Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:40, and sunset is 6:54, for 12 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous, with 91.0 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2011, the United States military ends its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, allowing gay men and women to serve openly for the first time.
Eric Hovde’s banking deal with a troubled Mexican bank is in the news. Dan Bice of the Journal Sentinelwrites:
Banco Azteca, the 10th largest financial institution in Mexico, has had its share of problems in recent years.
But Sunwest Bank, the Utah-based financial institution run by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde, doesn’t mind doing business with it.
In December, Banco Azteca sent $26.2 million in cash to Sunwest on four airplane flights as part of a massive currency conversion called “repatriation,” records show. Hovde, who is running against Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, is chairman and CEO of Sunwest.
Oh, brother: nothing says Wisconsinite like a California-livin’ CEO of a Utah bank making deals with a cartel-linked Mexican bank.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 85. Sunrise is 6:36, and sunset is 7:02, for 12h 26m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 90.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, the Ho-Chunk and the United States sign a treaty stipulating that the Ho-Chunk cede lands lying to the south and east of the Wisconsin River and around the Fox River of Green Bay. (More than one nation was involved in these treaty councils with the United States in 1832: “with the Ho-Chunk (Sept. 15) and the Sauk and Fox (Sept. 21). The Ho-Chunk ceded all their remaining territory south of the Wisconsin River; the Sauk & Fox ceded the Iowa shore of the Mississippi.”)
On this day in 1835, HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, reaches the Galápagos Islands. The ship lands at Chatham or San Cristobal, the easternmost of the archipelago.
From local clerks to state Supreme Court justices, elected officials in Wisconsin are being threatened and harassed — in person and online — fueled by tense political rhetoric and conspiracy theories.
A man convicted of assaulting a 14-month-old child was seen on surveillance fleeing a #courthouse in #Maine. He later appears to trip and fall in a yard where two jurors and a detective apprehend him.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 82. Sunrise is 6:34, and sunset is 7:06, for 12h 32m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1956, the IBM 305 RAMAC is introduced, the first commercial computer to use disk storage.
By Norsk Teknisk Museum – https://digitaltmuseum.org/011015239966/22-0-ibm-modell-305-ramac/media?slide=0, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=124744659
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday said it would hear a lawsuit that could determine whether the state’s top elections official could remain in her post after Republicans who controlled the state Senate sought to fire her last year.
….
Meagan Wolfe serves as the nonpartisan administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, an agency run by a bipartisan board that oversees elections in the key presidential battleground state. Republicans unhappy with her, especially after the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden, have attempted to oust her from her job.
Wolfe has been the subject of conspiracy theories and targeted by threats from election skeptics who falsely claim she was part of a plot to rig the 2020 vote in favor of Biden. Biden defeated Donald Trump in 2020 by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin, and his win has withstood two partial recounts, a nonpartisan audit, a conservative law firm’s review, and multiple state and federal lawsuits.
….
Senate Republicans voted in September 2023 to fire Wolfe, despite objections from Democrats and the Legislature’s nonpartisan attorneys, who said the Senate didn’t have the authority to vote at that time because Wolfe was a holdover in her position and had not been reappointed.
Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul sued to challenge that vote, and in court filings, Republican legislative leaders changed course and claimed their vote to fire Wolfe was merely “symbolic” and had no legal effect. They also asked the judge to order the elections commission to appoint an administrator for the Senate to vote on.
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Ann Peacock, in a January ruling, said Wolfe is legally serving as administrator of the elections commission as a holdover given that the commission deadlocked on whether to reappoint her. The Senate’s vote to remove her had no legal effect and the commission has no duty to appoint a new leader while Wolfe is serving as a holdover, Peacock ruled.
Republican leaders of the Legislature appealed and asked the state Supreme Court to take the case directly, skipping a state appeals court, which it agreed to do on Wednesday.
It’s astonishing how many repercussions and lawsuits Wisconsin has endured from election conspiracists.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 6:32, and sunset is 7:08, for 12h 35m 19s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 64 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
One of two election law cases before the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday reveals the extremism of election conspiracy theorists. Of that case (Wisconsin Voter Alliance v. Secord) and one other, Henry Redman reports in Wisconsin Supreme Court hears arguments in two election cases:
The first case involves a right-wing election conspiracy group, Wisconsin Voter Alliance, which has spent years casting doubt on the results of the 2020 election by alleging fraud in the state’s election system. The group, founded by conspiracy theorist Ron Heuer, has been filing records requests with counties across the state seeking documents showing the identities of people in Wisconsin who have been declared incompetent by a judge and had their right to vote taken away.
….
The Wisconsin Voter Alliance has asked for the names and addresses of people who have been declared incompetent in guardianship cases so the group can compare that list with the voter rolls in the statewide voter registration database and find any people who have been voting despite having the right to do so taken away. County officials across the state have been denying these requests because state law requires that any court records in these cases “pertinent” to the declaration of incompetency be kept secret.
Open access to public records is a right, and a significant one, but not unlimited. Here, a private party wants to conduct its own examination, but as Redman reports the argument from Walworth County’s counsel, there is already a lawful public process to investigate people declared incompetent from voting:
Samuel Hall, the attorney representing Walworth County, argued the law requires that these records be kept confidential.
“Now the purpose behind the request and who the requesters are, as noble as they may be, are irrelevant under Wisconsin public records law,” Hall said. “The truth of the matter is that the District 2 Court of Appeals decision blasts open the door for the personal information of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities to be broadcast, not only to those with noble and good intentions, but to those who might do these folks harm or seek to defraud them.”
He added that to the extent that there is an interest in conducting oversight of this government function — in which the court system is required to make local election clerks aware of decisions so the clerks can update voting records — there are plenty of avenues to do so without a private citizen or organization getting access to information state law deems confidential.
“To the extent that there’s a desire to have oversight or a watchdog, per se, it doesn’t need to be done by a private individual or a private organization. Voting when ineligible to do so is a class I felony,” Hall said. “If there is a concern that that is going on, reporting it to law enforcement, reporting it to a local sheriff, could lead to a criminal investigation. We have a legislative process where even, you know, the Assembly or Senate could conduct inquiries, or the Wisconsin Elections Commission itself could conduct inquiries. None of that has happened here. This is a private organization seeking personal information of court documents that the Legislature has already deemed closed.”
That’s spot on: a private party’s right to review incompetency records has already been decided by the Legislature. (That this private party would very much like to see these records doesn’t matter; it’s law not private feeling that should govern here.)
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 6:30, and sunset is 7:11, for 12h 41m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 43.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM, and her Community Involvement and Cable TV Commission also meets at 5 PM.
On this day in 1846, Elias Howe is granted a patent for the sewing machine.
Though Democrats face a formidable U.S. Senate map in 2024, they’re currently ahead in three key races.
In CBS News’ first poll of the race for Michigan’s open Senate seat, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin is leading former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers by seven points. Meanwhile, Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin are ahead in their reelection bids by seven points and eight points, respectively.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 6:23, and sunset is 7:24, for 13h 00m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1783, the American Revolutionary War ends with the signing of the Treaty of Paris by the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain (ratification being later completed in 1784).
After a summer of historic tumult, the path to the presidency for both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump this fall is becoming much clearer.
The Democratic vice president and the Republican former president will devote almost all of their remaining time and resources to just seven states [story highlights Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada]. They will spend hundreds of millions of dollars targeting voters who, in many cases, have just begun to pay attention to the election. And their campaigns will try to focus their messages on three familiar issues — the economy, immigration and abortion — even in the midst of heated debates over character, culture and democracy.
The candidates will debate in one week in what will be their first meeting ever. The nation’s premier swing state, Pennsylvania, begins in-person absentee voting the week after. By the end of the month, early voting will be underway in at least four states with a dozen more to follow by mid-October.
Wisconsin is again, as she’s has been for over a dozen years, among the most intense of political battlegrounds.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:22, and sunset is 7:25, for 13h 03m 42s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signs the Instrument of Surrender on behalf of the Japanese Government on board the USS Missouri (BB-63) on 2 September 1945. Lieutenant General Richard K. Sutherland, U.S. Army, watches from the opposite side of the table. Foreign Ministry representative Toshikazu Kase is assisting Mr. Shigemitsu. Photograph from the Army Signal Corps Collection in the U.S. National Archives. By Army Signal Corps photographer LT. Stephen E. Korpanty; restored by Adam Cuerden – Naval Historical Center Photo # SC 213700, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93758525
Wisconsin workers’ wages are up and the racial and gender gaps they face are smaller, says a new Labor Day report. But the gaps haven’t been eliminated and challenges such as the scarcity and cost of child care continue to keep some in the state who want jobs from joining the workforce.
Those and other trends are mapped in the 2024 edition of The State of Working Wisconsin, released just before the Labor Day weekend by the High Road Strategy Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The Working Wisconsin report examines the economy from the vantage point of how it affects workers. It is issued annually by the center, a nonprofit that researches and promotes solutions to social problems that focus on “shared growth and opportunity, environmental sustainability, and resilient democratic institutions as necessary and achievable complements in human development.”
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:18, and sunset is 7:31, for 13h 12m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 11.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments fought in the Second Battle of Bull Run. By the end of this third day, more than 18,000 soldiers had been killed or wounded and Union forces had been pushed back to Washington, D.C. When the Wisconsin regiments arrived in Washington, they rested on the White House lawn. According to historian Frank Klement, “President Lincoln came out with a pail of water in one hand and a dipper in the other. He moved among the men, offering water to the tired and thirsty. Some Wisconsin soldiers drank from the common dipper and thanked the President for his kindness.”
Setting up a vintage typewriter in public spaces throughout Milwaukee, poet and performance artist Anja Notanja Sieger crafts custom poems on demand that create intimate connections with her audience. From anxious poems to marriage vows, Sieger’s spontaneous creativity has made her and her typewriter poetry beloved in the city’s cultural scene.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 83. Sunrise is 6:16, and sunset is 7:34, for 13h 17m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4:30 PM, and the Finance Committee meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1830, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad‘s new Tom Thumb steam locomotive races a horse-drawn car, presaging steam’s role in U.S. railroads.
Screenshot: RFK Jr. explains that whole dead bear cub incident Screenshot: Stein impersonates a homegrown candidate in campaign video
And look, and look: in an alternative history of our time, there might have been a legitimate Green Party candidate fighting for environmental issues, etc. That’s not Jill Stein. She is Putin’s catspaw: easily a fellow traveler, if not a fifth columnist. Her presence on the ballot serves only to siphon votes from the Democratic candidate. In this way, the right judicial decision (to keep her on the ballot) turns out to be the wrong political decision (Stein’s candidacy serves only those at home and abroad who would weaken American liberal democracy).
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 94. Sunrise is 6:15, and sunset is 7:36, for 13h 23m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 37.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1832, Black Hawk, leader of the Sauk tribe of Native Americans, surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.
The idea for this invention began at Kleinsteuber’s Machine Shop in Milwaukee in the late 1860s. A mechanical engineer by training, Sholes, along with associates Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soulé, spent hours tinkering with the idea. They mounted the key of an old telegraph instrument on a base and tapped down on it to hit carbon & paper against a glass plate. This idea was simple, but in 1868 the mere idea that type striking against paper might produce an image was a novelty. Sholes proceeded to construct a machine to reproduce the entire alphabet. The prototype was sent to Washington as the required Patent Model. This original model still exists at the Smithsonian. Investor James Densmore provided the marketing impetus that eventually brought the machine to the Remington Arms Company. Although Remington mass-marketed his typewriter beginning in 1874, it was not an instant success. A few years later, improvements made by Remington engineers gave the machine its market appeal and sales skyrocketed. [Source: Wisconsin Lore and Legends, p.41]
Last week, advocates for the Green Party expressed alarm that the Wisconsin Supreme Court asked that political party to file briefs in a lawsuit from the Wisconsin Democrats aimed at keeping the Greens off the November ballot. Wisconsin’s high court gave the Greens a tight deadline, leading the party to contend it was being treated unfairly.
Yesterday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed the suit aimed at keeping the Greens off the ballot. The Greens misunderstood the purpose of the tight deadline to file briefs. Henry Redman reports that
The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit from the Democratic National Committee challenging Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s placement on the ballot in November.
With just one day before the Wisconsin Elections Commission decides which candidates will be allowed on the ballot this fall, the Court moved quickly in the case, asking parties late last week to file briefs in response to the Democrats’ petition to the Court before the Green Party of Wisconsin even had a lawyer.
The Democrats had previously filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) against the Green Party’s candidate for president, Jill Stein, alleging she should not be placed on the state’s presidential ballot because the Green Party of Wisconsin does not have official state officers who can serve as presidential electors.
The WEC denied the Democrats’ complaint on a technicality, prompting the party to bring the lawsuit to the Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, the WEC voted to allow the Green Party onto the ballot because it got at least 1% of the vote in a statewide election in 2022.
(Emphasis added.)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court set an accelerated briefing deadline not to burden the Greens but to dispose of the complaint against them before the Elections Commission meeting.
Admittedly, there’s something laughable about an established political party (Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has been running for president, while simping for Putin, for years) whose Wisconsin Party officials whine that
According to Michael J. White, co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party, his party had no legal representation in Wisconsin when he was notified of the court order.
“That just strikes me as a little bit unreasonable,” he told WPR on Thursday afternoon.
Pete Karas, the state Green Party’s elections chair, said they found a lawyer “around midnight” after “a zillion phone calls.” That lawyer is Milwaukee-area attorney Michael Dean.
The next morning, the party sent out a mass email to its followers asking for donations.
“Lawyers are expensive, and we need your help today to ensure we can pay for these much-needed legal fees,” the mailer said.
Funny that the Green Party didn’t have a Wisconsin lawyer beforehand. One would have expected a better level of preparation from a 2024 vote-siphoning operation.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 92. Sunrise is 6:14, and sunset is 7:37, for 13h 23m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 48.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1920, the 19th Amendment to United States Constitution takes effect, giving women the right to vote.
Space is littered with man-made trash that threatens satellites, space missions and life on Earth. A newly designed European Space Agency robot will drag the junk back toward Earth, where it will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere or drop into the ocean.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 76. Sunrise is 6:10, and sunset is 7:44, for 13h 34m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1902, Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to make a public appearance in an automobile.
On this day in 1920, native Milwaukee runner Arlie Schardt won a gold medal in the 3,000-meter team race at the Olympic Games in Antwerp, Belgium. Schardt was part of a three-man team that included Hal Brown and Ivan Dresser.
These stories aren’t equally useful, and it’s easy to see why. Gilbert wants to highlight continued decline of Democrats in rural counties, but the story head doesn’t match the story itself:
The Democratic Party’s geographic foothold has shrunk in Wisconsin, amid a plunge in support among rural voters in the central, western and northern counties.
The new election map has a lot less “blue” than the old one.
That hasn’t stopped Democrats from winning big elections, which it has done with regularity in the Trump era. Winning statewide races is not about winning the most counties or the greatest acreage, but the most votes.
(Emphasis added.)
Those areas where one finds the most votes are also where most people live, and where legislative districts are situated by population. The headline says trouble (Democrats have to ‘grapple’) but results in statewide race after statewide race say otherwise.
The decline among Democrats in low-population areas is offset by gains among Democrats in areas of high population. Bruce Thompson writes:
The Milwaukee area is following the national trend in which close-in suburbs become increasingly Democratic, while more rural areas become more Republican. Though there are many theories on what is driving this trend, it still remains something of a mystery. But clearly the trend is changing two of the three WOW counties.
The increasingly blue Milwaukee area has a greater population than the rural counties that Gilbert over-emphasizes.
Two analyses, Gilbert’s and Thompson’s, but only the latter presents the key trends perceptively all the way through from head to tail.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 6:09, and sunset is 7:45, for 13h 36m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.
NASA’s Cold Atom Lab studies the quantum nature of atoms, the building blocks of our universe, in a place that is out of this world – the International Space Station. This animated explainer explores what quantum science is and why NASA wants to do it in space. Quantum science has revolutionized our understanding of the physical world and led to new technologies including cellphones, computers, medical devices, and GPS. However, Earth’s gravity poses challenges for studying the quantum behaviors of atoms. To overcome those challenges, Cold Atom Lab operates in microgravity. Using lasers and magnetic fields, scientists run the lab remotely from Earth, cooling groups of atoms to temperatures colder than any naturally occurring matter in the universe. Cold atoms, nearly motionless, reveal their behaviors more clearly. The absence of Earth’s gravity allows for prolonged atom study, opening new avenues in quantum exploration.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:06, and sunset is 7:50, for 13h 44m 40s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
UW-La Crosse political science professor Anthony Chergosky considers the rejection of two proposed state constitutional amendments and outcomes of two congressional races in the 2024 partisan primary.
