Good morning. 
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 18. Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:34 PM for 9h 08m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1957, the Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
The New York Times editorial board writes Every Day Is Jan. 6 Now:
It is regular citizens who threaten election officials and other public servants, who ask, “When can we use the guns?” and who vow to murder politicians who dare to vote their conscience. It is Republican lawmakers scrambling to make it harder for people to vote and easier to subvert their will if they do. It is Donald Trump who continues to stoke the flames of conflict with his rampant lies and limitless resentments and whose twisted version of reality still dominates one of the nation’s two major political parties.
In short, the Republic faces an existential threat from a movement that is openly contemptuous of democracy and has shown that it is willing to use violence to achieve its ends. No self-governing society can survive such a threat by denying that it exists. Rather, survival depends on looking back and forward at the same time.
….
Whatever happens in Washington, in the months and years to come, Americans of all stripes who value their self-government must mobilize at every level — not simply once every four years but today and tomorrow and the next day — to win elections and help protect the basic functions of democracy. If people who believe in conspiracy theories can win, so can those who live in the reality-based world.
Above all, we should stop underestimating the threat facing the country. Countless times over the past six years, up to and including the events of Jan. 6, Mr. Trump and his allies openly projected their intent to do something outrageous or illegal or destructive. Every time, the common response was that they weren’t serious or that they would never succeed. How many times will we have to be proved wrong before we take it seriously? The sooner we do, the sooner we might hope to salvage a democracy that is in grave danger.
Successful candidates for office in Whitewater take an oath to defend the constitution and laws of the United States. Some who have taken this oath and now hold office, and some who seek to hold office and would be required to take the oath, have and do support the forces of insurrection. For this ilk, they lied from the moment they recited the oath, or they will smilingly lie if they should one day take this oath.
No one in Whitewater dares ask them about their dishonesty. These candidates receive or will receive questions about a hundred smaller matters before a single plain question about the constitutional affirmation they are required to make.
At a candidates’ forum, the sponsoring representatives will dare not ask plainly and specifically about this oath to the constitutional order that each and every officeholder must take. If by some accident they were to ask about the oath, they will do so in a way that allows candidates’ evasion, and there will be no follow-up.
Local office that is built upon mendacity in’t public service — it’s mere self-service.
[…] also The Dishonesty of Whitewater’s Local Politics (“Successful candidates for office in Whitewater take an oath to defend the constitution and […]