FREE WHITEWATER

Wisconsin

The Broad Outlines of 2019

For many years, I would begin the year with predictions for the twelve months ahead.  Events since 2016 have made predictions harder,  but one can still discern some short-term developments for the city.  These prospects, of course, form an online of topics to ponder, and about which to write (often requiring that one return to the…

Beyond Milwaukee and Madison: Walker’s ‘erosion of support in diverse set of cities and suburbs’

The WISGOP, under Speaker Vos and Majority Leader Fitzgerald, falsely contends that Scott Walker lost only because of the Dane County & City of Milwaukee vote.  A claim like this is myopic, of course: the close election turned as much on where Walker underperformed as where Evers performed well.  Craig Gilbert looks at the election data…

Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land

Foxconn’s boosters each day inch closer to a corporate welfare version of Scientology: it doesn’t make any sense, but adherents keep to themselves and repeat a shared list of crackpot claims. The latest news to pierce the cultists’ bubble: Molly Beck and Rick Romell report Wisconsin taxpayers could pay Foxconn for work done outside of Wisconsin,…

The ‘Real’ Residents

Emily Badger reports Are Rural Voters the ‘Real’ Voters? Wisconsin Republicans Seem to Think So: In much of Wisconsin, “Madison and Milwaukee” are code words (to some, dog whistles) for the parts of the state that are nonwhite, elite, different: The cities are where people don’t have to work hard with their hands, because they’re collecting…

The Incredible Shrinking Man

How very odd, truly, that even now Gov. Walker feels compelled to retweet a story from the MacIver Institute praising his tenure. (That organization’s motto –  ‘the free market voice for Wisconsin’ – is incredible: they’ve spent years boosting Walker’s corporate welfare and crony capitalism.  Walker’s shown no understanding of, or respect for, free-market economics.)…

Walworth County Average or Below Average in Health of Residents, Influences Contributing to Health

Most of Whitewater sits within Walworth County, a county that ranks in Wisconsin’s bottom half for the overall health of its residents (‘ length and quality of people’s lives’) and average for the influences on health (‘individual health behaviors, social and economic conditions, access to healthcare and the quality of the physical environment’).  Malia Jones of WisContext asks Which Counties Rank Best For Health?  Here’s how Walworth County ranks:

(Jefferson County, in which a smaller part of Whitewater is situated, ranks far better, at 12 of 72 for health outcomes and 14 of 72 for health factors.)

Once a Gerrymanderer…

Wisconsin, with a gerrymandered legislature and a crony capitalist, lame-duck governor, was never going to have an easy transition back to a tradition of democratically representative government and sound economic policy.  The men who engineered years of the wrong approach were never going to go gently to the political outer darkness that, deservedly, awaits them.…

Wisconsin 2020

Craig Gilbert writes Wisconsin already expected to be a war zone for the 2020 presidential race: Almost everything about the Nov. 6 midterm election bolstered Wisconsin’s status as a top presidential target in 2020, when this state has no race for governor or U.S. Senate but can expect an all-out war over its 10 electoral votes.…

The Walker Cabinet Officers’ Open Letter

Four cabinet secretaries of the Walker Administration have come forward to criticize the governor, and three of them have co-written an open letter against Walker’s relentless emphasis on political gain over sound policies. One of the signatories of the letter is Paul Jadin, who was Walker’s first Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation leader. It says all…