Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 17. Sunrise is 7:05 AM and sunset 5:11 PM for 10h 05m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 7% of its visible disk illuminated.
First, it can counter educational arson by making speech more accessible. School boards want to ban “Maus”? Buy a copy of the book for every schoolchild in that district. Right-wing crusaders want to excise the Rev.Martin Luther King Jr. from the curriculum? Bring in pop culture icons to lead public discussions and provide a complete picture of America’s struggle for racial equality. And, as President Biden did with the Tulsa race massacre, he can use his bully pulpit, public celebrations and monuments to share the history the right would rather bury. (It wouldn’t hurt for him to denounce book banning.)
Second, refuse to normalize lies. Don’t give Jan. 6 apologists and vaccine deniers a free pass on mainstream media. Do not treat the right’s campaign of vicious lies as a function of horserace politics. Be clear about who is doing the censoring. (Media reports that cover the spread of book banning without saying who is banning them disguise the responsible players and suggest the phenomenon is not tied to a political agenda.)
Third, private actors (e.g., book publishers, universities, social media platforms) should reiterate their standards. Not every utterance by a professor warrants a firing, but neither should egregious (let alone repeated) bigotry go unnoticed. Suspension from media platforms should precede expulsion. A more nuanced response to vile speech will reduce cries of victimhood.
Finally, the right’s successful engagement in local politics must be matched by those committed to a free, democratic society. Run for school board. Petition local leaders. Organize rallies and engage in the free marketplace of ideas. The best solution to bad speech is, and always has been, more good speech.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy sunny with a high of 17. Sunrise is 7:07 AM and sunset 5:10 PM for 10h 03m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Justice Department has announced that it is investigating the attempt by the false electors to subvert the election.
On Friday, the Congressional Select Committee on January 6th also announced it has subpoenaed 14 of the counterfeit electors who it believes have information about how they met and who was behind the scheme, according to committee Chairperson Bennie G. Thompson, (D-Miss.). Each of the 14 served as “chair” or “secretary” on the state slates of fake electors.
According to recent reports, Trump’s then-attorney Rudy Giuliani led the scheme by submitting the slates of “alternate electors” to the National Archives. In March 2021, D.C.-based watchdog group American Oversight made public the documents, which it received in response to a public records request.
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WISCONSIN (10)
Andrew Hitt*: The chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin from 2019 until 2021, Hitt is a partner at consulting and lobbying firm Michael Best Strategies.
Kelly Ruh*: Ruh is an alderperson for De Pere, chairwoman of the 8th Congressional District Republican Party, and a controller for Bay Industries in Green Bay.
Carol Brunner: Brunner is the vice chairwoman of Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District Republican Party.
Edward Scott Grabins: Chairman of the Dane County Republican Party, Grabins is a technology professional, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Bill Feehan: A business manager based in La Crosse, Feehan was a 2012 candidate for District 32 of the Wisconsin state Senate.
Robert F. Spindell Jr.: Spindell has been a commissioner on the Wisconsin Election Commission since 2019. After Biden won the election, Spindell appeared at a “stop the steal” rally at the state Capitol.
Kathy Kiernan: Kiernan is the 1st Congressional District chairman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
Darryl Carlson: Currently executive director of conservative organization No Better Friend Corp., Carlson ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2014 for the Wisconsin State Assembly. He is a veteran and has also represented the 3rd aldermanic district in Sheboygan.
Pam Travis: Travis is treasurer of the Wisconsin Federation of Republican Women and the 7th Congressional District vice chairman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
Mary Buestrin: A national committeewoman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, Buestrin says she has done volunteer work supporting Republican candidates for more than 50 years.
Slated to appear but replaced:
Tom Schreibel: Schreibel is a partner at consulting and lobbying firm Michael Best Strategies and a national committeeman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
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(A * indicates a person who was listed as chairperson or secretary of their state group and who was subpoenaed by the House Jan. 6 committee.)
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 5:08 PM for 10h 00m 45s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
MADISON – The Republicans running for governor want to eliminate the state’s bipartisan elections agency, going further than their GOP colleagues who lead the Legislature.
Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch in a radio interview last week said she wants to dissolve the Wisconsin Elections Commission and hand over its duties to elected officials so voters have “one throat to choke” if something goes wrong.
Marine veteran Kevin Nicholson expressed a similar view days later when he announced his plan to take on Kleefisch in the Republican primary for governor. He painted Kleefisch as part of the GOP establishment that created the commission under former Gov. Scott Walker in 2015 and attacked her for calling on Republicans last fall to engage in “ballot harvesting” to beat Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Kleefisch and Nicholson are taking their stances as Republicans push for overhauling a host of voting rules. Their efforts so far have been blocked by Evers and the courts.
Evers supports the commission and wants to keep it in place. The Democratic support for the agency is a shift. When Republicans created the evenly divided panel, Democrats said it was designed to fail and predicted it would result in endless gridlock.
Kleefisch’s choice of metaphorical remedy for concerns about elections disputes — throat-choking over litigation — shows she understands the attitudes and vocabulary of the WISGOP core. Her remarks are wrong for the constitutional order and ill-fitting for Kleefisch (who has likely never used more force than getting the cap off a ketchup bottle), but it’s what the Trumpists want to hear.
She and Nicholson will compete over metaphors suitable for the hot-headed-nativist set. They’ll only go lower from here.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:09 AM and sunset 5:07 PM for 9h 58m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Since the pandemic began, the virus has been cited in more line-of-duty deaths among police officers and firefighters in Wisconsin than any other cause. By the end of 2021, at least five police officers and 10 firefighters in the state had died of COVID-19 in the line of duty, according to their employers.
Those left behind continue to face challenges every day. Many have been sick themselves, unable to avoid the virus at a job that requires frequent face-to-face contact with the public.
“This number appears to increase almost daily,” the report says, noting “it is anticipated that a significant number (of COVID-19 deaths) have yet to be reported by agencies.”
We have managed the pandemic poorly, to the loss of individuals and the detriment of society.
Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 27. Sunrise is 7:10 AM and sunset 5:06 PM for 9h 55m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 3.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1930, the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union orders that a million prosperous peasant families be driven off their farms.
CONROE, Texas (AP) — Former President Donald Trump is dangling the prospect of pardons for supporters who participated in the deadly Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol if he returns to the White House.
“If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6th fairly,” Trump said Saturday night during a rally in Conroe, Texas. “And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons because they are being treated so unfairly.”
The offer represents an attempt by Trump to further minimize the most significant attack on the seat of government since the War of 1812. Participants smashed through windows, assaulted police officers and sent lawmakers and congressional staff fleeing for their lives while trying to halt the peaceful transition of power and the certification of rival Joe Biden’s victory.
More than 700 people have been arrested and charged with federal crimes in connection with the riot, marking the largest investigation in the Justice Department’s history. The tally includes more than 150 people charged with assaulting police officers, more than 50 charged with conspiracy, and charges of seditious conspiracy against the founder and leader of the far-right Oath Keepers militia group, and 10 other members or associates.
In local politics, in places like Whitewater, what Trump says isn’t supposed to be used against his own supporters, lest one hurt their feelings. These Trumpists want free speech for themselves, but squeal if it’s mentioned that their movement is one of an autocratic, nativist horde. And so, and so, they insist that they can say what they want (and private publishers must carry their opinions) but others cannot say what the Trumpists do not want others to say (and government must restrict criticism of Trumpism).
They decry a so-called cancel culture that is, in fact, simply the right of private publishers to use private publications as is publishers’ right as owners. They advance instead a genuine cancel culture of government censorship of books and posts that correctly describe the lies and abuses of Trumpism.
Where does this lead?
It leads to a world in which Trumpists can commit no crimes (as they will pardon themselves even of assaults against the constitutional order) and others will shy from mentioning as much.
So much is made in these small towns about officials’ public service, but some of those who have enjoyed the public-service limelight for years will quickly shrink into the shadows when the Trumpists walk into a room.
