, municipal clerks will report unofficial results to their county clerks. The Commission plans to go to each county’s website, see the unofficial results that have been posted, and enter the data in a spreadsheet for the federal contest and for any other state-level contest where the margin may be close and post it publicly.
What’s Up: November 2024 Skywatching Tips from NASA:
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 79. Sunrise is 7:26, and sunset is 5:50, for 10 hours, 24 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 7.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
California-man Eric Hovde’s out-of-state bank, Sunwest, has been the recipient of bogus favorable reviews. Dan Bice reports Major job site flags Eric Hovde’s Sunwest Bank over fake reviews to boost rating:
Glassdoor, the online platform where workers go to dish on their employers, has placed an alert on its Sunwest page stating that it has detected an attempt to “inflate reviews” for the $3.3 billion financial institution.
“We have evidence that someone has taken steps to artificially inflate the rating for this employer in violation of our Community Guidelines,” states the Glassdoor alert on Sunwest’s page. “We have addressed the issue. Please exercise your best judgment when evaluating this employer.”
The company says it posts such alerts in the “rare instances” that it identifies “particularly aggressive attempts by employers or others to influence or manipulate the integrity of reviews.”
Glassdoor did not say who it believes is responsible for Sunwest’s reviews.
After removing dozens of questionable reviews, the overall rating for Sunwest has dropped from a 4.9 overall score out of 5.0 to a 3.1. Hovde’s approval rating as Sunwest CEO has also been lowered from 98% to 79%. And the percentage of people who say they would recommend the company to a friend has plummeted from 98% to 43%.
But wait, there’s more! The Journal Sentinel investigated further:
We decided to check out the Sunwest reviews at the popular job search site Indeed to see if anyone might be posting bogus information there.
Here is what we found:
Journal Sentinel data journalist Eva Wen ran each of the company’s 105 reviews through GPTZero, a platform that identifies text generated using artificial intelligence.
Everything appeared to be on the up and up between 2012 and April 2024. But that all changed on May 22, three months after Hovde entered the U.S. Senate race.
Beginning on that date, GPTZero identified 15 of the 30 reviews as AI-generated with 100% certainty. There was more than 75% certainty that two others were also created via AI — meaning more than half of the recent reviews were AI creations. The AI-generated reviews are all overwhelmingly positive or give high ratings.
Honest to goodness. Out-of-state life, out-of-state bank, can’t bother to the study farm bill that matters to our state: Hovde’s a copy of a copy of a copy of a serious candidate.
Previously at FREE WHITEWATER: Hovde Rationalizes His Ignorance and Sloth, California Carpetbagger with a Utah Bank Doesn’t Bother to Read Farm Bill on Which Wisconsin Agriculture Relies, Hovde & Baldwin, Hovde Spreads Lies About Hurricane Response (Of Course He Does), These Aren’t Subtle Men, Eric Hovde’s Banking Deal with a Cartel-Linked Mexican Bank, Hovde’s Evident, Ignorant Racism, Eric Hovde Treats Wisconsin as a Side Hustle, It’s Not Going So Well for Hovde, Eric Hovde Should Fire His Political Consultants and Hire a Therapist, Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run, and Another Vanity Candidate.
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 65. Sunrise is 7:24, and sunset is 5:51, for 10 hours, 27 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 13.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board holds a budget hearing at 5:45 PM, goes into closed session shortly after 6:15 PM, and resumes open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1886, US president Grover Cleveland dedicates the Statue of Liberty.
While no one knows the future, we should be able to assess the present accurately. Henry Redman reports Experts, officials confident in voting system despite efforts from Trump, others to sow distrust:
Unlike most other states, Wisconsin’s election system is decentralized. Administration of elections is handled by the 1,850 municipal clerks working across the state. Each clerk is responsible for the election within their community.
At a virtual event hosted on Friday by Keep Our Republic — an organization that has spent four years trying to rebuild trust in the election system by explaining to skeptics exactly how the system works — former Wisconsin Congressman Reid Ribble said that if a person can’t trust politicians that the system is safe and secure, they should trust their local clerk and their friends and neighbors who volunteer as poll workers.
“Elections in Wisconsin are fair and safe and the 1,800 county and municipal clerks that are running those elections, and the thousands and thousands of local volunteers and poll workers, are working very hard to do their jobs in a non-partisan manner,” Ribble said. “I’ve often told friends of mine and other citizens … I get it if you don’t trust politicians. One person you should be able to trust is that — usually a senior citizen — poll worker at your local precinct that’s checking your ID and giving you a ballot and making sure that everything is done correctly. You often see these people at your grocery store. They might sit two or three rows in front of you at church and these are your friends. They’re your neighbors. They’re people that are concerned about defending democracy and seeing it unfold in front of their very eyes.”
Once polls close on Election Day and the votes are tallied, unofficial results get sent to county clerks, who report those preliminary numbers. It’s from those initial reports that media organizations use statistical processes to “call” races, declaring who has won. But the actual winners aren’t officially declared until the results are certified at multiple levels.
This multi-step process gives election experts another layer of assurance that despite continued conspiracy theories, Wisconsin’s system is resistant to meddling.
No one can be certain, but we in Wisconsin can be confident.
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 7:23, and sunset is 5:53, for 10 hours, 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 20.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1682, Philadelphia is founded in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Mary Spicuzza reports Early voting in Wisconsin sees 40% increase, election officials say:
Early voting in Wisconsin has increased by nearly 40% over 2020 as of Friday, Wisconsin elections officials said.
Early in-person absentee voting began Tuesday in the state, and as of Friday morning 292,702 people had voted, the Wisconsin Elections Commission said. That’s compared to 209,665 as of the morning of Friday, Oct. 23, 2020.
Nearly 1 million absentee ballots have been requested by Wisconsin voters and more than 715,000 ballots have already been returned to clerks, either by mail or by those voting in-person absentee, elections officials said.
Voters cast a total of some 640,100 absentee ballots in 2008, then 665,340 absentee ballots in 2012; 824,736 absentee ballots in 2016; and about 1.9 million absentee ballots in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Election officials said Friday that 921,832 total absentee ballots had requested so far for the 2024 election.
The type of early voting (prior to 11.5) may shift between absentee balloting and early in-person voting, especially as against a pandemic year. The trend toward voting before Election Day, however, so that Election Day becomes Election Days, is undeniable.
See also from FREE WHITEWATER Nearly 100,00 Ballots Cast on First Day of In-Person Early Voting.
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 7:22, and sunset is 5:54, for 10 hours, 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 28.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1818, Lewis Cass, governor of the Michigan Territory, declares the first counties in Wisconsin:
The counties included Michilimackinac (all areas drained by Lake Superior tributaries), Brown, and Crawford counties, which were separated through Portage. Michilimackinac County is now part of the state of Michigan. Governor Cass later became the Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson, as well as the Minister to France and a Michigan Senator. Cass, a Democrat, also ran for president in 1848, but lost to Whig Zachary Taylor due to factions within the Democratic Party and the formation of the Free Soil Party.
On this day in 1881, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday participate in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona.
Eric Hovde, a California livin’ man with a Utah bank, admitted at his debate with U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin that he’s not read up on the farm bill on which Wisconsin agriculture depends. See California Carpetbagger with an Utah Bank Doesn’t Bother to Read Farm Bill on Which Wisconsin Agriculture Relies.
Predictably, Hovde has a rationalization for his ignorance and sloth:
“Why in God’s green Earth would I know all the details in a farm bill when I’m not serving in this Senate right now?” he told reporters after he voted Tuesday.
A job applicant walks into an interview with a prospective employer, and the interviewer asks the applicant what he thinks the most important goal for the bank should be. The applicant replies, “I’m not employed by this bank yet, so I cannot opine on what might be a good next move. In fact, why in God’s green Earth would I know all the details in about this bank when I’m not yet employed?”
A question like this is conventional and predictable: it’s a test of what research about, and interest in, the bank the applicant has. It’s a test of enthusiasm and diligence. Of course the applicant can say he does not yet have all the details, but he or she should have some sense of what might matter from public sources.
(A candidate should have the ability to express the limitations on his knowledge in a language intelligible to other humans. English, for example, is a language with a large vocabulary for expressive possibilities beyond “I can’t opine specifically.”)
Previously at FREE WHITEWATER: California Carpetbagger with a Utah Bank Doesn’t Bother to Read Farm Bill on Which Wisconsin Agriculture Relies, Hovde & Baldwin, Hovde Spreads Lies About Hurricane Response (Of Course He Does), These Aren’t Subtle Men, Eric Hovde’s Banking Deal with a Cartel-Linked Mexican Bank, Hovde’s Evident, Ignorant Racism, Eric Hovde Treats Wisconsin as a Side Hustle, It’s Not Going So Well for Hovde, Eric Hovde Should Fire His Political Consultants and Hire a Therapist, Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run, and Another Vanity Candidate.
Kevin the Canadian Chihuahua Know the Best Season When It Comes Along:
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 64. Sunrise is 7:19, and sunset is 5:57, for 10 hours, 38 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent, with 48.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1946, a camera on board the V-2 No. 13 rocket takes the first photograph of earth from outer space.
Henry Redman reports Nearly 100k voters cast ballots on first day of early voting:
The first day of in-person early voting in Wisconsin saw 97,436 people cast ballots for the Nov. 5 election. So many people voted on Tuesday that it caused a slowdown of the state election software system, leading to long lines in some places.
The number of ballots cast on the opening day of early voting far surpassed other recent elections. In the 2022 midterm election, which had gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races on the ballot, 33,644 people cast ballots on the first day of early voting. In the 2020 presidential election 79,774 people showed up on the first day of early voting.
Despite Tuesday’s high turnout, the popularity of absentee voting in general still lags behind the 2020 presidential election when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many voters to vote remotely.
After more than four years of Republicans and Donald Trump attacking the voting system and making accusations that any voting methods other than going to the polls on Election Day are vulnerable to fraud, the GOP nonetheless encouraged Republicans this year to vote early.
Early voting in Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, Illinois and Georgia show lines outside polls:
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 7:18, and sunset is 5:59, for 10 hours, 40 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 57.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4 PM.
On this day in 1868, having taken the shogunate’s seat of power at Edo and declared it his new capital as Tokyo, Mutsuhito proclaims the start of the new Meiji era.
Anya Van Wagtendonk, Joe Schulz, and Evan Casey report Fight for control of state government runs through 3 Wisconsin Senate districts (‘Races for the 14th, 30th and 8th state Senate districts have been hotly contested’). They highlight three Senate districts: 14th District (Democrat Democrat Sarah Keyeski and Republican incumbent Joan Ballweg), 30th District (Democrat Jamie Wall and Republican Jim Rafter), and the 8th District (Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin and Republican incumbent Duey Stroebel). These races will not alone be enough to determine Wisconsin Senate control this year, but outcomes will suggest longer-term trends.
The story offers snapshots of each district:
[The 14th] district now encompasses all of Richland and Sauk counties and portions of several others, including Dane County, a Democratic stronghold. It includes the communities of Richland Center, Reedsburg, Baraboo, Spring Green, Sauk City, Lodi, Portage, Columbus and the Wisconsin Dells. Part of the district also dips into the city of Madison.
According to data compiled by Marquette University, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would have won the district by about 10 points in 2022, and President Joe Biden would have carried it by about 4 points in 2020.
….
Before redistricting, the 30th Senate District stretched north to Marinette, and favored Republicans. It’s been held by Sen. Eric Wimberger, R-Green Bay, since 2021, but this year, he’s running in the adjacent 2nd Senate District, a seat with a strong Republican lean.
In recent elections, the 30th District has leaned Democratic. In 2022, Evers would have carried it by about 7 points. Four years ago Biden would have won it by about 3.
….
Wisconsin’s 8th Senate District includes parts of Milwaukee County and also Waukesha, Washington, and Ozaukee Counties, also known as the WOW Counties. The area has historically been a Republican stronghold, but it’s been trending Democratic in recent years.
The test this fall is whether redrawn districts like these will lead to partisan changes.
How To Win A Nobel Prize: A three minute guide:
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 72. Sunrise is 7:13, and sunset is 6:05, for 10 hours, 51 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 93.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 202 BC, during the Second Punic War, Roman legions under Scipio Africanus defeat Hannibal Barca, leader of the army defending Carthage, at the Battle of Zama.
Eric Hovde, a fast-talking, strangely nasal carpetbagger from California wants to be a United States senator from Wisconsin but he’s been too busy to read up on the farm bill on which Wisconsin agriculture depends:
Post by @dsccView on Threads
He can’t opine? It’s a Wisconsin debate, with a predictable question, important to the state from which he is seeking federal office.
Bonus error: This California livin’ man, who wants to tout his local ties when he was in school here decades ago, isn’t aware that his Wisconsin-based and Wisconsin-focused opponent is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School:
Post by @american_bridgeView on Threads
It’s been many years, and thousands of miles, so Hovde may not even recall the location of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Filled as this bleeding-heart libertarian blogger is with love for all my fellow creatures, I’ll offer Mr. Hovde a map with directions from his California home to the University of Wisconsin Law School:
It’s 29 hours by car, but, ya know, a man whose “ocean view mansion is located in one of Laguna Beach’s most affluent and luxurious gated communities with California’s only private beach, a private fire department, and private yacht parking dock” can probably spring for a plane ticket, or even his own plane, truly.
Previously at FREE WHITEWATER: Hovde & Baldwin, Hovde Spreads Lies About Hurricane Response (Of Course He Does), These Aren’t Subtle Men, Eric Hovde’s Banking Deal with a Cartel-Linked Mexican Bank, Hovde’s Evident, Ignorant Racism, Eric Hovde Treats Wisconsin as a Side Hustle, It’s Not Going So Well for Hovde, Eric Hovde Should Fire His Political Consultants and Hire a Therapist, Tim Michels 2.0 Eric Hovde Announces U.S. Senate Run, and Another Vanity Candidate.
You’ve Never Seen Graffiti Like This Before:
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 7:12, and sunset is 6:06, for 10 hours, 54 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 98.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1867, the United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.
September was another good month for Wisconsin’s economy. Erik Gunn reports Wisconsin employment, jobs numbers stayed strong in September, state reports:
Unemployment in Wisconsin remained at a record-low rate in September while the number of jobs was still close to a record high, the state labor department reported Thursday.
The projected number of Wisconsinites employed in September topped 3,059,700 — a state record, according to the state Department of Workforce Development (DWD). The department reported that September was the fifth month in a row that the state employment number reached a new record high.
The unemployment rate for the month remained at 2.9%, according to DWD. Employment numbers are projections drawn from a federal survey of households.
We’ve reason to feel optimistic that this favorable, months-long trend will continue.
Rescued sea otters make their debut at the New York Aquarium:
