Politics

City, Politics

The Web Has Changed Local Politics, Too

by JOHN ADAMS • 09/13/2016 • Comments

Over at the Wall Street Journal, there’s a story about how e-commerce has changed rural life: MANGUM, Okla.—Vince Bledsoe, a United Parcel Service Inc. delivery man in this remote tiny town, remembers the exact moment he knew that e-commerce had changed the way rural America shops. He was taping up a package a few months…

Assault Awareness & Prevention, City, Politics, Waste Digesters

Wagon-Circling Versus Persistence

by JOHN ADAMS • 09/07/2016 • 1 Comment

I’ve posted before about the unraveling of medical-diagnostics startup Theranos, and founder Elizabeth Holmes, now revealed as a multi-billion-dollar fraud. See, previously, Theranos as a Cautionary Tale. The story has useful lessons even for small-town Whitewater. I’ll illustrate one of those lessons today. There’s a thorough update of Theranos’s dodgy claims now online at Vanity Fair.…

Politics, Poll, Presidential race 2016, US Senate Race 2016, Wisconsin

Marquette Law Poll Results (Late August Edition)

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/31/2016 • Comments

The latest Marquette Law School poll results are out, and here are a few key findings from the 8.25.16 to 8.28.16 poll (the full results will be available online later this afternoon). Clinton-Trump, Among LV: Among likely voters in WI, Clinton 45%, Trump 42%, with 10% supporting neither. #mulawpoll — MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) August 31, 2016…

Johnson-Weld, Libertarians, Politics, Presidential race 2016

Johnson-Weld 2016 Video

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/24/2016 • Comments

Obvious disclosure: I’m a libertarian and a Johnson-Weld supporter, happily and proudly so. One hopes, of course, that this will be a good year for us, but we will fight the good fight in any year, against any opponents, under any conditions.

City, Development, Economy, Hip & Prosperous, Politics

The Middle Time, Part 2

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/15/2016 • 3 Comments

Over two years ago, I described Whitewater as being in a ‘middle time,’ between former conditions and future ones: While Whitewater is in a time of transition, from one way of life to a more diverse and prosperous one, she is only at the ‘end of the beginning’ of that transition. It’s a middle time now, and…

Politics, Poll, Presidential race 2016, US Senate Race 2016

Latest Marquette Law Poll Results

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/10/2016 • Comments

The latest Marquette Law School poll results are out, and here are a few key findings from the 8.4.16 to 8.7.16 poll (the full results will be available online later this afternoon). Occasionally, I’ve heard some Democrats complain about pollster Charles Franklin (notably Ed Garvey among them), but Franklin’s surveys have had a generally good…

Elections, Politics

Implications from the August 9th Wisconsin Primary

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/10/2016 • 1 Comment

There were no surprises in any of the races in or near Whitewater last night. They all went as one might reasonably have predicted. One area race (and only one), however, might have national implications. Paul Ryan easily won his first congressional district primary over Paul Nehlen. See, Despite late drama, Ryan easily beats Nehlen…

Libertarians, Politics, Presidential race 2016

One Day

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/09/2016 • Comments

I support Johnson-Weld 2016, and Gov. Johnson’s recorded a new video, entitled, One Day. We will have one day have the better day he describes, confident as one may be that a politics grounded in liberty is conceptually, ethically, and practically right.

Politics

Stuart Stevens on Outcomes

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/04/2016 • Comments

Stuart Stevens is a longtime Republican consultant and writer (and a critic of this year’s GOP nominee). There’s an observation that he made on Twitter, applied to the current presidential race, about false confidence: Just because somebody had a few drinks & made it home, don’t take it as proof alcohol helps you drive. https://t.co/1dvNnkVHqT…

City, Culture, Politics

Ad Hoc Policy is Debilitating

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/03/2016 • 1 Comment

A municipal policy of addressing problems as they crop up, principally on an ad hoc, piecemeal basis, will wear local government down, and only produce worse policies. (Ad hoc policy, that is, literally a for this [purpose] policy.) One should begin each discussion and problem from the vantage of a fundamental philosophy of government, adjusting…

Politics, Poll

The Major Parties’ Conventions

by JOHN ADAMS • 08/01/2016 • Comments

Gallup had a rough outing in 2012, but they’re polling in 2016, and here’s a poll they took about impressions of the major-party conventions: See, Americans More Positive About Democratic Than GOP Convention @ Gallup.

Politics, Religion

The Rev. William Barber at the Democratic National Convention

by JOHN ADAMS • 07/29/2016 • Comments

I watched the national conventions of both major parties, although I am a member of neither. Of the many speeches over many days, some were exceptional. The one from the Rev. William Barber, for example, is worth watching, either for the first time or again. The Rev. Barber’s political views, to be sure, sometimes (but…

City, Politics

The GOP in Whitewater, Presidential Primary of 4.5.16

by JOHN ADAMS • 07/28/2016 • 4 Comments

I posted yesterday about political yardsigns in the city (the city proper). I’m curious, among other things, how Trump (a non-traditional GOP) candidate will fare here in November. Democrats have a traditional ideological nominee in Hillary Clinton, but Trump is markedly different from other Republicans before him, and from other Republican challengers this year. (Disclosure: I’m a libertarian…

City, Politics

Few Political Signs, So Far, in Whitewater

by JOHN ADAMS • 07/27/2016 • 3 Comments

As I’ve been riding though the city in the evening, I’ve been recently on the lookout for political signs. There have been a scattering of yardsigns for local or state candidates, but almost nothing for national politicians (and what I’ve seen has mostly been for Sanders). November’s not that far off, although perhaps there will…