Trump and his followers know this, and they delight and batten on the diffidence of others. SeeWho Rampaged Better?
See alsoThe Dishonesty of Whitewater’s Local Politics(“Successful candidates for office in Whitewater take an oath to defend the constitution and laws of the United States. Some who have taken this oath and now hold office, and some who seek to hold office and would be required to take the oath, have and do support the forces of insurrection. For this ilk, they lied from the moment they recited the oath, or they will smilingly lie if they should one day take this oath”).
Saturday in Whitewater will see occasional flurries with a high of 23. Sunrise is 7:11 AM and sunset 5:04 PM for 9h 53m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 9.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1980, the Rubik’s Cube makes its international debut at the Ideal Toy Corp. in Earl’s Court, London.
Luke Broadwater and Alan Feuer report Jan. 6 Committee Subpoenas Fake Trump Electors (‘The panel demanded information from 14 people who were part of bogus slates of electors for President Donald J. Trump, digging deeper into an aspect of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election’):
WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack issued 14 subpoenas on Friday to people who falsely claimed to be electors for President Donald J. Trump in the 2020 election in states that were actually won by Joseph R. Biden Jr., digging deeper into Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the results.
The subpoenas target individuals who met and submitted false Electoral College certificates in seven states won by President Biden: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“The select committee is seeking information about attempts in multiple states to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including the planning and coordination of efforts to send false slates of electors to the National Archives,” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, said in a statement. “We believe the individuals we have subpoenaed today have information about how these so-called alternate electors met and who was behind that scheme.”
The so-called alternate electors met on Dec. 14, 2020, in seven states that Mr. Trump lost and submitted bogus slates of Electoral-College votes for him, the committee said. They then sent the false Electoral College certificates to Congress, an action Mr. Trump’s allies used to try to justify delaying or blocking the final step in confirming the 2020 election results — a joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021, to formally count the electoral votes.
The subpoenas order the witnesses, all of whom claimed to be either a chair or secretary of the fake elector slates, to turn over documents and sit for depositions in February.
Those who signed onto the fake slates of electors were mostly state-level officials in the Republican Party, G.O.P. political candidates or party activists involved with Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. None of those who were subpoenaed responded on Friday to requests for comment.
(Emphasis added.)
At the time they submitted documents falsely claiming to be presidential electors, Andrew Hitt was Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman and Kelly Ruh was chairwoman of the 8th Congressional District GOP and a De Pere council member.
They are, as they should be, accountable under law for what they signed and submitted.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 16. Sunrise is 7:12 AM and sunset 5:03 PM for 9h 51m 20s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 18.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1959, the Packers name Vince Lombardi head coach. He had been the offensive backfield coach of the New York Giants for the previous five seasons. Lombardi went on to coach the Packers for nine years, winning five NFL Championships and victories in Super Bowls I and II.
Two Wisconsin Republicans announced another attempt Wednesday to legalize medical marijuana in the state. Bill sponsors say they want to join 36 states already offering that treatment, but the proposal faces opposition on both sides of the aisle.
State Rep. Pat Snyder, R-Schofield, who is the bill’s sponsor, said the measure would create a tight regulatory structure for medical marijuana while giving patients multiple options for using it.
“Patients will have the legal means to receive the help they need, tax-free,” said Snyder.
The bill places a tax on producers selling to dispensaries, but not on patients or caregivers.
Bill sponsor state Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, said the issue of medical marijuana transcends party lines.
“When you look at the map of states where medical marijuana is legal, you’ll see conservative states like Florida and South Dakota and more liberal states like California and New York offering a compassionate option for those that need relief,” said Felzkowski.
Bacteria from healthy cats have been shown to produce antibodies with some impressive skin healing properties… in mice.
A new study on these properties indicates we could one day harness such antibodies to potentially treat infections on humans as well as other animals.
This approach is a type of bacteriotherapy – using ‘good’ bacteria known to provide various health benefits to help protect against ‘bad’ bacteria (or pathogens). It’s a balance that scientists are constantly getting new insights into.
Here, researchers used cat bacteria to protect against the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus pseudintermedius or MRSP pathogen in mice: this bacterium is often found on domesticated animals, and can proliferate out of control when they’re sick or injured.
The results of the study suggest that good bacteria found on cats offer strong protection against MRSP – not just in mice, as was shown in this case, but potentially also in human beings who can pick up the good bacteria as well.
“It may even be possible that living with a healthy cat provides humans with some protection against MRSP,” says medical scientist Richard Gallo, from the University of California San Diego. “So this may be an argument in support of pet ownership.”
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:13 AM and sunset 5:02 PM for 9h 49m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 28.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
In several states during the 2020 electoral vote certification, Republicans submitted fraudulent slates of electors, purporting falsely that Donald Trump, rather than the actual winner Joe Biden, had carried those states. Wisconsin was one of the states with a set of false GOP electors.
The scheme to use fake elector certifications to throw out Biden’s electors and replace them with phony Trump electors on January 6 was reportedly led by Rudy Giuliani and other Trump campaign officials. Here’s CNN again, from last week:
Trump campaign officials, led by Rudy Giuliani, oversaw efforts in December 2020 to put forward illegitimate electors from seven states that Trump lost, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the scheme.
The sources said members of former President Donald Trump’s campaign team were far more involved than previously known in the plan. . . . Giuliani and his allies coordinated the nuts-and-bolts of the process on a state-by-state level, the sources told CNN. One source said there were multiple planning calls between Trump campaign officials and GOP state operatives, and that Giuliani participated in at least one call. The source also said the Trump campaign lined up supporters to fill elector slots, secured meeting rooms in statehouses for the fake electors to meet on December 14, 2020, and circulated drafts of fake certificates that were ultimately sent to the National Archives.
Trump and some of his top advisers publicly encouraged the “alternate electors” scheme in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada and New Mexico. But behind the scenes, Giuliani and Trump campaign officials actively choreographed the process, the sources said.
If investigators determine that the fake slates were meant to improperly influence the election, those who created them could in theory be charged with falsifying voting documents, mail fraud or even a conspiracy to defraud the United States.
What role, if any, did Whitewater’s United States Representative Scott Fitzgerald, play in the creation or submission of a fraudulent electoral vote certification?
Wisconsin State Senator Chris Larson talks with Rachel Maddow about a letter found through an open records request that suggests that Rep. Scott Fitzgerald booked a room in the state capitol for fake Trump electors to meet and sign forged paperwork at the same time as Wisconsin’s real electors were formalizing the state’s election results.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 8. Sunrise is 7:14 AM and sunset 5:00 PM for 9h 46m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 39.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
Kevin Nicholson, an all but declared GOP candidate for governor, made clear on Saturday he’s planning to run an insurgent campaign after he admonished the leader of the state Republican Party in front of a Manitowoc County crowd and promised to push him out of his job.
In brief video footage of a Manitowoc County Republican Caucus event, Nicholson blasted what he called the “machine” of Wisconsin Republican politics that he claimed was not working to win elections but instead to provide jobs for politicians.
“You represent a broken machine — you’re part of it,” Nicholson told Republican Party of Wisconsin chairman Paul Farrow in front of the caucus meeting crowd. “It has lost 11 out of 12 races. It will lose the next one if you’re allowed to get your way.”
The upcoming WISGOP gubernatorial primary: a candidate who looks like he just walked off the back nine battling a candidate who looks like she spends all day at a makeup counter in competition for the affections of the populist rightwing.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 8. Sunrise is 7:15 AM and sunset 4:59 PM for 9h 44m 39s of daytime. The moon is in its third quarter with 50.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
A lawyer for Assembly Speaker Robin Vos testified Monday he had done little to ensure the contractor overseeing a Republican review of the 2020 election had turned over all documents that were responsive to a series of public records requests from a liberal group.
The testimony from Vos’ staff attorney, Steve Fawcett, caught the attention of Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn, who started the day’s proceedings by saying she didn’t understand why Republicans have provided so few records in response to requests from American Oversight.
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The state’s open records law says that public officials are responsible for obtaining documents from their contractors in response to requests from the public.
In her November ruling, Bailey-Rihn determined that Vos was obligated to obtain and turn over emails, calendars, reports and other documents from Gableman’s office from last summer.
Gableman’s initial contract with the Assembly requires him to keep a weekly report of the findings of his review. Gableman publicly released a report in November but has never made available any weekly reports.
Asked if Gableman has been writing weekly reports, Fawcett said, “I have no idea.”
The judge expressed surprise that Fawcett does not know whether Gableman is producing those reports given that the contract names Fawcett as the “point of contact” between Gableman and the Assembly.
Monday in Whitewater will be snowy and cloudy with a high of 21. Sunrise is 7:15 AM and sunset 4:58 PM for 9h 42m 29s of daytime. The moon is waning gibbous with 60.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, Downtown Whitewater’s Board of Directors at 6 PM, and the Whitewater School Board after convening goes into closed session at approximately 6:15 PM and regular open session at 7 PM.
On this day in AD 41, Claudius is proclaimed Roman emperor by the Praetorian Guard after they assassinate the previous emperor, his nephew Caligula.
Among the major questions Rothman will face is one of how the system should be structured to meet the educational needs of future students.
His predecessor, Ray Cross, took the approach of consolidating the system’s 13 two-year campuses with its 13 four-year campuses, a controversial restructure aimed at curbing the financial impact of plummeting enrollment at the two-year community colleges, while hopefully getting more students to graduate.
Cross then created a “blueprint” for what a strong, post-pandemic UW System would require, much to the dismay of faculty and staff across the system. In it, he called for program cuts, investment in online programs, and the changing of university missions to differentiate them better from one another, saying they could no longer be “all things to all people.”
The blueprint was not implemented, and Cross retired. But the conversation around such issues carries on.
Interim System President Tommy Thompson went in a slightly different direction, at one point floating the question of whether — between the UW System and the Wisconsin Technical College System — the state simply had too many campuses. That sparked a debate over the modern roles of each system, and how they may or may not be competing with one another.
Thompson called on lawmakers to launch a commission to look at the structure of higher education in Wisconsin holistically, a request that never came to fruition.
In May 2021, state Sen. Roger Roth, chair of the Senate Committee on Universities and Technical Colleges, added his ideas to the list, calling for the system to further consolidate the campuses into four geographic regions, excluding UW-Madison.
While all this discussion was taking place, enrollment at many UW schools — particularly the two-year campuses — continued to head in the wrong direction. Many buildings are operating with enrollments equivalent to an average elementary school.
According to the system’s final headcounts, released in November, total enrollment at UW-Milwaukee’s Washington County campus dropped 23% in the past school year, to 387 students. UW-Oshkosh’s Fond du Lac campus saw a 29% drop to 281 students. UW-Stevens Point’s Marshfield campus saw a 12% drop to 346 students.
The lowest enrollments in the system were at UW-Platteville’s branch campuses: the Baraboo Sauk County campus enrolls 216 students, down 4% from last school year and the Richland campus has just 75 students, down 31%.
The System itself is beset with enrollment decline, among other problems, not collapse. (Some of the smallest System campuses might face closure, and in fairness it likely feels like collapse to students and faculty in those places.)
And yet, and yet, even stagnation (not merely in enrollment, but more generally in vibrancy) would produce by definition relative decline in a productive society.
That’s no easy situation, as relative decline fortuitously does avoid immediate disaster but at the expense of the urgency that might bring better conditions. Jay Rothman has a hard task before him.
(Whitewater is like this: the city and her major institutions do not face collapse, but instead relative decline. The temptation for policymakers is to try a bit more of the same to turn conditions around. That approach hasn’t and won’t work. Only a turning away from officials’ general direction offers a better future.)
