Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM for 15h 19m 30s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1846, the Oregon Treaty extends the border between the United States and British North America, established by the Treaty of 1818, westward to the Pacific Ocean.
MADISON – For years, it was far from clear that a bill to boost funding for cities, towns, villages and counties in Wisconsin would make it to the finish line — or even the starting line, for that matter.
But on Wednesday, state lawmakers passed the controversial legislation that keeps Milwaukee from entering a fiscal crisis in a bipartisan vote that pushed 12 Republicans to vote against the legislation and 19 Democrats to vote in favor — splitting from the majority of their respective caucuses.
The legislation, sought by local officials for years, required the Democratic governor and Republican legislative leaders to set aside an icy relationship and a history of fierce disagreement and negotiation.
Obvious point: the state’s withholding of billions as surplus benefits none of the ordinary residents who made a surplus possible. Distribution (return to residents, truly) is acceptable in many ways; withholding vast amounts is unacceptable in every way.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with a chance of late afternoon showers, and a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:34 PM for 15h 19m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
The city and school district’s Aquatic Center Subcommittee meets at 6 PM.
For over two years, Whitewater’s residents have waited, with hope, for access to a $1.9 million housing fund that would support owner-occupied housing in the city. Now, at the last moment, a few interested men have proposed to the Community Development Authority that the fund should be available to landlords or non-occupant investors to subsidize rental properties in a city that is, already awash in rental properties.
No, and no again. There is a notable temerity (lit., an excessive confidence or boldness; audacity) in those who would ask a Community Development Authority for a special interest purpose on behalf of existing landlords.
This community needs and wants more residents living in their own single-family homes. This is a nearly universal understanding. There are few topics in Whitewater so clear to residents as this one.
Below, I have embedded a copy of the changes that a local banker has reportedly made to the original draft. One sees where he (and perhaps those few of his ilk) have removed, in red strikethroughs, each and every requirement for owner-occupied housing, thereby opening the door to landlords. Toward the end of these revisions, he strikes the requirement that recipients of this public money be part of a public meeting process. (It’s a convenient way for incumbent landlords to take public money while shielding themselves from public notice.)
This edited draft is both exemplar and parody of regulatory capture, where special interests manipulate a public process for their own private ends. To adopt these revisions, and allow incumbent landlords to take from this housing fund would create a crisis of legitimacy for the Community Development Authority and Whitewater Common Council. Individual members of the CDA and Common Council should recognize that serving a particular interest like this, when the result is both unwanted and unnecessary, would be a fundamental break from responsible policy and representation of the community. No one is appointed, and no one is elected, to serve only a few men. That’s what one-horse southern towns are for.
The chairman of the Whitewater Community Development Authority, the president of the Whitewater Common Council, and all the members of each, have an obligation to preserve their institutions’ reputations in conformity with good policy and public expectations. Adopting these revisions, for those who would do so, would be a fundamental break with their own community. No one in office took an oath to serve a special interest; the oath is for public service.
People choose freely, sometimes well and sometimes poorly. Some poor choices, however, are fundamentally wrong, and impossible to rectify or repair. Such wrongs change irrevocably an official’s or institution’s legitimacy within a community. If the Community Development Authority should choose wrongly, and if the Common Council should choose wrongly, those doing so will not be able to say that so many in the community, one libertarian blogger among them, did not caution them against that wrongful choice.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 64. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:34 PM for 15h 18m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1777, Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette lands near Charleston, South Carolina, in order to help the Continental Congress to train its army.
Federal Reserve officials received an encouraging inflation report on Tuesday as a key price index slowed more than expected in May, news that could give policymakers comfort in pausing interest rate increases at their meeting this week.
The Consumer Price Index climbed 4 percent in the year through May, slightly less than the 4.1 percent economists had expected and the slowest pace in more than two years. In April, it had climbed 4.9 percent.
While that remains about twice the rate that was normal before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, it is down sharply from a peak of about 9 percent last summer.
The fresh data offer the latest evidence that the Fed’s push to control rapid price increases is beginning to work. Fed officials have been raising interest rates since March 2022 to make it more expensive to borrow money, in bid to slow consumer demand, tamp down a strong labor market and ultimately cool rapid inflation. They have lifted borrowing costs for 10 meetings in a row, to just above 5 percent, and many officials have suggested in recent weeks that they could soon take a pause to give themselves more time to assess how those adjustments are working.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 68. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM for 15h 18m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 31.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 9 AM, and the full school board meets in closed session shortly after 6 PM, resuming open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1944, American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division secure the town of Carentan, Normandy, France.
Situated in what is expected to be a key 2024 battleground state, Door is one of nine counties across the country that have backed the presidential winner in every election since 2000.
“We voted for Bush twice, Obama twice, the other guy and Joe Biden — hopefully Joe Biden twice,” Kris Sadur, chair of the Door County Democrats, said at a May pie-auction fundraiser, prompting chuckles. “All eyes are on Wisconsin, and it’s a very exciting time to be in Door County.”
….
Farming, manufacturing and tourism — all fields bolstered by newcomers — have shaped Door County. Over the years, seasonal laborers transformed the region into one of the country’s biggest cherry suppliers. Out-of-town recruits have filled shipyards in Sturgeon Bay, the county seat, constructing military vessels during World War II and, more recently, a superyacht that Italy confiscated last year from a Russian oligarch. The peninsula’s quaint beach towns and forest trails draw admirers from Milwaukee, Chicago and other blue cities — many of whom have snapped up vacation homes or opted to retire here.
The result: a reliably purple region.
In 2020, Biden beat Trump in Door County by 292 votes. Four years earlier, Trump bested Hillary Clinton by 558 votes, and four years before that, President Barack Obama defeated Mitt Romney by 1,229 votes. (While The Post’s analysis of bellwether counties focused on election results since 2000, Door’s streak goes back to 1996, when the county voted for President Bill Clinton.)
The county’s bellwether status has applied to state races, too. A majority of voters in April supported Democratic-backed judge Janet Protasiewicz, whose victory flipped control of the state Supreme Court to liberals. In the 2022 midterms, Gov. Tony Evers (D) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R) both prevailed by slim margins here and in the state overall.
“We’re kind of an indicator of what’s going to happen,” said Stephanie Soucek, chairwoman of the Republican Party of Door County. “It makes me nervous to see the results here. More pressure on us.”
Interesting, but hardly compelling.
(Soucek seems to imply that what happens in Door County somehow influences what happens in America, but that’s impossible. The results in Door County won’t change any other outcome except, in small measure, the statewide total. The success of one party or another won’t jinx the result nationally, as though failure in Door dooms a party in America. Door County’s politics may be representative of trends elsewhere, but they are not causal of results elsewhere.)
Bellwethers, though, as microcosms of the national scene, will be tested depending on the GOP nominee, America’s reaction in 2024 to that nominee, Trump’s waxing criminal indictments, the influence of abortion as a national topic, and in Wisconsin how voters may respond to state court decisions on abortion and gerrymandering, etc.
However much Door County may have in the past mirrored national results, there’s no certainty, let alone magic, in looking closely there again.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM for 15h 17m 35s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 41.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 82. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:32 PM for 15h 16m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 53% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1837, workmen arrive in Madison to begin construction of the first state capitol building. A ceremony to lay the building’s cornerstone was held three weeks later, on July 4, 1837. [Source: Wisconsin Local History and Biography Articles.]
There’s a tired and dull way of seeing office life as ‘clock in, at a desk all day, clock out.’ Discussions over office policy and remote work are sure to find someone who thinks that chained-to-a-desk is a responsible, serious, mature position. No, and no again. It matters most what a free, productive, market economy produces, with how following — not dictating — output. If someone sits around all day at home in a rabbit costume but produces twice as much as anyone else, that’s an individual and societal gain.
Wanting everything to appear just so is less important than everything running productively.
‘Clippit’ or ‘Clippy’ as you might know him, made his way onto millions of computers around the globe in the late nineties. The trusty paperclip fended off countless other characters before rising to fame upon his selection as Microsoft Office 97’s default assistant. Despite always being on hand to offer helpful suggestions and useful tips, Clippy’s input wasn’t always appreciated. His diligent gaze and shape-shifting animations divided opinion amongst the masses. The virtual character has left a lasting impression on those who worked alongside him. Now possessing a nostalgic charm, he continues to remind people of a simpler time in technology.
Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:32 PM for 15h 16m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1973, Secretariat wins the U.S. Triple Crown.
U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin is a favorite to win re-election next year. See Baldwin as the Prohibitive Favorite and Closer to Unbeatable (‘Mike Gallagher would be a stronger opponent for Baldwin but he likely won’t run; Tom Tiffany will be a much easier opponent for Baldwin and he likely will run’).
Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher said he will not run for Senate in 2024, leaving wide open the Republican field for a seat in a key battleground state that could help decide who controls Congress’ higher chamber.
Gallagher told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he will not challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin next year and rather plans to run for a fifth term representing the state’s 8th Congressional District.
Gallagher was the only top-tier prospect for the WISGOP. A poll that The Bulwarkcited today shows he was running behind utter loon David Clarke:
It’s only a nutty WISGOP that would favor Clarke over Gallagher. One is reminded of the sheriff’s observation about zombies in the original Night of the Living Dead: “Yeah they’re dead, they’re all messed up.”
Tuesday, June 13th at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Boy Erased @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Biography/Drama
Rated R (language, sexual content)
1 hour, 55 minutes (2018)
A current topic of discussion is conversion therapy. In this thoughtful, well-acted film, the son of a Baptist minister participates in a church-supported gay conversion therapy program after being outed to his parents. Starring Lucas Hedges, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 74. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:31 PM for 15h 15m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 76% of its visible disk illuminated.
Sometimes a community, so entranced and distracted by every tree, cannot see the forest. What matters most is overlooked for the sake of smaller concerns. So it has been with Whitewater’s fire & rescue department.
For over a century, Whitewater had a volunteer fire department. Over time, and undeniably by the Aughts of this century, it was clear that a volunteer model no longer met Whitewater’s needs. In the 2010s, Whitewater commissioned an independent study to review the department and make recommendations. It began a long (almost dilatory) but necessary process.
Almost a year ago, Whitewater approved a referendum to fund a municipal fire department. This libertarian blogger supported that referendum.
It shouldn’t be hard to see why. A community must assure its members’ safety. If that can be done through volunteer efforts, then so much the better. When it cannot be assured through volunteer efforts, the government provision of these services (fire, emergency response, policing, defense) must still be provided, through government. This is the foundational expectation for state power: that people are kept safe with minimal intrusion into their lives. This was an increase in state power, but a specified, limited, and responsible exercise. (In no case is that power independent of law — police and fire departments are not separate nations within their communities, free to act as they wish. They are to be limited and closely regulated only in pursuit of specified objectives.)
It was an expensive shift, but an expense that was justified to assure community well-being. No other public project of the last thirty years, not a Bridge to Nowhere, not a roundabout, not a failed tax incremental district, not hundreds of thousands wasted to dicey capital catalyst projects while Whitewater remained a low-income community, not an East Gate renovation project, and not an Innovation Center that survives only through a publicly-funded tenant, has been as important as having a normal and successful fire department.
No one will come to a town that cannot meet residents’ basic needs for safe streets, emergency responses, clean air & water, and good schools. In Whitewater, these are all public services (as we’ve no large private district or university in town).
There should have been a parade — truly — when the fire & rescue department became a city agency. There was a proper pinning ceremony, but there might have been more. Our move to this model has been to the community’s gain, as a necessary step toward modern standards of public safety.
And so, and so — no step local government has taken in the last generation has been as important for the city’s well-being. A municipal fire & rescue department keeps us safer and makes us more inviting to new residents and businesses.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:31 PM for 15h 14m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 85.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1889, American Temperance crusader Carrie Nation begins her campaign of vandalizing alcohol-serving establishments by destroying the inventory in a saloon in Kiowa, Kansas.
The Whitewater Common Council met last night. The agenda was full, but no particular part, no matter how significant, was more important than the whole. The meeting was illustrative of Whitewater’s condition, one of both challenges and hope.
A few remarks are below.
In-person and online. Whitewater’s council meetings are both online and in person. The online platforms are Zoom and streaming through Vimeo.
(Last night, and often, the Vimeo stream loads late and often far down on the city’s Vimeo page. Standard browsers and standard cache management often fail to resolve timely the stream. Worse, the municipal Vimeo page is disorganized, rather than in a proper chronological order. A resident looking to watch the stream should not have to hunt through old video after old video. This doesn’t bother me, as I’m accustomed to this condition, but residents shouldn’t have to fuss over it. The Vimeo page is, now, user-unfriendly.)
On Zoom, as I was last night, some residents kept their microphones or cameras open, and it was — truly! — comedic fare during the first half of the meeting. Residents talking to themselves or others, eating, rattling dishes, opening pop cans, chewing loudly, and belching at least twice brought a humorous tone to the meeting.
Online, the host should mute all residents’ microphones before the meeting begins, and open them when a resident signals that he or she wishes to speak.
But the significance of all this isn’t that some residents provided light comedy (although they did!), but that they’re unfamiliar with using these platforms. That’s not their fault, of course. Unfamiliar isn’t an offense, but rather a call for the council to add explanations of etiquette when a meeting begins.
Some of those attending mistakenly and inappropriately tried to use public comment for items listed elsewhere on the agenda, or tried to use public comment as a question-and-answer session with the council or city employees. Even some of those who have attended regularly betrayed their ignorance (or disrespect) of procedure.
Whitewater is socio-economically diverse. That’s the key insight: people who come to the council and residents who live here are from different classes and backgrounds. Whitewater is not a suburban, middle-class community. Residents should not be rebuked for what they do not know, but they should politely be instructed and reminded.
Timelines. What’s left of Old Whitewater habitually thinks that how they think is, necessarily, how the world should and must function. ‘That’s how we do things around here’ is justified only when the doing makes sense, so to speak. Perpetuating bad practices because they are long-standing ones holds Whitewater back.
And look, and look, expecting a city manager or a superintendent to meet the standard of a council or board is only justified when the council or board meets a proper standard. Whitewater residents know — as this libertarian blogger well knows — that there’s a worry that appointees are not in alignment with their overseeing elected bodies. Of course, they should be in alignment, but this then remains: the power to compel alignment under law does not lift the burden elected officials have to speak, reason, and represent the community capably and competently.
No one would say, for example, that a board of drunks or lunatics deserved deference within this community. Authority under law is not an immunity from competency.
The City of Whitewater, for example, chose a city manager who has years of experience in a suburban, middle-class community. Those communities move at a faster pace, and both this council and this city manager need to adapt to each other. He may seem to be moving too fast for them, but perhaps, just perhaps, they seem too slow for him.
One word of caution, however. When the city manager mentioned that he was surprised that a council member changed his mind after hearing only one public comment, the proper reply would have been that changing one’s mind after one comment is sufficient if the comment is well-reasoned. It’s not quantity but quality that matters most.
How this relationship develops over time between manager and council, well, I’m not sure. Everyone involved will have to make greater efforts to understand each other, as this local government shouldn’t be devoting time to managing kerfuffles over the pacing of city efforts.
Lakes and Pool. It’s no surprise that residents are concerned about both the viability of an indoor pool and the condition of our two lakes. The pool is more impressive than are other pools nearby, and the lakes are in the center of the city. These lakes have been in a diminished state for years, and yet there’s no agreed plan — between the government and residents — for improving their condition. The government has failed in its efforts and private residents aren’t united in their own response.
Last night’s meeting shows that there’s no public or private consensus.
Funding for two indoor pools and one fitness center remains in dispute between the city and the school district. There are intimations that a resolution is near, and perhaps that’s true.
What’s certain is that a Save the Pool ad hoc committee alone has not yet been enough to move the district to sign a new joint funding agreement. Understandably, people who like the pool have banded together, but that committee, alone, faces a steep hill to force a solution. A solution may come, but it’s likely to result from the outward pressure of the city government on the district and internal pressure within the district.
Whitewater is a fragmented community, no matter how much a few suggest otherwise, and the lack of agreement on these persisting problems is proof & demonstration.
For an earlier FREE WHITEWATER post about the pool seeThe Pool from 5/4.23:
Well, what to make of all this?
First, it’s a good-looking facility, and a source of community pride for members.
Second, the pool is in no danger of closing today, tomorrow, or the next day. There’s time for the public bodies arguing over funding to come to terms.
Third, while long-term costs between the parties are in dispute, there’s no claim that the Whitewater Aquatic Center needs $5,000,000 now or perhaps ever for repairs & maintenance.
Fourth, consider how odd this dispute is: Whitewater is a small town, and the City of Whitewater and the Whitewater Unified School District are the same communities. A dispute between these parties is not an arm’s length controversy between a buyer in Oregon and a seller in Arizona. On the contrary, the city is the heart and largest part of the district. A controversy like this is something like a dispute among siblings. Conflict here is internecine conflict. Different institutions may have different goals, but the officials of these institutions are, in fact, all neighbors in the same small area. (The idea of litigation between these parties over the pool is, needless to say, a bridge too far.)
Fifth, while the pool matters greatly to some, neither of these public institutions exists to be providing — or arguing over — a pool. The district and the city have more fundamental tasks before them (respectively, education and public safety). This suggests that ending this dispute with the least ongoing time, effort, and cost is the best course. (Closing the pool is what no one wants, and would only increase community time lost to an aggravated controversy.)
The rational course is a settlement that assures ongoing operation at minimal cost while further discussions on medium and long-term solutions are crafted. A reduction in political temperature — down to, let’s say, negative 30 Fahrenheit — would serve this community well.
The items on the Whitewater Common Council’s agenda are less important than grasping the conditions in which residents live and, consequently, through which local government must serve.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:30 PM for 15h 13m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1944, Operation Overlord begins the Allied invasion of Normandy, with the execution of Operation Neptune—commonly referred to as D-Day—the largest seaborne invasion in history. Nearly 160,000 Allied troops cross the English Channel with about 5,000 landing and assault craft, 289 escort vessels, and 277 minesweepers participating. By the end of the day, the Allies have landed on five invasion beaches and are pushing inland.
For more than a decade, Republicans have used aggressive redistricting and other heavy-handed tactics in the state Legislature to press a narrow advantage into a seemingly permanent upper hand over Democrats. It began with the election of Republican Gov. Scott Walker in the tea party wave of 2010 and continued through a bold but unsuccessful effort by hard-line Republicans to decertify the state’s 2020 presidential election results. ButJoe Biden won the state in 2020. And in the April election, liberal Milwaukee County judge Janet Protasiewicz beat conservative former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly by a whopping 11 percentage points, flipping the ideological majority of the court.
In the aftermath, even Republicans here are acknowledging that the state has now shifted leftward, and abortion has a lot to do with that. The end of Roe v. Wade last year effectively reinstated Wisconsin’s 19th-century abortion ban, which is already being challenged — and those challenges will likely be decided by the state Supreme Court. That’s why Protasiewicz campaigned heavily on protecting abortion rights, and the election turned almost entirely on the issue. Turnout was staggering. In 2015, in a similar spring election, a liberal state Supreme Court justice won reelection in a contest in which about 813,000 people voted. This year, the total number of voters who cast ballots in the Supreme Court race more than doubled to top 1.8 million.
That Protasiewicz’s win was important is undeniable. The court’s new majority is going to overturn Wisconsin’s abortion ban.
Afterward, however, Wisconsin will yet remain a gerrymandered state. Important for one significant issue is different from ongoing influence. It’s what happens legally and politically after an abortion ruling, notably on the allocation of state legislative power, that will determine whether Wisconsin’s move to the left in 2023 is enduring.
Filing taxes in the U.S. can be complicated, stressful and time-intensive. The IRS is aiming to fix this by piloting its own free online tax filing system at the beginning of 2024. Soledad O’Brien speaks with Nina Olson, the executive director at the Center for Taxpayer Rights and a former national taxpayer advocate at the IRS.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:29 PM for 15h 12m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1883, William Horlick patents the first powdered milk in the world. He names his new product, intended to be used as a health food for infants, “Malted Milk.” Horlick’s product went on to be used as a staple in fountain drinks as well as survival provisions. Malted milk was even included in explorations undertaken by Robert Peary, Roald Amundsen and Richard Byrd.
In 2020, a bipartisan group of legislators formed Keep Our Republic. Ruth Conniff reports that a Wisconsin chapter launches today:
The group’s creed, according to its mission statement, is: “Let all eligible voters vote. Let all votes be counted. Let the vote count stand.”
Chapters in Pennsylvania and Michigan as well as Wisconsin are focused on informing the public about elections, voting rights and the democratic process in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.
Led by a national board that includes former Colorado Republican Congressman Tim Wirth and longtime Democratic House leader Dick Gephardt, on its website Keep Our Republic pledges to “to discover, highlight and help to prevent an array of extraordinary threats to American democracy, strengthen democratic guardrails, and educate the public before it is too late.”
Former Democratic Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, a member of the group’s Wisconsin advisory council, says Keep Our Republic grew out of a bipartisan, national recognition of “very real threats” to U.S. democracy and is working “in places where it’s really urgent, like it is in Wisconsin.”
Why Wisconsin?
“Think Gableman,” says Lawton, referring to the former state Supreme Court justice who was fired after leading a years-long, taxpayer-financed investigation that failed to prove claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
In deeply divided Wisconsin, Keep Our Republic wants to help usher in a return to values that prized civic engagement, functional government, and well-run elections, Lawton says.
The bipartisan nature of the group is critical to its mission of rebuilding trust, Lawton says. The 12-member Wisconsin advisory council includes former Assembly members from opposite sides of the aisle David Bowen (D-Milwaukee) and Kathy Bernier (R-Chippewa Falls) as well as former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson.
“We don’t agree on many things,” says Lawton. “But we agree we have a moment of fragility in our democracy and have to put our shoulders to the wheel.
Republican former state senator Kathy Bernier will lead the Wisconsin chapter. She knows it’s a difficult task to overcome conspiracy theories, as Conniff reports:
Bernier still talks to constituents who are convinced that the 2020 election was stolen. She says she is 99% sure she can never convince “a devout election denier when it comes to 2020.”
“I have a couple who’ve called me – both computer programmers – and I’ve been totally unsuccessful explaining anything to them.” She has spent hours telling people about Wisconsin’s system for checking and rechecking its paper ballots. “I say, ‘How can you hack paper?’”
Part of Bernier’s mission at Keep Our Republic will be to raise awareness of the security of Wisconsin’s decentralized election system.
“If they’ve closed their minds to facts, there’s nothing we can do,” she says.
Rocket, a rescue dog, was startled by a loud boom in Fairfax Station, Va., on June 4. The sound was caused by fighter jets scrambling to intercept a private plane.
