Paul Waldman correctly observes that The Trump administration’s immigration policies are impossibly cruel. That’s the whole point: Amid growing outrage over the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents when families arrive at the border, many are asking how the administration can be so cruel as to literally tear children from their mothers’ arms. There’s…
Trump
Foreign Affairs, Trump
Assessing Trump’s North Korea Policy
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Daniel Dale, a reporter for the Toronto Star, wrote to Jeffrey Lewis, an arms control expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, to get Lewis’s opinion on Trump’s handling of relations with North Korea. (Lewis has a Twitter account with the handle @ArmsControlWonk; Dale is using the word file as a reference to a project…
CDA, City, Corporate Welfare, Development, Economy, Free Markets, Gov. Walker, Marketing, Politics, Poverty, State Capitalism, State Government, Taxes/Taxation, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
About that Trump Tax Plan
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In Whitewater, by press release (twice), one can read about the supposed benefits of the Trump tax plan. The Whitewater Community Development Authority’s executive director, Dave Carlson, was quick to push a portion of the plan as good for Whitewater. In doing so, he conceded what anyone observing Whitewater with care and concern already knew:…
America, Foreign Affairs, Military, Putin, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia
The Return of the Second Fleet
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Russia, ruled by a dictator and oligarchs friendly with Trump, has made herself a political and military adversary of the United States. One reads that The Navy is resurrecting a fleet to protect the East Coast and North Atlantic from Russia: The U.S. Navy has reactivated a fleet responsible for overseeing the East Coast and North…
America, Authoritarianism, Trump
Anton Leaves the Field, But We’re Still Here (in Opposition)
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
It was Michael Anton, writing as Publius Decius Mus, who famously declared that support for Trump was an existential necessity for conservatives in 2016: 2016 is the Flight 93 election: charge the cockpit or you die. You may die anyway. You—or the leader of your party—may make it into the cockpit and not know how…
Crime, Trump
An Interesting Question
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti asks a simple, interesting question: If you were asked to testify that someone you knew committed a federal crime, would you have any testimony to offer? Most of us don’t have inside knowledge of a criminal scheme. That’s why the fear within Trump’s camp that Cohen will flip is so…
City, Conflicts of Interest, Corporate Welfare, Economics, Economy, Ethics, Gov. Walker, Local Government, Mendacity, Paul Ryan, Politics, State Capitalism, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
The Price of Trumpism is Ruin
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Craig Gilbert looks at the careers of Priebus, Ryan, and Walker: They led the “Cheesehead Revolution,” the GOP’s audacious conquest of Wisconsin. They offered a model for bridging Republican frictions between establishment and base. They became national figures. They ran into Donald Trump. They suffered. They bent to his rise. Now one (Priebus) has left…
Education, Kakistocracy, Law, Trump, Unfit
Trump Nominee Non-Committal on School Integration
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Alternative title: Why We Resist and Oppose. WATCH: During her confirmation hearing this morning (yes, this morning – in 2018), judicial nominee Wendy Vitter refused to say whether she agreed with the result in Brown v. Board of Education. #UnfitToJudge pic.twitter.com/RWroh0XUIC — The Leadership Conference (@civilrightsorg) April 11, 2018 Consider the remarks of Wendy Vitter,…
Local Government, Paul Ryan, Trump
What Paul Ryan’s Departure Means for Whitewater
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Paul Ryan hasn’t been Whitewater’s congressman since the last gerrymandering. We’ve faraway septuagenarian multi-millionaire James Sensenbrenner now. Ryan, however, has been more powerful than Sensenbrenner ever could be. Janesville’s Ryan has held greater political power than anyone in our town, to be sure, ever has or ever will. And yet, and yet, Ryan’s done. If…
Babbittry, Culture, Local Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump
A Local Problem Before It Became a National One
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Philip Bump contends The only information Trump supports is information that makes him look good: Trump highlighting [conservative-leaning pollster] Rasmussen isn’t quite like putting your best friend as a reference on a job application, but it’s not as though he’s going out of his way to list former employers. He also goes a step further,…
Kakistocracy, Trump
Trump Administration Departures
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Brian Steler sent along to his readers a photo showing the departures – so far – from the Trump Administration. Stelter writes that On MSNBC Tuesday night, Lawrence O’Donnell joked that this graphic is a “copyrighted feature of Rachel Maddow’s show:” Her “big board” of Trump admin departures. The list keeps getting longer and the…
Business, Economy, Foxconn, Gov. Walker, Government Spending, State Capitalism, Trump
The Man Behind the Foxconn Project
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Embed from Getty Images You may have read, recently, of a public official who came to Whitewater to talk about the Foxconn project. Why settle for the tired claims of a mid-level state-government operative when one can hear about Foxconn from the one man behind the entire project? Matthew DeFour reports on the real force…
Law, Trump
‘There’s no such thing as a perjury trap’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Elections, Gov. Walker, Trump, Wisconsin
Trump and Walker
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
In 2014, Gov. Walker ran for re-election, and two years later Trump ran for president. The two-party results for the GOP candidates in the City of Whitewater were much different. In 2014, Gov. Walker narrowly lost the City of Whitewater to Mary Burke: Walker 2,616 49.8% Burke 2,634 50.2% In 2016, Trump decisively lost…