Dodgers pitcher Tony Gonsolin wears cat-themed cleats during start. The Brewers need to jump on this, pronto. (Less wall-punching, more cats.)
Tony Gonsolin’s cleats are next-gen. pic.twitter.com/EHLHJzEOL9
— Chance Glasco (@ChanceGlasco) October 1, 2021
Good morning. 
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 85. Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 6:36 PM for 11h 44m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 36.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1947, 1947 World Series (Yankees v. Brooklyn Dodgers, with Yankees in 7) begins. It is the first to be televised, to include an African-American player, to exceed $2 million in receipts, to see a pinch-hit home run, and to have six umpires on the field.
David Leonhardt writes The Right to Health (‘Immunization mandates aren’t new. One helped win the American Revolution’):
The United States owes its existence as a nation partly to an immunization mandate.
In 1777, smallpox was a big enough problem for the bedraggled American army that George Washington thought it could jeopardize the Revolution. An outbreak had already led to one American defeat, at the Battle of Quebec. To prevent more, Washington ordered immunizations — done quietly, so the British would not hear how many Americans were sick — for all troops who had not yet had the virus.
It worked. The number of smallpox cases plummeted, and Washington’s army survived a war of attrition against the world’s most powerful country. The immunization mandate, as Ron Chernow wrote in his 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Washington, “was as important as any military measure Washington adopted during the war.”
….
As was the case with Washington’s army, the mandates are largely succeeding:
California’s policy has led thousands of previously unvaccinated medical workers to receive shots in recent weeks. At Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, about 800 additional workers have been vaccinated since the policy was announced last month, bringing the hospital’s vaccination rate to 97 percent, according to my colleague Shawn Hubler.
When New York State announced a mandate for hospital and nursing-home staff members in August, about 75 percent of them had received a shot. By Monday, the share had risen to 92 percent. The increase amounts to roughly 100,000 newly vaccinated people.
At Trinity Health, a hospital chain in 22 states, the increase has been similar — to 94 percent from 75 percent, The Times’s Reed Abelson reports. At Genesis HealthCare, which operates long-term-care facilities in 23 states, Covid cases fell by nearly 50 percent after nearly all staff members had finished receiving shots this summer.
Often, the number of people who ultimately refuse the vaccine is smaller than the number who first say they will. Some are persuaded by the information their employer gives them — about the vaccines’ effectiveness and safety, compared with the deadliness of Covid — and others decide they are not really willing to lose their jobs.
A North Carolina hospital system, Novant Health, last week suspended 375 workers, or about 1 percent of its work force, for being unvaccinated. By the end of the week, more than half of them — about 200 — received a shot and were reinstated.
It’s a free labor market: employees who don’t want to be vaccinated can find jobs elsewhere, with smaller or less responsible employers. Under no circumstances should they receive unemployment compensation for dismissal or quitting after an employer immunization mandate. See The ‘Personal Responsibility’ Crowd Wants a Handout and No Shirt, No Shoes? No Service.
See also Cato adjunct scholar, and George Mason law professor, Ilya Somin on why vaccine mandates are consistent with libertarian views. (Summarizing: (1) a disease like COVID involves the potential of harm to other people (2) mask mandates, lockdowns, and restrictions on international travel are all much more intrusive than the relatively slight imposition of a safe and effective vaccine (3) there is a strong libertarian case that private institutions, and even the government when acting as employer, can set policies attached to what are voluntary relationships: employees, customers, students, etc. (4) Florida’s recent attempt to ban private businesses such as cruise lines from adopting vaccine requirements has already suffered defeat in court and is one example of an affront to libertarian sensibilities.)
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 6:44 PM for 11h 47m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 46.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1957, the Packers dedicate City Stadium, now known as Lambeau Field, and defeat the Chicago Bears, 21-17.
Amanda Holpuch reports River otter attacks baffle authorities in Anchorage, Alaska:
Residents of Anchorage, Alaska, used to living alongside moose and bear now face a threat from a more diminutive creature: the humble river otter.
On Friday, the Alaska department of fish and game alerted residents to a pack of aggressive otters which have attacked dogs, children and adults near creeks, rivers and lakes.
Humans are river otters’ only significant predator. Attacks the other way are not common, officials said. Nonetheless, a spate of reported incidents prompted the official warning.
“Because of the risk to public safety, efforts will be made to locate this group of river otters and remove them,” authorities said. “Care will be taken to only remove the animals exhibiting these unusual behaviors.”
Last week, a woman was bitten while rescuing her dog from otters at a lake. The same day, in another part of the city, a group of otters attacked a dog.
Earlier this month, a nine-year-old boy went to the emergency room after four otters chased him and his friends while they played near a duck pond in east Anchorage.
The boy’s mother, Tiffany Fernandez, told the Anchorage Daily News: “He has two fang marks on his back thigh and one on the front thigh on each leg. [He has] one puncture wound on his foot.”
Authorities said the otters would be tested for rabies, which could explain their aggression, though there had been no recent reports of rabid otters in the region.
Meanwhile, in Britain, the Guardian reports Toilet rats! Vermin are all over Britain – and they’re climbing up our waste pipes:
Name: Toilet rats.
Age: Nothing new, but an upward trend.
Appearance: Like a regular rat, but this time in your toilet.
I’ll be honest: I do not like the sound of this one bit. You are not alone.
How did the rat get in the toilet in the first place? It came up the waste pipe.
You mean they’re coming from the toilet? That’s correct.
Why is this happening? It started during the first lockdown in 2020, when entire business districts were depopulated. With less rubbish lying around to eat, rats invaded abandoned offices in search of food.
By swimming up the loo pipes? If toilets aren’t being used the water in the U-bend can evaporate, making them even easier for rats to access.
So as long as someone flushes the loo regularly, everything’s fine? Not really. Rats are excellent swimmers – they can hold their breath for three minutes and tread water for three days. If they want to get in your toilet, they will.
OK, that settles it – I am never going back to the office. The rats have taken that into consideration. With food supplies in city centres running low, they’re now invading our homes as well.
Please no. “I was called out to one job in Norwich and the customer could barely speak, she was in so much shock,” the pest control expert Andrew Dellbridge told the Norwich Evening News.
Don’t tell me any more. “She’d been using the bathroom and heard a noise,” he said. “She looked down and it was in the toilet bowl. And this is happening more and more frequently.” Chilling.
These are not ordinary times.
In Canary Islands, a “miracle house” spared by the lava flow of La Palma:
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 6:50 AM and sunset 6:40 PM for 11h 50m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 55.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM.
On this day in 1066, William the Conqueror lands in England, beginning the Norman conquest.
Patrick Marley reports Republicans say they want few redistricting changes, but a decade ago they moved millions of voters into new districts:
MADISON – Republican state lawmakers say they want to make as few changes as possible to Wisconsin’s election maps, but they took a dramatically different approach when they drew new legislative districts a decade ago.
Then, GOP lawmakers moved huge swaths of voters into new districts to help create maps that would give them large majorities in the Legislature. In one case, they moved 719 times more voters than they needed to move in one Assembly district.
Now, Republicans are claiming changes to the districts should be minimal — an approach that would ensure the next set of maps continues to help Republicans.
States must draw new maps after each census to make sure districts have equal populations. How the lines are drawn can dramatically boost one political party’s electoral chances.
….
A panel of three judges that year [2012] noted that about 320,000 people needed to be moved into new Assembly districts to balance the populations of the districts. Instead, Republicans moved nearly 2.4 million voters into new Assembly districts as they drew maps to maximize their advantage, the court noted.
Similarly, lawmakers needed to move about 230,000 voters into new Senate districts but instead moved 1.2 million of them. (While all of those voters were placed in new districts, many of them stayed on the same election schedule and didn’t have to wait an extra two years before they could vote in a Senate race.)
At a district-by-district level, the changes could be dramatic.
For instance, lawmakers needed to make virtually no changes to the 60th Assembly District in Ozaukee County because it was underpopulated by just 10 people. Republican legislators instead decided to move about 17,600 people out of the district and about 18,000 people into the district. The shift moved 719 times as many people as what was needed, University of Wisconsin-Madison political scientist Ken Mayer noted in court testimony at the time.
For the WISGOP, that was then, but this is now…
See also Wisconsin Counties Backing Fair Maps and But Whose New Maps for Wisconsin?
Ford Announces $11 Billion Investment In Electric Vehicle Production:
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 86. Sunrise is 6:48 AM and sunset 6:41 PM for 11h 52m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 64.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, Downtown Whitewater’s Board of Directors meets at 6 PM, and the Whitewater School Board meets at 7 PM.
On this day in 1777, Lancaster, Pennsylvania becomes the capital of the United States for one day after Congress evacuates Philadelphia.
Andrea Salcedo reports A school photographer told a first-grader he could shed his mask. He politely declined: ‘My mommy told me not to’:
On the day of his first-grade school photos, 6-year-old Mason told his mom he was excited to show the camera his new “big boy” smile. He recently lost four teeth.
But when the photographer asked Mason to take off his navy mask before snapping his picture, Mason politely declined, his mom Nicole Peoples told The Washington Post.
“My mommy told me not to take my mask off,” Mason replied.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take it off?” the photographer asked.
“No, my mommy seriously told me to keep it on unless I’m eating and far away from everybody,” Mason said.
Perhaps he could take it off for two seconds so she could snap a quick photo, the photographer suggested.
“No, I always listen to my mommy,” Mason said.
The Nevada first-grader said “cheese,” but he wore his mask through the entire photo shoot.
“He stood his ground,” Peoples, 33, told The Post.
Masks in schools have become a flash point across the country as the United States battles another surge in coronavirus cases amid the highly transmissible delta variant. Some schools have implemented mandatory mask policies, while others have said they are recommended but not required. (Masks are mandatory in Mason’s school, his mom said.)
Before this year’s in-person classes began, Peoples told her son about the covid safety measures she expected him to follow, she said. Mason, who lost his great-grandfather to covid earlier this year, agreed not to drink from the water fountain, to keep his mask on except when eating or drinking, and to regularly wash his hands, Peoples told The Post.
Well done. Mason is a proper American gentleman, and looks suitably sharp.
The very mention of masks infuriates the conservative populists, who set aside their support for banning immigrants and caging children only long enough to complain that simple cloth masks are an infringement on their liberty. No number of studies will deter this edgy and impulsive horde. They’re much for ‘hope over fear’ and ‘common sense’ until they so quickly lose their cool and start shouting. It’s a short distance for these populists to a destination of heads shaking, arms raised, and shouts of ‘what, what, what?!!’… Chilled Aryan blood proves neither chilled nor Aryan.
Personal responsibility should never be so hard. See Jane Jacobs with Useful Advice on Responsibility (for Whitewater, Richmond Township, Delavan, Etc.)
Officials in small rural communities like Whitewater go on at length about any subject except the pandemic and public health measures to control it. They mean by this — or at least they insist that they mean — that it’s important to be positive.
Their positivity is merely a transparent evasion of responsibility.
There is, however, reason for a grounded, serious optimism. One finds it in Mason, and so many others, all across America.
See also Boosterism’s Cousin, Toxic Positivity and Tragic Optimism as an Alternative to Toxic Positivity (‘Indeed, much of FREE WHITEWATER is a critique of the boosterism — the accentuation of the positive without regard to real conditions — of some in Whitewater before, during, and after the Great Recession. As much as FREE WHITEWATER is a libertarian blog, it’s also the website of a tragic optimist with a mainline Protestant formation.’)
It’s time to blow this scene.
Get everybody and the stuff together
Ok, three, two, one, let’s jam…
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 6:43 PM for 11h 55m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 73% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1789, George Washington appoints Thomas Jefferson the first United States Secretary of State.
Mark Muro and John C. Austin write The vaccine divide will drive even worse economic divides:
Now, the latest phase of the pandemic—with vaccines widely available but significant vaccine hesitancy and denialism in the face of the Delta variant—is tracing its own geography. And it is following and exacerbating the same intractable red-blue divide that has organized so much strife in America in recent years.
Since 2016, we have been analyzing the sharp divides in U.S. economic variables—whether they track output, employment, income, population density, or education levels—across the stubborn gap between “red” areas that voted for President Donald Trump and “blue” ones that have been voting Democratic. Now, as we explained to Bloomberg Businessweek last month, vaccine rates—a critical influence on economic recovery and growth—need to be added to that list of divides, as they will likely delay a return to normal in “red” communities.
….
Examining information on the local share of fully vaccinated people age 12 and above, county by county, we found that the vaccination rate in counties that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 was 61% late last month. In Trump-voting counties, by contrast, the vaccination rate was just 47%—a gap that has widened substantially since April.
That means that the vaccine divide—now aligned with the red-blue divide—will likely exacerbate the other economic divides that are already weakening the nation. Whereas the more heavily vaccinated blue counties will be better able to withstand the economic effects of the Delta variant, red communities will likely struggle as the virus keeps frustrated shoppers, travelers, and workers at home.
The latest figures from Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services show that 48.1% of Walworth County residents have completed at least one vaccine dose, while 56.5% of Milwaukee County residents and 73.6% of Dane County residents have done the same, as have 61.3% in still-red-but-not-as-red as it used to be Waukesha County (see The suburban ‘WOW counties,’ traditionally a GOP fortress in Wisconsin, show signs of cracks).
The statewide one-dose rate for all residents is 56.5%.
Many of the deepest red counties in the state have notably low one-dose vaccination rates (Taylor County 31.7%, Clark County 33%, Rusk County 37.4%).
One doesn’t have to be Democrat — as I am not — to see that High-growth areas in Wisconsin linked to rise in Democratic voting, U.S. census shows. This likely works two ways: high-growth areas inclining to Democrats, but also Democratic policies more readily attracting new establishments and opportunities.
Nothing, however, says stagnant and unappealing backwater quite like areas beset with anti-mask and anti-vaccine fanaticism.
There’s a warning here for anyone in Whitewater’s municipal building or the Whitewater Unified School District’s central office: overlooking the views of residents and families that equate vaccination with Third Reich genocide (by fashioning hypodermic needles into the shape of a swastika) or that equate wearing masks during a pandemic with the Nazi requirement that Jews wear a yellow badge is a moral error.
This overlooking is an appeasement of historical ignorance and an impediment to public health.
It’s also a fast track to slow growth. Talented newcomers and businesspeople will not choose a place that ignores fundamental distinctions between truth and error.
Officials might like to get along with everyone, but the merit of that approach depends on what it means to get along.
A reasonable parent, for example, would not entrust his or her child to a pediatrician who couldn’t tell the difference between penicillin and leeches.
There’s no worthiness in a formal education — high school, college, or professional — that leads to appeasing superstitions and outright lies.
How Army Riggers Pack 75,000 Parachutes a Year at Airborne School:
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 69. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 6:45 PM for 11h 58m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 81.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1890, Congress establishes Sequoia National Park.
Molly Beck reports Despite guidance from health officials, Ron Johnson says vaccinating people during a pandemic ‘could be dangerous’:
In a Tuesday appearance on the John Solomon Reports podcast, Johnson suggested vaccinated Americans could be worsening the pandemic though recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Wisconsin Department of Health Services show the unvaccinated are more likely to become infected.
It is the latest example of comments from Johnson on COVID-19 that are contrary to advice from health professionals and scientists. His comments have been criticized by some medical professionals and Democrats as undermining efforts to get the pandemic under control.
“If you walk around asymptomatic with 250 times the viral load, are you the super spreader? Is that what’s happening here?” Johnson said, referring to a study on vaccinated Americans that has been misrepresented and used to spread misleading information.
The study found vaccinated health care workers with breakthrough infections caused by the coronavirus delta variant had higher viral loads, or the amount of virus detected in a person, compared to patients infected with earlier strains of the virus, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Johnson said recent data from Israel and the United Kingdom means “this does not look like a pandemic of the unvaxxed, this looks like vaccine failure.”
Patrick Remington, a former epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s preventive medicine residency program, said the opposite is true.
“This has become a pandemic of the unvaccinated, worsened by people taking risks, such as gathering together indoors, without masks,” Remington said. “The vaccine has been very effective in preventing serious illness, and death. The fact that the delta variant is so much more contagious, means that we cannot rely on the vaccine alone, but need to reduce the risks of getting infected and infecting others.”
Johnson is likely a combination of Ambitious, Compromised, and Crackpot, but his latest remarks betray a perversity: Johnson delights, luxuriates, and revels in attacking established truths regardless of the harm it may cause others. ‘Don’t vaccinate widely during a pandemic’ has nothing to it except Johnson’s exaggerated sense of his own abilities. He’s just asking questions, you see, one of many ‘inquiring minds’ seeking the truth.
Why have virologists, after all, when America has a thinly-educated, intellectually-unimpressive senator from Wisconsin? Why have medical schools, or research institutions, when we already have Ron Johnson as a guest on the John Solomon podcast?
And who’s podcaster John Solomon? He’s this serial failure: Fox News Parts Ways With John Solomon, Architect of Trump’s Ukraine Conspiracies, The Hill finds John Solomon ‘failed’ to identify key details of sources (‘John Solomon, the former opinion writer at The Hill whose columns were seen as a central part of a smear campaign against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, failed to identify “important details” about his sources — including that they were under investigation or indictment and were even his attorneys, according to a review of his work by his former colleagues. In its review of 14 columns, The Hill’s news team said serious doubts about the credibility of Solomon’s Ukrainian sources were evident even before his interviews with them’).
And so, and so… U.S. Senator Ron Johnson descends to his natural level, as a guest on a bottom-feeder’s podcast.
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 6:45 AM and sunset 6:47 PM for 12h 01m 35s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1957, President Eisenhower sends the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, to enforce desegregation.
Devi Shastri reports University of Wisconsin schools post 1% enrollment decline, driven by decline in returning students:
Enrollment at University of Wisconsin campuses dropped 1% overall this fall, according to preliminary data released Wednesday.
The 13 universities have enrolled 163,708 students this year.
The decline seems to be driven by a decline in the number of returning students, some of which may have been related to fallout from COVID and the effect it had on the campus experience.
The number of first-year students and new transfer students is up by 4%, or 1,316 students. But the number of returning undergraduates dropped by 4%, or 3,305 students.
….
Here are the enrollment increases or decreases by campus as collected by UW System based on student registration during the first week of school. Because the data is preliminary, the percentages could change.
- UW-Madison: +6%
- UW-Green Bay: +3%
- UW-Superior: +2%
- UW-Oshkosh: -1%
- UW-Stevens Point: -1%
- UW-La Crosse: -2%
- UW-Milwaukee: -3%
- UW-Eau Claire: -4%
- UW-Stout: -4%
- UW-Whitewater: -4%
- UW-Parkside: -7%
- UW-River Falls: -8%
- UW-Platteville: -11%
As with other schools, UW-Whitewater saw an overall deline, but with an increase in the size of its freshman class. (Some of these first-year undergraduates may be students who decided against attending UW-Whitewater last year, and are now part of the ’21 fall semester class.)
The decline evidenced in these prelimary 2021 numbers matches a steady decline in UW-Whitewater’s enrollment after 2016, as a combined total from the Whitewater and Rock County campuses (‘multiple values’): 
No single year since 2016 (UW-Whitewater’s enrollment peak) has been decisive or notable by decline — each year has seen a similar drop in total enrollments.
Tuesday, September 28th at 1 PM, there will be a showing of A Quiet Place: Part 2 @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Drama/Thriller/Sci-Fi
1 hour, 37 minutes
Rated PG-13 (2020)
After the death of her husband (John Krasinski), Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) finds herself on her own, with two young teens, a defenseless newborn son, and nowhere to hide. Forced to venture into the unknown, the family realizes that the creatures that hunt by sound are not the only threats lurking beyond.
Written and directed by John Krasinski, Emily Blunt’s real-life husband.
One can find more information about A Quiet Place: Part 2 at the Internet Movie Database.
Enjoy.
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 68. Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 6:49 PM for 12h 04m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1889, Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.
Yesterday’s Daily Bread at FREE WHITEWATER (‘New Political Maps for Wisconsin by March?‘) highlighted Riley Vetterkind’s reporting that a Federal court indicates it wants Wisconsin’s new political maps in place by March (‘A federal judicial panel on Tuesday indicated it wants Wisconsin’s new political maps in place by March 1, calling for the completion of a potential redistricting trial by the end of January as lawmakers work to draw the new decennial legislative and congressional district boundaries’).
A day after that federal court timetable, the Wisconsin Supreme Court sprang into action, as Patrick Marley reports in Wisconsin Supreme Court agrees to hear redistricting case, setting up a second court battle over Legislative maps:
The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to take a case over the state’s redistricting practices on Wednesday, a day after a federal court scheduled a January trial on the same issue.
The state’s high court agreed to take the case on a 4-3 vote, with conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent. Conservatives asked the justices to take the case last month as Democrats and voting rights groups filed their own lawsuits in federal court.
….
The majority’s order accepting the case was brief. In a concurring opinion, Rebecca Bradley argued state courts are the ones that should hear redistricting challenges, even though federal courts have taken them up in recent decades.
“It is primarily the duty of this court, not any federal court, to resolve such redistricting disputes,” Bradley wrote.
States are required to draw new maps every 10 years to make sure districts are of equal population based on data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. How the lines are drawn can give one political party an advantage over the other.
….
In the redistricting lawsuit, [Eric] O’Keefe [a board member of Empower Wisconsin, a conservative group that has been running ads against Evers] and the others contend any maps the court approves should have as few changes as possible. That would likely keep in place many of the advantages Republicans have under the maps that were drawn in 2011.
Yesterday’s commentary at FREE WHITEWATER: “The WISGOP will do all it can to get this case dismissed from federal court, thereafter to seek recourse in state court.”
The WISGOP (and it’s the WISGOP that matters in a redistricting battle, not O’Keefe) is halfway to what it wants: the case now is in state court, and the conservatives need only see the dismissal of the federal consolidated actions to have the forum of their choice.
Wednesday was a good day for Wisconsin’s conservatives, if for no one else.
Spinning seeds inspire floating electronics – and monitor the atmosphere:
Good morning.
Wednesday sees the beginning of Fall in Whitewater with mostly sunny skies and a high of 65. Sunrise is 6:43 AM and sunset 6:50 PM for 12h 07m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1862, Pres. Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, to take effect January 1, 1863.
Riley Vetterkind reports Federal court indicates it wants Wisconsin’s new political maps in place by March:
A federal judicial panel on Tuesday indicated it wants Wisconsin’s new political maps in place by March 1, calling for the completion of a potential redistricting trial by the end of January as lawmakers work to draw the new decennial legislative and congressional district boundaries.
U.S. District Judge James Peterson and two other federal judges on a panel signaled they think maps should be in place by March 1 in order for candidates to begin circulating nomination papers by April 15. The new maps would then be used for legislative and congressional candidates in an August 2022 primary election.
The judicial panel called for the attorneys representing the parties in the case — chiefly the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers, who together are responsible for passing new political maps, along with Democratic voters, activist groups and GOP congressmen — to come up with a schedule to complete a trial by the end of January in order to have maps in place by March 1.
March 15 is the statutory deadline for the Wisconsin Elections Commission to notify county clerks of which offices will be voted on in the November 2022 election and where information on district boundaries can be found.
The trial, however, likely wouldn’t need to occur if the GOP-controlled Legislature and governor pass a set of legislative and congressional maps before then. Peterson, however, noted that is unlikely.
“If history is any guide, to put it mildly, there’s at least a substantial likelihood that divided government in the state of Wisconsin will have trouble, as it has in the past, drawing its own maps,” Peterson said.
Peterson told the parties in the case that a trial needs to be finished by the end of January in order for the court to render a decision by March 1, though the panel said it would entertain motions arguing that the deadline could be extended later.
….
At Tuesday’s hearing, an attorney for the Republican-controlled Legislature gave little indication of when it would pass a set of maps to send to the governor. He said GOP lawmakers are considering appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out the redistricting case.
Evers has created his own People’s Maps Commission, which expects to produce a set of alternative maps by mid-October for the Legislature’s and court’s consideration.
The WISGOP will do all it can to get this case dismissed from federal court, thereafter to seek recourse in state court.
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will see scattered showers this morning on an otherwise cloudy day with a high of 69. Sunrise is 6:42 AM and sunset 6:52 PM for 12h 10m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1780, Benedict Arnold gives the British the plans to West Point.
Molly Beck reports Gableman says he will compel election clerks to comply with election review if necessary:
MADISON – Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman said Monday he is willing to compel election clerks to turn over documents and provide testimony as part of Assembly Republicans’ review of the 2020 election outcome.
Gableman, an attorney who is overseeing the review as a special counsel, released a six-minute video on Monday defending the review by saying he was not seeking to challenge the election’s result and outlined some details of the review, which includes subpoenaing election clerks who do not comply with his requests.
“The purpose of this investigation is to determine what was supposed to happen in our elections and what did happen, to see what went well as well as to see what might have gone badly,” Gableman said.
“We will request from those officials and others with potential knowledge of unlawful actions and will compel them if necessary to produce documents and testimony.”
Gabelman twists traditional legal presumptions backwards: he demands others produce documents on the expansive theory that those others may have “potential knowledge of unlawful actions.” He offers no evidence of any unlawful actions. Under Gableman’s formulation, others are asked to prove their innocence of supposed unlawful actions about which Gableman need show no evidence whatever.
A reading like Gableman’s would allow state investigations of public or private parties to prove they have not somehow violated the law, without even a government showing that they might have done so.
Speaker Vos is certain to sign any subpoenas Gableman drafts, lest Vos incur Trump’s election wrath. (Vos felt no worry about ignoring Nass’s request for a challenge to UW System protocols, but Nass is forgettable when compared against Trump.)
It’s an inquisition that Gableman wants, and Vos will give him one.
Lava erupts from a volcano on La Palma in Spanish Canary Islands:
