FREE WHITEWATER

Politics

Bad Ideas, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Development, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, Politics, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC, Wisconsin

Foxconn: Reality as a (Predictable) Disappointment

by  •  •  Comments

The Wisconsin Foxconn project was, is, and will continue to be a huckster’s con and a sucker’s idea. Across America – a place of over 325 million – Foxconn is an example of an obviously bad, unworkable idea. In Whitewater and other Wisconsin communities, the men who push this project were either objectionably conniving or…

Babbittry, Books, Culture, Fact Checking, Local Government, Marketing, Mendacity, Politics, Public Relations, That Which Paved the Way

Fact-Checking is an Active, Ongoing Effort

by  •  • 1 Comment

Laura Hazard Cohen explains that “First-generation fact-checking” is no longer good enough. Here’s what comes next: “Fact checkers need to move from ‘publish and pray’ to ‘publish and act.’” “The idea that fact checking can work by correcting the public’s inaccurate beliefs on a mass scale alone doesn’t stack up,” write representatives from Full Fact…

Alt-Right, America, Bigotry, Culture, Ethnicity, Herrenvolk, Immigration, Misconduct, Never Trump, Politics, Race, Resistance, Trump

Trump’s Base Delights in Tales of Others’ Deprivation

by  •  •  Comments

In this conflict between defenders of America’s liberal democratic order and Trumpism, those of opposition and resistance have wisely steeled themselves for stories of cruelty as state policy. Trumpism’s aim is a herrenvolk, where his demographically homogeneous base receives permanent preference over others, and in which that same base delights in deprivations and depravities inflicted…

Authoritarianism, Elections, Fellow Traveler, Fifth Columnist, Foreign Affairs, Herrenvolk, Never Trump, Politics, Russia, Trump, Unfit

The Fifth Columnist at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

by  •  •  Comments

While a fellow traveler – however detestable – is merely someone who sympathizes with an adversarial foreign power, a fifth columnist is someone who actively cooperates – colludes, one might say – with a hostile foreign state. For all the talk of no collusion (styled as NO COLLUSION in a bigoted authoritarian’s tweets), Trump at…

Elections, Local Government, Politics, Trump

Forget Electability

by  •  •  Comments

Jennifer Rubin looks at the latest Quinnipiac Poll and concludes Dumping the ‘electability’ canard is liberating: If Trump were not delusional, he would be panicked by the [poll] results. He loses to not only former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), but also South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sens. Elizabeth Warren…

Babbittry, CDA, Culture, Economy, Fortitude, Local Government, Marketing, New Media, New Whitewater, Newspapers, Politics, Press, Social Media, Writing

What Can Be Done About Rural Newspapers (Even Though It Probably Won’t Be)?

by  •  • 1 Comment

Yesterday I wrote that Another Local Paper Changes Hands. With the failure of legacy publishing, what are rural communities to do? (Obvious point: FREE WHITEWATER is not an online newspaper – never aspired to be, never will be. This is a website of independent commentary: aligned with no faction, beholden to no faction.) A few…

Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Immigration, Local Government, Politics, Regulations, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way

Immigration as a Community Lifeline

by  •  •  Comments

Art Cullen writes Help wanted: Rural America needs immigrants: President Trump argues that keeping immigrants and refugees out of our country is a matter of vital national security. He has made it his campaign thesis and shut down the government over it. Here in Storm Lake, Iowa, where the population is about 15,000 and unemployment is under…

Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin

‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn’

by  •  • 4 Comments

The published case against Foxconn – with reporting & analysis from some of America’s finest journalists and economists – is overwhelming. Their careful, published work has set out the plain facts for well over a year. And yet, as a multi-billion dollar public failure, there are even more startling accounts still emerging. Austin Carr reports…

Culture, Never Trump, Ocasio-Cortez, Politics

Why Won’t You Smile?

by  •  • 4 Comments

One can guess that libertarians oppose the anti-market economics of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. It’s odd, to me, though, how much time conservatives have spent complaining, critiquing, and analyzing that democratic socialist from New York. In those conservative critiques, however, one sees more than an economic or foreign policy disagreement: some of these conservatives are upset that…

Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC

Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project’

by  •  •  Comments

Willy Shih, of Harvard Business School, writes that Foxconn’s Wisconsin Factory Is What The Chinese Call A ‘State Visit Project’: Last week I wrote that Foxconn’s giant flat-screen factory in Wisconsin was facing an economic reality check, and might not get built after all. On Friday, after a call between Foxconn chairman Terry Gou and President Donald Trump,…

Culture, Politics

Dupes of Bogus Stories: Partisan or Biased?

by  •  •  Comments

Yesterday, I posted to a study that found a disproportionate amount bogus news accounts on Twitter came from elderly conservatives. (For reporting about the study, see Older, right-leaning Twitter users spread the most fake news in 2016, study finds.  For the study, see Science, Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, PDF link.) What about those…