FREE WHITEWATER

Wisconsin

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Musk, Schimel, Sen. Ron Johnson, Susan Crawford, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.25.25: Ron Johnson’s Right (Truly) About Musk & Schimel

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 46. Sunrise is 6:48 and sunset is 7:13, for 12 hours, 25 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 19.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1655, Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is discovered by Christiaan Huygens.

It’s a week from Election Day, and Ron Johnson’s correct in his recent observation on Brad Schimel’s campaign for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court:

His comments came as he and Schimel joined Musk in a live, half-hour discussion on the social media platform X, which the tech billionaire owns. The conversation took place less than 24 hours after Trump waded into the race with a long-sought endorsement of Schimel.More: All our reporting on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race between Susan Crawford, Brad Schimel

“This is entirely winnable, and you know, if we do win it, again, we have to thank Elon for all the support he’s given this race, and I was really glad to see President Trump throw in his endorsement as well,” Johnson told the 10,000 people on the livestream…..

….

A statement from Crawford’s campaign described the X event as “Elon Musk’s check-in with his $12 million investment.”

“Musk wants a lackey on the Supreme Court who will rule in his company’s favor on their lawsuit against the State of Wisconsin,” said Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman. “Wisconsinites don’t want this slimy and corrupt billionaire running our Supreme Court.”

See Alison Dirr, Elon Musk will be to thank if Brad Schimel wins Wisconsin Supreme Court race, Ron Johnson says, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 22, 2025.

Crews in the Carolinas fight multiple wildfires:

Business, Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Tariffs, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.24.25: Retaliatory Tariffs Target Wisconsin Industries

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:50 and sunset is 7:12, for 12 hours, 22 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 28.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 5:30 PM and the Police and Fire Commission at 6 PM.

On this day in 1603,  Tokugawa Ieyasu is granted the title of shogun from Emperor Go-Yozei, and establishes the Tokugawa shogunate in Edo, Japan.

Sowing, reaping:

Farm and construction equipment manufacturers started the year with high hopes for the economy, bolstered by President Donald Trump’s campaign promises to cut taxes on domestic producers and slash government regulations.

But that optimism has given way to fears of a possible recession, sparked by Trump’s international trade war, said Kip Eideberg, senior vice president for the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, a national trade group based in West Allis.

“If we are dragged or pushed into a recession as a result of the tit for tat tariffs, that’s a whole ’nother level of pain,” he said. “That’s the biggest fear right now.”

….

China, Canada and the European Union plan to hit Wisconsin’s two largest industries, agriculture and manufacturing, with retaliatory tariffs. The moves come in response to Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum and his broader threats and use of tariffs.

Almost 10 percent of Wisconsin’s jobs — or nearly 300,000 — were in industries those countries are targeting. That’s the largest share of any state in the country, according to an analysis from The New York Times. 

See Joe Schulz, Retaliatory tariffs target Wisconsin’s top industries, Wisconsin Public Radio, March 21, 2025.

From the New York Times, here’s the portion of the story to which the WPR story refers:

Rural parts of the country are once again at risk from retaliation. Agriculture is a major U.S. export and farmers are politically important to Mr. Trump. And rural counties may have one major employer — like a poultry processing plant — that provides a big share of the county’s jobs, compared with urban or suburban areas that are more diversified.

The retaliatory tariffs target industries employing 9.5 percent of people in Wisconsin, 8.5 percent of people in Indiana and 8.4 percent of people in Iowa. The shares are also relatively high in Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky and Kansas.

See Lazaro Gamio and Ana Swanson, Trade War Retaliation Will Hit Trump Voters Hardest, New York Times, March 15, 2025.

Why humans have puzzle-shaped cells:

The shapes of these cells are puzzling. They have wavy edges and protrusions and fit together a bit like puzzle pieces. But what is it for? New research looking at the lymph capillary cells, found throughout human tissues, has determined how exactly these tiny vessels are able to let fluid and immune cells pass through between them while also being strong enough to resist rupturing under pressure. Their unusual shape seems to be key…

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Musk, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.23.25: Musk to Pay $100 for Each Wisconsin Petition Signature

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see afternoon showers with a high of 47. Sunrise is 6:52 and sunset is 7:11, for 12 hours, 19 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 38.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1933,  the Reichstag passes the Enabling Act of 1933, making Hitler dictator of Germany.

Musk has the money, and says he’ll pay one-hundred dollars for each Wisconsin signatory on a petition his political action committee is circulating:

A political action committee associated with Elon Musk is offering Wisconsin voters $100 if they sign a petition “in opposition to activist judges” and another $100 if they refer another person who signs the petition. The petition requires people to provide a name, address, email and phone number — information that will help the group make further contact with voters.

The group, America PAC, has reported spending more than $7 million in support of Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel’s campaign for state Supreme Court. Musk himself has contributed more than $13 million to pro-Schimel efforts.

During the campaign, Schimel’s opponent, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, has accused Musk of trying to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Musk’s company, Tesla, recently filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to change Wisconsin’s law about who can operate car dealerships within the state.

Schimel himself has portrayed himself as a “support network” for President Donald Trump if elected to the Court.

See Henry Redman, Musk PAC offers Wisconsin voters $100 for signing petition against ‘activist’ judges, Wisconsin Examiner, March 21, 2025.

The payment is for a signature in exchange for contact information. The contact information is only useful if those contacted then vote Musk’s way. Those voting Musk’s way are only valuable to Musk if they would not have voted Musk’s way otherwise.

(There might be an opportunity here for people to sign Musk’s petition — whether they choose to ignore any follow-up contact or sign it although they already intend to vote his way — and get paid on Musk’s tab.)

via GIPHY

Trekking the blue ice of Perito Moreno in Argentina as world marks World Glacier Day:

Friday marks the first-ever World Glacier Day, an international observance established by the United Nations to raise awareness about the rapid retreat of glaciers worldwide. As experts warn of accelerating ice loss, visitors at Argentina’s Perito Moreno Glacier watch in awe as massive ice chunks break away and crash into Lake Argentino—a process both natural and symbolic of broader climate concerns. (AP Video/Sara España).

Conspiracy Theories, Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Schimel, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.20.25: Schimel Remixes Yesteryear’s WISGOP Conspiracy Theories

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 40. Sunrise is 6:57 and sunset is 7:07, for 12 hours, 10 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 68 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1815,  after escaping from Elba, Napoleon enters Paris with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, beginning his “Hundred Days” rule.

Look who’s pushing with yesteryear’s bogus claims:

The Republican-backed candidate in Wisconsin’s closely watched state Supreme Court race has resurfaced long debunked concerns about voting fraud because of the late reporting of ballots in Milwaukee just two weeks before the April 1 election.

Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general, spoke of the possibility of “bags of ballots” and fraud in Milwaukee during an interview Tuesday on conservative talk radio. Schimel faces Democratic-backed Susan Crawford in the April 1 election with majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court at stake.

Schimel, in an interview on WISN-AM, said his supporters need to “get our votes banked, make this too big to rig so we don’t have to worry that at 11:30 in Milwaukee, they’re going to find bags of ballots that they forgot to put into the machines.”

Schimel said that happened in 2018 and in November “when (U.S. Senate candidate) Eric Hovde was ahead all night, and then all of a sudden, Milwaukee County changed that.”

What’s the plain truth about how ballots are processed? It’s this:

Milwaukee’s absentee ballots are counted at a central location and reported all at once, often well after midnight on election day. Elections officials for years have made clear that those ballots are reported later than usual due to the sheer number that have to be counted and because state law does not allow them to be processed until polls open.

See Scott Bauer, Republican-backed Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate resurfaces unproven fraud concerns, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 19, 2025.

When the WISGOP loses, it screams against voting counting; when the WISGOP wins, it holds its tongue.

These ‘unproven fraud concerns’ are the work of excuse-makers.

A Baraboo Circus Artist:

Artist Joan Stevens helps preserve Circus World Museum’s historic wagon collection.

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Musk, Susan Crawford, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.19.25: Musk’s Fraud on Wisconsin

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 42. Sunrise is 6:59 and sunset is 7:06, for 12 hours, 7 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 75.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1918,  Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.

The editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel writes of Musk’s fraudulent mailers attacking Judge Susan Crawford:

If billionaire Elon Musk wants to dump millions on the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, that’s his prerogative — we’ve come to expect that sort of thing from both sides in a battleground state where control of the court seems to be perpetually in the balance. But, in the interest of voters here, we ask one thing: Be honest about it.

And, above all, do not spread false and malicious information disguised as facts.

Reporting by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Daniel Bice shows we’ve crossed into dangerous territory. A political group funded by Musk manufactured a disinformation campaign against Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge running for a seat on the court April 1.

The disinformation stems from ads, posted on Facebook and delivered in text messages, that are false on two fronts. First, Progress 2028 casts itself as a progressive alternative to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. It’s not. Progress 2028 is a front for Building America’s Future, a Musk-funded political nonprofit.

Second, it purports to address things Crawford is supposedly committed to, which are actually hot button issues many voters oppose at the gut-level. This makes it doubly specious, because it cynically tries to create a cloak of authenticity when its real mission is to muddy the waters, then dip into the mud to throw it. 

See Editorial Board, Elon Musk’s despicable disinformation tampers with WI Supreme Court election (‘A political group funded by Elon Musk manufactured a disinformation campaign against Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge running for a seat on the court April 1’), Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 19, 2025.

When Elon Musk call for free speech, he calls for his right to lie; when he calls for free speech absolutism, he calls for his right to lie with abandon.

Susan Crawford for Wisconsin:

City, Daily Bread, Elections, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.18.25: Early Voting in Wisconsin Begins

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 63. Sunrise is 7:01 and sunset is 7:05, for 12 hours, 4 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 84.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Alcohol and Licensing Committee meets at 5:30 PM. The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1990, Germans in the German Democratic Republic vote in the first democratic elections in the former communist dictatorship.

Early voting begins today:

Republicans and Democrats fighting for control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court will get a sense Tuesday of how energized their sides are with the start of early in-person voting for the hotly contested race.

Voting begins two weeks before the April 1 election between Republican-backed Brad Schimel and Democratic-supported Susan Crawford in a race for an open seat that will determine whether liberals will continue to have a slim majority on the highest court in a crucial presidential battleground.

The race, which has drawn the attention of President Donald Trump’s adviser Elon Musk and attracted tens of millions of dollars in spending, is seen as a litmus test of how voters are responding to the first months of Trump’s Republican presidency.

See Scott Bauer, Start of early voting in Wisconsin Supreme Court race will test enthusiasm on both sides, Associated Press, March 18, 2025.

In the City of Whitewater, in-person early voting is available at the City Clerk’s Office, 2nd Floor, 312 W Whitewater Street:

Screenshot, In-Person Absentee Early Voting, City of Whitewater, https://www.whitewater-wi.gov/167/Elections-Voting

When an English speaker likes a German song:

Barbaras Rhubarb Bar (feat. Marti Fischer) — Catchy, very catchy:

Daily Bread, Immigration, Nativism, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.17.25: Nativism Will Rationalize Anything for the Cause

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 49. Sunrise is 7:02 and sunset is 7:04, for 12 hours, 1 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee meets at 5:30 PM, and the full board goes into closed session shortly after 6 PM, returning into open session at 7 PM. Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1776, the British Army evacuates Boston, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery in positions overlooking the city.

Lauren Villagran reports This Wisconsin man voted for Trump. Now his wife sits in an ICE detention center:

Bradley Bartell and Camila Muñoz had a familiar small-town love story, before they collided with immigration politics.

They met through mutual friends, had a first date at the local steakhouse, married after two years and were saving to buy a house and have kids. Muñoz was already caring for Bartell’s now 12-year-old son as her own.

But last month, on their way home to Wisconsin after honeymooning in Puerto Rico, an immigration agent pulled Muñoz aside in the airport.

“Are you an American citizen?” asked the agent. She answered no, she wasn’t. She’s from Peru. But she and her husband had taken the legal steps so that one day she might get U.S. citizenship.

….

Before agents led her away, Muñoz pulled off her wedding ring, afraid it might get confiscated. She shoved it into her backpack and handed it to Bartell.

He shook as he watched her disappear. He thought, “What the f— do I do?”

Bartell, however, still supports Trump’s overall immigration policy, while his wife is held in detention:

The money the couple saved for a down payment on a home has evaporated into attorneys fees and savings to pay a bond for her release, if she’s given that chance.Both of them have been thinking a lot about Bartell’s vote for Trump.

“I knew they were cracking down,” he said. “I guess I didn’t know how it was going down.”

He imagined the administration would target people who snuck over the border and weren’t vetted.

But his wife, “they know who she is and where she came from,” he said. “They need to get the vetting done and not keep these people locked up. It doesn’t make any sense.”

See Lauren Villagran, This Wisconsin man voted for Trump. Now his wife sits in an ICE detention center, USA Today, March 16, 2025.

Take a Wisconsin nativist’s new bride, hold her detention in Louisiana (for four weeks so far), in a room with eighty others, and let him talk to her by phone now and again.

How does Bartell feel about all this?

“They need to get the vetting done.”

Bradley Bartell is still supportive of Trumpism, while futilely describing a vetting process that now means nothing to the second Trump Administration. Bartell might simply have said that he wants to see his wife again, and said no more. Instead, he endorsed the general deportation policy.

Nativism will rationalize anything for the cause.

Courts, Culture, Daily Bread, Elections, Narcissistic Injury, Schimel, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.16.25: Brad Schimel’s Halloween Costume

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see light snow, mostly cloudy conditions, and a high of 38. Sunrise is 7:04 and sunset is 7:02, for 11 hours, 58 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1935, Hitler orders Germany to rearm itself in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Conscription is reintroduced to form the Wehrmacht.

Schimel’s supportive costume1:

And for years, Judge Schimel has repeated some of Mr. Trump’s talking points about Wisconsin elections.

During an April 2018 interview with one of the state’s leading conservative talk-radio hosts, Judge Schimel said it was not clear that Mr. Trump, who carried the state in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes, or Senator Johnson, who won by about 99,000 votes that year, would have prevailed had the state’s voter identification law not been in place.

In January, he said he did not object to Mr. Trump’s pardons of supporters who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Then there was the Halloween party last year.

In the final week before the election, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage.” Mr. Trump responded by dressing up in a sanitation worker’s reflective vest and driving a garbage truck.

Two days later, when Judge Schimel’s cover band, 4 on The Floor, played a Halloween gig at Michael’s Funky Monkey bar in Waukesha, he wore a reflective vest just like Mr. Trump’s and rocked out while playing the Rolling Stones classic “Sympathy for the Devil.”

See Reid J. Epstein and Steve Eder, The Trump Loyalist Aiming to Swing Wisconsin Back to the Right (‘Brad Schimel, a judge who is so supportive of the president that he dressed up as him for Halloween, is hoping to flip the Wisconsin Supreme Court for conservatives’), New York Times, March 13, 2025.

There are many ways to describe Schimel’s costume choice, some supportive (identifying with his political hero and that hero’s supporters who believe they’ve been insulted), some not (a weak man’s choice, identifying with an autocrat who stokes the narcissistic insult that a populist horde too quickly feels).

Both can be true, but the latter tolls more strongly.

______

  1. The link to the New York Times story is open, and one can play the clip of Schimel with maracas standing around awkwardly groovin’ to the vibe. ↩︎

Cougar cubs:

Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Musk, Schimel, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.13.25: The Crawford-Schimel Debate

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 60. Sunrise is 7:09 and sunset is 6:59, for 11 hours, 50 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 99.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, an Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves is passed by Congress, effectively annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and setting the stage for the Emancipation Proclamation.

Last night, Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel met in the only debate of their campaign for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court:

Several times, Crawford accused Schimel of saying different things to broader audiences than to audiences made up of his political allies. She called attention to reporting by the Washington Post that Schimel said Trump was “screwed over” by the Supreme Court in its decisions regarding the 2020 election, and reporting by the Wisconsin Examiner that he had told a group of canvassers he’d be a “support network” for Trump. 

“He is not impartial, and he says different things in front of a broad audience like this, where he knows it’s going to be televised, than he’ll say when he’s talking to his political allies,” she said. “He is not trustworthy.” 

On the campaign trail, access to abortion has been one of the most prominent issues. The Court is currently considering a lawsuit that would have the state’s 1849 law declared invalid, while another lawsuit is pending in the lower courts asking if the state’s Constitution grants a right to abortion access. 

Schimel has said he personally opposes abortion, that both of his daughters are adopted and he believes the 1849 statute is a “valid law.” In the debate he repeated what he’s said during the campaign on the issue — that it should be up to the state’s voters. Wisconsin doesn’t allow voters to influence state law through a referendum process. 

See Henry Redman, Supreme Court candidates continue accusations of partisanship in sole debate, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 13, 2025.

Schimel likely knows, if he’s worked up the energy to read the law after his habitually light work schedule, that a voters’ referendum would be advisory,1 and to overturn Wisconsin’s 1849 statutory abortion ban would require a proposed state constitutional amendment2 that the WISGOP legislature would never put before voters.

Schimel being untrustworthy is an axiom. See FREE WHITEWATER, We Now Know that Schimel Has Lied at Least Once (Could Be More!), March 28, 2025.

Shrewd moment of the night came from Crawford:

At one point, in a remark that Crawford said was a “slip of the tongue,” she referred to Musk as “Elon Schimel.”

Worth running an add with that moniker for Schimel…

______

  1. As with a proposed advisory referendum in 2024 that, in fact, never made it out of the Wisconsin Legislature. ↩︎
  2. Gov. Evers has proposed the ability of voters to adopt or repeal state laws without the Legislature, but the WISGOP won’t approve that, either. ↩︎

How to see Thursday’s night, Friday morning’s lunar eclipse:

Look to the sky late Thursday evening to spot a rare blood moon lunar eclipse. The total lunar eclipse will be visible in North America, South America, western parts of Europe and Africa from Thursday, March 13 to Friday, March 14. As the moon passes through the Earth’s innermost shadow, light from the sun passing through the Earth’s atmosphere will be filtered in just the right way to bathe the moon in a reddish, orange hue. Totality – when the moon is completely within the Earth’s inner shadow and turns reddish – will start at 12:26 a.m. EDT and 11:26 p.m. PDT and last about 65 minutes. The phenomenon is visible by the naked eye, but for the best viewing experience, find a dark environment and grab a pair of binoculars or a telescope. According to NASA, another total lunar eclipse won’t be visible in the U.S. until March 2026.

Catspaw, Courts, Daily Bread, Elections, Schimel, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.12.25: Trump Runs for Wisconsin Supreme Court

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 55. Sunrise is 7:11 and sunset is 6:58, for 11 hours, 47 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1989,  Sir Tim Berners-Lee submits his proposal to CERN for an information management system, which subsequently develops into the World Wide Web.

Musk pays for ads that boost Schimel for Tump:

“Conservative Brad Schimel will support President Trump’s agenda!” says the new flyer. “Together, we won the White House. Now it’s time to win the courthouse!”

A mailer supporting conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel is paid for the America PAC, a super PAC started by billionaire Elon Musk to support Donald Trump during his campaign for the presidency..

The campaign literature features a picture of Trump being sworn in as president with his hand upheld and a second photo of Schimel with the Wisconsin Capitol in the background. It then urges voters to elect Schimel to the Supreme Court next month.

America PAC, the Musk super PAC, and a second Musk group, the nonprofit Building America’s Future, have reported spending more than $10 million on TV ads, digital ads, mailers, voter turnout and canvassing.

(Emphasis in original.)

See Daniel Bice, New Musk mailer says Brad Schimel will ‘support President Trump’s agenda’ from bench, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 12, 2025.

Brad Schimel, circuit court judge, isn’t running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court; Trump’s dutiful foot soldier is running for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Trump will have to split his time between golfing, buying cars on the White House Lawn, and trying to stay awake during sessions of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

‘Dollar for dollar’: Canada announces 25% tariffs on nearly $30bn in US imports:

Canada’s finance minister, Dominic LeBlanc, announced retaliatory tariffs on US imports, including steel and aluminum, amid a growing trade war.

America, City, Culture, Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.11.25: Doubling Down on Ignorant Economics

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 7:13 and sunset is 6:57, for 11 hours, 44 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1941, President Roosevelt signs the Lend-Lease Act into law, allowing American-built war supplies to be shipped to the Allies on loan.

Monday in America: The Rapidly Declining Economic Climate.

Tuesday in America:

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he will double his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum from 25% to 50% for Canada, escalating a trade war with the United States’ northern neighbor and showing an indifference to recent stock market turmoil and rising recession risks.

Trump said on social media that the increase of the tariffs set to take effect on Wednesday is a response to the price increases that the provincial government of Ontario put on electricity sold to the United States.

“I have instructed my Secretary of Commerce to add an ADDITIONAL 25% Tariff, to 50%, on all STEEL and ALUMINUM COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES FROM CANADA, ONE OF THE HIGHEST TARIFFING NATIONS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD,” Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social.

After a brutal stock market selloff on Monday and further jitters Tuesday, Trump faces increased pressure to show he has a legitimate plan to grow the economy instead of perhaps pushing it into a recession. But so far the president is doubling down on the tariffs he talked up repeatedly during the 2024 campaign and throwing a once stable economy into utter turmoil as investors expected him to lead with deregulation and tax cuts instead of colossal tax hikes.

See Josh Boak, Rob Gillies, and Michelle Price, Trump doubles planned tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to 50% as trade war intensifies, Associated Press, March 11, 2025.

Update, 3.12.25: Only hours later on Tuesday, Trump reversed course. (Trump defines decisive down.)

The reporting is sound: tariffs do act as tax hikes, and Trump’s tariffs will be, in effect, colossal tax hikes on consumers and businesses. All America will feel them.

See Firefly’s Blue Ghost moon lander drill, vacuum and deploy electrodes:

The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost moon lander has begun its work on the moon using its drill, vacuum and electrodes. Blue Ghost has drilled into surface to determine heat flow from interior of Moon. It has deployed four tethered Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) electrodes and an 8-foot mast to study the deep interior of the moon. Also, it’s Lunar PlanetVac collects lunar soil and more using pressurized nitrogen gas.

America, City, Conservative Populism, Culture, Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Flop Sweat, Populists, Trump, Trumpism, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.10.25: The Rapidly Declining Economic Climate

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 66. Sunrise is 7:15 and sunset is 6:55, for 11 hours, 41 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 87.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Plan & Architectural Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 2017, the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye of South Korea in response to a major political scandal is unanimously upheld by the country’s Constitutional Court, ending her presidency.

Whitewater is in Wisconsin, and Wisconsin is in America. The economic outlook for America is in decline. Whitewater will not escape national and state trends.

A man with six business bankruptcies now won’t rule out a recession in 2025:

“I hate to predict things like that,” Trump said when pressed about the possibility of a recession during a recorded interview that aired on “Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.”

….

The rosy economic outlook that greeted Trump’s return to the White House has dimmed in recent weeks. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1% in February, boosted by firings in the public sector. And consumer confidence fellby the most in any given month since August 2021. 

American consumers share concerns that tariffs will raise prices on everyday goods, while corporate CEOs are eager for clarity as the president has continually announced and then rolled back new tariff packages. His moves last week, levying and then delaying 25 percent tariffs on a major chunk of Mexican and Canadian goods until April, are just the latest example. The confusion has sent markets scrambling. The S&P 500 fell by more than 3 percent on the week.

See Gregory Svirnovskiy, Trump won’t rule out a recession in 2025, POLITICO, March 9, 2025.

The conservative populists have no sound grasp of economics, as theirs is a movement of cultural revenge, not economics. Trump’s first term was an economic failure, yet many of them delusionally imagine him as an economic guru.

Truth in advertising: Come for the culture war, stay for the recession.

Stocks take another tumble after Trump’s weekend comments on inflation:

Conservative Populism, Culture, Daily Bread, Populists, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.9.25: Costs & Efficiencies Are Mere Pretenses for the Populists

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 59. Sunrise is 7:16 and sunset is 6:54, for 11 hours, 38 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 79.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia (rebuilt from the engines and lower hull of the USS Merrimack) fight to a draw in the Battle of Hampton Roads, the first battle between two ironclad warships.

The populists don’t seek government efficiency merely for its own sake. The use government efficiency as a means to pressure others into silence over speech the populists don’t like:

An Assembly Republican is using the authority of the Elon Musk-inspired GOAT Committee to investigate the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives of local governments across the state before the committee has even met.

Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, the committee’s vice chair, confirmed Thursday he sent or plans to send information requests to all 72 counties and the state’s 50 largest cities. Wisconsin Watch first reported Thursday that Sortwell had sent requests on Feb. 20 to multiple cities and counties. 

The requests state that GOAT “has been charged with undertaking a review of county use of taxpayer dollars for positions, policies, and activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Sortwell’s emails ask for “documentation” from January 2019 to the present relating to the following items:

  • DEI-related grants the communities may have received.
  • the communities’ “adopted/enacted” DEI policies. 
  • any DEI training programs the communities might be involved with.
  • the titles and salaries of employees with DEI-related positions. 
  • and the “estimated associated costs” of DEI-related policies and trainings.

Officials for Fitchburg, Manitowoc, Oshkosh and Racine told Wisconsin Watch their respective cities plan to treat and fulfill Sortewll’s request like any other public records request they receive.

Sortwell did not respond to questions for Wisconsin Watch about his information requests and the committee’s work.

See Jack Kelly, Republican uses GOAT Committee authority to investigate local government diversity efforts, Wisconsin Watch, February 26, 2025.

Of course they do: no group in America is more disturbed by contrary speech than the conservative populists. Critique their work, and they experience narcissistic injury rarely otherwise seen1. They insist that they want free speech, but blanch2 at criticism, and when in power define speech that they do not like as unlawful.

It’s all about speech with them, until it’s not. It’s all about local control with them, until it’s not.

Populism3 is a horde’s insecurities and vendettas transformed into a political movement.

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  1. At least, rarely seen outside an institutional setting. ↩︎
  2. In their case, even paler than normal. ↩︎
  3. See also Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism? (2016). ↩︎

Multiple wildfires burned earlier this week in Tennessee:

Birds, Climate, Daily Bread, Nature, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.8.25: Warmer Wisconsin Winters Changing Ancient Sport of Falconry

by  • 

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 48. Sunrise is 6:18 and sunset is 5:53, for 11 hours, 35 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70.9 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1983, while addressing a convention of Evangelicals, Ronald Reagan labels the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” (It was, and the Russian Federation still is.)

Warmer Wisconsin Winters Changing Ancient Sport of Falconry:

Closeup: