Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:51 and sunset is 4:28 for 9 hours 38 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 5 PM and the Whitewater Common Council at 6 PM.
On this day in 1872, Susan B. Anthony and 14 other women are arrested for voting illegally in the United States presidential election of 1872.
There’s a telling passage in Andrew Shur’s recent story on WISGOP infighting over Wisconsin election reforms:
A Republican lawmaker’s plan to regulate drop boxes and give Wisconsin’s clerks more time to process absentee ballots ran into obstacles last week, including skepticism from fellow Republicans and a rival GOP bill to ban drop boxes entirely.
The cool reception for Rep. Scott Krug’s ideas, especially to let clerks process ballots on the Monday before an election, underscores the GOP’s persistent internal divide over election policy in Wisconsin, with advocates of reforms long sought by election officials of both parties running into distrust fueled by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Last week, the resistance appeared strong enough to stall or complicate efforts by Republicans who aim to address clerks’ needs and craft workable policy that can gain Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ support.
That split was on full display at a Nov. 4 hearing of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, chaired by Rep. Dave Maxey, R-New Berlin…
Krug, a former committee chair who championed the draft bill to regulate drop boxes, argued that his colleagues should adopt a “reality-based” mindset with their approach to drop boxes. Liberals, he said, control the governor’s office, making it all but certain that GOP Rep. Lindee Brill’s bill to ban drop boxes would get vetoed by Evers.
To that, Brill responded: “I am a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ, so do I think there’s a chance that (Evers) would change his mind and sign this into law? Sure. But I’m taking this on because our Republican president believes this is the direction we should be heading.”
See Andrew Shur, Wisconsin election reforms sought by clerks are stalled by GOP infighting, Wisconsin Watch, November 14, 2025.
Under Rep. Lindee Brill’s assessment, Tony Evers might change his mind (implicitly through divine inspiration), whereas there’s no corresponding possibility that Donald Trump might change his mind. The implication is either that Trump already occupies God’s position on absentee voting or that Trump’s understanding of voting equals—or exceeds—God’s. In any event, the asymmetry is striking.
It feels strange to have to write this, but one cannot sensibly discern God’s position on absentee voting. The safest — and soundest — theological conclusion is that God, as understood by major religious traditions, has no position on absentee voting.
Brill’s entitled to her view, and while it’s not theologically sound, it’s telling: hers is politics first and a theology second. Extreme populism leads to the place where Brill’s thinking now holds sway — where religious concepts are subordinated to a political project.
See also Of David French, Traditions, and Examples.
In another part of the word, during a different kind of search, a Guardian journalist is chased by bloodhounds in a fox hunting alternative: