Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:58, and sunset is 4:24, for 9 hours, 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 35.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1971, during a severe thunderstorm over Washington state, a hijacker calling himself Dan Cooper (aka D. B. Cooper) parachutes from a Northwest Orient Airlines plane with $200,000 in ransom money. He has never been found.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 44. Sunrise is 6:57, and sunset is 4:25, for 9 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 44.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
One reads this morning that the family of Tim Michels, an out-of-state-livin’ man with an in-state business, gave $500,000 to Trump and yet a cabinet nomination still fell through:
Michels, his two brothers and each of their spouses gave a total of $503,600 to a Trump-aligned political action committee, a Trump fundraising committee and the Republican National Committee — all on the same day in late September.
Less than two months later, Trump — known for his transactional approach to politics — offered Michels a position in his cabinet as head of the U.S. Department of Transportation last Saturday, according to sources familiar with the situation.
The deal fell through, however, when Trump’s transition committee insisted that Michels divest his holdings as co-owner of Michels Corp., the family-owned construction business worth an estimated $3.9 billion. At that point, Trump pivoted and selected former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy for the post.
That’s it? A mere half million? Michels spent far more than that trying to buy the governorship. He and his family should have understood that a Trump nomination for someone of means requires much, much larger donations than a half million.
Trump’s cabinet nominee Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling owner, received a nomination as Secretary of Education despite being named in a pending lawsuit over her alleged awareness of sexual abuse of boys as young as thirteen. The case is still in litigation, but she received a nomination anyway.
McMahon gave over ten million to Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC in 2024 alone.
Michels should have known: if eight figures will overcome pending allegations that McMahon ignored the sexual abuse of children, then seven or eight figures surely would have overcome a conflict of his business interests.
How odd about Michels: billions, and yet he still thinks small.
From the archives of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this short film from 1977 describes the mission of the two Voyager spacecraft before they launched on their journey to Jupiter and Saturn later that year. It features early computer graphics, artist’s concepts of the outer solar system, and vintage footage of the antennas from NASA’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California, as well as mission control and a clean room at JPL. Voyager 1 and 2 are now the most distant human-made objects from Earth and the longest continually operating NASA spacecraft. After the twin Voyagers visited Jupiter and Saturn, Voyager 2 went on to visit Uranus and Neptune as well. Both spacecraft are now in interstellar space, the space between stars.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:56, and sunset is 4:25, for 9 hours, 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 54 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1963, President John F. Kennedy is assassinated and Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded by Lee Harvey Oswald, who also kills Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit after fleeing the scene. U.S Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in as the 36th President of the United States afterwards.
Doubtless, the next Trump Administration will be looking to fill thousands of federal positions with supporters who have the same level of judgment as Mr. Trump himself. Wisconsin, it turns out, can supply a candidate for one of those positions. Alyssa Guzman reports on a fine gentleman from Green Lake who’d fit right in:
Screenshot from Borgwardt’s own ‘proof of life’ video from someplace far, far away. Green Lake County Sheriff’s Office. Via DailyMail.com.
They learned in October that Borgwardt had crossed the border into Canada a few days after his disappearance and had been communicating with an Uzbek woman who spoke Russian.
….
Before his disappearance, he changed all the email addresses linked to his bank accounts and moved money to a foreign bank account.
Borgwardt’s devastated wife, Emily, and their three children, have been grieving their loss, believing for months he was likely dead.
She is now being urged to join support groups for women with ‘runaway husbands’ as her friends and community rally around her.
‘An Uzbek woman who spoke Russian.’ Heart of gold, I wouldn’t wonder.
Borgwardt needs to return to America, find a word processor, and spiff up his résumé. He’s possessed of the top-shelf judgment that will fit well in the new federal administration.
Tuesday, November 26th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of The Magic Flute @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Opera/Mozart/Musical
Rated PG
1 hour, 55 minutes (2022)
Now for something completely different! A modern retelling of Mozart’s world famous opera, featuring F. Murray Abraham. Come for the music, stay for the story, costumes and The Magic Flute. A quietly beautiful, fantasy of a film!
Thursday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 40. Sunrise is 6:55, and sunset is 4:26, for 9 hours, 31 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Association meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1877, Thomas Edison announces his invention of the phonograph, a machine that can record and play sound.
One could say that snowflakes are simply frozen water — but if you compare a snowflake to an ice cube, you’ll notice a big difference. Why are all snowflakes six-sided? Why are none of them exactly the same? And how do we ski on them? Maruša Brada? sheds light on the secret life of snowflakes.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with snowy conditions in the evening and a high of 41. Sunrise is 6:53, and sunset is 4:27, for 9 hours, 33 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 73.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1945, the Nuremberg trials against 24 Nazi war criminals begin at the Palace of Justice at Nuremberg.
These many years later, former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice and current conspiracist Michael Gableman now finds himself the subject of a professional disciplinary complaint:
The Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR) filed a disciplinary complaint against former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman on Tuesday. In 10 counts, the complaint alleges Gableman violated numerous provisions of the Wisconsin Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys during and after his much-maligned investigation of the 2020 election.
….
The first two counts against Gableman involve statements and actions he took after filing subpoenas against the mayors and city clerks of the cities of Green Bay and Madison. The complaint alleges that Gableman mischaracterized discussions he had with the lawyers for both cities, communicated with Green Bay’s city attorney when the city had obtained outside counsel in the matter, lied to Green Bay city officials about the work of his investigation and mischaracterized those actions when he filed a petition with a Waukesha County Circuit Court attempting to have the mayors of both cities arrested for not complying with his subpoenas.
The third count alleges that Gableman made false statements in his testimony to the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections when he accused officials at the Wisconsin Elections Commission, as well as the mayors of Green Bay and Madison, of “hiring high-priced lawyers” to conduct an “organized cover-up.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court adjudicates complaints from the Office of Lawyer Regulation alleging attorney misconduct under a set of published court rules. See SCR 20A, 20B (2023).
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will decide what, if any, sanctions Gableman merits against him. Apart from any disciplinary action (rightly decided only on the rules and facts before the court) one can say even now that Gableman’s political influence over the last four years has been among the most controversial of recent memory.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 59. Sunrise is 6:52, and sunset is 4:27, for 9 hours, 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 82.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1863, Pres. Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address at the dedication ceremony for the military cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Eric Hovde has not once — not once — disappointed his critics during his U.S. Senate race. He’s been consistently and unfailingly unworthy of the office. Even during his stubbornly-delayed concession, Hovde proved himself worthy, offering a concession speech laced with lies:
Twelve days after news organizations called the Wisconsin U.S. Senate race for Democratic incumbent Tammy Baldwin, Republican candidate Eric Hovde conceded the race.
Hovde announced on Nov. 18 that he would not seek a recount. In the same video posted to X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, he repeated falsehoods about Milwaukee’s absentee ballots.
“The results from election night were disappointing, particularly in light of the last-minute absentee ballots that were dropped in Milwaukee at 4 a.m., flipping the outcome,” Hovde said.
….
Wisconsin election experts told PolitiFact that this early morning influx of ballots was expected — and they not only don’t signal anything nefarious, they resulted from adherence to the law.
That’s because state law does not allow election workers to process absentee ballots before Election Day — a bipartisan bill to change that passed the Assembly, but Republicans in the state Senate did not take it up.
“This is something that everybody who’s familiar with elections in Wisconsin understands will happen,” said Jay Heck, executive director of the public advocacy group Common Cause Wisconsin.
Hovde’s not a conservative populist, but the conservative populists traffic in conspiracy theories (about elections, vaccines, ‘a deep state,’ fluoride in the water, etc.). This out-of-state man knows his party’s base, and it’s simply impossible for him to leave them with an admission of his undoubted failure. Something, somewhere, had had to go wrong, had to be untoward: the populists will never blame themselves, and so will never admit an honest and lawful defeat.
