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Politics

Her Constituents Can Be Proud

Here in Whitewater, part of the gerrymandered Fifth Congressional District, we have for a congressman a septuagenarian multi-millionaire (Sensenbrenner) who votes with Trump, and his most-likely successor is a state senator (Fitzgerald) who sings a Trump train song. Men who tried all day to be embarrassments wouldn’t be able to match Sensenbrenner’s and Fitzgerald’s natural tendencies…

Saying and Believing Anything

Adam Serwer, writing on Twitter in response to a series of distortions from the conservative Federalist website, states plainly the truth of Trump-supporting lies: There is no incentive to correct because the targeted audience will believe anything pro-Trump they are told, whereas acknowledging error would signal weakness and insufficient devotion to the Great Leader. Yes,…

After This Conflict Is Won

These last years have been difficult, and one can reasonably expect worse from Trumpism before that ideology is consigned – as it will be – to the political outer darkness. A necessary condition for optimism is an understanding of the present from which one can build a better future. (Local boosterism and babbittry are failures…

School Board, 8.26.19: Insatiable

School Board Meeting 08/26/19 from Whitewater Community TV on Vimeo. Update, evening of 9.9.19: Although this discussion of tax incremental financing (TIF) took place at a school board meeting, a program like this is (obviously) very much an initiative of city government and special interests. School districts like Whitewater’s have a role on a joint…

F. James Sensenbrenner Heads for the Exit

One reads that F. James Sensenbrenner, the pro-Trump septuagenarian multimillionaire congressman from a gerrymandered district that stretches all the way down to Whitewater, is retiring when his current term ends. Consigned to the minority forever must look unappealing. How time flies! It was not long ago that then-chairman of the Whitewater Community Development Authority was scampering…

Differing Partisan Views on Education

A few days ago, a commenter (‘J’) at this website linked to the Pew Research Center’s latest survey data on partisan views of education.  See The Growing Partisan Divide in Views of Higher Education.  Kim Taylor (of Pew) summarizes the survey: Americans see value in higher education – whether they graduated from college or not. Most say…

Trump-Busting Issues for Wisconsin

Writing at Urban Milwaukee, Bruce Thompson looks at popular national issues to use against Trump, matches them against Wisconsin-specific polling, and offers How Democrats Can Beat Trump [in Wisconsin]. Many of the most popular poll issues are not libertarian ones, it’s almost unnecessary to say.  They’re issues that have national and statewide support, and so…

The Biggest Story of Our Time

In life – at least life in a well-ordered, free society – the highest matters are not political. They are familial, cultural, social – involving greater pursuits than contending over the role of the state. Under this view, one contends over politics (as libertarians do) not because it is too important but because it must…

Into the Void

Across Wisconsin, newspapers have not distinguished themselves since the Great Recession. Most have descended into a cautious, center-right boosterism. They acted on their publishers’ own politics, and on the politics their elderly (but dwindling) readership. Doing so has only exacerbated their problems. The time to break from this was before – or even during –…

Foxconn: Reality as a (Predictable) Disappointment

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…

Fact-Checking is an Active, Ongoing Effort

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…