FREE WHITEWATER

Charity, City, Good Ideas

The Whitewater Community Foundation’s First Annual Campaign

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Please see a news release about charitable work in our small city — best wishes to all who are supporting the campaign –

Whitewater Community Foundation is concluding its first ever Annual Campaign

Thank you to everyone who donated! We reached our modest goal of $50,000, and the donations are still rolling in! Thank you to everyone who contributed to help us continue our Community Action Grants. Our grants help nonprofits in town accomplish amazing projects that benefit us in numerous ways – through education, beautification, health and preservation. We believe that real change starts at the local level. And those of you who donated have shown that you believe this too!

If you were thinking about donating and got distracted, you still have time until the end of the year to contribute your tax deductible gift toward great projects in our great city. You can go to our website at whitewatercommunityfoundation.org and click the “donate” button at the bottom of the page or you can donate the old-fashioned way by sending the Whitewater Community Foundation a check to P.O. Box 428, Whitewater, WI 53190. We’ll be contacting you early next year to find out more about what you value in Whitewater.

Business, Corporate Welfare, Economy, State Capitalism, Trump

What a Card! Jean Card’s Comedic Claim That Trump Will Rein in Crony Capitalism

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Jean Card is a weekly blogger at U.S. News & World Report (yes, it’s still in publication), former speechwriter for the secretaries of Labor (2001-03) and Treasury (2004-06) in the Bush Administration, and owner of Jean Card Ink, where she is “a writer and communications consultant with a proven track record of translating public policy jargon and government-speak into compelling, persuasive English” with the reassuring company tagline that this is important “Because Words Matter.”

She’s also quite the comedienne, as one can easily discern from her latest post, Will Donald Trump Rein in Crony Capitalism and Let Small Business Flourish? (The subtitle’s even more amusing: “President-elect Donald Trump has crony capitalists sweating and small businesses cheering.”)

In fact, Trump’s economics involves a contradictory (and at bottom) ineffectual mix of badgering and then bribing of large corporations to do what he selfishly wants. John Tamny has it right in Carrier Corp.: Donald Trump Potentially Destroys Millions Of Jobs To ‘Save’ 800:

what’s so shameful about some of the support on the right for Trump’s alleged ‘coup’, Trump’s actions vis-à-vis Carrier sent a strong signal that the U.S. will no longer be as hospitable a locale to the very investors who create all jobs. As Trump so obnoxiously and chillingly put it, “Companies are not going to leave the U.S. anymore without consequences. Leaving the country is going to be very, very difficult.” Where is the outrage? Trump didn’t signal help on the way as much as he signaled retaliation against the companies that don’t do as he wishes….

Funnier still is Card’s contention that Trump will help business by rejecting crony capitalism.  Far from rejecting favors for his friends, he’s gone one better: he can use political power to discuss business for himself and his own family rather than mere associates and cronies.  Argentina’s president denies that Trump sought favors for a hotel project in that country, but the Guardian reports that “[Argentine] local media reports have alleged that Trump asked [President] Macri for help over a stalled construction permit for a 35-storey project called Trump Office in downtown Buenos Aires. A source told the Guardian that the information came from Macri’s staff.”

Drew Harwell describes Trump’s generally conflicted situation in a story entitled, On the day Trump said he’d clarify his business dealings, his conflicts of interest look thornier than ever:

If Trump gives his children corporate management responsibilities but still partially owns the businesses, he will have a financial stake that could influence his presidential decision-making, former White House ethics advisers said.

Business experts also wonder how Trump could promise “no new deals” for a business that has depended on routine dealmaking — both in large measure, such as signing new real estate partnerships or sealing branding agreements, as well as everyday deals, including hiring employees and refinancing debts.

Some government officials weighed in. Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub, whose agency advises public officials on how to avoid conflicts, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Sen. Thomas R. Carper (D-Del.) that “a President should conduct himself ‘as if’ he were bound by” financial conflict-of-interest laws. “Transferring operational control of a company to one’s children would not constitute the establishment of a qualified blind trust, nor would it eliminate conflicts of interest,” Shaub wrote.

Card wants to position Trump as someone who badgers big companies (“Translation: the cronies are sweating”), but with his approval Indiana targeted seven million for Carrier, Boeing gave a million to Trump’s inaugural committee after being attacked on Twitter, and Trump’s telegraphed-a-day-in-advance attack on Lockheed was no surprise to hedge fund managers.

Sweating?  No, they’re cashing in and ponying up for more opportunities.

Oddest of all is Card’s contention that small businesses are hopeful about Trump. She cites a National Federation of Independent Business’ optimism index, without telling readers that (1) the survey is self-selected (it’s only from among NFIB members), (2) the NFIB membership is only a fraction (about 1.1%) of all small businesses in the U.S., (3) the NFIB was the principal plaintiff in a losing case at the U.S. Supreme Court case against the Obama Administration, and – wait for it – (4) Card doesn’t disclose in her post or her US N&WR bio that she was Vice President of Media & Communications for the NFIB from 2010-2014.

Former speech writer, former communications flack, and consultant?

Oh, no, dear readers – it’s a comedy act that Jean Card has going.

America, City

When Are We?

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A simple but significant question about the time in which we live: when are we?  That is, looking at past events, how far along would we say we are in within a given historical progression (assuming one can say)?  Assuming one can say is hardly a simple conditional, but if one could venture a guess, what might one guess?

I’d say that, nationally, we’re at the beginning of something, where that beginning will lead to far worse and far more volatile conditions, perhaps for many years.  I say that locally, we’re in the middle of something much smaller, where this small city is likely to see a continuing but slow decline, likely for several more years.

Which, though, matters more?  In good national times, one might principally focus on local matters (although I’ve always argued that local should be considered from a national perspective).  Yet, I’ve not even the least perceptible feeling that these are good national times.  On the contrary, these days have the feel of incipient loss, with this beautiful republic at risk, of a kind unlike that expereienced within our time.

I write all this coldly, with composure, as I’d guess the country has a not a sudden, but rather a lengthy, time of struggle ahead.

Perhaps one can’t find the comparison, but it’s worth noting that a man in the Boston of 1861 or in the New York of 1939 would have more on his mind than events close at hand.

At the least, one would hope so.

If ever one had confirmation that a narrowly and exclusively local focus was foolish, then one has that confirmation now.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.15.16

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be clear and cold, with a high temperature of eight degrees.  Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 02m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1791, following ratification by Virginia, the Bill of Rights takes effect.  On this day in 1847, Wisconsin convenes its second constitutional convention in Madison.

Worth reading in full — 

William Arkin, Ken Dilanian, and Cynthia McFadden unsurprisingly report that U.S. Officials: Putin [Was] Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack: “U.S. intelligence officials now believe with “a high level of confidence” that Russian President Vladimir Putin became personally involved in the covert Russian campaign to interfere in the U.S. presidential election, senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News. Two senior officials with direct access to the information say new intelligence shows that Putin personally directed how hacked material from Democrats was leaked and otherwise used. The intelligence came from diplomatic sources and spies working for U.S. allies, the officials said. Putin’s objectives were multifaceted, a high-level intelligence source told NBC News. What began as a “vendetta” against Hillary Clinton morphed into an effort to show corruption in American politics and to “split off key American allies by creating the image that [other countries] couldn’t depend on the U.S. to be a credible global leader anymore,” the official said.”

(Kurt Eichenwald wrote along these lines far earlier.)

Eli Lake suggests that Obama Should Out Putin’s Wealth as Payback for Election Hacking: “Obama should shine a spotlight on the Russian president’s money. Since the 2014 stealth invasion of Ukraine, the CIA and the Treasury Department have devoted more resources to learning the details of Putin’s personal wealth. Obama should declassify dossiers of Putin’s and his inner circle’s fortune: their front companies, their homes, their yachts, their secret bank accounts. If he’s feeling puckish, Obama could tell his administration to anonymously post all that information on random public websites. He could say the CIA was hacked. Oops. Sorry, Vladimir. Our cyber security is a mess right now.  U.S. officials have hinted before that they know more than they are saying about Putin’s money. Adam Szubin, the acting undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, told the BBC in January that Putin “supposedly draws a state salary of something like $110,000 a year. That is not an accurate statement of the man’s wealth, and he has long time training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual wealth.” In October, retired Admiral James Stavridis told NBC News: “It’s well known that there’s a great deal of offshore money moved outside of Russia from oligarchs. … It would be very embarrassing if that was revealed, and that would be a proportional response to what we’ve seen.”

Mark Galeotti writes that Putin Is Waging Information Warfare. Here’s How to Fight Back: “Instead of trying to combat each leak directly, the United States government should teach the public to tell when they are being manipulated. Via schools and nongovernmental organizations and public service campaigns, Americans should be taught the basic skills necessary to be savvy media consumers, from how to fact-check news articles to how pictures can lie.Deterrence can also take the form of limiting the Russians’ ability to buy media muscle covertly. Global finance is still gangsters and the spooks’ best friend, allowing them to secretly move and spend money. By joining the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s latest and most stringent Common Reporting Standards agreement for sharing financial information, for example, and by putting pressure on American states with notoriously tough secrecy laws, Washington would make it harder for not just corrupt Russians officials but also Moscow’s security apparatus to spend money at will in America.”

Elizabethn Weise writes that It’s new and it’s bad: Yahoo discloses 1B account breach: “The latest breach is separate from a 500-million-account breach the company disclosed in September of this year. At the time, the 500-million-account breach, which took place in 2014, was believed to be the largest on record. Yahoo (YHOO) shares fell 2.5% after hours.”

Great Big Story tells describes how “[t]hree paralyzed men take up one of sailing’s most grueling challenges—a 750 mile race to Alaska through some of the most treacherous and remote waters on the planet. With no motors allowed and many miles from any help, the competition can be too dangerous for the world’s most fearless sailors. This team is out to prove they have what it takes to finish…”:

Hard Ship | A Really Great Big Story from Great Big Story on Vimeo.

 

Authoritarianism, Crime, Foreign Affairs, Trump, Tyranny

Someone the President-Elect Admires

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President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, overseer of a contentious and bloody crackdown on drug dealers and users, boasted on Monday about having personally killed criminal suspects when he was mayor of Davao City.

“In Davao, I used to do it personally — just to show to the guys that if I can do it, why can’t you?” Mr. Duterte told business leaders at a meeting in Manila, explaining how he goaded police officers to gun down suspects.

“And I’d go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also,” he said, according to The Manila Times. “I was really looking for a confrontation, so I could kill.”

Via Rodrigo Duterte on Killing Criminal Suspects: ‘I Used to Do It Personally.’

See also Philippine President Duterte unveils his Trump impression, complete with profanities. (“Oh, President Duterte,” Duterte’s Trump impersonation begins. “We should fix our bad relations. It needs a lot of, y’know, you just said something good here. And you’re doing great. I know what’s your worry about these Americans criticizing you. You are doing good. Go ahead.”)

America, Authoritarianism, Liberty, Russia

Alexei Navalany Announces Run for President of Russia

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If Alexei Navalany is willing to fight against Putin, in a society where Putin’s authoritarianism is much advanced, then we in America who are the fortunate & blessed heirs of a democratic tradition (where authoritarianism is yet only nascent) have no justification for reluctance to join our own fight.

We’ll find those we can support, from among our hundreds of millions, with much good work we can do in support.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.14.16

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Good morning.

Midweek in Whitewater will be chilly, with gradually clearing skies and a high of fifteen.  Sunrise is 7:18 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 02m 57s of daytime.  The moon is full, with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Aquatic Center Board meets at 7 AM, and her Tech Park Board at 8 AM.

On this day in 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen becomes the first man to reach the South Pole. On this day in 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner delivers his “Significance of the Frontier in American History” address at the forty-first annual meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

Worth reading in full —

Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger, and Scott Shane describe The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S.: “An examination by The Times of the Russian operation — based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and Obama administration officials who deliberated over the best response — reveals a series of missed signals, slow responses and a continuing underestimation of the seriousness of the cyberattack….The low-key approach of the F.B.I. meant that Russian hackers could roam freely through the committee’s network for nearly seven months before top D.N.C. officials were alerted to the attack and hired cyberexperts to protect their systems. In the meantime, the hackers moved on to targets outside the D.N.C., including Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, whose private email account was hacked months later.”

Liz Wahl, formerly of the Russia Today network, describes how Trump Is Using Our Old Putin TV Propaganda Playbook: “When news came out that the CIA believes Russia had intervened in America’s election to help elect Trump, his transition team denied it: “These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It’s now time to move on and ‘Make America Great Again.’” Invoking Iraq is a common tactic of deflection in Russian media. Asking “What about Iraq?” is meant to bring the conversation to a halt and absolve the Kremlin of any wrongdoing. How dare the U.S. assert any moral superiority after invading Iraq? On my final day of anchoring at RT, when it became apparent Russian forces were present in Ukraine, the news director demanded I pose this question to former Congressman Ron Paul: “The mainstream media has been covering Ukraine non-stop. John Kerry famously said ‘You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext’ Why didn’t the mainstream media challenge the secretary of State regarding pretext to war in Iraq?”

In a post about hacking (Former CIA officer Evan McMullin weighs in on Trump hacking denial), Jennifer Rubin breaks news of a future politics: “[McMullin] says he will be starting a new organization within the month “to stand up for liberty and equality.” What form that takes and whether it spurs Republicans to confront the incoming president, whose actions would prompt calls for impeachment if he were a Democrat, remain to be seen. Nevertheless, McMullin may fill a much-needed role of conservative watchdog.”

Gina Barton reports that in Wisconsin, 3,000 [were] sent to prison without new convictions in 2015: “Nearly 3,000 people in Wisconsin were sent back to prison last year even though they were not found guilty of new crimes, according to a report released Tuesday. Some were on probation when the violations occurred. Others had been released from custody but were still being supervised by the Department of Corrections. About 70% of them were suspected of criminal activity, the department says. But because they were not formally charged, they did not have due process rights in court. These ex-offenders were re-incarcerated for “technical violations,” which also can include things such as accepting a job without permission, missing a meeting with their probation and parole officer, or leaving their home counties.A Journal Sentinel investigation published last year found the process that forces violators back behind bars relies largely on the judgment of individual parole agents, which can vary widely. Once accused of violations, people on parole can be sent back to prison for years without proof beyond a reasonable doubt — and they are left with little chance of a successful appeal.”

They’ve been friends for a long time, one hears, and there are still cabinet positions to fill…


City

The Search for a Composer

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At Whitewater’s Planning Commission, a smart, educated resident (to whom I have no personal connection) mentioned how very much Whitewater could use a reliable publication, so that residents might be properly informed of community developments.

The unexpected in this was not lost on me, as only a few feet away from the resident, at the commissioner’s table, sat a commissioner of powerful intelligence, graceful expression, and undoubted civic commitment. (Many of the people in the room were familiar to each other, making the question of communication – of a suitable composer or symphonist, so to speak – even more notable.)

We’re not the Royal Navy, nor should we be: residents cannot be impressed into service. There are countless ways to do good works for others.

And yet, and yet, how surprising: she who might so skillfully express the city’s hopes and fears was, last night, like a surrealist’s idea of the marvelous, just beyond their fingertips.

One might linger over this longer, but dark developments far beyond the city compel one’s attention elsewhere.

City, Government Spending, Local Government

At Whitewater’s Planning Commission: Millions But Still a Politician’s Unsatisfied

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Last night, Whitewater’s local government conducted its (mostly) monthly Planning Commission meeting.  It’s mostly because there aren’t always enough new projects each month to justify holding a meeting.   At Item 4 on the agenda, the commission held a public hearing “for consideration of a conditional use permit for an automotive shop at 113 E. Main Street.”  The commission granted wisely the permit.  (One wishes the applicant the best for his new business.

One Thirteen East Main Street, Whitewater: it’s a spot near a recently-completed two-million-dollar road improvement project, on the east side of this rural city.  Much of this work was truly road beautification, on the possible theory that if we sank enough public money into a small intersection of the town, then we’d all be putting on the Ritz.

When last night’s applicant received his approval, it came with a suggestion (from a member of the commission and also on the city’s common council): perhaps a bit of landscaping might make the area look nicer.

Oh, dearie me: were those millions not enough to transform the city?  After it all, all of it being public money, should a private businessperson have to pay another cent at government’s suggestion?  If he so chooses, of course; it’s just that having taken so much public money for a project that evidently hasn’t beautified, one might have hoped for a bit of official humility.

Nothing of the sort; instead, a suggestion for more, at private expense.

My point is not that the public project should have cost more, to add better plants; it’s that having cost what it did, it should have been plain that the cost was too much, for too little gain.  (I opposed the project, but at the time conceded that the architect’s illustrations were attractive.  Even that concession, while otherwise in opposition, too generous to the project.)

The millions were a waste in a city that could have found a hundred better uses for them.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.13.16

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy and cold, with a high of eleven. Sunrise is 7:17 AM and sunset is 4:21 PM, for 9h 03m 26s of daytime. The moon’s full today, with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1918, Pres. Wilson arrives in Versailles. Wilson, flawed in other ways, yet argued for a generous peace. On this day in 1864,the 3rd Wisconsin Light Artillery reaches Savannah, Georgia.

Worth reading in full —

Jacob Carpenter writes that Supervisors want outside reviews of jail deaths: “Two Milwaukee County supervisors are offering a resolution to require outside investigations of deaths at the Milwaukee County Jail — a mandate they don’t have the authority to impose, according to county lawyers. County board Chairman Theodore Lipscomb Sr. and Supervisor Supreme Moore Omokunde are sponsoring the resolution, announced Monday afternoon, in light of four deaths since April at the jail. The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, is investigating three of the four deaths. The fourth is the subject of a criminal investigation by the Milwaukee Police Department.”

David Filipov explains What is the Russian Order of Friendship, and why does Trump’s pick for secretary of state have one?: “[W]hile there may be plenty of valid concerns about the Russian entanglements of Rex Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to be the next secretary of state, his 2013 Order of Friendship award, based on its own merits, isn’t necessarily one of them. Tillerson won the award after signing deals with the state-owned Russian oil company, Rosneft, whose chief, Igor Sechin, is seen as Putin’s loyal lieutenant. The partnership had begun a drilling program in the Arctic’s Kara Sea, where Exxon made a find, and had agreed to explore shale oil areas of West Siberia and deep waters of the Black Sea. But U.S. sanctions against Russia over the annexation of Crimea kicked in and the partnership was put on hold. ExxonMobil spent $650 million to drill one wildcat hole in the Kara Sea, and had gotten just a measly sample of oil, said Mikhail Krutikhin, co-owner of RusEnergy, an independent oil and gas consultancy. (The head of  the Italian oil major Eni also won a 2013 Order of Friendship.)”

Jonathan Chait explains Trump’s thinking in The Russian Conspiracy on Behalf of Conspiracy Theorist Donald Trump: “Donald Trump is America’s most successful conspiracy theorist. He won the market share within the conservative-media entertainment complex that ultimately enabled his victory by energetically promoting a conspiracy theory about Barack Obama’s birthplace. He kept it up and up and up: Global warming is a Chinese hoax to gain market advantage; the real unemployment rate is many times higher than the official one; Antonin Scalia may have been murdered; Ted Cruz’s dad helped kill JFK, and on and on. And yet the oddity of his election, or one of the oddities, is that it was enabled in part by a conspiracy, a real one. Russia sponsored a hacking operation that likely had the effect, and almost certainly had the intent, of making him president. One of the most astonishing conspiracies in American history helped make a conspiracy theorist president….While it may give Trump too much credit to assume he has followed a considered strategy, there is a coherent pattern to the discourse he has promoted. It is a comprehensive attack on empiricism. He spreads distrust against every institution, so that the only possible grounds for belief is trust in a person. The suspicion he spreads against every institution protects Trump from accountability. If everybody is guilty — what governments don’t murder journalists? — then nobody is guilty. Questions about Trump’s own suspicious financial and political ties are simply more conspiracy theories.”

Craig Silverman and Lawrence Alexander show How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News: “Meanwhile, roughly 6,000 miles away in a small town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a young man watched as money began trickling into his Google AdSense account. Over the past year, the Macedonian town of Veles (population 45,000) has experienced a digital gold rush as locals launched at least 140 US politics websites. These sites have American-sounding domain names such as WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com. They almost all publish aggressively pro-Trump content aimed at conservatives and Trump supporters in the US. The young Macedonians who run these sites say they don’t care about Donald Trump. They are responding to straightforward economic incentives: As Facebook regularly reveals in earnings reports, a US Facebook user is worth about four times a user outside the US. The fraction-of-a-penny-per-click of US display advertising — a declining market for American publishers — goes a long way in Veles. Several teens and young men who run these sites told BuzzFeed News that they learned the best way to generate traffic is to get their politics stories to spread on Facebook — and the best way to generate shares on Facebook is to publish sensationalist and often false content that caters to Trump supporters.”

So how would humans hide from extraterrestrials?  Here’s one possible (although not fool-proof) way: