FREE WHITEWATER

Daily Bread for 2.28.21

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 44.  Sunrise is 6:29 AM and sunset 5:44 PM, for 11h 14m 13s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1935, DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invents nylon.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Ashley Luthern and Gina Barton report How a rape case exposed a tangled web of dysfunction in Milwaukee (Part 1):

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel does not publish the names of people who report being sexually assaulted unless they agree. In this case, the woman did not. In a lawsuit filed against the Police Department and the city last year, she used the pseudonym Jane Doe.

In 2019, Doe reported to police that Haywood, a prominent real estate developer, had raped and possibly drugged her. He denies wrongdoing and has not been arrested or charged; her allegations remain under investigation by law enforcement and prosecutors.

Doe’s lawsuit, which argued that the Milwaukee Police Department violated her rights as a crime victim by repeatedly failing to notify her about important developments in the investigation, was settled earlier this year. As a result, the state Department of Justice has taken over the case. The settlement also creates a legal pathway for crime victims throughout Wisconsin to ensure their rights are protected.

On the surface, there appear to be several reasons why Doe’s case stalled, including the five years she waited to report the incident to police.

But a Journal Sentinel investigation uncovered problems that go far beyond a mishandled rape allegation — problems that affect the lives of Milwaukee residents who have nothing to do with Doe’s case.

The man Doe accused is influential, the beneficiary of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded city loans for development projects. One of his attorneys was a member of the powerful Fire and Police Commission, which has the final say on which police officers should be promoted and disciplined — including those in charge of investigating Doe’s case. The conflict of interest sparked infighting among commissioners and public officials that has upended Milwaukee’s search for a new police chief.

See also Parts 2, 3, and 4.

 Justin Baragona reports South Dakota AG May Have Been Reading Right-Wing Biden Conspiracies While Killing Man With His Car:

South Dakota Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg acknowledged during his interviews with police investigators last year that he was reading political articles—including a conspiracy theory-laden piece about Joe Biden—on his phone just before he struck and killed a pedestrian with his car.

Ravnsborg is currently facing three misdemeanor charges, calls from Gov. Kristi Noem to resign, and impeachment proceedings for killing 55-year-old Joseph Boever on the side of a highway last year.

….

“At 10:20:49, you were on the Dakota Free Press site,” one investigator told the attorney general, in a clip first flagged by Media Matters research fellow Timothy Johnson. “These are all on your work phone. A minute later, you were on the RealClearPolitics website.”

“And then, about a minute later, this article was pulled up through the Just The News,” the interrogator continued, referencing the site founded by pro-Trump columnist John Solomon.

The investigator, meanwhile, went on to note that the article in question was “about Joe Biden and something to do with China” and that Ravnsborg was on that link up to a minute before the accident, further asking the attorney general if he remembered reading this while driving.

How Books Are Handmade at the Last Printing Press of Its Kind in the US:

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