There’s an observation from 2011 from Whitewater’s city manager to consider about the distressed status of tax incremental district 4. (I came on the observation while reading this week about Generac.) Before going further, I’ll observe that when one talks about distressed tax incremental districts, one’s talking about rare birds. By the assessment of the…
698 search results for "TID 4"
Public Meetings
Joint Review Board (TID 4 Status)
by JOHN ADAMS •
City
City of Whitewater, WI Public Notice: Public Hearing Notice on TID 4 Distressed TID Project Plan Amendment
by JOHN ADAMS •
At the City of Whitewater website, one finds notice of a public hearing about a fiscally-distressed TID [tax incremental district]. There’s much to say about all this, but for now, two remarks about the hearing notice — The notice lists only the name of the CDA coordinator, but City Manager Kevin Brunner’s name should appear…
Daily Bread, Elections, Fraud, Law, Presidential race 2020, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.25.24: Wisconsin & Arizona Investigations into Fraudulent 2020 Presidential Electors
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 5:55 and sunset 7:49 for 13h 54m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Community Development Authority will hold a housing roundtable at 9 AM.
On this day in 1898, the United States Congress declares that a state of war between the U.S. and Spain has existed since April 21, when an American naval blockade of the Spanish colony of Cuba began.
The Washington Post reports that in Arizona
Eighteen of former president Donald Trump’s associates and allies have been indicted in Arizona for their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results by trying to award the state’s electoral votes to Trump instead of Joe Biden, who won the state by 10,457 votes.
The group includes Trump’s final White House chief of staff and six aides or attorneys who worked on or supported his 2020 campaign. One is now advising his 2024 presidential campaign, and another is a senior official at the Republican National Committee. Also indicted were 11 Arizona Republicans who signed paperwork on Dec. 14, 2020, that falsely purported Trump was the rightful winner and then transmitted it to the federal government.
All defendants appear to have been charged under each count of the indictment. The charges are as follows: conspiracy, fraudulent schemes and artifices, fraudulent schemes and practices, and forgery. All are felonies, with the most serious being fraudulent schemes and artifices, which carries a standard sentence of five years in prison.
Wisconsin, too, had fraudulent presidential electors. In our state, an investigation into those electors is ongoing, although there has been a settlement in a lawsuit from two legitimate electors against the fraudulent ones. Patrick Marley reports that
Investigators for state Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) have interviewed Chesebro as a possible witness as part of an ongoing probe. Other details about the investigation have not been made public. Separately, [Atty. Kenneth] Chesebro, Trump attorney James Troupis and the 10 Wisconsin Republicans who posed as electors recently settled a lawsuit brought by two of the state’s legitimate electors. As part of the deals, they publicly released records about their efforts and withdrew their false filings from the National Archives. In addition, those who acted as electors agreed not to do so again this year or any time Trump is on the ballot. Troupis paid an unspecified amount of money to those who brought the suit.
Sky over Athens turns orange under Sahara sandstorm:
Congress, Daily Bread, Foreign Affairs, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.24.24: How Wisconsin’s Federal Representatives Voted on Foreign Aid
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 55. Sunrise is 5:56 and sunset 7:48 for 13h 52m 00s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1885, American sharpshooter Annie Oakley is hired by Nate Salsbury to be a part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.
Over at the Washington Post, there are useful tables showing how members of the U.S. House and Senate voted on border measures, sanctions including a TikTok ban, Indo-Pacific aid, Ukraine aid, and Israel aid. (In the Senate, the aid packages and TikTok ban were within a single vote, up or down.)
Wisconsin House Delegation’s Votes:
Wisconsin Senate Delegation’s Votes:
Read full bill text for H.R. 8038 (sanctions, including TikTok ban), H.R. 8036 (Indo-Pacific), H.R. 8035 (Ukraine), H.R. 8034 (Israel), H.R. 3602 (border measures), and H.R 815 (the combined House bill on which the Senate then voted).
Coyote Spotted in New York’s Central Park:
FREE WHITEWATER has repeatedly warned the people of this beautiful city of the danger coyotes represent. Another reminder: if they can occupy Central Park, then they can occupy Whitewater. See Coyotes Begin War Against Humanity and In Whitewater, People Won’t Feed Coyotes — Coyotes Will Feed on People.
Daily Bread, Elections, Recall, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 3.11.24: Do They Have Enough to Recall Vos?
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 62. Sunrise is 7:11 and sunset 6:57 for 11h 46m 50s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Planning Board meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1941 President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.
By Lehnmat – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89016154. “Incredibly Safe!”
The Associated Press reports Trump supporters hoping to oust Wisconsin leader say they have enough signatures to force recall:
MADISON, Wis. — Backers of an effort to oust Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos from office over his opposition to former President Donald Trump announced Sunday that they’ve collected enough signatures to force a recall vote.
Supporters of the recall campaign plan to present signatures Monday to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, saying they have more than the required 6,850 signatures from voters in Vos’ southeast Wisconsin district.
“With more than 10,000 signatures on our recall petition, they’ve said it loud and clear: they’re tired of the status quo and demand new representation,” Matt Snorek, who started the campaign in January, said in a statement.
Vos has dismissed the recall attempt as a waste of time and resources, which he reiterated in a statement Sunday. He questioned the group’s tactics and the validity of the signatures, promising that a team he had assembled would “evaluate each individual signature.”
NASA’s Design for Message Heading to Jupiter’s Moon Europa:
Crapweasels, Daily Bread, Elections, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Legislation, Legislature, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 2.14.24: Speaker Vos Rushes While the Rushing is Good
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
Good morning.
Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset 5:25 for 10h 32m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 28.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2018, a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida is one of the deadliest school massacres with 17 fatalities and 17 injuries.
Baylor Spears reports Legislature adopts Evers’s maps in second attempt to choose before state Supreme Court (‘Most Democrats vote no, saying they don’t trust Republicans’):
Six parties submitted maps to be considered and consultants recently said that the two sets of legislative maps submitted by Republican lawmakers and the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) amounted to more partisan gerrymandering.
The consultants did not pick a preferred map, but said the other maps, including Evers’ submission, were “nearly indistinguishable.” Those proposals have been projected to reduce Republican control of the Legislature from its current near-supermajority status
Republicans lawmakers have found Evers’ maps, which would likely keep a Republican majority, although a smaller one, in the Legislature, preferable to the other submissions before the state Supreme Court.
“Republicans were not stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Sen. Van Wannggard (R-Racine) said in a statement about the vote. “It was a matter of choosing to be stabbed, shot, poisoned or led to the guillotine. We chose to be stabbed, so we can live to fight another day.”
….
Vos, who was the only representative to speak during the floor session, also rejected the idea that the move was a legal strategy.
Ahead of the floor sessions, some Democrats expressed concerns that Republicans wanted to pass Evers’ maps and then back a federal legal challenge before Republican-nominated U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, formerly a conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Such a challenge “could ultimately keep the state with its current gerrymandered maps, Democrats told the progressive news platform Democracy Docket.
“If we get these new maps, the governor’s maps, signed by the Republicans, it’s more than likely that there’ll be a challenge in the 7th Circuit Court,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said over the weekend. “We’re fearful the Republicans are finally trying to come around to do what they should have done in the first place, but they’re doing it with — I guess the technical term would be ‘with sh-t-eating grins on their faces.’ We can assume that this is not done because of the idea of good government.”
Evers’s maps would be an improvement, but Vos’s trustworthiness is discernible only with an electron microscope. Delays in Evers’s maps, either as implementation within the legislation or by litigation against implementation, would be objectionable.
Vos does objectionable quite well.
Note to the special-interest men (movers & shakers, lobbyists, p.r. men, whatever) in Whitewater: looking up to Robin Vos is like looking up to the pigeon that’s gonna relieve itself on a car. Normal people do not respect the men, or the pigeons, who do that.
Ukraine’s forces claim to have destroyed a large Russian landing ship in the Black Sea:
America, Daily Bread, Economy
Daily Bread for 2.13.24: National Inflation Rate Continues to Decline
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:53 and sunset 5:24 for 10h 30m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater School Board’s Calendar Committee meets at 4 PM, and Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1689, William and Mary are proclaimed co-rulers of England.
Rachel Siegel reports Inflation eased further in January as Fed weighs when to cut rates (‘The report comes as the Federal Reserve is pressing on in its fight to tame high prices — with plenty of success already in the rearview mirror’):
Prices cooled further in January, offering the latest sign that inflation has eased significantly since its pandemic-era surge but still hovers above what policymakers consider normal.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday morning showed prices rose 3.1 percent in January, compared with the year before. They also rose 0.3 percent compared with the previous month.
The report comes as the Federal Reserve presses on in its fight to tame high prices — but the central bank already has plenty of success in the rearview mirror. After sprinting to hoist interest rates in 2022 and 2023, officials are entering a new phase: cutting borrowing costs multiple times this year. The message is that even though inflation hasn’t settled all the way down, the economy is stable enough for the Fed to take its foot off the brake.
NASA’s Perseverance rover sees Martian moon Phobos transit the Sun:
Daily Bread, Elections, Legislature, Politics, Recall, Speaker Vos, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 1.11.24: Conservative Activists Launch Recall Effort Against Speaker Vos
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 31. Sunrise is 7:23 and sunset 4:41 for 9h 17m 56s of daytime. The moon is new with none of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1964, Surgeon General of the United States Dr. Luther Terry, M.D., publishes the landmark report Smoking and Health: Report of the Advisory Committee to the Surgeon General of the United States saying that smoking may be hazardous to health, sparking national and worldwide anti-smoking efforts.
Anya Van Wagtendonk reports Recall effort launched against Vos (‘Conservative opponents of the powerful Assembly speaker hope to force a recall election in June’):
Conservative activists have launched a recall effort against Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, citing his criticisms of former President Donald Trump and what they describe as an insufficiently right-wing record.
Matthew Snorek, a resident of Union Grove in Racine County, filed the petition to the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Wednesday. Vos, R-Rochester, has represented parts of Racine County in the state Assembly since 2005.
In the complaint, Snorek alleges Vos “is blocking fair elections in WI” and pointed to Vos not contributing to efforts by a small bloc of right-wing Assembly members to impeach Meagan Wolfe, the state’s top election administrator.
“Wisconsin must move ‘Forward’ without Robin Vos in power,” the complaint reads.
In a statement, Vos called the recall “a waste of time, resources and effort.”
….
Snorek’s petition will need to get about 7,000 signatures — calculated as a quarter of votes cast in Vos’ Assembly district in the 2022 gubernatorial race — in order to force a recall election. Organizers are aiming for an election date in June.
Mouse secretly filmed tidying man’s shed every night:
Blogging, Daily Bread, New Media, Newspapers, Press
Daily Bread for 12.14.23: Standalone and Stand Alone
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 46. Sunrise is 7:18 and sunset 4:21 for 9h 03m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 3.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1964, in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Congress can use the Constitution’s Commerce Clause to fight discrimination.
Over at Neiman Lab, Andrew Kaczynski’s The Homepage is Back makes a prediction for 2024:
As some social media platforms diminish in significance as primary news sources for news junkies — because of their perceived unreliability and chaotic nature — there will be a notable rise in the importance of homepages and newsletters as those readers seek more authoritative and trustworthy sources for news.
The reality today is most voracious news consumers — members of the media included — have to embrace a choose-your-own-adventure approach to getting read-in each day, cobbling together an ever-changing combination of news sites, author pages, social channels, and email newsletters. It’s reminiscent of our pre-Twitter days. (RSS feeds, anyone?)
But is that necessarily a bad thing? I’d argue that it is well worth the extra effort. I’d even take it a step further and say there’s something cleansing about avoiding the algorithm and doing a little self-discovery when it comes to news sources. Personally, I’ve rediscovered the value and influence of morning political newsletters in reaching elected officials and decision-makers and the importance of homepages for getting a sense of the big national stories of the day. I’ve embraced the news sections of apps and, yes, I am still exploring the potential for new platforms like Threads.
Yes, for journalists, and for others like bloggers, the homepage is back. Then again, it never truly went away. Standalone and stand alone are both good practices.
The rubber that stops cracks in their tracks:
Artificial Intelligence, Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 7.14.23: An A.I. Primer
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thundershowers with a high of 86. Sunrise is 5:29 AM and sunset 8:31 PM for 15h 02m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 8.7% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1789, revolutionary insurgents Storm the Bastille in Paris. There’s…