Good morning. 
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-one. Sunrise is 7:10 AM and sunset 4:20 PM, for 9h 10m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the one thousand one hundred twenty-second day.
On this day in 1848, President Polk, in an address to Congress, confirms the discovery of gold in California.
Recommended for reading in full:
Katelyn Ferral reports Wisconsin National Guard’s response to sexual-assault allegations ‘an absolute train wreck,’ federal investigator says:
The investigator, who made the comment while interviewing the victim in the case, said that the state’s attempt to prosecute a soldier for sexual assault through its military justice process was “not the only case that was a train wreck in the Wisconsin National Guard,” according to an audio recording of the interview obtained by the Cap Times.
“The governor and Senator (Tammy) Baldwin will know that your case was a train wreck … they will know that one or more members of the Wisconsin National Guard completely f—– up,” the investigator said.
The comments offer a rare glimpse behind a seven-month long investigation into whether Wisconsin’s National Guard — which includes Army and Air Force units with about 10,000 total members — adequately investigates allegations of sexual assault and whether it follows federal regulations on how to treat victims and perpetrators.
The Wisconsin National Guard, led by longtime Adjutant General Donald Dunbar, has been under scrutiny for months with one of its own internal reports detailing a “culture of sexual misconduct” in one Army unit, and an Air Force officer who says he continues to face retribution for reporting numerous allegations of sexual assault in units there.
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The botched court martial discussed in the audio recording came after a sexual assault at a Guard-sponsored party in 2015. After a night of Guard-authorized drinking, soldiers were required to spend the night in their unit’s armory, according to sworn statements of those present. As they slept on the floor, one soldier sexually assaulted another by placing his finger and tongue in her vaginal area and groping her, according to the charge sheet in the case. Other soldiers in the room at the time said they heard the victim say “no” several times, according to their sworn statements obtained by the Cap Times.
The alleged perpetrator was later charged with four sexual assault violations of the Wisconsin Code of Military Justice, which governs military judicial proceedings in the state.
The state’s military prosecutor missed several administrative deadlines and eventually failed to advance the case. The state then tried to re-open the court martial and eventually settled the case by offering the alleged perpetrator a plea deal. The soldier pled guilty to one charge of “indecent conduct” in August. It is a charge levied by the state for having consensual sex with the victim rather than assaulting her.