Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will see a sunny day with a high of ninety-two. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM, for 15h 19m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 11% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1903, Ford Motor Company is incorporated.
Recommended for reading in full —
Philip Rucker describes ‘Dictator envy’: Trump’s praise of Kim Jong Un widens his embrace of totalitarian leaders:President Trump’s praise Friday for Kim Jong Un’s authoritarian rule in North Korea — and his apparent envy that people there “sit up at attention” when the 35-year-old dictator speaks — marked an escalation of the American president’s open embrace of totalitarian leaders around the world.
Reflecting on his impressions of Kim following their Singapore summit, Trump told Fox News: “He’s the head of a country, and I mean he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”
It was unclear whether Trump was referring to Americans generally or only to his staff. His interview took place along the West Wing driveway, and as the president talked about “my people,” he gestured toward the White House.
Later, when pressed by a CNN reporter about the comment, Trump claimed it had been a joke. “I’m kidding,” he said. “You don’t understand sarcasm.”
Whether jesting or not, no U.S. president has been as free in his admiration of dictators and absolute power as the 45th, historians say. And Trump’s interest in the subject seems to be growing as he becomes better acquainted with some of the world’s authoritarian leaders, including Kim, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom Trump said he may try to meet one-on-one this summer.
(Trumpism has three fundamental characteristics: authoritarianism, bigotry, and a license to self-dealing by leading operatives.)
Jennifer Rubin writes Reporting on Trump’s lies requires identifying the lies:Jeff Horwitz reports They were brought down by the Facebook privacy scandal. Now they’re working for Trump’s 2020 re-election:MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow touched off an interesting social media debate when she suggested that because her obligation is to tell her viewers the truth, she tries not to quote President Trump. “Because I generally feel like I can’t trust what purports to be information from this president, I just try to do the news without words from him, most of the time.”
Ah, to live in a world without listening to Trump’s voice or reading his blatant, infuriating lies! But how do news outlets fairly tell viewers and readers what Trump is lying about if they don’t tell them about the lies?
The problem, I would suggest, is the way Trump’s lies are presented. The most mind-numbing version of this consists of repeating the lie, with the addition “Trump says.” For example: “North Korean leader is smart and handsome, Trump says.” Now that’s a fictional example (I hope), but it’s not helpful insofar it does not explain why that pronouncement is newsworthy: not because Kim Jong Un really is smart and handsome, but because Trump is trying to spin the world by elevating a murderous tyrant and whitewashing crimes against humanity. What’s important is Trump revealing himself to either be a liar or deluded — which doesn’t require quoting the president. The better headline would be, “Trump heaps praise on notorious dictator.”
Heather Long observes Trump is betting American families are willing to pay for his trade war:A company run by former officials at Cambridge Analytica, the political consulting firm brought down by a scandal over how it obtained Facebook users’ private data, has quietly been working for President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election effort, The Associated Press has learned.
The AP confirmed that at least four former Cambridge Analytica employees are affiliated with Data Propria, a new company specializing in voter and consumer targeting work similar to Cambridge Analytica’s efforts before its collapse. The company’s former head of product, Matt Oczkowski, leads the new firm, which also includes Cambridge Analytica’s former chief data scientist.
Oczkowski denied a link to the Trump campaign, but acknowledged that his new firm has agreed to do 2018 campaign work for the Republican National Committee. Oczkowski led the Cambridge Analytica data team which worked on Trump’s successful 2016 campaign.
The AP learned of Data Propria’s role in Trump’s re-election effort as a result of conversations held with political contacts and prospective clients in recent weeks by Oczkowski. In one such conversation, which took place in a public place and was overheard by two AP reporters, Oczkowski said he and and Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, were “doing the president’s work for 2020.”
This is no longer a war of words between Trump and China. There are actual economic consequences now. The result is that Americans will almost certainly face higher costs as companies pay more for parts they need to build cars, dishwashers and tractors, and then firms turn around and pass those higher prices onto consumers.
All of Trumps tariffs so far — on China, on steel and aluminum, on washing machines and on solar panels — will end up costing the average U.S. family $80 a year, Moody’s Analytics estimates in a report to be released next week. If Trump continues to pile tariffs on China (he has threatened to do another $100 billion) and China retaliates, then the cost to the average family would rise to $210, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. Wall Street bank Goldman Sachs has also forecast rising prices from the tariffs.
The Tax Foundation, a think tank that supported Trump’s tax law, predicts that more than 45,000 jobs will be lost because of the tariffs Trump has issued so far. They also forecast a small hit to the economy and wages. Analysts Kyle Pomerleau and Erica York argue that the tariffs will hurt the economy because prices will rise, reducing profits for companies and costing consumers more. Alternatively, tariffs could cause the U.S. dollar to rise, which usually makes it more difficult for American companies to sell their products abroad, another potential hit to jobs and the economy.
(Emphasis added. Even an organization that supported Trump’s tax bill contends that tens of thousands will be unemployed under his trade policy.)
Ponder The Art of Fishing With Birds:Along the scenic Lijiang River in China, brothers Huang Yuechang and Huang Mingde have been keeping up a centuries-old tradition of fishing with cormorant birds. Forgoing nets and modern fishing poles, these brothers have cultivated relationships with their birds in a way that’s found them success in cormorant fishing for more than six decades. But with no young fishermen choosing this ancient method, they may be the last ones to carry on this rare Chinese tradition.