FREE WHITEWATER

Budget, Daily Bread, School District, State Government, Wisconsin, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 5.14.26: If a ‘Bipartisan’ Bill Gets No WisDems Senate Votes, Was It Ever Bipartisan?

by  • 

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 5:33 and sunset is 8:10 for 14 hours 37 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Pedestrian and Bicycle Advisory Commission meets at 4 PM, and there will be a Common Council Visioning Session at 5:30 PM.

The Whitewater School Board will hold a governance workshop at 5:30 PM. Among the topics on the board’s agenda is Topic B, “Review spreadsheet with all documents in one place.” That’s quite sensible — one wouldn’t want to review all the documents in different places. Imagine if one had to go from Whitewater to Richmond to Lima Center simply to look at a spreadsheet.

Of these governance topics, absent from discussion is why, by its own policies, the Whitewater School Board offers the district’s residents recordings of its regular meetings only at a leisurely pace: “Recordings of the School Board Meetings will be posted in BoardDocs within a week or two after the meeting is held.” “A week or two” — honest to goodness that’s how it’s written — colloquially translates into “we’ll get to it when we get to it.”

The Artemis II astronauts traveled to the moon and back in less than two weeks.

On this day in 1804, William Clark and 42 men depart from Camp Dubois to join Meriwether Lewis at St. Charles, Missouri, marking the beginning of the Lewis and Clark Expedition‘s historic journey up the Missouri River.

If a ‘bipartisan’ bill gets no WisDems Senate votes, was it ever bipartisan?

The Wisconsin legislature has rejected the compromise tax and spending bill negotiated among Gov. Evers, Speaker Vos, and Senate Majority Leader LeMahieu:

The property tax and school funding package negotiated between Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) passed the Assembly Wednesday night in a bipartisan vote, but died in the Senate after three Republicans joined all the Democrats in voting against the measure.

[…]

The late Wednesday night votes followed more than nine hours of deliberation. Although Democrats in both chambers had panned the bill, 10 Assembly Democrats voted yes when the roll call arrived, after an amendment by Republicans that included disaster relief funds for parts of the state damaged during last year’s August floods and expanded a property tax cut for disabled veterans. The final Assembly tally was 61-32.

Despite the amendment, however, the Senate, meeting more than six hours after it was initially scheduled to convene, voted 18-15 against the bill. Republican Sens. Rob Hutton, Steve Nass and Chris Kapenga joined the entire Senate Democratic caucus in opposition.

See Henry Redman, Evers property tax, school funding deal with GOP dies in Senate, Wisconsin Examiner, May 13, 2026.

See also ‘Bipartisan’ Has Lost Meaning as a Useful Term, That ‘Bipartisanship’ Didn’t Last Long — Because It Was Never There, The WisDems’ Bipartisan Delusion, and Seeing Once Again That Wisconsin’s Not a Bipartisan Environment.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

Japan unleashes ‘Monster Wolf’ robots to repel record bear attacks:

Amid a record number of lethal bear attacks, Japan has a secret weapon. Meet “Monster Wolf.”

Japan is an advanced society with world-class technology. It’s understandable that they’d build a wolf-like robot. And yet, and yet, after lethal bear attacks, one might suggest a different, older approach. Bears, as it turns out, although formidable, are not bulletproof…

America, City, Daily Bread, Economy, Special Interests, Tariffs, War

Daily Bread for 5.13.26: Inflation Measures Rise Again

by  • 

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 59. Sunrise is 5:34 and sunset is 8:08 for 14 hours 34 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 15 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, enslaved Southerner Robert Smalls steals the steamboat Planter, spirits it through Confederate lines and hands it to the United States Navy, which quickly commission it as the gunboat USS Planter and later appoints Smalls as captain, thus making him the first Black man to command a United States ship.

In this, our new Golden Age, two key measures of inflation both show significant increases. Of consumer prices (the consumer price index), one reads that

Prices that consumers pay for a wide range of goods and services increased at a faster-than-expected pace in April, as another burst in energy prices raised further concerns about inflation’s impact on the U.S. economy.

The consumer price index rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the one-year pace at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday. The monthly rate was as forecast, but the annual rate was 0.1 percentage point above the Dow Jones consensus.

See Jeff Cox, Consumer prices rose 3.8% annually in April, the highest since May 2023, CNBC, May 12, 2026.

Of wholesale prices (the producer price index), there’s been a steep increase also:

Wholesale inflation jumps 6% in April on annual basis, biggest increase since 2022.

Wholesale prices in April posted their highest annual increase in more than three years, signaling more nettlesome inflation as pipeline costs intensify.

The producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% for the month, much higher than the 0.5% Dow Jones consensus forecast and the upwardly revised 0.7% March increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. This was the largest monthly gain since March 2022.

On an annual basis, the index was up 6%, the biggest increase since December 2022.

See Jeff Cox, Wholesale inflation jumps 6% in April on annual basis, biggest increase since 2022, CNBC, May 12, 2026.

How perplexing. During the last presidential election, Whitewater’s tiny faction of second-generation landlords placed signs throughout Whitewater promising that it was Mr. Trump himself who would bring lower prices. I’m old enough to remember. 

And so, and so, a man who advocated tariffs his entire adult life, promised to disrupt the labor market across this continent through mass deportations, and exhibited a reflexive belligerence that has brought an attack on Venezuela and a war in Iran was somehow going to bring better economic conditions?

The more one sees and hears from these local gentlemen, the less there is worth seeing or hearing.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

Fire crew work to contain massive house fire in New Jersey neighborhood:

Firefighters worked to contain a massive house fire in Norwood, New Jersey, on Tuesday afternoon.
Aerial footage from WABC-TV shows the fire crew dousing the flames with water as large white and black plumes of smoke rise into the sky.

America, City, Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs, War

Daily Bread for 5.12.26: ‘Bipartisan’ Has Lost Meaning as a Useful Term

by  • 

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy and windy with scattered showers and a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:35 and sunset is 8:07 for 14 hours 32 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 24 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5:15 PM and the Police and Fire Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1551, the National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru.

This libertarian blogger has argued that ‘bipartisan’ and ‘bipartisanship’ are empty terms in Wisconsin. Clinging to these terms now is like insisting horse-drawn wagons are still a primary means of transportation. See That ‘Bipartisanship’ Didn’t Last Long — Because It Was Never There, The WisDems’ Bipartisan Delusion, and Seeing Once Again That Wisconsin’s Not a Bipartisan Environment. (While there are times when bipartisan still has meaning for a single vote of a single commission, it’s mostly a term without an accurate application.)

Headlines today at the Journal Sentinel show how confused use of the term bipartisan has become:

See Kala Huynh, Wisconsin schools would get $617M boost under bipartisan funding deal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 12, 2026.

See Jessie Opoien and Molly Beck, Democrats slam Evers’ deal with GOP on school funding, tax relief, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 11, 2026.

Both headlines are reconcilable only if one thinks of this budget deal — involving leaders from two branches of state government — as though it were merely a single vote of a state commission. This is not merely a single vote of a state commission.

If many WisDems legislators — along with some in the WISGOP — oppose this deal, it’s not a bipartisan deal in the ordinary connotation of bipartisan: a deal supported broadly by both parties. (If every Democrat voted for a proposal, and one Republican joined in support, that would be a definition of bipartisan stretched so thin as to be transparent.)

That’s how much the terms bipartisan and bipartisanship have shriveled in our time — from terms that were meant to define consensus between major parties to meaning little more than one member from each party.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

South Florida wildfires burn thousands of acres in the Everglades:

A pair of South Florida wildfires that torched thousands of acres in the Everglades over the weekend spread Monday as fire crews worked to contain them. (AP video: Daniel Kozin)

City, Culture, Daily Bread, Politics

Daily Bread for 5.11.26: A Kind of Whitewater Democrat, a Kind of Whitewater Republican

by  • 

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 60. Sunrise is 5:36 and sunset is 8:06 for 14 hours 30 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 34 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Review Board meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1973, citing government misconduct, Daniel Ellsberg’s charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times are dismissed.

Even in small-town Whitewater, across many years, there has always been more than one kind of Democrat or Republican. See the series WHITEWATER’S LOCAL POLITICS 2021. (It’s only the unobservant or conceptually confused who think there’s only one of each type.)

Of these several types, two — species within a genus so to speak — come to mind recently.

For Whitewater’s Democrats, there have always been members of Democraticus bipartisanus whitewaterensis: Democrats who will seek purportedly bipartisan deals with leading local Republicans no matter how unfavorable the terms or how compromising to the Democrats’ overall politics. These types are fewer now, but you’ll still see some. They’re men and women who are sure that they can find common ground even on quicksand. Since Scott Walker, the number of local Democrats who think this way gets smaller each year. These remaining creatures have seen their status shift from vulnerable to endangered to critically endangered over the last dozen years.

There’s no common ground left, but they just don’t stop delusionally hoping.

For Republicans, who have seen the rise of MAGA, there’s a tendency among local MAGA devotees to associate with MAGA-spouting special interest men as part of a coalition: Republicanus magaensis subserviens whitewaterensis. These MAGA men spent much of their lives insisting that they’d been ignored by others, including fellow Republicans, and now that they’ve become more numerous the first thing they’ve done has been to take direction from the very Republicans who ignored them for years.

One can see that I’m opposed to MAGA, but it never fails to both perplex and amuse thatthe faction that insists it’s now their time still takes direction from the local men who mucked up the time before our time. All it took was a few shared cultural positions for the special interest men to co-opt MAGA to their own local ends.

In other parts of the nation, these particular species of Democrats or Republicans do not exist: Democrats seldom appease Republicans and MAGA seldom appeases anyone. Elsewhere, these species stand on their own. There’s simply greater clarity of nature and aims elsewhere.

That greater clarity is useful to everyone: communities elsewhere see more early, so to speak, what’s what.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

Two Rovers, Billions of Years of Martian History – NASA’s Perseverance and Curiosity Rovers:

NASA has two rovers on Mars – but they’re exploring entirely different eras of the planet’s past. Separated by 2,300 miles, the two rovers are uncovering clues from very different moments in Martian history. Perseverance is on the rim of Jezero Crater, where it’s studying some of the oldest Martian terrain ever explored while searching for signs of ancient microbial life. Meanwhile, Curiosity is climbing Mount Sharp inside Gale Crater, where layers of rock reveal how Mars’ climate changed as water dried up from its surface. Together, the missions are helping scientists reconstruct how Mars formed, when and where water existed, and the planet’s history of having the right conditions to support life. Their discoveries are offering a clearer picture of how Mars became the dry and dusty world we know today.

Daily Bread, Holiday

Daily Bread for 5.10.26: Happy Mother’s Day

by  • 

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 63. Sunrise is 5:37 and sunset is 8:05 for 14 hours 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 43.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1775, the Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

Webb and Hubble telescope study finds massive star clusters emerge faster than lighter clusters:

A study using imagery from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that “massive star clusters emerge more quickly from the clouds they are born in,” according to ESA.

Daily Bread, Politics, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 5.9.26: Easy Answers to Wisconsin Political Questions

by  • 

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see a mix of clouds and sunshine with a high of 67. Sunrise is 5:38 and sunset is 8:04 for 14 hours 26 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 53.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1974, the House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Nixon.

Some questions are easily answered, no matter how often or breathlessly asked. Below are a few questions to dispatch this Saturday morning.

1. So is Tommy Thompson running for governor in 2026?

No, of course not. Shawn Johnson reports Tommy Thompson endorses Tom Tiffany’s bid for Wisconsin governor. He was never running for governor in 2026, despite media outlets obliging Thompson’s attention-seeking. (See from 4.25.26, More Silly Speculation About Tommy Thompson: “For reasons unknown to sensible people, every so often the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will report on a possible Tommy Thompson run for governor this year. See Assessing Teasers and Speculation About Wisconsin Elections for 2026. Holy moly, the Journal Sentinel is back for more.”)

Thompson had a greater likelihood of a career as a successful swimsuit model than he did as a 2026 gubernatorial candidate.

2. Does it matter that erratic gadfly Kirk Bangstad is running for governor as a Democrat?

No. The Journal Sentinel‘s politics mailbag asks this question, but Bangstad is unknown to most people, and pointing to his campaign will prove a wasteful diversion of resources for either the WISGOP or WisDems. The serious primary field consists of Tiffany and a few leading WisDems (of whom Bangstad is not one, and never will be one).

3. Does it matter what WisDems candidate Joel Brennan said about Wisconsin not being ready for a non-white gubernatorial candidate?

No. Brennan has since ‘clarified’ his view, but the former head of Wisconsin’s Department of Administration, and former president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee,1 is well behind other WisDems gubernatorial candidates.

4. Does it matter that Rebecca Cooke, Democratic candidate for Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District, once consulted for Kirk Bangstad?

No. Cooke was once a consultant in 2015 for Bangstad, but it means nothing for her primary race or the general election if she wins her primary. (Cooke is likely to win her primary; Bangstad has, ironically, endorsed Cooke’s primary opponent, Eau Claire City Council President Emily Berge.)

Four questions — easily and simply answered.

_____

  1. These ‘Greater City X’ or ‘Greater County Y’ organizations are political pipsqueaks. They’re only interesting to the few stodgy types who read WisPolitics or stalk the halls of the state capitol building panhandling for public money. No one else GAF. Even if Brennan ran as a Republican, where these roles count for more, most Republican voters would, sensibly, find his résumé unimpressive. ↩︎

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

Today is Global Big Day, a yearly 24-hour birding event where people around the world record as many bird species as possible to support conservation. Here’s a video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology about Big Day 2026 – Birding in the Five Great Forests:

On Saturday, May 9, Team Sapsucker will split up, searching for birds in the forests of Appalachia and Central America for Big Day 2026! The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s team of scientists and bird enthusiasts will race to identify as many species as they can in 24 hours, to raise awareness and crucial funds for conservation. One group will explore the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, while the others will traverse the Maya Forest in Guatemala. Both teams share a single goal: to help make a lasting impact for conservation.

Animals, Birds, Conservation, Daily Bread, Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 5.8.26: Improving a Habitat in the Central Sand Plains

by  • 

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 67. Sunrise is 5:39 and sunset is 8:03 for 14 hours 24 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 62.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, the German Instrument of Surrender signed at Berlin-Karlshorst comes into effect. (The day before, Germany had signed another surrender document with the Allies in Reims in France, but it was not recognized by the Soviet Union.)

Wisconsin’s Central Sand Plains lie northwest of Whitewater, in the middle of the state. Here is how the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources describes the area:

The eastern portion of the Central Sand Plains is a mosaic of cropland, managed grasslands and scattered woodlots of pine, oak, and aspen. Many of the historic wetlands in the east were drained early in the 1900s and are now used for agricultural purposes. The western portion of this Ecological Landscape is mostly forest or wetland. Oak, pine, and aspen are the most abundant forest cover types. Plantations of red pine are common in some areas. On wet sites the forests are of two major types: tamarack and black spruce in the peatlands, and bottomland hardwoods in the floodplains of the larger rivers. Many attempts to practice agriculture west of the Wisconsin River failed due to poor soils, poor drainage, and growing season frosts.

See Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Central Sand Plains Ecological Landscape.

The Nature Conservancy is working on a rehabilitation project in the Sand Plains to benefit Kirtland’s warblers, among other animals:

Click image for slideshow

Best wishes to The Nature Conservancy as it works toward a conservation success story.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

Kirtland’s Warbler Song:

The rare Kirtland’s warbler is listed as “near threatened” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Key threats are fire suppression, brood parasitism by Brown-headed Cowbirds, and loss of habitat on the wintering grounds.

Animals, Cats

Friday Catblogging: Cat or Otter?

by  • 

Cat!

Over at Discover Wildlife, Catherine Smalley has the answer:

The jaguarundi is one of the strangest-looking cats in the Americas. Long-bodied, short-legged and sleek, it has more than a hint of otter or weasel about it, which explains why it is sometimes called the otter cat.

