FREE WHITEWATER

Wisconsin

National Reporting on Sen. Ron Johnson

Wisconsin’s political events have had more national attention over the last decade than the politics of similarly-sized states, but then we’ve had a worse politics than states of similar size. In the Washington Post, there’s a lengthy story about Sen. Ron Johnson that’s well worth reading in full. Michael Kranish, Mike DeBonis and Karoun Demirjian…

Wisconsin Supreme Court Rejects, 4-3, Trump Campaign’s Petition to Overturn Wisconsin Election Result

Earlier this morning, the Wisconsin Supreme Court denied the Trump Campaign’s petition to overturn, on various grounds, Joe Biden & Kamala Harris’s popular-vote victory in the state. (As a matter of law, the state’s high court affirmed a prior judgment and order against the Trump Campaign in the Circuit Court for Milwaukee County, Stephen A.…

Probable Wisconsin Political Issues for 2021

Although one can confidently doubt that ‘everything changes’ after the pandemic, there are in any year prominent political issues. Some are national, some statewide, some local. One can guess correctly that the new year will entertain at least three notable statewide issues, each summarized below. These are statewide issues that will reach deep into every…

Wisconsin Republicans Mean Nearly Nothing To Trump

Here in Wisconsin, there’s an election recount in two counties, and there are repeated Republican objections to the recount there. This is a curious turn, as Patrick Marley accurately reports that The Wisconsin voting system Donald Trump is attacking was built by Republicans: MADISON – In his move to overturn Wisconsin’s election results, President Donald Trump…

Highlight’s from The Verge’s Foxconn Assessment

No failure better reveals the bankruptcy of corporate welfare in the Walker and Trump years than the Foxconn project in Wisconsin: exaggeration upon exaggeration, but nothing productive. This was a failure of judgment so obvious and significant that everyone involved should retire from policymaking. Walker Administration, Trump Administration, the WISGOP, the WEDC, down to Whitewater’s Community…

In Whitewater, Three Recent Trespasses Against Public Comment

Whitewater’s public comment periods are lawful rights worth defending, and there has never been a time when respecting public comment – humbly and gratefully – has been more important for the city. Since June, there have been three meetings during which Whitewater’s current council president has deprecated public comment, or wrongly set the order of…

Whitewater & Walworth County’s Working Poor, 2020 ALICE® Report

The 2020 ALICE® report, on those who are “asset limited, income constrained [yet] employed” is now available.  These latest data were collected before the recent recession – one can be sadly confident that hardship reaches farther now. For Wisconsin, 11% of households were below the poverty level, and 34% (including those below the poverty level) were…

Wisconsin Supreme Court: Wisconsin Legislature v. Palm

Embedded below is the decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Wisconsin Legislature v. Palm. On a 4-3 decision, Wisconsin’s highest court has ruled that the Safer at Home order is unenforceable.  (Readers have asked me via email me over the last week how the court might rule.  I have replied to each message that…

WISGOP Treasurer Brian Westrate ‘Well Understands’ Nothing

A horde of ignorant, but racially motivated, men infest the Wisconsin GOP.  Brian Westrate is a good example of playing to this bad condition: in an attempt to discourage racist Republicans from displaying Confederate banners at a protest, he erroneously (and outrageously) contended that he did “well understand that the Confederacy was more about states…

The Reopening Debate Will Turn on Consumer Demand

The push to reopen Wisconsin will only effectively benefit retail businesses if consumer demand returns to pre-pandemic levels.  Consumer demand will only return to pre-pandemic levels if consumers feel safe.  Some retail demand will return as soon as shops and restaurants open; the marketplace question is whether consumer demand returns to something like pre-pandemic levels.…

Foxconn’s ‘Innovation’ Centers: Still Empty a Year Later

 Over at the national tech website The Verge, Nilay Patel reminds that a year later, Foxconn has still done nothing with the ‘innovation’ centers that foreign corporation promised it would open around the state. They’re still empty:    See FOXCONN’S BUILDINGS IN WISCONSIN ARE STILL EMPTY, ONE YEAR LATER. In Whitewater, the ‘Greater Whitewater’ Committee…

An Empty-Headed Man’s Next Gig

Updated with a longer – and so more revealing – video of Kushner’s vapidity. When Jared Kushner is finished impairing America’s response to a pandemic, he’ll need something else to do. Wisconsin still has the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, and in small Wisconsin towns like Whitewater one finds development hucksters, business leagues of landlords &…