FREE WHITEWATER

City, Daily Bread, Development

Daily Bread for 11.11.26: The Proposed Agreement of Sale for a 7.21-Acre Parcel Along Bluff Road

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Good morning.

Veterans Day in Whitewater will be cloudy with scattered showers and a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset is 4:35 for 9 hours 53 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1918, Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car in the forest of Compiègne.

The City of Whitewater and Anderson Ashton/KML RE Holdings, LLC, a Wisconsin developer, have proposed an agreement of sale for 7.21 acres along Bluff Road. On Monday evening, that agreement passed review at Whitewater’s Planning Commission; the proposed agreement now goes before the Whitewater Common Council for possible approval. The proposal appears below.

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It is a sound and sensible agreement, flexible and valuable to Whitewater. The proposed sale follows an earlier June 2026 Letter of Intent between the parties. (While this libertarian blogger has also included from the agenda packet an accompanying memorandum to the proposed agreement of sale, that memorandum is explanatory; it is not itself a contractual term or a substitute for the language of the offer and addendum.)

Here are the principal terms of the agreement of sale as it now stands. (There are possible changes that either party might make. That’s common — some provisions might change slightly; here I am writing about the key provisions as they are now published.)

Parcel: KML RE Holdings LLC, associated with Anderson Ashton’s Matthew Mehring, offers to buy the city’s approximately 7.21-acre Bluff Road parcel for $1, with $1 in earnest money. The earnest money is not the sale price, but would ordinarily be applied toward it. (Whitewater would also be obligated to pay applicable brokerage fees and commissions to Anderson Commercial Group on the sale.)

City approval: The offer requires Common Council approval. The offer sets November 25 as its binding-acceptance deadline.

Buyer’s review period: After the specified city approval and notice, the buyer has up to 180 days to assess the land and project. The sale could close sooner than 180 days. The buyer may terminate during that period if dissatisfied with due diligence, including site conditions and economic feasibility.

Conditions to closing: The buyer must be satisfied with financing, required governmental and zoning approvals, a mutually acceptable development agreement, and commercial leases with tenants on terms acceptable to the buyer. Unless it expressly waives or satisfies in writing its conditions by the review deadline, the offer becomes void and its earnest money is returned.

Public support: The buyer seeks at least $500,000 for specified infrastructure through TID 11 on a pay-as-you-go basis. The staff memo calls the amount “approximately $500,000.” The final amount and terms are reserved for a later development agreement. (Any required economic benefit amount to Whitewater would have to be part of any development agreement, yet to be reached by the parties.)

Closing date: Closing is to occur within 15 days after the buyer satisfies or waives its conditions, though it may close sooner. The buyer can assign the offer without city consent to an entity under common control of the buyer. (Assignments beyond this would require city consent, which cannot be unreasonably withheld, conditioned, or delayed.) The proposed-use language permits other approved commercial uses, and the addendum allows a change after closing consistent with the eventual development agreement and zoning.

Whitewater is exposed to low risk during the review period. (Indeed, one risk is the microscopically small opportunity cost that another buyer might come along during this developer’s review period. This parcel has been vacant for many years — another good prospect is unlikely to come along in the next several months.)

The deal also provides flexibility: The proposed uses include a grocery store and daycare, but the agreement permits other commercial uses with city approval for the deal to conclude favorably — Whitewater and the developer need only reach a deal at a stated minimum municipal contribution, if agreeable to both parties.

This is a sound agreement of sale — very low risk to, but potentially high reward for, Whitewater.

Suet Breakfast For Pileated Woodpecker:

Enjoy this clip of a Pileated Woodpecker having a leisurely breakfast of suet. The leaves are changing on the trees of Sapsucker Woods as fall progresses in Ithaca, New York.

Congress, Courts, Daily Bread, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Legislature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.10.26: Perhaps Wisconsin Will Have a Faster Solution for Fair Congressional Maps

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 61. Sunrise is 6:40 and sunset is 4:36 for 9 hours 56 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1951, with the rollout of the North American Numbering Plan, direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service begins in the United States.

Ferris Bueller observed that “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” One sees this truth in the latest developments against Wisconsin’s gerrymandered congressional districts:

Democratic Gov.-elect David Crowley is pledging to sign into law new congressional boundaries if Democratic state lawmakers send him a new map.

Crowley made the comment less than a week after a midterm election that swept Democrats into every statewide office and into the majorities of both houses of the state Legislature. Now, Wisconsin Democrats will have a trifecta of power for the first time in 16 years.

[…]

“Right now I’m focusing on putting the transition team in place to make sure that we’re going to be ready on day one and to deliver results for Wisconsinites all across the state of Wisconsin,” Crowley said in an [sic] Nov. 9 interview with WISN-TV. “But just to put a nail in the coffin when it comes to this, if the bill was to reach my desk, I will sign it.”

Crowley’s pledge to sign into law new congressional maps reverses a position he took in September 2025 when he told Fox 6 he would not “go forward with redistricting mid-cycle.’

Democratic leaders Sen. Dianne Hesselbein and Rep. Greta Neubauer told the Journal Sentinel in interviews last week they will consider a mid-decade redistricting effort.

See Colby Lamb, Molly Beck, and Jessie Opoien, Gov.-elect David Crowley pledges to sign a new congressional map, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 9, 2026.

There are, as a post at FREE WHITEWATER noted, Two Ways to End Wisconsin’s Last Gerrymandered Districts: “through action by the Wisconsin Supreme Court or legislative action by the incoming Democratic majorities in the Wisconsin Legislature.” See Two Ways to End Wisconsin’s Last Gerrymandered Districts. See also Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2026AP1168 (Wis. argued Sept. 16, 2026) and Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2026AP1008 (Wis. argued Sept. 16, 2026), and FREE WHITEWATER, Wisconsin Supreme Court Hears Congressional Gerrymandering Arguments, September 17, 2026.

Legislative action could come far more quickly than a ruling from the Wisconsin Supreme Court against the state’s current congressional maps. (That is, if there should even be a judicial ruling — legislative action would almost certainly preclude judicial determination.)

It’s becoming more likely that legislative action will make Wisconsin’s congressional maps more equitable. The bigger point for all of us to draw from this is that Bueller was right — life does move pretty fast.

How Far Away Is Voyager 1? One Light-Day, Explained:

NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is approaching a historic milestone. On November 18, 2026, the spacecraft will reach a distance of one light-day from Earth. Launched in 1977, Voyager 1 and its twin, Voyager 2, transformed our understanding of the solar system through their exploration of the outer planets. In 2012, Voyager 1 became the first human-made spacecraft to enter interstellar space. Now more than 16 billion miles from Earth, Voyager 1 continues its journey into the unknown. At this extraordinary distance, a command sent from Earth takes 24 hours to reach the spacecraft, and another 24 hours for a response to return.

City, Congress, Daily Bread, Economics, Special Interests, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.9.26: The Fall of a Crypto Man (And Tales of Other Catspaws)

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 60. Sunrise is 6:39 and sunset is 4:37 for 9 hours 58 minutes of daylight. The moon was new earlier today with none of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Innovation Center Advisory Panel meets at 2:30 PM and the Plan & Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1913, the Great Lakes Storm of 1913, the most destructive natural disaster ever to hit the lakes, reaches its greatest intensity after beginning two days earlier. The storm destroys 19 ships and kills more than 250 people.

This libertarian blogger wrote, only days ago, that

Of Bryan Steil, the outgoing congressman from the 1st District: Has there ever been an emptier suit in Congress? Derrick Van Orden, defeated in the 3rd Congressional District, was at least plain — however objectionably — in his devotion to Trumpism. What of Steil? A devotion to crypto? An easy touch for business cronyism? Hoping big PAC money would see him through another election when most constituents had no idea where he stood except with his country club friends in D.C. Thin head, thin accomplishments, fat friends — a waste of a congressional seat.

That description of Steil must have seemed harsh. Well, if harsh, then also true:

Wisconsin voters delivered a blow to the cryptocurrency industry after Democrat Mitchell Berman defeated Republican incumbent Bryan Steil.  

Weeks before the 2024 election, Fairshake, the crypto industry backed political action committee, supported Steil’s re-election campaign with a $764,000 media buy and helped him get re-elected. 

Fairshake spent $1 million in the weeks before the 2026 election. 

Steil had been one of biggest advocates for the industry in Washington, D.C. 

As part of the House Finance Committee, Steil requested in 2025 to be chairman of the subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology, and Artificial Intelligence, which discusses crypto and blockchain legislation. 

See Ricardo Torres, Steil’s election loss to Berman could be blow to crypto industry, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 9, 2026.

Steil: A small catspaw of Big Crypto. (There’s a mistaken notion that all libertarians are enamored of crypto. We are not. Cryptocurrency’s privacy features are overrated — cryptocurrency transactions are most certainly not untraceable — and it’s often little more than a scheme to entice retail investors into acquisitions that will prove unprofitable for them but highly profitable for men like Trump, Trump Jr., Musk, etc.)

Now, Whitewater does not have a cryptocurrency of its own, even now, as the city’s various special-interest men lack the technical skill to create their own crypto coins. And so, and so, we have no perfect analog to Bryan Steil on the local level.

Instead, we have a few elected officials enamored of landlords’ interests. Like Steil, they speak mostly in even, normal tones while favoring special interests’ abnormal positions on key issues. Like Steil, as they owe their positions to more powerful men, they are instruments in others’ hands. For the most part, it’s best to concentrate on the toolmaker and not the tool, so, for example, I seldom refer to these other types by name. Indeed, even among the special-interest men, the type matters more than the person, as an ideological critique of avarice and economic ignorance applies so well. See The Special-Interest Hierarchy of a Small Town and The Special-Interest Hierarchy of a Small Town (Adjacent Support).

(Key point: A whole new generation has come up in Whitewater that simply doesn’t give a damn about bloodline this or pedigree that. It’s only some older residents who still care. If I thought a more particular critique would matter, I’d certainly not be disinclined. It doesn’t matter more, and so I’m not inclined. Indeed, from a polemical point of view, I’d prefer that this ilk talked about their legacies more often, as it only makes them look obtuse and backward-looking to those many more not brought up or captured by that mindset. The most important reason to look to the past, in my own estimation, is to show how many mistakes these self-promoting, special-interest men made. They’ve produced quite the archive of public policy failures. Other than noting as much, one’s own perspective should be forward-looking.)

Congressman Steil has been as I’ve described him; if he is to be remembered at all, he’ll be remembered as a mere tool of others.

Air pollution so bad in Delhi it’s as harmful as smoking a pack a day:

Authoritarian Populism, City, Daily Bread, Economics, Free Markets, Immigration, Never Trump, Sen. Ron Johnson, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.8.26: Those at America’s Border Know Better

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 61. Sunrise is 6:38 and sunset is 4:38 for 10 hours of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 0.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1972, Home Box Office (HBO) launches.

In this beautiful city, residents endured a falsely styled press conference with hysterical nativist accusations from a conspiracy-addled United States Senator. From this beautiful city, out went a poorly considered and poorly composed letter to then-President Biden that brought only pressure against immigrant residents. In this beautiful city, after that letter, this city was expressly mentioned in a federal executive order as a target of federal overreach against immigrants. Many of these immigrants understandably fled the city rather than trust in the protection to which they were as residents entitled. Some of the special-interest men in town declared that, following the departure of these immigrants, Whitewater’s housing affordability challenge would somehow be solved. (Needless to say, while those men have achieved self-enrichment, their public policy positions have been a principal cause over the last twenty years of the affordability problems residents now face.)

A restrictive immigration position is both wrong and economically self-destructive: Defiance of three centuries of free-market labor theory is a misguided impulse. Voluntary exchange and freedom of contract call for limited government interference in the marketplace. Instead, we have had in this nation only extreme interference with workers and protesters, including our own nonviolent citizens killed on our nation’s streets.

And yet, and yet, in places closer to our southern border, places that know immigration better than we in this city will ever know immigration, those residents have sensibly turned away from aggressive and economically ignorant immigration enforcement — 

See Javier Figueroa, How the Democrats won back the US-Mexico border (‘Democratic candidates carried all 10 House districts in the region neighboring Mexico’), El País, November 7, 2026 and Associated Press Race Calls, All the Calls, November 8, 2026.

This beleaguered federal administration will, in desperation, only intensify its efforts. No one should be surprised — this is the ineluctable direction of authoritarian populism: ever more extreme until it meets its ruin.

And so and so, bad goes to worse— Trump replaces Susie Wiles with Stephen Miller as the White House chief of staff:

Conservation, Daily Bread, Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.7.26: The Nature Conservancy Then and Now

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:36 and sunset is 4:39 for 10 hours 3 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt is elected for a record fourth term as President of the United States.

The Nature Conservancy has advanced conservation in the Midwest for generations. Here’s a quick retrospective on that commendable work:

The shocking truth about Chihuahuas — Scientists find Chihuahuas share [some of the] same genetic makeup as coyotes:

Professional reporting on the study of Chihuahuas’ genetic heritage may be found at Tiny Chihuahuas Hold a Big Surprise: A Sliver of Coyote DNA:

A casual observer might assume Chihuahuas are descended from angry electric toothbrushes. The breed’s characteristic quivering has historically been chalked up to garden-variety neurosis or a low tolerance for chilly drafts.

But a new study published in the journal Nature Communications suggests a more poetic explanation: Tucked inside that 4-pound frame is a microscopic shard of a coyote, trying to break free.

Researchers at Stanford University were testing a new software algorithm designed to analyze the genomic ancestry of any species at high resolution. By happy accident, the team discovered that, unlike almost every other dog breed, Chihuahuas carry distinct hints of coyote DNA, most likely embedded long before Europeans set foot in the Americas.

The Chihuahua lineage is believed to wind back to the Techichi, a small, barkless companion animal domesticated by the Toltec civilization around the turn of the first millennium that has since gone extinct. Alexander Ioannidis, a Stanford geneticist who collaborated on the paper, notes that contemporary Chihuahuas still retain roughly a 4-percent slice of their ancestry from these pre-contact pooches.

See Franz Lidz, Tiny Chihuahuas Hold a Big Surprise: A Sliver of Coyote DNA, New York Times, November 5, 2026.

Congress, Courts, Daily Bread, Fair Maps, Gerrymandering, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.6.26: Two Ways to End Wisconsin’s Last Gerrymandered Districts

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see a mix of clouds and sun with a high of 48. Sunrise is 6:35 and sunset is 4:41 for 10 hours 6 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1947, Meet the Press, the longest-running television program in history, makes its debut on NBC Television.

The last gerrymandered legislative maps in Wisconsin are for this state’s congressional representatives. There are two ways these maps might be made more equitable: through action by the Wisconsin Supreme Court or legislative action by the incoming Democratic majorities in the Wisconsin Legislature.

Wisconsin’s high court is now considering appeals from separate three-judge panels that decided against ruling on the existing congressional maps. See Bothfeld v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2026AP1168 (Wis. argued Sept. 16, 2026) and Wisconsin Business Leaders for Democracy v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, No. 2026AP1008 (Wis. argued Sept. 16, 2026). See also FREE WHITEWATER, Wisconsin Supreme Court Hears Congressional Gerrymandering Arguments, September 17, 2026.

A second possibility to adjust the congressional maps is through legislative action:

Democrats will also consider a mid-decade redistricting effort to redraw the state’s congressional maps, where the party flipped two GOP seats on Tuesday. 

Neither Neubauer nor Hesselbein in interviews with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel fully committed to pursuing new congressional maps, but Hesselbein said they have to “keep [it] on the table” and Neubauer said they’ll look to other states as they decide how to move forward.

In addition, Hesselbein said, Democrats will have “16 years of problems that we’re going to have to solve, of things being underfunded.”

See Jessie Opoien and Molly Beck, Democratic legislative leaders vow aggressive agenda in new majority, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, November 5, 2026.

Wisconsin’s eight congressional districts in the coming Congress will be split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, 4-4. Wisconsin’s First and Third Congressional Districts went for Democrats even under the gerrymandered maps — redistricting is likely to make those maps more equitable (and politically safer) for Democrats.

I’d be surprised if congressional redistricting did more than that — the remaining four districts, however configured, would remain red-favoring under any reasonable boundaries. Redistricting would simply rectify inequitably drawn boundaries in the First and Third Districts.

Of Bryan Steil, the outgoing congressman from the 1st District: Has there ever been an emptier suit in Congress? Derrick Van Orden, defeated in the 3rd Congressional District, was at least plain — however objectionably — in his devotion to Trumpism. What of Steil? A devotion to crypto? An easy touch for business cronyism? Hoping big PAC money would see him through another election when most constituents had no idea where he stood except with his country club friends in D.C. Thin head, thin accomplishments, fat friends — a waste of a congressional seat.

We could have done better, and one reasonably hopes we soon will.

One reads this morning about another waste coming to an end —

The decision to halt production of Tesla’s polarizing polygonal pickup marks the end of an error.

— WIRED (@wired.com) November 6, 2026 at 8:24 AM

Blogging, City, Daily Bread, Libertarians, Politics

Daily Bread for 11.5.26: Community Needs and Individual Purpose

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see occasional showers with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:34 and sunset is 4:42 for 10 hours 8 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1872, in defiance of the law at that time, suffragist Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time and is later fined $100.

When a major event transpires in a community, it’s reasonable to ask two questions: What are the community’s needs now and what role will one play in addressing those needs?

Perhaps there’s a preliminary question: Was this a major event? For Wisconsin politics, the answer is undoubtedly that 11.3.2026 was a major event. The former chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, Mike Tate, is quoted in the Journal Sentinel this morning describing the recent election:

 I remember standing next to a colleague who had been through all of these wars going back to 2010, and I don’t think there’s ever been anything like this in my career or in my lifetime…. It’s 2010 in reverse.

Yes, that’s right. Tate was less effective than his successors (notably less effective than Ben Wickler), yet he has assessed the significance of the election accurately. Whatever comes next, what came before from Walker locally and from Trump within the state has been brought to ruin. There will be Republicans and Democrats, of course. There will also be those who hold tenaciously and ferociously to Trump’s brand of authoritarian populism. Most officeholders in the state, however, will look beyond the Walker and Trump approaches.

That leaves those of us who are politically or ideologically oriented to assess what we believe matters for Whitewater and our own particular approach within this beautiful city. One can see that some of these assessments — without regard to an express perspective of ideology — were made by respondents to a recent community survey. (Note well, Whitewater: Scattered criticisms of that survey’s methodology were deficient; the survey was methodologically sound. On this point, see Whitewater’s Community Survey.)

In my own case, my list of concerns is most easily found in posts that present ‘what ails, or what heals’ or in my annual list of the scariest and most reassuring Whitewater developments over the prior year.

This libertarian blogger is still uncertain how these statewide political developments might reshape FREE WHITEWATER‘s latest lists. (At another, younger site, with a focus expressly on libertarianism, I’m still sorting priorities out. My best guess over there: a reckoning over how and where much of libertarianism failed in the face of authoritarianism, with the exception of those few of us who remained faithful to our principles as Never Trump libertarians. Then, suggestions for the reconstruction of our ideology. Those are not local topics, but they are pressing ones for those of us who, so to speak, kept the faith.)

In all of these matters, alongside so many others in this city and beyond who have been true to their worthy beliefs, one can be certain of this: If we have come through so many challenges in the years since the Great Recession set our contemporary times in motion, we will certainly not be yielding now.

It’s diligent and zealous, so best as we can achieve it, for so far ahead as the human eye can see.

Here’s hopeful news of the natural kind — Scientists discover that dying coral can be revived through contact with healthy coral:

Stanford University researchers have discovered that dying coral can be revived through contact with healthy coral in a lab. The finding could help scientists find new ways to restore coral reefs threatened by warming ocean waters.

City, David Crowley, Elections, First Congressional District, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Josh Kaul, Legislature, School District, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.4.26: Statewide and Local Election Results

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 64. There is beauty in the rain. Sunrise is 6:33 and sunset is 4:43 for 10 hours 10 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 22.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board is scheduled to meet at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1960, Jane Goodall observes chimpanzee tool use at Gombe in what is now Tanzania, part of her landmark discovery that chimpanzees make and use tools.

Below are the unofficial statewide and local results for yesterday’s elections, drawing on the tabulations from the Associated Press via the New York Times and from Walworth, Jefferson, and Rock Counties. Whitewater totals are votes from the City of Whitewater proper. Percentages are of the two-candidate or issue vote. Vote totals are current through post time.

STATEWIDE OFFICES:

GOVERNORSTATE TOTALSTATE PERCENTAGE
CROWLEY1,438,72154.1%
TIFFANY 1,221,66845.9%
ATTY GENERALSTATE TOTALSTATE PERCENTAGE
KAUL1,448,27854.7%
TONEY 1,198,32945.3%
SEC. STATESTATE TOTALSTATE PERCENTAGE
ZAMARRIPA1,335,49452.7%
SCHROEDER1,199,55847.3%
TREASURERSTATE TOTALSTATE PERCENTAGE
XIONG1,360,17651.9%
LEIBER1,261,99248.1%

WISCONSIN SENATE 15TH DISTRICT:

DISTRICT TOTALDISTRICT PERCENTAGE
SPREITZER41,24960.2%
FLEMING27,30439.8%

WISCONSIN ASSEMBLY 43RD DISTRICT:

DISTRICT TOTALDISTRICT PERCENTAGE
BROWN15,46158.8%
MCGRAW 10,84841.2%

WISCONSIN LEGISLATURE:

The WisDems won both chambers, giving them a trifecta: Assembly (53 D, 46 R) and Senate (18 D, 15 R)

WUSD REFERENDUM:

DISTRICT TOTALDISTRICT PERCENTAGE
YES3,39847.5%
NO 3,76352.5%

WISCONSIN 1ST CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT:

DISTRICT TOTALDISTRICT PERCENTAGE
STEIL 146,88548.0%
BERMAN 158,83952.0%

A good night — and last night was a very good night — calls for a cat video. Here’s a lion quenching its thirst:

America, City, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.3.26: Across Wisconsin, Many Millions Freely Choose

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see mild temperatures and light rain with a high of 68. Sunrise is 6:31 and sunset is 4:44 for 10 hours 13 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 30.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2014, One World Trade Center officially opens in New York City, replacing the Twin Towers after they were destroyed during the September 11 attacks.

In 2022’s Wisconsin gubernatorial election, over 2.6 million Wisconsinites cast ballots. There are likely to be at least that many ballots, if not more, cast by the end of today. Our fellow residents will have voted by absentee ballot, in person before Election Day, or at the polls today.

Those joining them will be among the vast numbers across this state and nation defending institutions of free, representative government.

The weather will be mild today, and the trip to the polls an easy one.

America’s great civic tradition awaits and welcomes us.

What’s Up — November 2026 Skywatching Tips from NASA:

Meteor showers, a close pairing of Mars and Jupiter, a Voyager 1 milestone, and a November supermoon. The Southern Taurids peak around November 5, followed by the Northern Taurids around November 12. Both offer occasional bright fireballs, even though only a handful of meteors per hour are expected under ideal conditions. On November 15 and 16, look southeast before sunrise to see Jupiter and Mars appear just 1.2 degrees apart. The Leonid meteor shower offers another chance to catch shooting stars before dawn on November 17 and 18, after the Moon sets. NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft reaches a historic one light-day milestone. Join the Shine Bright for Voyager’s Light-Day activation on November 17. Learn more at nasa.gov/voyager. And on November 24, watch a full supermoon rise in the east around sunset, the first of three consecutive supermoons – in November, December, and January.

America, City, Daily Bread, Justice, Liberty, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.2.26: The Minimum Standards for Reasonable Discourse

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 62. Sunrise is 6:30 and sunset is 4:45 for 10 hours 15 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning crescent with 41.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1947, in California, designer Howard Hughes makes the maiden (and only) flight of the Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the “Spruce Goose”), the largest fixed-wing aircraft ever built until Scaled Composites rolled out their Stratolaunch in May 2017.

Writing on Bluesky, Prof. Mark Copelovitch of UW-Madison replied to the idea of reaching out to others (in his example, other economists) who are vastly different ideologically:

The problem with this entire “talking across difference” approach to politics is that it assumes a shared consensus about democracy that no longer exists b/w the 2 main [American] political parties. You don’t need to have lunch with people who don’t believe in free elections, equal rights, & the rule of law.

The economists Justin [Wolfers] mentions here are all on the pro-democracy side of the divide, regardless of their economic views. In other words, there are table stakes that are the ante to sitting down at the table & discussing ideological differences over tax policy or regulation or interest rates.

You’re not going to learn anything by sitting down to lunch with Kevin Hassett or Peter Navarro, other than they have gone all in on lying & fascism. So again, you need to take a step back & make clear that there are prior assumptions & table stakes antes about who one should sit down to lunch with.

Indeed. The bipartisan man, the balancer of competing interests, in our time places on equal footing just positions with unjust ones, sound reasoning with unsound reasoning, and the general interest with special interests.

In an earlier time, when both sides of a dispute were reasonable, balancing may have made some sense.

No longer. The just position now competes with unjust, malevolent positions. Those who cannot see this clearly cannot see matters of importance clearly.

What did people eat and drink 4,000 years ago? New finds shed light on life in Mesopotamia:

What did people eat and drink 4,000 years ago? New finds shed light on life in Mesopotamia. Archaeologists working at Tell Muhammad in Baghdad have uncovered new evidence of daily life in ancient Mesopotamia, including possible bread and beer production facilities. The site dates mainly to the era of Hammurabi, around 2000 to 1600 BC.

America, City, Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, War, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 11.1.26: Halloween Was Beautiful in Whitewater, But Ugly to the Southeast

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 68. Sunrise is 6:29 and sunset is 4:47 for 10 hours 18 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waning gibbous with 53.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1993, the Maastricht Treaty takes effect, formally establishing the European Union.

Halloween is a fine holiday, creative and festive, both. We at the House of Dissenting Opinion and many other houses in Whitewater had a delightful time meeting so many trick-or-treaters. Ordinary people, all of us, celebrating in every part of this beautiful small town. It’s one of the happy times of the year and, along with Thanksgiving, one of the many reasons Fall is the Best Season™.

And yet, and yet, these are troubled times for America. At Mar-a-Lago, however, the host and his guests are carrying on as though the wars of trade and of violence that that very host has inflicted on this planet mean nothing. On the contrary, he and his guests celebrated the night away.

Tyler Page reports from the spectacle at Mar-a-Lago:

There were cheetah and zebra stripes on the walls and tables. Women wore sequined leotards and elaborate headdresses, and one couple flocked around in bright-feathered costumes of jungle birds. Then President Trump arrived.

“I came as Donald Trump,” he said, outfitted in his standard red tie and navy suit. “I didn’t have time to get — people spent a lot of time and money. Rich people. They spent nine hours getting ready. I had 10 minutes, so I came as Donald Trump.”

Such was the scene Saturday night, when hundreds gathered in the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate Halloween with the president. The theme was the jungle, if an opulent one.

[…]

“Look at all my rich members,” he told reporters. “They spent all day getting ready. Look at these guys.”

He added: “These are the biggest guys on Wall Street.”

See Tyler Page, ‘I Came as Donald Trump’: The President Hosts a Luxury Halloween at Mar-a-Lago, New York Times, October 31, 2026.

Better a moment in Whitewater than a lifetime at Mar-a-Lago.

Why the Massive AI Cash Grab Could End Without Warning:

AI companies are getting seemingly unlimited cash while the spigot is open. But as Heard on the Street’s columnist Jonathan Weil explains, that tap could turn off at any time.