Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS
America, City, Daily Bread, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.19.25: A Message from New England
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 57. Sunrise is 6:06 and sunset is 7:42, for 13 hours, 36 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 65 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Across America, in places near and far, Americans will exercise today the right of the people peaceably to assemble. There will be many days like this, and many assemblies across this continent, each one part of a growing effort.
In Boston, Americans celebrated the 250th anniversary of the nighttime ride of Paul Revere. They added their own contemporary touches in projections on the side of the Old North Church:
Rare North African lion cubs play in the sun:
Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trade, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.18.25: Tariffs Will Make Wisconsin’s Manufacturing Decline Harder to Reverse
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Good Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 73. Sunrise is 6:08 and sunset is 7:41, for 13 hours, 33 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 73.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, Superman debuts in Action Comics #1 (cover dated June 1938).
Tariffs are supposed to be the cure for manufacturing. They won’t be:
Wisconsin manufacturers and farmers rely on exports, but the value of the goods they sell abroad has fallen over the last decade. And new U.S. tariffs could make it harder for them to reverse that trend, especially in the short term.
That’s according to a new report released Thursday by the Wisconsin Policy Forum looking at state exports in the wake of what it calls the “most expansive U.S. tariffs in generations.” The report examined what goods produced in Wisconsin sell to international markets, who buys those products and where in the state they come from.
Manufacturing and agriculture play an “outsized role” in the state’s economy, but many of those businesses have had a “bumpy ride” so far this year with the expanded use of tariffs, the report said. As of 2023, nearly 19 percent of the state’s private sector jobs were in manufacturing, according to the report. In 2022, the value of Wisconsin’s agricultural sales was the 10th highest in the country.
….
The report warns tariffs could negatively affect Wisconsin exporters by forcing trade partners to respond with their own tariffs on American products, making them more expensive.
“When we think about what it is we’re exporting, a lot of these heavy machines are long-term investments that are very expensive,” Byrnes said. “When you change the price by 10 or 20 percent, that may be millions of dollars. That’s something that a purchaser on the other side of the tariff barrier will have to consider.”
See Joe Schulz, New report highlights importance of exports for Wisconsin manufacturers, farmers
Trump tariffs will make it harder for Wisconsin to reverse decade of export value declines in the short term, Wisconsin Public Radio, April 17, 2025.
See also Turbulence for Wisconsin’s Export Economy, Wisconsin Policy Forum, April 17, 2025:
Tariffs are taxes, they’ll not boost manufacturing as we’ve not the labor pool for a boost, and they’ll risk the manufacturing exports Wisconsin now has. See also Federal Planning for Manufacturing Isn’t Planning at All (“We don’t have enough workers for the jobs that we have, let alone if we want to grow a job (field),” [president of the business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Kurt] Bauer with WMC said. “This is a significant challenge.”) and The Anti-Tax Crowd Backed a Taxman.
Hubble spies 9.5 light-year bit of the amazing Eagle Nebula:
Cats, Dogs
Friday Catblogging: Greyhound & Cat
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Film
Film: Tuesday, April 22nd, 1:00 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Wicked: Part 1
by JOHN ADAMS •
Tuesday, April 22nd at 1:00 PM, there will be a showing of Wicked: Part 1 @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:
Fantasy/Musical
Rated PG
2 hours, 40 minutes (2024)
Oscar Winner: best costume design and best production design; nominated for Best Film, Best Actress and Supporting Actress.
In the land of Oz, at Shiz University, Elphaba and Glinda encounter the Wizard of Oz, setting them up to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. (Part 2 of this film will be released in November.)
One can find more information about Wicked: Part 1 at the Internet Movie Database.
Authoritarian Populism, Conservative Populism, Conspiracy Theories, Daily Bread, Decay, Wisconsin, WISGOP
Daily Bread for 4.17.25: The Extremism of, and Within, the WISGOP
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 67. Sunrise is 6:09 and sunset is 7:39, for 13 hours, 30 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 81.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.
On this day in 1970, the damaged Apollo 13 spacecraft returns to Earth safely.
The WISGOP has long tolerated, and encouraged, crackpot theories and extremism (e.g., COVID denialism, lies about national elections, lies about state elections, nativism, and junk health & nutritional claims). Now, however, the party’s leaders find the miasma too much to tolerate as it wafts toward their leadership:
The Republican Party of Wisconsin has created a new process to oust county party officials and members of a state executive committee if they harass or publicly defame state party officials or Republican lawmakers.
The changes are being attacked by local GOP chairs who’ve been at odds with state party leadership, but a top Republican says the party is “trying to take the temperature down” when it comes to contentious votes on party business.
The changes were approved by the GOP’s state executive committee Sunday. They state that while volunteers and “grassroots members” have the right to elect leaders at the county and congressional district level, those individuals “should be working in coordination to achieve the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s goals and mission.”
A code of conduct requires local, regional and state GOP leaders to treat GOP officials with respect, support candidates endorsed by the Republican Party and not engage in “sexual, verbal, or physical harassment” of fellow Republican Party members.
(Emphasis added.)
See Rich Kremer, Wisconsin GOP creates process to remove local party officials for harassment, defaming Republican leaders (‘Changes come after some GOP county chairs have criticized state party and called for Chair Brian Schimming to resign’), Wisconsin Public Radio, April 17, 2025.
The party is so morally degenerated that it now needs a rule (ostensibly) to protect its leaders from the very conduct that rank-and-file party members have inflicted on others for years. From Republican to Populist to Authoritarian, the WISGOP has been a descent into lumpen members’ threats against supposed ideological enemies for years.
For those types, there’s no greater shudder of excitement than that…
Microplastic pollution found in insect casing from 1971:
Agriculture, Business, Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.16.25: Farmers, Part 2 (Slogans and Reality)
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 55. Sunrise is 6:11 and sunset is 7:38, for 13 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 89 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 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.
Yesterday’s post, Farmers, cited reporting on the effects of a trade war on farmers. Trump is aware of these concerns, and so he used his Truth Social platform to publish his position on a trade war’s effects on agriculture. Below are Trump’s remarks contrasted with real experiences.
Trump’s post:
Our farmers are GREAT, but because of their GREATNESS, they are always put on the Front Line with our adversaries, such as China, whenever there is a Trade negotiation or, in this case, a Trade War. The same thing happened in my First Term. China was brutal to our Farmers, I these Patriots to just hold on, and a great trade deal was made. I rewarded our farmers with a payment of $28 Billion Dollars, all through the China deal. It was a great transaction for the USA, until Crooked Joe Biden came in and didn’t enforce it. China largely reneged on the deal (although they behaved during the Trump Administration), only buying a portion of what they agreed to buy. They had ZERO respect for the Crooked Biden Administration, and who can blame them for that? Interestingly, they just reneged on the big Boeing deal, saying that they will “not take possession” of fully committed to aircraft. The USA will PROTECT OUR FARMERS!!!
The farmer John Pihl’s genuine experience with Trump’s subsidies:
The payments were helpful, Pihl said. But they weren’t a fix for the longer-term damage done by Trump’s first-term tariffs.
“That was just for the one year. What about the market loss that continued through his term and into Biden’s term? I think the amount is incredible,” he said.
Of Trump’s remarks:
- The greatness of farmers has not made them targets; Trump’s trade war has done that.
- As lifetime farmer John Pihl explains above, Trump’s deal in his first term did not make farmers whole, and that deal was insufficient on its own, apart from the Biden Admin. See also Adriana Belmonte, Trump’s massive farmer bailout failed to make up for the ‘self-inflicted’ trade damage, January 18, 2021. (Trump’s bailout was a failure even before Biden took office.)
- Trump claims that China has ‘behaved’ during his administration, but he admits in his post that (a) they’ve hit back at Boeing and (b) China has applied huge retaliatory tariffs across the board.
Meanwhile, here’s how ordinary Chinese are depicting the Trump Admin:
Even ordinary TikTok users on the other side of the world have Trumpism’s number.
One can and should oppose the Chinese government without stumbling into an inflationary trade war.
Meanwhile, where did Trump get all those gaudy gold appliqués with which he’s littered the Oval Office? Trump’s vulgar additions are surprisingly similar to what the Chinese sell on Alibaba:
Agriculture, Business, Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.15.25: Farmers
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 50. Sunrise is 6:12 and sunset is 7:37, for 13 hours, 25 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 94 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1922, U.S. Senator John B. Kendrick of Wyoming introduces a resolution calling for an investigation of a secret land deal, which leads to the discovery of the Teapot Dome scandal.
Farmers in the rural Midwest and across America will feel the consequences of Trump’s trade war:
Tariffs are making life more expensive for John Pihl. He’s been farming in Northern Illinois for more than 50 years.
“These tariffs are going to affect everything. It’ll affect our parts — it’s just across the board. Which is going to hurt everything,” he said.
Not only do tariffs affect the cost of farm supplies, but they also raise the risk of retaliation against exports of U.S. crops: a double-whammy for farmers like Pihl.
“It’s a good way to lose your customers,” he said. “And I think we’ll probably lose more on this round too, because I know that Mexico is our biggest importer of corn. But this time, they may figure out that they can get corn from South America just as easily as from the U.S.”
….
All told, the first Trump administration spent $28 billion bailing out farmers. This time around, the tariffs are much higher than they were six years ago, and it’s unclear how long they will persist.
NPR asked the White House for details on what relief is under consideration this time, but received no response.
The payments were helpful, Pihl said. But they weren’t a fix for the longer-term damage done by Trump’s first-term tariffs.
“That was just for the one year. What about the market loss that continued through his term and into Biden’s term? I think the amount is incredible,” he said.
See Danielle Kurtzleben, China put steep tariffs on U.S. exports. Farmers are worried, NPR, April 12, 2025.
But it’s all fake news, right? These consequences for can’t be true, can they? Mr. Trump has a plan, of course he does. (He had a plan before each of his six business bankruptcies, didn’t he?)
Come for the culture war, stay for the inflationary trade war.
Elephants huddle in ‘alert circle’ to protect young during California earthquake:
Business, City, Daily Bread, Economy, Employment, Excuses and Rationalizations, Planning, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.14.25: Federal Planning for Manufacturing Isn’t Planning at All
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 59. Sunrise is 6:14 and sunset is 7:36, for 13 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 98 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Plan and Architectural Review Commission meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1958, the Soviet satellite Sputnik 2 falls from orbit after a mission duration of 162 days. This was the first spacecraft to carry a living animal, a female dog named Laika, who likely lived only a few hours.
One of the justifications for tariffs is to bring back manufacturing to states like Wisconsin. It’s ill-considered:
But one of the biggest barriers to bringing manufacturing back, both in Wisconsin and nationally, is a labor shortage.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reportsthe latest data show there were around 1.2 million more jobs open nationally than there were unemployed workers. Wisconsin, meanwhile, has had more openings than job seekers since 2021.
Over the last decade, [founder of the Florida-based Reshoring Initiative Harry] Moser said employers have told him the U.S. labor market is “weak, both in terms of quantity of people and quality of people.” He said there have been efforts in recent years that have helped some, pointing to high school apprenticeship programs. He says Trump’s goal of bringing manufacturing back hinges on workforce.
….
In Wisconsin, a 2023 research report from WMC found the state’s median age was older than the rate nationally, and warned if the population doesn’t grow at a faster rate, workforce shortages would worsen.
“We don’t have enough workers for the jobs that we have, let alone if we want to grow a job (field),” [president of the business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce Kurt] Bauer with WMC said. “This is a significant challenge.”
See Joe Schulz, Trump says tariffs will bring back manufacturing, but Wisconsin’s labor shortage may stand in the way, Wisconsin Public Radio, April 14, 2025.
One hears talk in Whitewater on recruiting for manufacturing before any other priority. It’s more a diversionary tactic than anything else; these gentlemen are simply looking for something, however implausible, to shift the conversion.
Tariffs for Semiconductors Forthcoming:
Music
Monday Music: Makoto Ozone, Boon-Cha-Cha
by JOHN ADAMS •
City, Daily Bread, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 4.13.25: The Anti-Tax Crowd Backed a Taxman
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 66. Sunrise is 6:16 and sunset is 7:35, for 13 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon a waning gibbous with 99.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1960, the United States launches Transit 1-B, the world’s first satellite navigation system.
In Whitewater, and towns across America, the Trump men put up signs reading “TRUMP LOW TAXES, KAMALA HIGH TAXES.” These signs were as ridiculous as they were false: Trump campaigned on tariffs and tariffs are taxes. (Yet the nature of an authoritarian populist movement like theirs is fallacies, fabrications, and as with their claims about COVID or election conspiracies, a refusal to accept contrary evidence.1)
Outside the required orthodoxy of Trumpism, conservative businessmen are among the first to admit the economic damage from these tariffs:
In interviews with Urban Milwaukee, all said the new tariffs will fuel inflation, raising costs for local companies, manufacturers, entrepreneurs and consumers; and that the shock waves created by the policy have the potential to send the U.S. economy into a recession.
“It’s almost unanimous concern, and I have not spoken to any business leader that’s celebrating the tariffs,” said Dale Kooyenga, President and CEO of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, describing the responses he’s heard since the tariffs were announced.
The impact is registering immediately for some businesses, Kooyenga said. Like one local company he spoke with that placed a large product order. The tariff doesn’t apply to the date of purchase, but happens when the goods hit the dock in the U.S. “And so now that their order was so large and the tariff so large,” Kooyenga noted, “it creates significant cash flow issues in a time when interest rates are high.”
The new tariffs will produce a price shock for the local building and trades industry and construction budgets, said Dan Bukiewicz, President of the Milwaukee Building & Trades Council and mayor of the City of Oak Creek. “The reaction is not good,” said Bukiewicz. “From the contractors that perform construction work to small business owners that supply everything from safety vests to gloves, hard hats, safety glasses: [the price of] everything’s going up.”
See Graham Kilmer, Tariffs Will Hurt Business, Workers in Wisconsin (‘Local business, labor and university experts warn that tariffs will lead to a recession’), Urban Milwaukee, April 7, 2025.
All these loud and proud local anti-tax men supported a candidate who has now inflicted worse than anything they’ve ever complained about.
______
- See FREE WHITEWATER, Quick Observations on a Weekend, April 6, 2025. Many of these Trumpists, despite a few having pretensions otherwise, are and will always be Facebook types. See FREE WHITEWATER, Facebook Discussions as Displays of Ignorance, Fallacies, and Marginal Literacy, July 31, 2020. Their preferred medium is more disordered today than it was in 2020. ↩︎
Barred Owl Female Rises To Show Off Duo Of Fluffy Owlets – April 10, 2025:
Animals, Daily Bread, Faraway Places, Nature
Daily Bread for 4.12.25: Taming Pythons in Thailand
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:17 and sunset is 7:34, for 13 hours, 16 minutes of daytime. The moon is full this evening.
On this day in 1776, with the Halifax Resolves, the North Carolina Provincial Congress authorizes its Congressional delegation to vote for independence from Britain.
Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Wisconsin, WISGOP
Daily Bread for 4.11.25: Clueless and Cowed
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:19 and sunset is 7:33, for 13 hours, 14 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1945, American forces liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp:
A detachment of troops of the U.S. 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, from the 6th Armored Division, part of the U.S. Third Army, and under the command of Captain Frederic Keffer, arrived at Buchenwald on 11 April 1945 at 3:15 p.m. (now the permanent time of the clock at the entrance gate). The soldiers were given a hero’s welcome, with the emaciated survivors finding the strength to toss some liberators into the air in celebration.
Later in the day, elements of the U.S. 83rd Infantry Division overran Langenstein, one of a number of smaller camps comprising the Buchenwald complex. There, the division liberated over 21,000 prisoners, ordered the mayor of Langenstein to send food and water to the camp, and hurried medical supplies forward from the 20th Field Hospital.
We hear so much from this rightwing party, from its leaders and activists across the nation, state, and city about low taxes. And yet, and yet, they supported the leader who said time and again that he would raise tariffs. These tariffs are taxes on Americans. Across Wisconsin, the Congressional Republicans who’d scream and squeal at the very mention of taxes are now silent:
A handful of Republicans on Capitol Hill are pushing to give Congress more oversight over President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs, but Wisconsin’s Republicans are not among them.
In interviews with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the state’s GOP delegation largely dismissed questions about legislative oversight, instead praising the president for imposing the levies — some of which were temporarily paused this week — on scores of foreign trading partners.
Sen. Ron Johnson, the only member of the delegation to publicly express concerns over the tariffs, on Thursday predicted measures aimed at giving Congress a bigger role in the tariff process would fail. And Wisconsin’s House members stood in line with Trump’s moves this week that have shaken global markets.
“I like the way it’s playing out, actually,” Rep. Scott Fitzgerald said Tuesday, when asked if Congress should play an oversight role on the implementation of the tariffs. “I think after a couple days, it’s playing out pretty well.”
See Lawrence Andrea, Wisconsin Republicans silent on tariff oversight as colleagues push for Congress to have a say, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, April 11, 2025.
Fitzgerald: not merely ignorant, but confidently proud of it.
Note well: At no time, over these many years, have any economic concerns that I have expressed at FREE WHITEWATER ever been about my situation; this libertarian blogger has no personal complaints to make. (Nor would I make them here, even if I had any.)
It’s simply the case that so very many loud & proud anti-tax men are silent on tariffs (being too ignorant or too hypocritical to admit how destructive they are).
World’s oldest gorilla celebrates 68th birthday at Berlin zoo: