Good morning. 
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise is 7:12 AM and sunset 5:02 PM, for 9h 50m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 11.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the one thousand one hundred seventy-sixth day.
Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission meets at 5 PM, and the city’s Finance Committee meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger breaks apart 73 seconds into its tenth mission, STS-51-L, resulting in the death of all seven crew members.
Recommended for reading in full —
Patrick Marley reports Lobbyists and lawmakers barred from sitting on Gov. Evers’ redistricting commission:
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed an executive order Monday to establish a redistricting commission that excludes political party officials, lobbyists and lawmakers.
He took that step as GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos left open the possibility he would require lawmakers to sign secrecy pledges as part of the redistricting process he will use, just as Republican leaders did the last time they drew maps.
At a Capitol news conference, Evers said the current maps are so pro-Republican that lawmakers feel they can ignore issues that polls have shown to be overwhelmingly popular, such as medical marijuana and universal background checks for gun purchases.
“Elected officials can ignore those numbers and say, ‘Go jump in a lake’ — something’s wrong,” Evers said.
The move is part of Evers’ long-running effort to draw new legislative and congressional districts without concern for partisan advantage. Vos, of Rochester, scoffed at the notion that the commission would come up with truly nonpartisan maps and said Republicans who control the Legislature will draw their own.
(Emphasis added.)
Jennifer Rubin writes Trump’s defense is irrelevant. Only Bolton matters now:
President Trump’s defense attorneys offered some truly bizarre arguments on Monday. Ken Starr, who played the role of Inspector Javert in the Bill Clinton impeachment, whined that impeachment has become too common. No, really. He said that. Meanwhile, attorney Jane Raskin said Rudolph Giuliani was not looking for dirt on former vice president Joe Biden, even though Giuliani in multiple TV interviews said he was, and many of the 17 witnesses called by the House said he was running point on the operation.
Mostly, Monday’s argument came across as tired and utterly irrelevant. What matters now is whether former national security adviser John Bolton and other witnesses will now testify, blowing Trump’s defense to smithereens. As of this writing, Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) have said the Bolton bombshell has underscored the need for witnesses.
Bolton’s book is coming out in March, so the facts will be known whether they come out in the trial or not. Trying to prevent Bolton testimony now would be a confession of Republicans’ spinelessness and would be futile to boot. The facts cannot be hidden any longer.
Trying to raise executive privilege claims to prevent Bolton from testifying was already a stretch. The privilege cannot be used to cover up wrongdoing. And asserting it got a whole lot harder in the past 24 hours, thanks to Trump’s decision to publicly tweet about conversations with Bolton, and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s written statement about what he heard Bolton say.