Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS
Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 12.12.21: Following Wisconsin’s Shambolic Elections Inquiry
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning. 
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny and windy, with a high of 42. Sunrise is 7:17 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 04m 06s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 65.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1941, Adolf Hitler declares the imminent extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery. Goebbels made the following entry in his diary for 12 December:
Bezüglich der Judenfrage ist der Führer entschlossen, reinen Tisch zu machen. Er hat den Juden prophezeit, daß, wenn sie noch einmal einen Weltkrieg herbeiführen würden, sie dabei ihre Vernichtung erleben würden. Das ist keine Phrase gewesen. Der Weltkrieg ist da, die Vernichtung des Judentums muß die notwendige Folge sein.
Regarding the Jewish question, the Führer has decided to make a clean sweep. He prophesied to the Jews that, if they yet again brought about a world war, they would experience their own annihilation. That was not just a phrase. The world war is here, the annihilation of the Jews must be the necessary consequence
Hilter, himself, brought about the world war, and so in Goebbels’s diary one reads a lie of causation followed by a plan of genocide.
UW-Madison political science professor and Elections Research Center director Barry Burden discusses the status and findings of probes into how the 2020 presidential vote was conducted in Wisconsin:
It is a bit of a three ring circus. We are more than a year from the presidential election and still there are probes, investigations and audits underway in one form or another. All of them seem to be essentially open-ended with no clear goals, unclear who was involved, what deadlines are set for producing some kind of report or conclusion. So my fear is that they are unfortunately doing the opposite of what the proponents say they are doing. Instead of building confidence in the election system, they are continuing to raise suspicions, make allegations and leave questions on the table that are likely to lower public trust in elections.
Bad Ideas, Books, Confidence Schemes, Conflicts of Interest, Corporate Welfare, Daily Bread, Development, Foxconn, Mendacity, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, Trump, WEDC
Daily Bread for 12.11.21: A Christmas Gift For, and About, Scheming Development Men
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will see snow this morning, of little accumulation, on an otherwise cloudy day with a high of 36. Sunrise is 7:16 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 04m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 55.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1901, Morris Pratt incorporates his school for spititualism in Whitewater:
Whitewater became known as the “mecca of modern spiritualism.” Pratt built his institute in 1888, which was initially used as a meeting place for public seances. Pratt decided to turn his institution into an educational school for spiritualists, focusing on science, literature, morality, and communication, as well as spiritualistic instruction. The institute was closed for a few years during the Depression, and then in 1977 relocated to Waukesha, where it remains one of the few institutes in the world that is dedicated to the study of spiritualism.
Lawrence Tabak’s Foxconned (‘Imaginary Jobs, Bulldozed Homes, and the Sacking of Local Government’):
Powerful and resonant, Foxconned is both the definitive autopsy of the Foxconn fiasco and a dire warning to communities and states nationwide.
When Wisconsin governor Scott Walker stood shoulder to shoulder with President Trump and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan at the White House in July 2017, they painted a glorious picture of his state’s future. Foxconn, the enormous China-based electronics firm, was promising to bring TV manufacturing back to the United States with a $10 billion investment and 13,000 well-paying jobs. They actually were making America great again, they crowed.
Two years later, the project was in shambles. Ten thousand construction workers were supposed to have been building what Trump had promised would be “the eighth wonder of the world.” Instead, land had been seized, homes had been destroyed, and hundreds of millions of municipal dollars had been committed for just a few hundred jobs—nowhere near enough for Foxconn to earn the incentives Walker had shoveled at them. In Foxconned, journalist Lawrence Tabak details the full story of this utter collapse, which was disturbingly inevitable.
As Tabak shows, everything about Foxconn was a disaster. But worse, he reveals how the economic incentive infrastructure across the country is broken, leading to waste, cronyism, and the steady transfer of tax revenue to corporations. Tabak details every kind of financial chicanery, from eminent domain abuse to good old-fashioned looting—all to benefit a coterie of consultants, politicians, and contractors. With compassion and care, he also reports the distressing stories of the many individuals whose lives were upended by Foxconn.
Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers, Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition, Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere, Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land, Foxconn Couldn’t Even Meet Its Low First-Year Goal, Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans, WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid, Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy, Laughable Spin as Industrial Policy, Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project,’ ‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn,’ Foxconn: When the Going Gets Tough…, The Amazon-New York Deal, Like the Foxconn Deal, Was Bad Policy, Foxconn Roundup, Foxconn: The Roads to Nowhere, Foxconn: Evidence of Bad Policy Judgment, Foxconn: Behind Those Headlines, Foxconn: On Shaky Ground, Literally, Foxconn: Heckuva Supply Chain They Have There…, Foxconn: Still Empty, and the Chairman of the Board Needs a Nap, Foxconn: Cleanup on Aisle 4, Foxconn: The Closer One Gets, The Worse It Is, Foxconn Confirm Gov. Evers’s Claim of a Renegotiation Discussion, America’s Best Know Better, Despite Denials, Foxconn’s Empty Buildings Are Still Empty, Right on Schedule – A Foxconn Delay, Foxconn: Reality as a (Predictable) Disappointment, Town Residents Claim Trump’s Foxconn Factory Deal Failed Them, Foxconn: Independent Study Confirms Project is Beyond Repair, It Shouldn’t, Foxconn: Wrecking Ordinary Lives for Nothing, Hey, Wisconsin, How About an Airport-Coffee Robot?, Be Patient, UW-Madison: Only $99,300,000.00 to Go!, Foxconn: First In, Now Out, Foxconn on the Same Day: Yes…um, just kidding, we mean no, Foxconn: ‘Innovation Centers’ Gone in a Puff of Smoke, Foxconn: Worse Than Nothing, Foxconn: State of Wisconsin Demands Accountability, Foreign Corporation Stalls, Foxconn Notices the Noticeable, Journal Sentinel’s Rick Romell Reports the Obvious about Foxconn Project, Foxconn’s ‘Innovation’ Centers: Still Empty a Year Later, Foxconn & UW-Madison: Two Years and Less Than One Percent Later…, Accountability Comes Calling at Foxconn, Highlight’s from The Verge’s Foxconn Assessment, After Years of Promises, Foxconn Will Think of Something…by July, Foxconn’s Venture Capital Fund, New, More Realistic Deal Means 90% Reduction in Goals, Seth Meyers on One of Trump’s (and Walker’s) Biggest Scams, the Foxconn Deal, Adding the Amounts Spent for Foxconn (So Far), Perhaps – Perhaps – a Few Lessons Learned, and Foxconn Slips Away in the Night.
Daily Bread, Elections, Law
Daily Bread for 12.10.21: That Was Yesterday, This is Today
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with afternoon rain and a high of 41. Sunrise is 7:15 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 05m 25s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 44.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1906, Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize in any field.
On 12.8, Patrick Marley reported that A bipartisan commission allows Wisconsin election grants, once again rejecting challenges brought by Republicans:
Wisconsin elections officials from both parties threw out a challenge Wednesday to private grants that helped cities run their elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.
A day later, on 12.9, two of the three Republicans on the commission crept away from bipartisanship. Marley reports Republicans sided with Democrats in an election challenge. A day later, they changed course:
On Thursday, Republican Commissioners Dean Knudson and Bob Spindell struck a new stance and said they wanted a hearing after all.
“I don’t agree with the decision letters that this was just fine,” Spindell said of the rulings that the grants were acceptable.
He said he had not seen the emails from Jacobs and DeWitt’s attorneys that they had sent him regarding hearings before the decisions were issued. He said he didn’t know why he wasn’t aware of them.
“I pay attention to my emails and I certainly pay attention if anything were to come from Ann,” he said. “I’m going to go back and take a look. It’s possible that I missed them.”
Knudson said he received the email from DeWitt’s attorneys but thought it might be spam because the state’s email system appended a warning to it that said it was sent from someone outside the commission. Jacobs’ follow-up email did not include such a warning.
“Frankly I did not recognize it and treated it as spam at the time,” Knudson said by email Thursday. “I will seek changes in procedure to help avoid a repeat of my mistake in future similar cases.”
Even if these Republicans did ignore emails, they wouldn’t be able to ignore calls from threatening fanatics motivated Republicans reminding them of what might happen if they didn’t change course, pronto.
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, December 14th, 1 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Mixed Nuts
by JOHN ADAMS •
Tuesday, December 14th at 1 PM, there will be a showing of Mixed Nuts @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Comedy/Drama/Holiday
1 hour, 37 minutes
Rated PG-13 (1994)
Unusual events occur on Christmas Eve at a crisis hotline in Venice, CA. Nora Ephron (“Sleepless in Seattle”) wrote and directed this Yuletide comedy starring Steve Martin, Madeline Kahn, Rob Reiner, Rita Wilson and Jon Stewart.
One can find more information about Mixed Nuts at the Internet Movie Database.
Enjoy.
Cats
Friday Catblogging: The Mountain Lion Kittens of Ventura County
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread, Elections, Law
Daily Bread for 12.9.21: Election Commission Upholds Election Grants
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 7:14 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 06m 12s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 33.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1868, the first traffic lights are installed, outside the Palace of Westminster in London. Resembling railway signals, they use semaphore arms and are illuminated at night by red and green gas lamps.
Patrick Marley reports A bipartisan commission allows Wisconsin election grants, once again rejecting challenges brought by Republicans:
Wisconsin elections officials from both parties threw out a challenge Wednesday to private grants that helped cities run their elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The series of rulings by the state Elections Commission is the latest instance of authorities rejecting claims that the grants were illegal. Over the last year, three courts dismissed lawsuits over the grants.
In the latest development, the commissioners tossed out a new set of challenges over the grants that were filed this spring.
“The Commission finds that the Complaint does not raise probable cause to believe that a violation of law or abuse of discretion has occurred. All claims are hereby dismissed,” attorneys working for the commission wrote in a letter they sent Wednesday to the lawyer who spearheaded the challenges.
At issue is $8.8 million in grants the Center for Tech and Civic Life gave to Wisconsin’s five largest cities — Milwaukee, Madison, Green Bay, Racine and Kenosha. No one has challenged smaller grants the center gave to about 200 other Wisconsin municipalities.
….
DeWitt’s lawyers concluded there was no reason to believe there was wrongdoing and sent their findings to the six commissioners.
If two or more commissioners asked, the commission would have had to hold a hearing and take a vote on what to do. No commissioner asked for a hearing. Under commission rules, that means it has adopted the attorneys’ conclusions.
The commission consists of three Democrats and three Republicans. They have clashed on some high-profile issues but have surprised observers by sticking together on some politically fraught matters.
There are sure to be appeals to circuit courts in counties where the grants were made. The intensity of conservative populists’ opposition to programs that don’t assure the outcomes they want will motivate them to keep fighting against ballot access for all.
Drone footage reveals damage from Indonesia’s Mount Semeru volcano eruption:
Daily Bread, Elections, Law
Daily Bread for 12.8.21: Pandemic? What Pandemic? Whitewater’s Already Wished It Away…
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:13 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 07m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 23.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1660, a woman (either Margaret Hughes or Anne Marshall) appears on an English public stage for the first time, in the role of Desdemona in a production of Shakespeare’s play Othello.
Diane Bezucha reports ‘We are full. Period’: Wisconsin hospital leaders say they are at a crisis point with new COVID-19 surge:
Wisconsin hospital leaders are sounding the alarm as the state endures another COVID-19 surge. The seven-day average of new infections is over 3,500 — the highest it’s been in a year.
During a roundtable discussion hosted by Wisconsin Health News on Tuesday, hospital leaders said they have reached a crisis point.
“We are full. Period,” said Eric Conley, CEO of Milwaukee’s Froedtert Hospital. “It’s really impacting, impeding care for those patients who are not COVID that need the care getting in because getting to our beds is just very, very hard.”
According to the Wisconsin Hospital Association COVID-19 dashboard, there were 1,630 people in the state hospitalized for COVID-19 as of Tuesday afternoon— an increase of 212 over the past week. More than 400 of those patients are in intensive care units, which are in short supply.
“Unfortunately, it’s not looking good and I don’t think it’s looking good for anybody across the state or even across state lines. Our ICUs are pretty much full,” said Dr. Imran Andrabi, CEO of ThedaCare.
As of Tuesday, hospitals in the Fox Valley and North Central Wisconsin regions reported having only one or two intensive care unit beds available. Hospitals in the northwestern and western part of the state reported having zero ICU beds available. And in southeastern Wisconsin, the number of available beds was cut in half overnight — from 30 on Monday to 15 on Tuesday.
“The hardest part of this is that the delta surge is accelerating while we’re still thinking about what other variants might exist and how they’re going to impact our organization,” said Sue Turney, CEO of Marshfield Clinic Health System.
At Froedtert, Conley said COVID-19 patients make up about 13 percent of occupied beds, but that number is as high as 40 percent in some hospitals.
Every leader at Tuesday’s panel said the vast majority of new COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated — from 74 percent at Marshfield Clinic to 88 percent at Froedtert.
I’ve been a critic of amateur epidemiology, where untrained people try to predict the course of the pandemic. See On COVID-19 Skeptics and COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric
It’s not a prediction, however, when doctors and hospital leaders report that their hospitals are filling with unvaccinated COVID-19 patients.
It’s simply a fact.
Photos of smiling residents won’t make this pandemic disappear. Indeed, even a hundred exclamation points won’t improve the health of our fellow residents.
Although I’ve no training in epidemiology or virology, I’ll demonstrate:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sure enough, the pandemic is still here…
In Whitewater, the local public school district can spill onto social media as many happy posts as it wants, and yet not a single student will be healthier or safer. Vaccination clinics in our schools would protect. Facebook, by contrast, hasn’t yet protected anyone from hangnail, let alone a virus. See Boosterism’s Cousin, Toxic Positivity and Toxic Positivity Is Worse than Annoying as Public Policy.
Vaccination is positive; ‘positivity’ is an evasion.
Daily Bread, Nature, Planning, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 12.7.21: Bad Plans and Bad Planners Behind Wisconsin’s Wolf Hunt
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 21. Sunrise is 7:12 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 07m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy carries out a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet and its defending Army and Marine air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Danielle Kaeding reports Wisconsin’s fall wolf hunt is on hold. Several lawsuits could affect whether it moves forward:
Wisconsin’s wolf hunt has been on hold since a Dane County judge issued a temporary injunction in October stopping the season that was set to begin Nov. 6.
The order came after a coalition of wildlife advocacy and animal protection groups filed a lawsuit arguing, in part, that the hunt is illegal because it relies on outdated regulations and a management plan that hasn’t been updated since 2007.
But that lawsuit is only one of several efforts to stop the hunt from happening.
Six Wisconsin tribes have also sued in federal court. They argue their treaty rights are being violated under state wolf management, pointing to February’s court-ordered hunt. State-licensed hunters killed 218 wolves in less than three days, harvesting the tribes’ share and exceeding the overall 200-wolf quota.
And another lawsuit filed by national wildlife and environmental groups seeks to restore protections for wolves nationwide.
Hunting advocates say the state should act quickly to ensure a hunt can happen before the end of the season in February.
Consider also that By Creating a ‘Landscape of Fear,’ Wolves Reduce Car Collisions With Deer:
Research published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights an underappreciated benefit of wild wolf populations: the large predators frighten deer away from dangerous roadways, saving money and lives in the process.
According to the analysis 22 years of data, a county’s deer-vehicle collisions fall by about 24 percent after wolves take up residence there, Christina Larson reports for the Associated Press. Nearly 20,000 Wisconsin residents collide with deer each year, which leads to about 477 injuries and eight deaths annually. There are 29 counties in Wisconsin that have wolves.
“Some lives are saved, some injuries are prevented, and a huge amount of damage and time are saved by having wolves present,” says Wesleyan University natural resource economist Jennifer Raynor to Ed Yong at the Atlantic.
Wisconsin’s last wolf hunt is an example of government planning gone wrong. The solution to bad planning isn’t more planning by the same planners. At the least, It’s remedial education for bad planners or new planners after those responsible for errors are removed from their positions.
Wisconsin shouldn’t be so tolerant of government error.
Daily Bread, Elections, Law, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 12.6.21: The Assault on Wisconsin’s Elections
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 30. Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 4:16 PM for 09:08 hours of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Equal Opportunities Commission meets at 5 PM (later canceled), and Whitewater’s School Board at 6 PM.
On this day in 1790, Congress moves from New York City to Philadelphia.
Laura Thornton, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, writes Why international election observers would give Wisconsin a failing grade:
On Nov. 10, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Republican state lawmakers proposed a hostile takeover of election management in their state. As Johnson told the New York Times, “Unfortunately, I probably don’t expect [Democrats] to follow the rules. And other people don’t either, and that’s the problem.” Johnson’s conclusion: The current system of bipartisan oversight by both parties should be abolished, and Republican legislators must be in control of the elections in which they are competing.
I spent more than two decades living and working overseas to advance democracy and credible elections — giving me plenty of opportunity to see the lengths to which autocrats will go to gain power. Even so, the proposed Wisconsin power grab is shocking in its brazenness. If this occurred in any of the countries where the United States provides aid, it would immediately be called out as a threat to democracy. U.S. diplomats would be writing furious cables, and decision makers would be threatening to cut off the flow of assistance. Yet we are conspicuously failing to hold ourselves to the same standard.
….
Experts around the world have spent years analyzing the best ways to manage elections to ensure democratic outcomes. A nonpartisan election body is considered best practice. The U.S. aid agency’s own guidelines on elections emphasize the importance of neutral and independent election management. Even when countries establish a nonpartisan body of professionals, there is constant debate around how election administrators are selected and who does the selecting. In Georgia (the country), I once had to listen to hours of complaints about how an election official had a sister who in high school dated a man who was now affiliated with a political party, casting the whole election in doubt.
Knowing all this, our imaginary election observer in Wisconsin would be alarmed by Republican politicians openly stating that they alone should run the election process, rather than a bipartisan commission of professionals. (Johnson has bluntly said that the Republican-controlled state legislature should “reassert its power.”) In other countries, political parties trying to control elections usually attempt to hide their maneuvers. They might try to quietly exert pressure on election officials or curry influence with them behind the scenes. In Cambodia, where I once led an audit of the voter registry that showed serious manipulation by the election commission, its members defended their work by pointing to the commission’s ostensible independence. There is usually at least lip service to the importance of neutral election administration, in large part to assuage the international community.
See also Ron Johnson Wants It All and The WISGOP Push to Take Over the State’s Elections.
Johnson wouldn’t talk this way if a faction in the state didn’t think this way. A faction in the state wouldn’t think this way if they didn’t see an advantage in so thinking. There wouldn’t be an advantage if this faction found, in opposition, the majority’s resolute commitment to the constitutional order.
A defense requires defenders; a resolute defense requires resolute defenders.
It’s incredible’ — conservationist captures footage of elusive Andean cat:
(N.B.: A day that starts off with a video recording of an Andean cat has an above-average chance of being a good day.)
Music
Monday Music: Five Minutes That Will Make You Love the Organ
by JOHN ADAMS •
Via 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Organ: ‘Listen to the biggest, loudest, most extravagant (yet incredibly subtle) instrument of them all.”
Business, Daily Bread, Dog-Crap Company, Social Media
Daily Bread for 12.5.21: Facebook Sold Ads Comparing Vaccine Rollout to the Holocaust
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 36. Sunrise is 7:10 AM and sunset 4:20 PM for 9h 09m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1775, from Fort Ticonderoga, Henry Knox begins his historic transport of artillery to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The Recount reports that Facebook Sold Ads Comparing Vaccine Rollout to the Holocaust:
See also Facebook won’t let you control your own news feed and Facebook Revelations Show a What a Dog-Crap Company It Is.
City, Daily Bread, Police
Daily Bread for 12.4.21: Whitewater’s Police Chief Placed on Administrative Leave
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 38. Sunrise is 7:09 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 11m 04s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1875, the notorious New York City politician Boss Tweed escapes from prison; he is later recaptured in Spain.
