Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 65. Sunrise is 6:40 and sunset is 6:55 for 12 hours 15 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 66.23 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1982, NFL players begin a 57-day strike (reducing the 1982 season to 9 regular games).
I read recently that the WISGOP state Senate candidate for Senate District 15, of which Whitewater is part, promises that he “will fight for policies that support farm viability, cut unnecessary regulations, and ensure agriculture remains the backbone of our rural economy.” There’s much dissonance in that, isn’t there? The current GOP positions from Washington Palm Beach, Florida, have only made Wisconsin’s farmers worse off:
Seven farms across Wisconsin filed for bankruptcy in the first eight months of 2026. Filings have come in at a slower pace than 2025 but are still on an overall upward trend since the COVID-19 pandemic ended.
By this same time in 2025, 14 Wisconsin farms had filed for bankruptcy with 16 total farm bankruptcies statewide at the end of the year.
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“The conflict in Iran has put additional strain on our farm due to the concomitant increases in the price of fertilizer inputs for crops to feed our cattle and diesel fuel to power our farm equipment,” the owner of a Walworth County dairy farm wrote in bankruptcy court documents filed in the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
That Walworth County dairy farm is the latest to file for Chapter 12 bankruptcy in Wisconsin’s Eastern District. The farm had been in operation for more than a century, starting in 1901, court documents say.
[…]
But for some family farms, Chapter 7 liquidation is not a desirable option as younger generations of farmers try to take on their family’s operation.
The dairy farm in Walworth County was scheduled for foreclosure July 14. The court documents say the farmers’ son completed a dairy science degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with the intention of taking over the farm someday.
“Due to the application of [his] dairy science knowledge, and help from a new nutritionist, the dairy herd’s production is climbing, but [we’re] still unable to secure refinancing,” the farm owner wrote in the bankruptcy filing.
See Caden Perry, Wisconsin farm bankruptcies rise again after post-pandemic lull, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 15, 2026. See also FREE WHITEWATER, Rail Fuel Surcharges Squeeze Farmers During Harvest Season, Tariffs Leave Farmers Paying More, and Worsening Market Conditions for Wisconsin Farmers.
But at Mar-a-Lago, they’ve not had their minds on agriculture —
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Forthcoming topics (in no particular order): A New Ethics Ordinance, Development in Downtown Whitewater (follow-up), and Steps for a Public Interest Campaign.
Is Iran Shaping Up to Be a ‘Forever War’?: