Good morning. 
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:25 PM for 9h 01m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 83.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, the transistor is first demonstrated at Bell Laboratories.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel‘s editoral board writes Democracy is at risk from repeated Republican lying about the 2020 election. You can stop this nonsense:
Voting is the beating heart of democracy, the way we claim control of this government of the people. But in Wisconsin, an infection in the bloodstream of the body politic is threatening our ability to be self-governing.
Donald Trump’s repeated lies about the 2020 election over the past year have put our democracy at grave risk, but he has not done this alone. His enablers, from U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, have refused to stand up to a dangerous man.
If they won’t do their duty, then citizens must: Tell Johnson, Vos and the rest to stop undermining confidence in Wisconsin elections.
Here are the facts. Donald Trump lost the popular vote in Wisconsin by about 20,600 votes; he lost nationally by 7 million. Recounts in Milwaukee and Dane counties last year confirmed that he lost. Courts repeatedly threw out ludicrous challenges by Trump backers.
A legislative audit found nothing that would call the results into question.
A conservative group found no widespread fraud.
And an Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states that the former president complained about found fewer than 475 votes in dispute. Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin; the disputed ballots represent just 0.15% of his margin in those states.
In other words, there was no steal and nothing to investigate. Just lies.
But the Republican sycophants in Wisconsin insist on appeasing Trump.
After Trump hectored him last summer for not doing enough to investigate and spread the former president’s lies, Vos launched a partisan review with former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman at the helm. Gableman bungled it, choosing to talk to more conspiracy theorists than election experts. His work has been an embarrassment to the state, even to many Republicans.
In November, Johnson literally called for the takeover of federal elections by the partisans in the Wisconsin Legislature. In other words, his own party. Johnson said local officials should ignore the bipartisan Elections Commission that his own party set up six years ago.
The stench of racism permeates much of this, especially efforts by Republicans to clamp down on access to voting. People of color are likely to be most affected.
But the lying also corrodes trust in the most basic act of democracy.
The WISGOP can stop this, but it won’t. We are late in the day, and a faction that has become addicted to lies shows no sign of seeking detoxification.
London’s ‘Big Ben’ clock face fully visible again to ring in the New Year: