Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-four. Sunrise is 6:40 AM and sunset 5:36 PM, for 10h 55m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the eight hundred thirty-fifth day.
On this day in 1732, George Washington is born.
Recommended for reading in full:
Catherine Rampell writes President Tariff Man may be learning all the wrong lessons from his trade wars:
Here’s the bigger problem. Though Trump may hold off on raising tariffs to 25 percent, he also looks likely to keep his existing 10 percent tariffs in place. Which would still leave plenty of U.S. firms twisting in the wind.
Most of the Chinese products that Trump has slapped tariffs on, after all, are inputs that U.S. companies must buy to manufacture their own products. As Syracuse University economist Mary E. Lovely has noted, in some cases, alternative sourcing is not available, especially not on short notice.
That means U.S. firms are facing higher costs and becoming less competitive. Some are contemplating moving production out of the United States to dodge Trump’s tariffs.
Lots of other U.S. businesses are also suffering, particularly as they face tit-for-tat tariffs that may or may not be alleviated in the weeks to come. Even if China were to decide for some reason to asymmetrically lift its retaliatory tariffs while we kept our 10 percent duties in place, perhaps as part of a commitment to buy more U.S. goods, in many cases the damage has already been done: Bankruptcies across the Farm Belt have soared to their highest levels in at least a decade.
Dan Friedman reports A Judge Just Imposed a Strict Gag Order on a Groveling Roger Stone:
US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson slapped a strict gag order on Roger Stone Thursday but stopped short of jailing him over an Instagram post by Stone showing what appeared to be a crosshairs next to Jackson’s head. “Any violation of this order will be a basis for revoking your bond,” she told the longtime adviser to Donald Trump and self-professed dirty trickster.
Stone, who is awaiting trial on obstruction of justice and perjury charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, apologized profusely and repeatedly to Jackson on Thursday after his lawyer took the extraordinary step of putting Stone on the stand to defend his conduct.
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Jackson ruled that Stone had posted the Instagram image with the intent of denigrating the court’s proceeding and tainting the jury pool in the case. She modified her order on media contact so that Stone’s bond will be revoked if he violates the new order. “From this moment on the defendant may not speak publicly about the investigation of this case,” she said.