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Big Lie, Constitution, Daily Bread, Law, League of Women Voters, Liberal Democracy, Local Government, Mendacity, School District

Daily Bread for 1.3.22: The Dishonesty of Whitewater’s Local Politics

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Good morning. Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 18.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:34 PM for 9h 08m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 0.8% of its visible disk illuminated.  On this day in 1957, the Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.   The New…

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

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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…

Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, Mendacity, Scott Walker, Trump, WEDC

Foxconn: New, More Realistic Deal Means 90% Reduction in Goals

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After years of flamboyant lies about what Foxconn would be able to achieve in Wisconsin, there’s a new deal with that foreign corporation. That new arrangement reflects a reduction of 90% or more in what Wisconsin expects and what the state will offer. Local governments have already wasted millions on absurdly grandiose, false promises Not…

Babbittry, Bad Ideas, Blogging, Boosterism, City, Confidence Schemes, Coronavirus, Culture, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, School District, Special Interests, Whitewater's Local Politics 2021

Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021: Marketing

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This is the ninth in a series on Whitewater’s local politics of 2021. Through all the difficult events of the last two decades (a Great Recession, an opioid epidemic, economic stagnation, creeping nativism, a pandemic, a pandemic recession), Old Whitewater has responded with the same question: how can we market the town to others? If…

Bad Ideas, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Marketing, Mendacity, Public Relations, Scott Walker, Special Interests, State Capitalism, State Government, WEDC, WISGOP, YMBFKM

Foxconn’s Venture Capital Fund

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Bruce Murphy has a solid assessment of Foxconn’s much-touted (by Foxconn) venture capital fund in About That Foxconn Venture Capital Fund. It’s well worth reading in full. A few key points: Unfulfilled: Louis Woo of Foxconn had promised this venture fund for startup companies would naturally connect to Foxconn’s innovation centers in Eau Claire, Green Bay…

Babbittry, Blogging, Boosterism, Culture, Disinformation, Freedom of Speech, Mendacity, Public Relations, Rhetoric

The Power of Refutation

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Laura Hazard Owen writes When’s the best time to correct fake news? After someone’s already read it, apparently: Debunking > prebunking. If you want someone to not believe that false or misleading headline they just read, when’s the best time to correct it? We hear a lot about inoculating people against fake news or “prebunking”…

Congress, Conspiracy Theories, Crackpots, Disinformation, Mendacity, Sen. Ron Johnson

Ron Johnson Searches for the Real Killer

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United States Senator Ron Johnson wonders if, possibly, maybe, perhaps it is Nancy Pelosi who is responsible for the Capitol riot. He doesn’t have any proof for this contention, and after all, he’s only askin’ questions, so don’t ask Johnson for substantiation: “Is this another diversionary operation? Is this meant to deflect away from potentially…

Babbittry, Boosterism, Conflicts of Interest, Culture, Disinformation, Local Government, Mendacity, Negligence, Politics, Public Relations, Reasoning, School District, Self-Dealing, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, Trumpism, University

Consequences, Accountability, Repentance, Redemption

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David Frum, writing of Trump & Trumpism in The Conservative Cult of Victimhood, observes that There is no redemption without repentance. There is no repentance without accountability. There is no accountability without consequences. He rightly concludes that for the Trumpists, the absence of a moral order of accountability and repentance has meant that Even as Trump commits…

Alt-Right, America, Authoritarianism, Congress, Herrenvolk, History, Law, Mendacity, Trump, Trumpism

Confederates, Copperheads, and Conservatives

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It’s an understatement to say that a democratic society that endures a violent mob seizing its capitol building is a society in distress. We find ourselves in the twenty-first century facing movements as malevolent and mendacious as the nineteenth century’s Confederates and Copperheads. Karen L. Cox writes What Trump Shares With the ‘Lost Cause’ of the…