FREE WHITEWATER

Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Depravity, Ethics, Never Trump, Trump

He Already Has

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It is difficult for reasonable and civilized people to understand the persistent of corruption and disorder in a man like Trump. The rational man or woman – guided by intellect and tradition – assumes that someone of Trump’s ilk is only in the grip of an ephemeral disorder, a passing derangement. Surely, they think, Trump will return to reason, to a rational equanimity (even if he should remain disqualifyingly ignorant).

Trump will not return to reason; he’s an aged man who has been disordered – so far as one can tell – for most of his life.

He may be opposed, resisted, and fought, but he will not be reformed through conventional effort.

Catherine Rampell reminds of this – for some do need reminding – in her essay Worried Trump might weaponize the presidency? He already has, many times:

Our vindictive president, now unshackled by his frightened followers in Congress, may well be teed up to punish his perceived political enemies. And we needn’t exercise much imagination to envision how this loaded-gloved counterpuncher might weaponize his executive authority.

He did it in the Ukraine affair, of course, when he tried to use taxpayer funds to extort a foreign leader into smearing a political opponent. Most of his abuses, however, have happened closer to home.

Consider the selectively punitive antitrust actions undertaken by this administration, which is otherwise not exactly known for caring about market concentration.

In the case of AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner, for instance, some economists and career civil servants raised legitimate concerns about the merger’s possible effects on competition. But Trump tried to block it for political reasons, because he disliked Time-Warner-owned CNN.

We are years into a continent-wide conflict; it will not end when Trump and his inner circle see to reason, as they never will. This conflict will end when one side prevails and casts the other into a political outer darkness.

As always, the proper focus is Trump, His Inner Circle, Principal Surrogates, and Media Defenders including Trumpism Down to the Local Level.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.10.20

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-one.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 5:20 PM, for 10h 22m 11s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1763, the Treaty of Paris cedes formerly French-controlled land, including the Wisconsin region, to England.

Recommended for reading in full —

Patrick Marley and Eric Litke report Most of the Wisconsinites targeted for removal from voter rolls cast ballots in 2016:

Many of the 232,000 Wisconsinites at the heart of a lawsuit over who should be on the state’s voting rolls are reliable voters, with nearly three-quarters of them casting ballots in the 2016 presidential election.

The frequency with which they vote shows why Democrats and Republicans alike are scrambling to find their supporters and get them to update their voter registrations. With Wisconsin a top target in this year’s presidential election, they want to ensure they get their backers to the polls in November.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission in October identified 232,576 registered voters who it believes may have moved. Conservatives have filed a lawsuit to try to force those voters off the rolls.

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel analysis of data from the commission shows the voters in question are ones who often show up at the polls:

72% of them voted in the 2016 presidential election.

89% of them have voted in at least one election since 2006.

31% voted in all three presidential elections since 2008, 52% voted in at least two of them and 78% voted in at least one of them.

Arthur Delaney reports Trump Administration Quietly Goes After Disability Benefits:

Under the proposed change, the government would look more closely at whether certain disability insurance recipients still qualify as “disabled” after they’ve already been awarded those benefits. While recipients already have to demonstrate their continuing disability every few years, the proposal would ramp up the examinations, potentially running still-eligible beneficiaries out of the program.

The extra reviews will help “maintain appropriate stewardship of the disability program,” the administration said in the proposal, arguing current rules fail to account fully for the possibility of medical improvement.

It’s just one of several unilateral moves the Trump administration has made against social programs that make it easier for people to survive without labor market income. The proposals may save the government a few dollars, but they also send a political message that President Trump is cracking down on the “takers” Republicans have vilified for decades.

Rafael Carranza reports Sacred Native American site in Arizona blasted for border wall construction:

The contractor that is building President Donald Trump’s border wall in southwestern Arizona began blasting this week through a site that the Native American O’odham people consider sacred to make way for newer, taller barriers.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed the contractor started blasting through the site called Monument Hill at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument west of Lukeville “in preparation for new border wall system construction within the Roosevelt Reservation.”

The Roosevelt Reservation is a 60-foot-wide swath of federally owned land along the border in Arizona.

Since construction began in August, crews have been clearing that 60-foot swath – relocating certain plants, including the state’s iconic saguaros, to other parts of the national park.

How Keeth Smart Became the Best Fencer in the World:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.9.20

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of thirty-five.  Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 5:18 PM, for 10h 19m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 99% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1870, Pres. Grant signs a joint resolution authorizing the Weather Bureau of the United States. 

Recommended for reading in full —

Michael Gerson writes Trump’s politicization of the National Prayer Breakfast is unholy and immoral:

First, the president again displayed a remarkable ability to corrupt, distort and discredit every institution he touches. The prayer breakfast was intended to foster personal connections across party differences. Trump turned it into a performative platform to express his rage and pride — the negation of a Christian ethic. Democrats have every right and reason to avoid this politicized event next year. And religious people of every background should no longer give credence to this parody of a prayer meeting.

Second, Trump has again shown a talent for exposing the sad moral compromises of his followers, especially his evangelical Christian followers. Jerry Falwell Jr., Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress and Eric Metaxas don’t have it easy after an event such as this one. Not only do they need to defend Trump’s use of a prayer breakfast as a campaign rally. Not only are they required to defend his offensive questioning of religious motivations. They must also somehow justify his discomfort with a central teaching of the Sermon on the Mount and his use of a prayer meeting to attack and defame his enemies. These evangelical Christian leaders will, of course, find some way to bless Trump’s sacrilege. But he makes their job ever harder and their moral surrender ever more obvious.

Third, Trump’s unholy outburst (and the White House event that followed) shows we are reaching a very dangerous moment in our national life. The president is seized by rage and resentment — not heard on some scratchy Watergate tape, but in public, for all to see and hear. He now feels unchecked and uncheckable. And he has a position of tremendous power. This is what happens when a sociopath gets away with something. He or she is not sobered but emboldened. It took mere hours for Republican senators who predicted a wiser, chastened president to eat their words. The senators are, in part, responsible for the abuses of power to come.

Jeff Stein and Erica Werner report Trump’s new budget proposal expected to show how far he has moved away from some 2016 campaign promises:

On immigration, health care, infrastructure and the deficit, the final budget pitch of Trump’s first term will look much different from the campaign platform he offered four years ago.

The border wall that he promised would be paid for by Mexico is instead being financed by billions in U.S. taxpayer dollars, and the administration’s budget request to Congress is expected to seek even more.

The president’s 2015 promise to protect Medicaid from cuts has been repeatedly ignored, as he has sought to slash some $800 billion over a decade from the health program for low-income Americans.

This Turkish Ice Cream Doesn’t Melt:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.8.20

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-two.  Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 5:17 PM, for 10h 16m 59s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s annual Polar Plunge for Special Olympics takes place today at the Cravath lakefront, 341 S. Fremont Street (link to map). Check-in and registration begin at 10 AM, with a chili cook-off at 11 AM, and the opening ceremony and plunging beginning at Noon.

Scenes from plunges across Wisconsin —

On this day in 1858, a Wisconsin Congressman starts a fight in the House: 

On February 8, 1858, Wisconsin Rep. John Potter (considered a backwoods hooligan by Southern aristocrats) leaped into a fight on the House floor. When Potter embarrassed a pro-slavery brawler by pulling off his wig, the gallery shouted that he’d taken a Southern scalp. Potter emerged from the melee covered in blood and marked by slave owners as an enemy.

Recommended for reading in full —

Molly Kinder writes Trump’s State of the Union declared we’re in a “blue-collar boom.” Workers don’t agree:

First, low unemployment numbers are hiding widespread economic precarity. As my colleagues Martha Ross and Nicole Bateman pointed out, 44% of jobs in the U.S. pay so little that workers can barely afford to live. The stories we heard corroborate these statistics.

“The pay is not as high as I thought it would be,” a 23-year-old gas station manager told us. “I tell my husband, ‘I’m working my butt off there and I have to live check to check.’”

Many of the workers we spoke to expressed anxiety about their lack of a financial cushion to weather emergencies. “I don’t have the greatest car in the world,” one 25-year-old grocery worker said. “It is old and it’s probably going to break down on me soon, which would suck because I need it for work. I keep trying to save and I can’t. I’m constantly worried about it.”

Low-wage workers in expensive regions such as the Bay Area described going to great lengths to stay afloat, from living in groups in tight quarters to commuting long distances to working multiple jobs. The lesson? Employment only matters if workers can access quality jobs.

Second, rising wages mean little if workers can’t get enough hours or qualify for benefits. Many grocery and retail workers voiced frustration that their employers were raising hourly pay but making it harder for workers to get enough hours to pay their bills and—importantly—to qualify for health benefits. “In 18 years, I never got a full-time position, never,” one cashier lamented. “I can’t survive with 24 hours [a week].” A grocery manager said that so few of her colleagues get full-time hours, doing so is like winning the lottery: “[That’s] why you’re constantly seeing, ‘We’re hiring!’ But you can’t give me 40 hours.”

….

The wide gap between Trump’s State of the Union address and the reality of workers’ lives is illustrated by far more than compensation and employment figures. The working class today faces historic inequality in both power and prosperity. A more equitable economy that truly delivers for working people requires a rebalancing of that power, and policy changes to address the structural forces that exclude workers from shared prosperity.

The Sun seen by the Inouye Solar Telescope:

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, February 11th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood

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This Tuesday, February 11th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

(Comedy/Drama)
Rated R (language, violence, sexual references).

2 hours, 41 minutes (2019).

A faded TV actor (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stunt double (Brad Pitt) strive to achieve fame and success in the film industry during the final years of Hollywood’s Golden Age in 1969. Also stars Margot Robbie, Bruce Dern, Luke Perry, Al Pacino, and Kurt Russell. Winner of 3 Golden Globes: Actor (DiCaprio); Supporting Actor (Pitt); and Screenplay (Quentin Tarantino).

One can find more information about Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood at the Internet Movie Database.

Enjoy.

Games/Puzzles, Legislature

On Card Games at Work – Simply Tell Them to Stop

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There’s a story in the State Journal about Sen. Nass’s concern that legislative pages (mostly part-time pages and part-time students) are playing card games during working hours:

A Republican state senator is complaining about legislative pages using work time to play a card game that pits fascists against liberals trying to root out a “secret Hitler” — a game in which some versions swap the Hitler character for President Donald Trump.

Sen. Steve Nass, of Whitewater, complained to his Senate GOP colleagues Wednesday that both part-time and full-time page staff have during paid work time been playing “Secret Hitler,” a politically themed hidden identity card game from the same game designer who created the raunchy party game “Cards Against Humanity.”

In “Secret Hitler,” between five and 10 players are divided into two uneven teams: a larger team of liberals and a smaller team of fascists. One player is chosen as Secret Hitler. The fascists are aware of their leader’s identity and work to install him by tricking the liberals, who aren’t aware of his identity.

Via GOP state senator wants legislative pages to stop playing ‘Secret Hitler’ at work.

Sen. Nass wrote to his colleagues to complain about this, and the game was confiscated. Fair enough – people shouldn’t play cards at work. The story says that the chief clerk confiscated the cards, and that Nass wants a legislative human resources investigation.

A legislative human resources investigation is a waste of time.  Nass is a longtime politician in the majority – he should ask to speak to those responsible, and make his point clear in a mentoring conversation. This is an opportunity for a leader to address matters directly without a lot of fuss. Nass is not a young man, and at his age he should be able to have a normal conversation with young men and women across a table.

(Realistically, he should also be able to speak more often on his own behalf without spokesman Mike Mikalsen.)

Now, I’m not a card-player, but for those so inclined, Amazon sells Secret Hitler and a Secret Trump card pack is hard-to-find but highly rated, as it even includes a “bonus Mike Pence card, suitable for use in case of impeachment or resignation.”

Blogging, Writing

Aggregation, Curation, and Commentary

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Here’s a quick post based on an email and reply from last night about the differences between aggregation, curation, and commentary (from my viewpoint).

An aggregation site receives stories or news releases to post, and publishes them based on an intentionally loose set of criteria to maximize the number of posts. Ideally – and it’s only an ideal – the aggregation site mirrors the publications from which it collects. (Even aggregation requires criteria for publishing, but those criteria are meant to be as permissive as possible to allow in as much as possible.)

A curated site may start with aggregation, but it has a more narrow set of criteria for selection, so fewer items are posted online. The curator looks over what he or she finds, and selects only a few items.

Although both methods rely on selection (of an algorithm for aggregation or personally-applied criteria for curation), there’s a far greater level of personal selection for each post in a curated site. Aggregation sites bear a responsibility, but a reduced responsibility, as against curated sites.

An aggregation site takes what it gets, mostly – a curated site selects and sometimes refashions or augments what it receives.

A change from aggregation to curation necessarily involves a greater degree of agency and responsibility.

A site of commentary, like FREE WHITEWATER, is a curated site. Indeed, it’s all curation. Each and every one of the posts published here is deliberately selected and crafted. Someone may like or dislike a post on Trump, or cats, or boosterism, but those choices – including all the words therein – are deliberate in both general and specific ways.  (This blog has one author, with one voice, and every choice here is from an emissary of one, so to speak.)

A traditional newspaper, by the way, is curated – which stories are editorially chosen, which words are editorially approved, how stories are editorially placed on the page – it’s all curation. A good paper is curated well; a weak paper is curated poorly.

These are imperfect distinctions, but they work well enough, I think, for ordinary use.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.7.20

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-three.  Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 5:16 PM, for 10h 14m 24s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1867, Laura Ingalls Wilder is born this day near Pepin, Wisconsin.

Recommended for reading in full —

Gerry Shih reports Chinese doctor who tried to raise alarm on coronavirus in Wuhan dies on ‘front line’ of medical fight:

HANGZHOU, China — A Chinese doctor who was silenced by police for trying to share news about the new coronavirus long before Chinese health authorities disclosed its full threat died after coming down with the illness, a hospital statement said, triggering an outpouring of anger online toward the ruling Communist Party.

Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, became a national hero and symbol of the Chinese government’s systemic failings last month. Li had tried to warn his medical school classmates Dec. 30 about the existence of a contagious new virus that resembled the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).Word began to spread in China thanks to Li, but his posts were censored, and he was detained Jan. 1 for “rumor-mongering.”

The full outlines of his story, which came to light in recent weeks as the Wuhan outbreak exploded into an international emergency, set off a swell of outrage in China, where citizens have long chafed at the government’s penchant for relentlessly snuffing out any speech deemed threatening to social stability.

Many, including China’s judicial authorities in a rare rebuke of the police, have wondered whether the epidemic would have unfolded differently had Li not been silenced at the critical juncture around Jan. 1.

Will Sommer, Maxwell Tani, and Andrew Kirell report Fox News Internal Document Bashes Pro-Trump Fox Regulars for Spreading ‘Disinformation’:

Fox News’ own research team has warned colleagues not to trust some of the network’s top commentators’ claims about Ukraine.

An internal Fox News research briefing book obtained by The Daily Beast openly questions Fox News contributor John Solomon’s credibility, accusing him of playing an “indispensable role” in a Ukrainian “disinformation campaign.”

The document also accuses frequent Fox News guest Rudy Giuliani of amplifying disinformation, as part of an effort to oust former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, and blasts Fox News guests Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova—both ardent Trump boosters—for “spreading disinformation.”

The 162-page document, entitled “Ukraine, Disinformation, & the Trump Administration,” was created by Fox News senior political affairs specialist Bryan S. Murphy, who produces research from what is known as the network’s Brain Room—a newsroom division of researchers who provide information, data, and topic guides for the network’s programming.

The research brief is especially critical of Solomon, a former opinion columnist at The Hill whose opinion pieces about Ukraine made unsubstantiated claims about its government interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Solomon’s pieces for The Hill fueled Giuliani’s efforts to dig up dirt in Ukraine, which eventually helped lead to President Donald Trump’s impeachment. Trump has also frequently cited Solomon’s questionable reporting on Twitter in his own defense.

NASA’s Christina Koch Shatters Spaceflight Record:

Blogging, Law, Newspapers, Public Records, University, UW System

Five Months

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In a local newspaper’s story about a former chancellor’s leave of absence, one learns that information about her leave came five months after a public records request:

Tuesday marked five months since The Gazette filed an open records request with UW-W for information on Kopper’s leave during the fall semester, when she previously had plans to teach.

After The Gazette notified the university this week about a pending story on the unfulfilled request and sought comment, the UW-W’s public records custodian, Alexandra Stokes, sent the records.

Honest to goodness.  The story doesn’t say what efforts the paper made during that time to obtain the information. It seems that it did nothing until – nearly half a year later – the paper told a UW-Whitewater official that a follow-up story was about to land.

Public records requests are not mere entreaties – they are requests under Wisconsin law.

The university defiantly withheld too long, and the newspaper diffidently waited too long.

See 4 Points About Public Records Requests (‘Residents, bloggers, and community groups that seek information under a public records law should be prepared to defend that request at law.  One hopes that won’t be necessary, but rights are more than hopes, and so one should think ahead, even before a request is submitted: what’s next at law if officials obstruct this request?  See, along these lines, Steps for Blogging on a Policy or Proposal‘). 

Five months’ time was far too long to wait.