Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 35. Sunrise is 7:22 and sunset is 4:47, for 9 hours, 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1945, Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
Whitewater has geese at Cravath, but not far away by the Great Lakes one can find large numbers and varieties of gulls.
Blue Origin launched its massive new rocket on its first test flight Thursday, sending up a prototype satellite to orbit thousands of miles above Earth. [While the rocket reached orbit to launch a satellite, the first-stage booster missed its landing on a barge in the Atlantic. See Marcia Dunn, New Glenn rocket reaches orbit on first test flight, Associated Press, January 16, 2025.]
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 20. Sunrise is 7:22 and sunset is 4:46, for 9 hours, 24 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 96 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1967, the first Super Bowl is played in Los Angeles. The Packers defeat the Chiefs 35–10.
It is from our daughter-in-law in Seattle that we first learned the term The Big Dark for winter at that high latitude. These months, in the Pacific Northwest and Wisconsin, bring less daylight, more nighttime. The Big Dark.
The term has other uses. All of us, politically, are now in a big dark: while one can dimly see the terrain, there’s not enough light to be confident when placing each and every footstep. Predicting any given step, any given day, always has some uncertainty. It has greater uncertainty now, as unpredictability is among the characteristics of the populism that holds sway.
A story in the Journal Sentinel about prospective Wisconsin 2026 gubernatorial candidates might make sense in ordinary times, as statewide campaigns have to fundraise long in advance of election day. See Molly Beck and Lawrence Andrea, Republican challengers start to line up as Gov. Tony Evers considers 2026 run for 3rd term, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 14, 2025. In these times, the story is of limited use to anyone other than campaign teams.
Who’s running in 2026 matters far less than what happens, and who’s running, in 2025. It’s better to turn away from next year’s possibilities and list in this year one’s principles, all the better to meet challenges and threats far closer than next year’s candidates.
Overused but never more useful: first things first. Far too soon for 2026.
The Dakar Rally, an annual rally raid organized by the Amaury Sport Organization, is currently happening in Saudi Arabia. AP photographer, Christophe Ena, offers a behind-the-scenes look into how he captures the off-road motorsport event, frame-by-frame.
Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy & windy with a high of 34. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset is 4:43, for 9 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
But [Waukesha County Circuit Court judge and Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate] Schimel suggested there are other perks to being a judge than having your own potty.
“You set your own hours,” Schimel said. “I set the hours. Certainly, I’ve got to get my cases done, but I can decide — you know what? — if I want to do golf on Thursday afternoon, I can do that.”
The same, Schimel said, is not true for lawyers, who have to show up in court when told to do so. He said he doesn’t misuse that power. And, he said, there are times he’s had to work “all day and into the evening.”
But that appears to be the exception.
“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.”
Friday in Whitewater will be snowy & cloudy with a high of 29. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset is 4:40, for 9 hours, 16 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 86.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 2 PM.
On this day in 1776, Thomas Paine publishes his pamphlet Common Sense.
Yesterday, I posted on the statewide race for Superintendent of Public Instruction, and mentioned local races that were contested. One Wisconsin election, however, is sure to attract attention far beyond the Badger State:
About $5 million has already been raised by two judges vying to be the next justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, with Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, the candidate backed by Democrats, claiming she’s outraised former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel by $600,000.
While detailed reports aren’t due until Jan. 15, both candidates released fundraising totals Wednesday covering a period ending Dec. 31.
Schimel’s campaign said it raised $1.5 million between July 1 and Dec. 31, and a grand total of $2.2 million since he got into the race in November 2023.
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Crawford’s campaign said she raised $2.8 million since entering the race in June 2024, seven months after Schimel. During the July to December reporting period, Crawford’s campaign said it raised more than $2.4 million from donors in 71 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties and ended the period with $2.1 million in the bank.
There’s Wisconsin’s big contest for 2025, with only few other high-profile elections nationally (notably, gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia). Our Wisconsin Supreme Court election will receive attention, and money, from across America.
The 2023 election spending between Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewicz and former Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly was well over $50 million, and it’s a comfortable guess that this race will top that figure.
Employers added 256,000 workers last month, surpassing economist expectations of 155,000 jobs added, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on Friday showed.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 27. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset is 4:39, for 9 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM.
Statewide, there will be a February primary election for Wisconsin’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. In this statewide race, it’s not merely contested but contested in a way that requires a primary election:
Three candidates have filed nomination papers for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, which means there will be a primary election next month for Wisconsin’s top education post.
State Superintendent Jill Underly has two challengers: Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright, and Brittany Kinser, a former special education teacher and reading advocate.
The primary will be held Feb. 18 with the top two candidates facing each other in the nonpartisan election on April 1.
Locally, we’ll have, it seems, contested races for the Whitewater Unified School District Board and one of our city’s assembly districts before the voters in April. That’s all to the good: voters will be able to see differences between candidates.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:25 and sunset is 4:30, for 9 hours, 5 minutes of daytime. The moon is new with 0.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1853, with the Gadsden Purchase, the United States agrees to buy land from Mexico to facilitate railroad building in the Southwest.
Step into the town of Gleason, Wisconsin, where the serene beauty of rural life meets the exhilarating world of dog sledding. Join us as we follow Melissa Omernick, a passionate musher whose love for the sport and her beloved sled dogs is truly infectious.
The famous Times Square Ball drop in New York City officially signaled the start of 2021, ending a year fraught with the pandemic and social turmoil in America and around the world.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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 (seeThe 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.”
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.
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.
AT&T plans to discontinue its traditional landline telephone service in Wisconsin and most states in its service area by the end of 2029.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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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. ↩︎
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.”
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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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.”
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.