Aftershock II is believed to be the world’s first civilian-built rocket to reach an altitude of 470,000 feet. The latest rocket designed and built by the student-run USC Rocket Propulsion Lab (USCRPL) at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, has broken the international altitude record – reaching further into space than any non-governmental and non-commercial group has ever flown before.
Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 58. Sunrise is 6:51, and sunset is 4:28, for 9 hours, 37 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 89.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Police and Fire Commission meets at 6 PM, and the Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1928, the Walt Disney Studio releases the animated short Steamboat Willie, the first fully synchronized sound cartoon.
Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 56. Sunrise is 6:50, and sunset is 4:29, for 9 hours, 39 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1820, Captain Nathaniel Palmer becomes the first American to see Antarctica. (The Palmer Peninsula is later named after him.)
Dark Horse Loft near New Richmond is home to a unique mother and son pigeon racing team who compete against each other in an unusual sport hundreds of years old.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 51. Sunrise is 6:48, and sunset is 4:30, for 9 hours, 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1821, Missouri trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, over a route that became known as the Santa Fe Trail.
Dave Eck’s passion for vinyl began at Madison record stores as a teenager. That early love of music led to a career mastering records for major artists. Now he’s brought vinyl manufacturing back to Wisconsin, opening Waxxy Poodle in Cross Plains — the state’s first record pressing facility in nearly 100 years, producing thousands of records daily.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:47, and sunset is 4:31, for 9 hours, 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is full with 99.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
While Eric Hovde lost the race for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin (see below), he’s doing better with conspiracy theorists on X:
Social media posts about election fraud in Wisconsin have surged since Election Day, surpassing all other battleground states, according to data collected by PeakMetrics, a software analytics company.
Between Nov. 6 and Nov. 12, the number of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, mentioning election fraud in Wisconsin surged from 2,570 to 22,589 — an approximately 789% increase, according to the report. There has been no evidence to suggest voter fraud is a common issue in Wisconsin.
Hovde’s claims about his loss to Tammy Baldwin are easily debunked, as Ricardo Torres writes at the Journal Sentinel:
Hovde went on to say that at 4 a.m. Milwaukee updated its count to include roughly 108,000 absentee ballots and that Baldwin won “nearly 90% of those ballots.”
“Statistically, this outcome seems improbable,” Hovde said. “As it didn’t match the pattern from same day voting in Milwaukee, where I received 22% of the vote.”
….
Absentee ballots are just a portion of the total votes in any election. But since Hovde is focused on absentee ballots, it’s fairly easy to see his claim is incorrect by going to the city of Milwaukee’s election results page. It should be noted that some absentee voters chose third party candidates for U.S. senate or skipped that race.
Milwaukee received 108,964 absentee ballots by Nov. 5, according to the unofficial count.
Of that group, Baldwin received 88,229 and Hovde received 17,699 absentee ballots.
So Baldwin got about 80.9% of the absentee vote and Hovde got about 16.2% of it.
Clearly Baldwin did not get “nearly 90%” of the absentee ballot vote.
Baldwin’s absentee ballot vote in Milwaukee was similar by proportion to her Election Day in-person vote in Milwaukee. Torres continues:
On Election Day itself, there were 140,043 votes cast in Milwaukee, according to the unofficial count. Of that number Baldwin received 102,598 and Hovde received 29,574.
So Baldwin pulled down 73.2% of the vote on Election Day compared to Hovde’s 21.1% of that vote.
The wide disparities that Hovde claims are false: Baldwin did somewhat better with absentee ballots, but there was no statistically improbable result as Hovde claims.
Drone views show the medieval castle of Haut-Koenigsbourg, as if it were floating in clouds on a foggy day. Built in the 12th century by a Germanic imperial family, the castle was a mountain fortress which was later besieged and pillaged.
