Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 15. Sunrise is 6:53 AM and sunset 5:24 PM for 10h 31m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 91.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1689, William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.
MADISON – Robin Vos is facing calls to step off the tight rope he has been on for more than a year navigating a Republican base that wants much more scrutiny from him of the 2020 election and the reality of President Donald Trump’s loss.
And now, two of the three top Republican campaigns for governor are entirely focused on ousting Vos.
“He may have done some good things, but I think the damage he’s done to the party since November 3 of 2020 is unforgivable,” Terry Brand, chairman of the Langlade County Republican Party, said in an interview.
“Anywhere from discontent to furious are the emotions I’ve experienced with people from around the state, from around northern Wisconsin, and so forth.”
A spokeswoman for Vos did not respond to requests for comment or for an interview.
Vos deserves not the slightest sympathy. He presides over a party that is ignorant, emotional, mendacious, bigoted, and autocratic. Now the Trumpists have come to feast on Vos, who foolishly thought that he could feed them while advancing only himself. These malevolent nativists are too insatiable to settle for biting the hand that fed them; nothing less than the very marrow will settle their stomachs.
For those who have sought to preserve the constitutional order, Vos is an obstacle and opponent. For those who have sought to preserve the constitutional order, the Trumpists are obstacles and opponents. When the latter devour the former (and they will), principled men and women will have that many fewer adversaries.
Undeserving though they are, one can yet — sincerely — offer the Trumpists a culinary recommendation before their meal: a little hollandaise makes everything tastier.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 16. Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 5:23 PM for 10h 28m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 86.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born in a log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky.
KEWASKUM – State Rep. Timothy Ramthun entered the race for governor Saturday, ensuring 2022 will be all about 2020.
The Campbellsport Republican brought election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell to a high school auditorium to make his pitch to voters, an argument that relies on the impossible and illegal endeavor of revoking Wisconsin’s 10 electoral votes for President Joe Biden.
His campaign was born out of ostracization, Ramthun told a packed high school auditorium — a last resort after his Republican colleagues in the Wisconsin State Capitol rebuffed his repeated calls to overturn the last presidential election.
“I need to exhaust all options to address the November 2020 election,” Ramthun said from a lectern festooned with the green, yellow and white logo of Kewaskum High School, where Ramthun played basketball about four decades ago.
“Right person. Right role. Right time. It’s Tim time.”
Ramthun enters the Republican primary for governor as the second campaign focused on ousting Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, whose decision to remove a full-time staff member from Ramthun’s legislative office over false election claims engendered statewide support for the Fond du Lac County lawmaker and his staffer who received a standing ovation on Saturday.
Supporters flashed signs that read “Decertify Now!!” on one side and “Toss Vos” on the other.
Lindell kicked off the three-hour rally, telling the hundreds of supporters from across Wisconsin that Ramthun could shift Wisconsin’s electoral votes to former President Donald Trump more than a year after the 2020 election.
“He will be the best governor Wisconsin ever had,” Lindell said. Ramthun declined to be interviewed before the rally.
Ramthun has, and will, disgrace himself and this state: an embarrassment as citizen, as legislator, and now as candidate.
Researchers reviewed 162 studies published between 1950 and 2020 looking at how pumas – also known as mountain lions or cougars – enrich ecosystems and support other species. They found the large cats contribute 1.5m kilograms of meat a day to scavenger communities across North and South America, with 281 species getting to feed on carcasses they have killed.
The paper, published in Mammal Review, also identified 203 species as puma prey; 40 that are affected by their fear of pumas; 12 that compete with pumas; and seven species that benefit from the ecosystem services they create.
“We went into this thinking pumas were connected to loads of other species for a variety of reasons,” says lead author Dr Laura LaBarge from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour. “But it was so surprising when we went through the enormous range of species connected to them, especially those that are indirectly affected by pumas, like invertebrates or plants.”
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 29. Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 5:20 PM for 10h 23m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A state lawmaker who has won praise from former President Donald Trump for his attempts to reverse President Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin filed paperwork Thursday to run for governor, a move that would shake up the Republican primary.
State Rep. Timothy Ramthun, a conspiracy theorist who was disciplined last month by Republican leadership over false election claims, filed paperwork with the state creating a gubernatorial campaign committee. The move came after his campaign website was up briefly Wednesday before being taken down after he was contacted by news outlets.
Ramthun did not immediately return a message seeking comment Thursday. Rebecca Kleefisch, who was lieutenant governor under Scott Walker, and former U.S. Senate candidate and Marine Kevin Nicholson were already in the Republican field.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, also a purveyor of false claims that Trump won the 2020 election, is endorsing Ramthun and said he will appear at a Saturday rally in Wisconsin to launch Ramthun’s candidacy.
Wednesday in Whitewater will see occasional show showers with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 5:19 PM for 10h 20m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 60.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
There will be a joint meeting of the Common Council, Community Development Authority, and Plan and Architectural Review Commission Agenda at 6 PM.
On this date in 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signed a joint resolution authorizing a National Weather Service, long a dream of Milwaukee scientist Increase Lapham: “Lapham, 19th-century Wisconsin’s premier natural scientist, proposed a national weather service after he mapped data contributed over telegraph lines in the Upper Midwest and realized that weather might be predicted in advance. He was concerned about avoiding potential disasters to Great Lakes shipping and Wisconsin farming, and his proposal was approved by Congress and authorized on this date.”
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A judge on Tuesday ordered attorneys to meet and try and resolve their dispute over whether Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos turned over all requested records related to the ongoing investigation into the 2020 presidential race.
Dane County Circuit Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn again repeated her concerns that some of the records requested by the liberal watchdog group American Oversight might have been destroyed.
“This has got to stop,” the judge said. “Either these records exist or they don’t. … If they were deleted or destroyed after an open records request was made, I think that’s relevant and I think the court needs to hear that.”
Vos’ attorney, Ronald Stadler, said no records were deleted after open records requests from American Oversight were received. But American Oversight attorney Christa Westerberg argued that records could have been deleted because requests sometimes weren’t forwarded to Vos staff members for days.
In one case, Vos’s office attorney Steven Fawcett did not notify staff of an American Oversight records request for 13 days. American Oversight wants Vos to do a more extensive search to find any records that were deleted.
The Legislature is not required to retain records unless an open records request has been filed. Both Vos and Fawcett said under earlier questioning from American Oversight’s attorneys that they routinely delete emails and text messages.
American Oversight argues that Vos made no effort to determine whether records that should have been made public were instead destroyed.
Bailey-Rihn ordered both sides to meet by Feb. 15, and she said she’d schedule another hearing if they can’t resolve the issue. American Oversight wants Vos to be found in contempt of court.
Vos’s staff used a method where controversial messages could be destroyed contrary to law by counting on delays in forwarding public records requests. If the staff knew that requests under law weren’t forwarded promptly, it would buy them time (perhaps days) to review and destroy whatever they thought might be controversial. (The darker possibility is that, in fact, they were aware of public records requests but knew that a bottleneck within their own process gave them time to delete relevant requested documents and falsely claim they were unaware of those requests at the time of deletion.)
Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 43. Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 5:18 PM for 10h 18m 18s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 9 AM, and Whitewater Fire Department, Inc. holds a business meeting at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1993, General Motors sues NBC after Dateline NBC allegedly rigs two crashes intended to demonstrate that some GM pickups can easily catch fire if hit in certain places. NBC settles the lawsuit the next day.
Ben Wikler, the state Democratic Party chair, tells me: “Sen. Johnson has opposed relief for small business, support for Wisconsin parents and children and now family-supporting manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin. The one thing he’s actually for? The huge tax break for himself and his biggest donors that he inserted into Trump’s mega tax giveaway to the super wealthy.”
Democrats, therefore, have a golden opportunity in the critical swing state. But with a crowded Democratic primary, the party’s moderates are increasingly nervous that the front-runner, progressive Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, is setting up Democrats to blow a real shot at winning the seat. Nominating Barnes might play well before national left-leaning donors and marquee politicians, but it gives Johnson the chance to run against “socialism” and escape his own record.
In January, the Cook Political Report noted, “Barnes has embraced progressive positions, including Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. … [A] former Wisconsin Democratic officeholder said they certainly worry that Barnes could miss out on appealing to suburban and rural voters and the state’s small slice of independent and swing voters.” Cook quotes the official’s warning: “If you’re just driving the ultra-liberals to the polls, you’ll obviously lose.” Barnes’s defenders claim he isn’t all that progressive, although he is plainly to the left of President Biden, who barely won the state.
Democrats have plenty of options, including Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry and State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski, who has made her appeal in rural areas a key argument for her campaign. Godlewski recently unveiled an extensive plan to boost rural Wisconsin. As the Associated Press reported, “A key part of Godlewski’s five-point plan calls for making broadband Internet, which she called ‘essential as electricity,’ a public utility. … Her plan also emphasizes ensuring that rural Wisconsin residents have access to quality medical care, including hospitals which were struggling to survive even before the pandemic increased the strain.” She also wants to expand Medicaid.
I’m not a Democrat (and neither is Rubin): we are among those who support Democrats in a broad coalition against Trumpism. Democrats, mostly, will decide on their nominee to face Johnson in November. Others can vote in the primary for one of the Democrats (as I will), but party regulars will be the lion’s share of voters in their primary. Any of the Democratic candidates would be preferable to Johnson, so the fall election offers an easy choice.
Rubin mentions the main (and best-funded candidates), but there are others, including Tom Nelson, running.
I have, as yet, no favorite from among this primary field. For me, supporting the strongest possible November challenger to Johnson matters most. I’m not sure which candidate that might be, however. (It’s clear Rubin worries that Lt. Gov. Barnes is too progressive for the 2022 contest. I don’t know.)
It’s only February, and the Wisconsin primary state offices is not until August 9th. There’s time to decide, and immediately after the primary to support wholeheartedly the collective choice against Johnson.
Sunday in Whitewater will be intermittently cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:02 AM and sunset 5:15 PM for 10h 13m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 30.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
MOUNT PLEASANT — The 156,000-square-foot Opus building, first leased by Foxconn when it came to Wisconsin, is now to be occupied by Oterra, a Danish company that brands itself as “the world’s largest provider of naturally sourced colors for food, beverages, dietary supplements and pet food.”
Then-President Donald Trump declares Foxconn’s campus in Mount Pleasant would be the “eighth wonder of the world” during a speech in the Opus building, 13315 Globe Drive, June 28, 2018. Journal Times file photo.
The Opus building is located at 13315 Globe Drive, immediately southeast of where Highway 20 passes underneath Interstate 94. It is where then-President Donald Trump, on June 28, 2018, proclaimed Foxconn’s complex in Wisconsin would be the “eighth wonder of the world.” Foxconn never actually owned the Opus building; it’s owned by an LLC out of Milwaukee County.
The building will be the new North American headquarters for Oterra, which was previously known as Chr. Hansen Natural Colors A/S. Oterra derives from terra, the Latin word for earth.
The move to Mount Pleasant is a relocation from West Allis. The company expects to employ 100 people in Mount Pleasant once fully operational, and it expects to be “operational in very, very early 2024,” Sarah O’Neil, Oterra’s vice president of commercial sales and marketing, said in a phone interview Friday.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 20. Sunrise is 7:03 AM and sunset 5:14 PM for 10h 10m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Tuesday, February 8th at 1 PM, there will be a showing of Spencer @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Biography/Drama
Rated R (language) 1 hour, 57 minutes (2021)
During her Christmas holiday with the Royal Family at their estate, Diana Spencer, struggling with depression and her wandering husband, decides to end her decade-long marriage to Princes Charles. Kristen Stewart, as Princess Diana, has been receiving Oscar buzz for this performance, as has this film. (Oscar nominations are to be announced early morning on February 8th.)
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.
….
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.
….
(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.)