Yet this elusive hunter is very much a felid, and a close relative of the puma. Found from northern Mexico right into South America, the jaguarundi is unusual not only for its shape but also for its habits, being more active by day than many of its feline neighbours.

The jaguarundi ranges from northern Mexico through Central America and across much of South America east of the Andes, reaching as far south as central Argentina. Historically, it also occurred in southern Texas, though it is now thought to have disappeared from the USA.

See Catherine Smalley, Is it an otter or a cat? Long-bodied, short-legged and weasel-headed, this is one of the most bizarre felines on the planet, Discover Wildlife, May 2, 2026.

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, May 12, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Hamnet

by  • 

Tuesday, May 12 at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Hamnet @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Historical Drama/Biography/Romance

Rated PG-13; 2 hours, 6 minutes (2025)

The powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet. Oscar Winner, Best Actress: Jessie Buckley

One can find more information about Hamnet at the Internet Movie Database.

City, Daily Bread, Local Government, Reasoning, Special Interests

Daily Bread for 5.7.26: More on ‘Over Reliance on a Single Population Projection’

by  • 

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see intervals of clouds and sun with a brief shower or two and a high of 59. Sunrise is 5:41 and sunset is 8:02 for 14 hours 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 71.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Ethics Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1992, Michigan ratifies a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the Constitution making the 27th Amendment law. This amendment bars Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay raise.

Over three months ago, a longtime resident1 contended during public comment at the 1.20.26 session of the Whitewater Common Council that a demographic projection showed that Whitewater would lose 3,000 people in population by 2040. See Whitewater Common Council, January 20, 2026 Video @ 46:54.

On 2.9.26, this libertarian blogger wrote an assessment of that claim, concluding that the resident confused the authorship of the demographic projection and misunderstood or ignored the limitations of that projection’s conclusions. See Over Reliance on a Single Population Projection (outlining the reasons that “solid, rational planning for 2040 beats picking — cherry-picking, really — one estimate in remarks to the Whitewater Common Council.”)

Later, Later, that same over reliance on a single projection spread through others onto social media.

Honestly, to have the the hubris of some of these gentlemen in believing they can take a single demographic projection (and ignore other projections and different methodologies) is nearly satirical — something like an economic model that relies on one positive quarter from 2023.

One should be clear that this reliance on one projection was a transparent effort to undermine a proposed development project by throwing anything and everything at the wall.

Well, as one should have seen months ago, any considered analysis of several demographic projections (not simply a single projection that satisfies one’s argument!) concludes that

After consideration of both high and low forecasts, the [Whitewater Forward] plan uses a forecast based on an annual average resident growth rate of 0.4%, with some growth in local student population through 2030 based on the University’s strategic goals.

See RDG Planning & Design, Population Forecasts for Whitewater (2026).

Indeed, of the four major population projections for Whitewater that RDG Planning reviews, only one of them shows a decline. The one projection that estimates a decline relies, as I noted at the time, on a “method [that] also produces a projection that can be highly sensitive to short-run disruption — especially in places that are unusual in ways for which the model does not account.”

RDG notes what’s unique about Whitewater that a model projecting decline would miss:

decline of the student population after 2020 [i.e., a temporary distortion from the pandemic] is likely influencing the projection for Whitewater, along with the unique population age cohorts from university students that factor into the birth and death model.

No one need be a demographer (as I am not) to grasp that serious argumentation requires looking at several studies, considering whether one of them might have (as in this matter) a different methodology, and then fairly and accurately representing those various demographic projections and their approaches.

Regrettably, that’s not what one of Whitewater’s longtime residents did this winter. It’s what RDG Planning & Design’s Population Forecasts for Whitewater (2026) does this spring.

_____

  1. Local landlord, former Community Development Authority member, former Community Development Authority chairman, former school board member, former school board president. ↩︎

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

Inside The Old Skydiving Plane Hunting Drones in Ukraine:

As Russian drones overwhelm Ukraine’s vast air defenses, civilian volunteers are stepping in to take them down. The New York Times takes flight with a crew that’s turned an old skydiving plane into a drone hunter.

Business, Daily Bread, Local Government, Open Government

Daily Bread for 5.6.26: Data Center Construction Must Be a Public Discussion

by  • 

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 52. Sunrise is 5:42 and sunset is 8:01 for 14 hours 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 79.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1840, the Penny Black, the world’s first adhesive postage stamp, officially goes on sale for use in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

When a major corporation proposes to build a data center in a community, this libertarian blogger has contended that the proposal should be a local decision. The local decision, however, should — and must — be a local public discussion. A non-disclosure agreement between a corporation and a city or county government, for example, by design prevents adequate public discussion. It is wrong to think that voters choose representatives with an implied power to conceal major information from those very voters. On the contrary, representatives of the people serve only for limited times and purposes.

Embedded above is a video of Wisconsin residents speaking out against secretive data center deals with government. See also Tom Kertscher, More than NDAs. Wisconsin communities face scrutiny over data center secrecy (‘The town of Beloit is the fifth Wisconsin community with an NDA for a possible data center’), Wisconsin Watch, March 23, 2026.

(A proposal to bar data-center secrecy agreements, introduced as 2025 SB 969, did not become law. The bill failed to pass by March 23, 2026, pursuant to Senate Joint Resolution 1.)

While non-disclosure agreements are often useful between private parties, public institutions, by their nature, must adhere to an open standard of information and decision-making. There is a clear difference between representing an entire community and representing a limited number of self-selected stockholders. See Private Company, Public Company, Public Agency. It’s typical in places beset with cronyism — as Whitewater once was for many years — for special-interest types to blur or reject this distinction for their own advantage. We have come far in recent years and, as these changes are rooted in broad social trends, irreversibly so. See Change Comes from Many People and Places.

While free transactions in private property are foundational to flourishing societies, government isn’t private property. The answer to the question of Who owns the City of Whitewater? is no one and yet everyone.

To believe in the importance of private property — and it is critical to prosperity — is to understand rightly both its extent and limits.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome-Driven Argumentation.

Uncontained wildfire burns hundreds of acres across rural Arizona:

City, Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 5.5.26: Change Comes from Many People and Places

by  • 

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 5:43 and sunset is 8:00 for 14 hours 17 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 87 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Alcohol Licensing Committee meets at 5 PM and the Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1862, troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico.

This libertarian blogger has written before about What Ails, What Heals in Whitewater (2022), Heals & Ails, General & Particular, Public & Private (2023), and ‘What Ails, What Heals’ and What’s Changed (2025).

Through it all, the list has been specific and deliberate —

What ails: boosterism, toxic positivity, regulatory capture, populism, closed government, news deserts, and violence. What heals: free markets, charity, tragic optimism, open government, impartial government, a professional press, and individual rights.

A few remarks are in order.

Whitewater has made great progress on what heals these last few years, notably in open government, impartial government, balanced development, and the rise of standard-model news reporting from the Royal Purple. These are significant gains for the city.

Special-interest cronyism is much weaker in this city than a generation ago; it’s weaker even than a decade ago. The special-interest men are no less scheming and self-aggrandizing than before, but they reason poorly, speak poorly, and do both with transparently self-interested motives.

It seems likely that they blame their decline on a few people, and in this they’re as wrong as they are about public policy. Since the Great Recession, Whitewater has been on an inexorable socioeconomic and cultural transformation that leaves yesterday’s cronyism inadequate to the next generation’s needs. Whitewater is not changing because of a few — she’s changing because of many.

It’s absurd — crazily so — to assume that a few men, each carrying on like an angesehener Bürger of a stagnant medieval town, could forever hold back change in an American city of nearly sixteen thousand. Americans have built across this continent the most dynamic and productive society in human history. We are an energetic and innovative people.

Sensible people commit to enduring principles applied uniquely in each new generation (of philosophy, religion, economics, science, or art); others senselessly commit to nothing more than their own static positions despite a changing society. It’s predictable, almost poignant, to watch aged men fight for their past against the rest of the city’s future.

How very unfortunate to think so narrowly that someone wouldn’t grasp that ‘we’ve never seen this before‘ is an expression of a limited perspective rather than a worthy critique.

If one only looks beyond one’s image in a mirror, to thousands and millions and hundreds of millions beyond, then one sees new and creative ideas waiting, all around.

Change comes from those thousands and millions and hundreds of millions.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, and Outcome Driven Argumentation.

Watch NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft soar in these flight close-ups:

NASA’s X-59 quiet supersonic aircraft was run through a series of maneuvers during a flight over the Mojave Desert in California on April 14, 2026.

Campaign Ads, Daily Bread, Elections, Legislation, Politics, WisDems, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 5.4.26: Two Theories on Bipartisanship

by  • 

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:45 and sunset is 7:59 for 14 hours 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1961, the Freedom Riders begin a bus trip through the South.

In some political developments, there’s more than one way to assess an event. As a sensible approach, should assess what one believes is accurate yet be open to being proved wrong.

On the existence of bipartisanship in Wisconsin politics, recent campaign spending produces two possible theories. The first possibility is that conservative spending on WISGOP candidates with selected moderate positions is a sign of increasing bipartisanship. The second possibility is that spending on these candidates is an attempt to preserve their incumbencies to support more conservative WISGOP positions on many other issues.

Brittany Carloni writes that recent ads suggest Republicans are reading the national mood and emphasizing bipartisan legislation:

In a late-night press conference during the final days of the Assembly session in February, eight Republican lawmakers in some of the chamber’s most closely contested districts made a dramatic announcement. 

They told reporters they had persuaded longtime Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, to allow essential votes on bills to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage for new Wisconsin mothers and to require insurance companies to cover additional screenings for women at increased risk of breast cancer. Vos had opposed the bills, which stalled in the Assembly for months. 

Two months after the bills passed the Assembly, the Jobs First Coalition, a political advocacy organization that has backed Republican candidates, released ads lauding the efforts of some of those GOP lawmakers to get the two women’s health bills signed into law. Michelle Litjens Vos, the speaker’s wife and a former state lawmaker, works on fundraising and event planning for the Jobs First Coalition, according to recent tax documents. 

[…]

The ads, which have been shared as candidates are circulating nomination papers to get on the November ballot, point to an Assembly Republican strategy cognizant of a national mood that has turned on President Donald Trump and the Republican establishment. The bills also highlight a political issue that appeals to female voters, a voting group that Republicans have often struggled with at the national level. 

See Brittany Carloni, Conservative group’s ad campaign pits vulnerable Wisconsin Republicans against their own party leadership, Wisconsin Watch, May 4, 2026.

In this reading of events, these ads show a move away from traditional WISGOP positions generally. Perhaps this is an accurate reading.

There is, however, an alternative reading of this ad spending. This libertarian blogger, being skeptical of claims of bipartisanship, would contend that WISGOP support for some moderate (WisDems) positions may be an attempt to re-elect vulnerable Republican incumbents who will, if reelected, simply vote the WISGOP line on other issues. And so, and so — a few moderate positions for the sake of reelection and immoderate votes within a WISGOP caucus once reelected.

Which assessment is more accurate? We don’t know, and will not know unless these WISGOP candidates are reelected and their full voting records are examined beginning next year.

For now, I’m doubtful of genuine, comprehensive bipartisanship. These ads look to skeptical eyes as no more than situational, temporary positioning for immediate electoral advantage.

_____

Upcoming posts (in no decided order): Claims of Legacy, a Particular Species of Democrat, a Whitewater Comparative Analysis, Whitewater’s Workforce, ‘What Ails, What Heals’ Reviewed, and Outcome Driven Argumentation.

Whole lotta lambs:

A sheep owned by Anne O’Connor, who runs Clover & Bee Farm in Underhill, Vermont, with her husband, Gunnar, gave birth to a rare batch of six lambs earlier this month. The sextuplets and their mother are all doing well, making the lamb windfall even more remarkable. The same ewe previously had quadruplets, and while a recent checkup indicated she would have two lambs this time, O’Connor suspected more. When the big day came, the baby lambs seemed to have kept coming and coming, she said. “I was a little bit suspicious, just given how big she was and that she was going a little earlier, that she might have more than two,” she said. “Six is great, but it’s definitely — it’s plenty.”