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Daily Bread, Open Government

Daily Bread for 4.19.22: Four Reasons People Oppose Open Government

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be chilly with intervals of clouds and sunshine and a high of 48.  Sunrise is 6:05 AM and sunset 7:42 PM for 13h 37m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1775, the Revolutionary War begins with an American victory in Concord during the battles of Lexington and Concord.

Yesterday’s post addressed the opportunistic use of open-government principles to advance selfish, particular ends. See The Opportunistic Use of Open-Government Principles. The use of open-government principles opportunistically is a temporary use; open government becomes closed government when it no longer serves a special interest group’s purposes.

Why, however, would a person or group oppose open government consistently? There are four basic reasons.

Ignorance. Those who oppose open government through ignorance believe that the community doesn’t have a right to know the business of government because they mistakenly treat government as though it were merely another private party. They see government not as an instrumentality of popular sovereignty but as a separate and independent organism. There is a name for those who see the state as a living creature with rights over and above people: they’re called authoritarians.

Arrogance. In this case, pride grips those within government to see themselves as special, as secular gnostics with knowledge only they have and only they must possess. This pride is intoxicating, and rapidly consumes those who might otherwise insist that they’re good government advocates.

A reminder: Hubris invites Nemesis.

Indolence. Public work that is known to the public requires a higher standard than hidden work in which errors remain commonly unknown. A concealed shoddy standard is easier for the lazy to maintain than a revealed shoddy standard. Slothful officials love the shadows except when extolling their own praises.

Malfeasance. Once corrupt officials or special interests seize control of government, closed government thereafter aids their control. They may have talked about open government to get inside, but once inside they shut the door. In those concealed spaces, they deal for themselves and against competitors or perceived adversaries.

Japanese ‘electric’ chopsticks makes food seem more salty:

Books, Daily Bread, Open Government, Populists

Daily Bread for 4.18.22: The Opportunistic Use of Open-Government Principles

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see a bit of snow with a high of 39.  Sunrise is 6:06 AM and sunset 7:41 PM for 13h 34m 33s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 96% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 2018, The New York Times and the New Yorker win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for breaking news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.

 In a thread on Twitter, Prof. Don Moynihan of Georgetown writes of a partisan group’s use of open government claims opportunistically rather than universally. In Moynihan’s illustration, book-banners are cloaking themselves in open-government garb merely to gain power and thereafter restrict speech and transparency. His thread offers lessons derived from an effort in Texas to ban library books. See Censorship battles’ new frontier: Your public library.

Four of his lessons appear below:

Wallace, the person leading the book banning effort is appointed to the Library’s governance structure, along with others who are not library users.

Lesson #2: the purpose is political control and deconstruction of public institutions, they don’t care about its core mission.

….

Lesson #5: The goal is to replace transparent democratic processes and professional judgment with activist veto power.

….

Lesson #7: they don’t care about the damage they are doing to public institutions, or the erosion of public services people value and depend on.

….

Lesson 10: professional qualifications are devalued, diversity of representation is a fig leaf used to justify hegemonic control

 In the Llano, Texas case, the book-banners are ideologically-motivated populists.

There are, however, other groups that also use open-government principles selfishly and particularly. The most obvious situation would be traditional special interest groups (business or trade) seeking regulatory capture. They demand information and access only until they control an agency. For them, transparency is merely another slogan on the way to dominating public institutions for private ends.

If a group does not advocate for open government consistently and even-handedly, they don’t really believe in open government.

How Russia’s Disinformation Spreads Beyond Its Borders:

Daily Bread, Holiday

Daily Bread for 4.17.22: Happy Easter

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Good morning.

Easter in Whitewater will see some sunshine giving way to clouds with a high of 44.  Sunrise is 6:08 AM and sunset 7:40 PM for 13h 31m 49s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1907,  the Ellis Island immigration center processes 11,747 people, more than on any other day.

  The story of pysanky, traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs:

Sofika Zielyk, a Ukrainian-American ethnographer and artist, tells the story of pysanky, traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs. Her exhibition, The Pysanka: A Symbol Of Hope, at the Ukrainian American Institute is collecting eggs to show support for Ukraine.

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Gerrymandering, Law, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 4.16.22: WISGOP Gets the Gerrymandered State Legislative Maps It Wanted

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 42.  Sunrise is 6:09 AM and sunset 7:38 PM for 13h 29m 05s of daytime.  The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2018, The New York Times and the New Yorker win the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for breaking news of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse scandal.

 Following a decision of the United States Supreme Court in March, on Friday the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of Republican-proposed state legislative maps. (The Friday decision does not affect Congressional districts, as those district boundaries had already been approved in state and federal rulings.)

The WISGOP least-change maps that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has adopted cement for another decade a gerrymandered Republican advantage: 

Robert Yablon, University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor and redistricting expert, said the court’s decision had reinforced a map that was “strikingly” gerrymandered.

“And it means that although this state is often a 50-50 state one where Democrats have frequently managed to win statewide races, they are going to have virtually no chance of taking control of the Legislature,” Yablon said in an interview with PBS Wisconsin.

An analysis of the competing redistricting plans by Marquette University’s John Johnson found that in a statewide tie, Republicans would be expected to win 63 out of 99 Assembly seats and 23 out of 33 Senate seats under the new GOP map.

(Any least-change approach this decade was assured of preserving last decade’s maximum-change gerrymandering.)

It’s likely that there will be additional challenges to these state districts, but if so those challenges (of dubious prospects based on the latest relevant U.S. and Wisconsin high court decisions) would come too late to change 2022 legislative boundaries.

Candidates for state legislative offices, who under Wisconsin law can circulate petitions beginning April 15th, will now know the boundaries of their districts.

Immediately below, the decision from the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

2022 WI 19Download

Can scientists finally decode fire?:

Daily Bread, Politics, Press Release, School District, U.S. Senate, US Senate Race 2022

Daily Bread for 4.15.22: A Local Visit & Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate Race

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Good morning.

Good Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 45.  Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset 7:37 PM for 13h 26m 19s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1947, Jackie Robinson debuts for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking baseball’s color line.

 A few days ago, State Treasurer Sarah Godlewski visited the Whitewater Unified School District’s Lakeview School, and thereafter issued a press release about a grant to the district. The press release, issued from Godlewski’s office on 4.12.22, made the rounds in Whitewater.

One day later and a thousand miles away, Jennifer Rubin wrote about the U.S. Senate race in which Godlewski is one of several candidates. See Democrats must make a strategic choice in Wisconsin’s Senate race. There is an unexpected, but happy, synchronicity in Rubin’s post: she reminds that local isn’t merely local.  Wisconsin and America are enmired in a national conflict, the outcome of which will exert an influence greater than any local grant (however welcome).

Rubin is a former Republican, and since the emergence of Trump has committed herself (by intellect, industry, and insight) as a part of a grand coalition in support of the constitutional order (and so necessarily against Trumpism). Others of us, including this libertarian blogger, are also part of that coalition. While Democrats are most of this alliance, there are others of us who are not, and have never been, Democrats.

The outcome of this political conflict between Democrats and Republicans is not a matter of indifference to those of us who are neither.

And so, and so, Rubin and others of us wonder about the best choices that our shared alliance will make.

Rubin considers Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate race:

The good news for Democrats is that their front-runner in Wisconsin’s Senate primary seems to be course-correcting. The bad news is that it might be too little, too late.

“Lieutenant Gov. Mandela Barnes has tried to stake out his place as a liberal candidate seeking the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. “But Barnes is now distancing himself from two unpopular, far-left political movements — defunding police and abolishing ICE — despite support from groups backing these efforts and past social media activity referencing these causes.”

….

One can imagine that Sen. Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent whom Barnes would face should he win his party’s nomination, would like nothing more than to make this a race against “socialism.” Johnson has a boatload of controversies and gaffes, including his latest flub when he admitted that the plastics business he owned, as well as some of his prominent donors, benefited from the small-business tax provision that he pushed for in the 2017 tax cuts.

….

It is not as if Democrats lack sensible candidates. Sarah Godlewski, the state treasurer, has run a savvy campaign appealing to all segments of the party, including rural counties (which she won in her treasurer’s race). She has mastered the art of advancing center-left ideas that work in Wisconsin with none of the firebrand rhetoric better suited for Vermont or Massachusetts. Meanwhile, Tom Nelson, the county executive for rural Outagamie County and former state assemblyman, has been called a “scrappy” underdog. His pro-union bona fides and working-class constituents give him the feel of a rural populist. Those two candidates, however, have a combined total of 17 percent, roughly 20 points behind Barnes in recent internal polling, although a large percentage of voters remain undecided.

It’s likely that Barnes will receive the Democratic nomination on August 9th. If so, Barnes will deserve and  receive support from those of us who rightly see the unsuitability — indeed detestability — of Johnson.

And yet, and yet, some of us who are not Democrats, but no less committed to an alliance in defense of liberal democracy, worry about whether some candidates will prove capable of withstanding the well-funded, divisive onslaught Johnson is sure to undertake.

Would Godlewski fare better in the fall than Barnes? Some of us feel that she might. We will, of course,  defend any of the possible nominees against Johnson, but an easier defense would be preferable to us than a harder one.

In any event, with so much at stake, how near-sighted it would be to think local is merely local.

Tiny satellites and a new view of humanity:

Cats

Friday Catblogging: Cats Conquer Oakland Coliseum

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David DeBolt writes Feral cats have invaded the Oakland Coliseum:

Feral cats are having a “field day” at the Oakland Coliseum, according to stadium authority executive director Henry Gardner.

An estimated 30 to 40 cats and kittens have made the 130-acre property in East Oakland home, multiplying in population over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, Gardner told The Oaklandside.

“The good news is the cats have been on rat patrol and they have done an excellent job. We have not seen a rodent in almost two years,” Gardner said in a phone interview. “You have to give them an ‘A’ for dealing with the rodents but we don’t need as many in the army right now. We are overstaffed.”

The kittens, who are bold and “don’t know any better,” according to Gardner, have been spotted inside the Oakland Arena and baseball stadium on the outfield turf. Once a bustling complex with three professional sports teams, the Oakland A’s remain the only anchor tenant after the Warriors moved to San Francisco and the Raiders to Las Vegas.

….

Ann Dunn, director of Oakland Animal Services, estimates the cat population to be 40 to 50 and said “if you see that many, there are probably more.” Another feline colony across a canal from the Coliseum on Hegenberger Drive has easily another 100 cats, Dunn said.

….

“It’s a situation that is absolutely out of control,” Dunn said of the increasing cat population in Oakland. “The thing that is so heartwarming is everyone [at the Coliseum and Hegenberger] has the shared goal of doing what’s best for the cats. No one has asked us to remove the cats in a way that would harm them.”

City, Daily Bread, Local Government, Populists, School District

Daily Bread for 4.14.22: The Environment That Populism Exploits

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 44.  Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:36 PM for 13h 23m 33s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1912, the British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic at 23:40 (and sinks the morning of April 15th).

  Populism doesn’t emerge merely anywhere, as though at randon. Many afflictions may weaken a community (from natural disatsters to bad policy), but thereafter weak communities are vulnerable to worse maladies.

Populism is one of those worse maladies.

It’s in those already-afflicted communities that populism finds hospitable soil, and then salts that soil so that nothing else will grow.

Mistakes about budgets and buildings are for populism an invitation to impose restrictions on speech and expression.

The fewer the mistakes, the fewer the opportunities for something worse.

Expectations of competency and critiques of incompetency are safeguards against threats worse than mere error.

 What has hapened and what will happen to the people of Urkraine matters incomparably. And yet, it says much about Ukrainaians that even during war, they’ve shown a concern for animals. Puppy Rescued From Rubble in Ukraine: 

City, Daily Bread, Local Government, Populists, School District

Daily Bread for 4.13.22: The Environment That Populism Creates

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered thundershowers with a high of 69.  Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 7:35 PM for 13h 20m 46s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1970, an oxygen tank aboard the Apollo 13 Service Module explodes, putting the crew in great danger and causing major damage to the Apollo command and service module (codenamed “Odyssey“) while en route to the Moon.

  The conservative populists, filled with energy (and often exercising that energy within their own echo chamber), speak and act in communities that aren’t always receptive to their messaging. In some cases, they underestimate the strength of motivated opponents. See Mequon-Thiensville School District Rejects Recall and How Mequon-Thiensville Residents Saved Their Schools. (This spring, residents of that district again rejected two candidates who were in favor of last fall’s failed Mequon-Thiensville recall.)

In other cases, the populists underestimate not a diehard community opposition but rather a broad desire to avoid the tension and turmoil they bring. See Energy and Exhaustion and 4 Points On Whitewater’s Spring ’22 Election.  

Populism represents a challenge both for what it will do if in power (they’ll spend as much as anyone, while imposing their cultural demands on everyone) and for its opportunistic nature (they’ll make any argument, or seize on anyone else’s argument, in pursuit of office).

They argue in bad faith.

For those who present a critique in good faith, a populist faction represents a pre-election impediment: they’ll take good-faith arguments and use them for in bad faith for their own ends. They’ll talk about fiscal prudence until they assume office and spend. They’ll talk about open government until they assume office and insist that there are facts they simply cannot reveal (‘there are things you don’t know’). They’ll talk about respect while treating others shamefully. They’ll insist on their liberty as a faction while denying individual liberty to others.

The populists make others’ good-faith claims about spending, open government, academic success, and managerial competency harder to make, lest they leverage those sincere claims for their own, immediate advancement.

Anyone who cared about his or her community would see that populism represents two risks, not one: bad ideas, and co-opting good ideas for bad ends.

Whitewater is better off for populist failures this spring, as the opportunity for a fair critique is therefore unencumbered by others’ destructive ambitions. A serious critique should be made, in any event.  It’s simply easier to make in a climate free of populist insincerity.

Window Washers Work on a 92-Floor Skyscraper:

Daily Bread, Open Government, Public Meetings, School District

Daily Bread for 4.12.22: Open-Session Meetings Should Always Have an Opportunity for Public Comment

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see scattered rain and thundershowers with a high of 61.  Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:34 PM for 13h 17m 58s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 79.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 4:30 PM, and the city’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM. 

On this day in 1955, the polio vaccine, developed by Dr. Jonas Salk, is declared safe and effective.

Last night, Whitewater’s school board met in special session.  The board held a closed session at 6 PM, and an open session beginning at 7:30 PM. A video of the open session is embedded, below.

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Whitewater School Board Meeting 4.11.22 (Open Session).

The open session agenda did not include an item for public comment, but a brief opportunity for public comment was added impromptu. See Video @ 29:45. (At this meeting, the public comment was about commencement speakers, but the comment might have been on any number of subjects and been as worthy.)

A few remarks.

Whitewater Unified School District Policy 187 addresses public participation at meetings. That policy has a provision for public comment at regular meetings  187 (1) , but a different provision for special meetings 187 (2).

 Monday’s meeting was a special meeting, and the board president exercised authority under 187 (2) to permit public comment. That was the right decision, in light of Whitewater Unified School District Policy 810 on school-community relations:

The School Board believes that the public schools belong in every sense to the people, reflect the community they serve, and can never be any stronger than the public is willing and able to make them.

Meeting the needs of the community and gaining the support to meet those needs depends upon two-way communication between the Board and the public. The Board, therefore, will make every attempt to make known its plans and actions and encourages the community to make known its desires.

For open government and transparency in a situation like this, policy and law should be a floor, and not a ceiling, on public participation.

Policy 187’s distinction between public participation at regular meetings and special meetings, is, however, a mistake. Any open session of the Whitewater Unified School District should have the same robust provisions for public comment. 

There is no open meeting so special, nor any elected or appointed official so special, that he or she should not patiently listen to public comment.  

A simple principle: there should be ample opportunity for public comment at every open public meeting, every single time. 

It was the right decision to afford public comment at the 4.11.22 meeting.  It would be an even better decision to abolish Policy 187’s unjustified distinction between public comment at types of open meetings.

Dusky Wallaby Peeks Its Head Out of Mother’s Pouch:

Conspiracy Theories, Daily Bread, Politics, Trump, Wisconsin, WISGOP

Daily Bread for 4.11.22: The WISGOP’s Idea of a Pilgrim

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 57.  Sunrise is 6:18 AM and sunset 7:33 PM for 13h 15m 09s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6:00 PM, and the Whtewater Unified District School Board meets in closed session at 6 PM and open session at 7:30 PM.

On this day in 1945, American forces liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp.

 Molly Beck reports Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort becomes ground zero in the Republican race for Wisconsin governor:

MADISON – A third Republican eyeing the governor’s office traveled to Donald Trump’s Florida resort this week as Wisconsin’s Democratic incumbent used his opponents’ trips to see the former president to build a campaign war chest.

A pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago has become a requisite for Wisconsin Republicans in 2022 and Rep. Tim Ramthun, a Republican from Campbellsport, arrived there Thursday as he crafts a campaign largely on the idea that President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory is illegitimate.

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Ramthun’s visit, to attend a fundraiser for Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake, was the latest in a string of trips Republicans have made in the last month to see Trump as their primary field for governor takes shape.

Former Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who is running against Ramthun in the GOP primary for governor, traveled to Mar-a-Lago in early March. Former Gov. Tommy Thompson, who is mulling whether to get in the race, met with Trump at the club last week.

A spokeswoman for Kevin Nicholson, who also is running for governor, did not respond to whether Nicholson was also planning to take a trip.

Nicholson will go, even if it means sneaking in a back gate and jumping into a buffet line. They’ll all end up going, where going is, to any reasonable person, disqualifying.

100,000 ladybugs released to reduce pesticides at Vegas resort:

Daily Bread, Insurrection

Daily Bread for 4.10.22: Nicolle Wallace on the Jan. 6th Committee

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Good morning.

Palm Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 57.  Sunrise is 6:19 AM and sunset 7:32 PM for 13h 12m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 62.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 837, Halley’s Comet makes its closest approach to Earth at a distance equal to 0.0342 AU (3.2 million miles).

Nicolle Wallace talks with John Heilemann on Where Things with the Jan. 6th Committee: 

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John Heilemann talks with his pal Nicolle Wallace, host of Deadline: White House on MSNBC, about the January 6th committee and Liz Cheney’s battle against authoritarianism in the Republican Party, assesses whether the threats to American democracy posed by the far right are worse than those of Al-Qaeda, weighs in on the missing seven and a half hour gap in the White House phone logs on 1/6 and the incompetence of the Trump administration, and explains why the Department of Justice may be more willing to investigate Hunter Biden than Donald Trump.

Tune in to the full episode to hear about the latest bombshell reporting on efforts to subvert the 2020 election — namely, a series of text messages revealing that conservative activist Virginia “Ginni” Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, pressured then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to overturn Biden’s victory.

Watch part 1 of this episode of Hell & High Water – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6Beu…

Watch part 2 of this episode of Hell & High Water – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESjZQ…

Meet The Ukrainian Family Keeping a Century-Old Weaving Tradition Alive:

Bad Ideas, Daily Bread, Foreign Affairs, Putin, War

Daily Bread for 4.9.22: Germany’s Failed Approach to Russia

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 46.  Sunrise is 6:21 AM and sunset 7:30 PM for 13h 09m 31s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 52.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1959, NASA announces the selection of the United States’ first seven astronauts, whom the news media quickly dub the “Mercury Seven.”

The New York Times podcast, The Daily, interviews Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief of the Times, on How Germany’s Approach to Russia Backfired:

German theories of interdependency with Russia as the basis of peace in Europe have proved false.

Interdependence with a dictatorship has brought both war to Europe and subservience to Germany.

SpaceX launches 1st all-private Axiom crew to space station, sticks landing: