Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 76. Sunrise is 5:15 and sunset is 8:34, for 15 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 94.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1983, Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passes beyond the orbit of Neptune.
Yet again, WISGOP legislators reject funding additional court security:
Republican state lawmakers have rejected a plan that would have created a new security force for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, arguing other police who protect the state Capitol can handle the job on their own.
The decision marks the second session in a row the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee has declined the court’s request for added security, despite warnings that threats against judges are on the rise.
The latest request was endorsed by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, whose budget would have spent around $1 million annually to create a security force known as the Office of the Marshals of the Supreme Court. The office would have been staffed by 10 people, including eight law enforcement officers with statewide jurisdiction.
….
The Wisconsin Supreme Court tracks “credible, identified threats” against judges, according to a summary of the issue by the Legislature’s nonpartisan budget office. There were 30 such incidents in 2022, 46 in 2023 and 29 in 2024.
But there were 22 such incidents in just the first three months of this year, according to the court — a period of time that coincided with judges nationwide coming under a spotlight as they blocked major executive orders by President Donald Trump.
See Shawn Johnson, Republicans reject funding for Wisconsin Supreme Court security (‘The court has been asking for extra security with threats against judges on the rise’), Wisconsin Public Radio, June 11, 2025.
The WISGOP knows precisely what it’s doing. A threatened Wisconsin judiciary is a vulnerable judiciary; judicial vulnerability serves right-wing interests.
Mission Impossible: Raccoon Edition: