Alternative title — False Balance While Dealing with Liars, Exaggerators, and Other Political Miscreants. There’s considerable consternation in the national press that traditional ‘he said, she said’ political coverage, where each side of a question gets an equal, unchallenged say, doesn’t work when one candidate is an inveterate liar: A certain etiquette has long governed…
Politics
City, Politics
The Web Has Changed Local Politics, Too
by JOHN ADAMS •
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 •
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 •
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 •
City, Development, Economy, Hip & Prosperous, Politics
The Middle Time, Part 2
by JOHN ADAMS •
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 •
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 •
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 •
Politics
Stuart Stevens on Outcomes
by JOHN ADAMS •
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 •
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 •
Politics, Religion
The Rev. William Barber at the Democratic National Convention
by JOHN ADAMS •
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 •
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…