One read yesterday in a press release that Whitewater’s police chief, Aaron Raap, has been placed on administrative leave:
Whitewater Police Chief Placed on Paid Administrative Leave
Whitewater, Wis. December 3, 2021 – Whitewater Police Chief Aaron M. Raap has been placed on paid administrative leave. Deputy Chief Dan Meyer is serving as acting Police Chief until further notice. The Whitewater Police Department operations will continue without disruption and with full expectations of providing high quality services to our community.
An internal investigation will be conducted by an outside agency based on an incident that occurred outside the City of Whitewater. The leave is not considered punitive, rather part of the Whitewater Police Department policy.
Because this is an ongoing investigation, no additional information will be released at this time.
(The release is awkwardly worded: outside agencies don’t conduct internal investigations. A truly internal investigation would involve only intra-department personnel. The reasonable interpretation is here is simply that an outside agency will conduct an investigation.)
Journalists throughout the area carried the story. See Fort Atkinson Online, Lake Geneva Regional News, Channel 3000 Madison, Fox 6 Milwaukee.
There will be any number of unfounded theories on social media about the basis of this administrative suspension, but unfounded theories are hardly notable. (Facebook’s not my preference, so to speak, in the same way that staying overnight in a Greyhound bus terminal wouldn’t be.)
Instead, for now, a few words about the usefulness — to all — of administrative leave.
When an allegation arises, of reasonable concern, promptly placing a leader on administrative suspension is the best course. Complainants, the community, and even the leader all benefit from a process of administrative leave. A complainant, should there be one, is assured that the matter will be taken seriously and addressed publicly. A community is assured of no further risk, if there should ever have been any. At the same time, the leader himself or herself is removed from an environment of speculation.
Whitewater, Wisconsin should well understand the benefits of administrative leave.
When then-Chancellor Dwight Watson of UW-Whitewater was placed on administrative leave, the UW System properly investigated, and released the results of an investigation that credibly exonerated him. Watson returned to work thereafter. See UW-Whitewater’s Chancellor on Paid Administrative Leave and UW-Whitewater’s Chancellor, Dr. Dwight Watson, Resumes University Role.
By contrast, despite repeated complaints and investigations, UW-Whitewater’s then-Chancellor Bevery Kopper and her execrable spouse, Pete Hill, remained in their positions for years after the first complaint against him. Their continued presence perpetuated conditions of injury and intimidation. Administrative leave with a thorough investigation at the first opportunity would have, at least, prevented further injury.
One needn’t address now the cause of Raap’s administrative leave. It’s enough today to observe that administrative leave following an incident or allegation is a prudent decision that Whitewater, notably, has pursued too seldom.
Coronavirus, Daily Bread, Health, Public Health
Daily Bread for 12.3.21: Wisconsin Sets Daily Record for COVID-19 Cases
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 4:21 PM for 9h 12m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s annual Christmas parade, traveling along Main Street in the downtown and ending at Whitewater Street near Cravath Lakefront, begins at 6 PM.
On this day in 1984, the Bhopal disaster‘s leak of a methyl isocyanate leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, kills more than 3,800 people outright and injures 150,000–600,000 others (some 6,000 of whom later died from their injuries) in one of the worst industrial disasters in history.
David Wahlberg writes Wisconsin reports more than 5,000 COVID-19 cases, daily record for 2021:
Wisconsin reported 5,097 new COVID-19 cases Thursday, the highest daily total this year, as health officials said hospitals are again becoming overwhelmed, including with a record number of coronavirus patients needing ventilators to breathe.
As of Thursday, 698 COVID-19 patients were on ventilators in the state, according to the Wisconsin Hospital Association. That’s up from last year’s high of 638 in mid-November, before vaccines were approved, Timberlake said. The delta variant accounts for virtually all cases today, and hospitalized patients are younger and sicker than a year ago and require longer hospital stays, she said.
Wisconsin residents not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 were nearly five times more likely to become infected, 11 times more likely to be hospitalized with the disease and more than 15 times more likely to die from it in October than those fully vaccinated, the health department said last month.
“We are overwhelmed,” said Dr. Ashok Rai, CEO of Prevea Health. On a recent day, the system’s hospital in Green Bay had to turn away 28 patients, including three with strokes, meaning many had to be transferred far from home, Rai said.
Quite the dissonance: local officials accentuate the positive, and yet hospitals keep filling up.