City, Daily Bread, Economics, Economy, Lobbyists, Local Government, Special Interests, Tariffs, Taxes/Taxation, Trump, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 7.26.26: Tariffs’ High Cost to Ordinary Wisconsinites
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 90. Sunrise is 5:40 and sunset is 8:23 for 14 hours 43 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 91.7 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1996, the remains of a prehistoric man are discovered near Kennewick, Washington. Such remains come to be known as the Kennewick Man.
In this country, there’s an ongoing debate about whether Americans are experiencing an affordability crisis. While Trump doubts there is an affordability crisis, the sentiments of millions of Americans suggest Trump’s insistence otherwise is both false and, as is typical from him, self-serving.
A new, thorough economic analysis confirms yet again that the tariffs so much a centerpiece of Trump’s economic policies have been expensive for Wisconsin:
“President Donald Trump’s tariffs in 2025 have cost the average Wisconsin household $1,095 and caused the loss of 3,910 manufacturing jobs statewide, according to a new report.
The report also found the tariffs had a particularly strong impact on the Midwest due to its focus on manufacturing and agriculture, with small businesses and lower-income families bearing the highest costs. But Wisconsin households fared better than the average Midwest and U.S. households, which lost $2,044 and $1,320, respectively, to the tariffs Trump imposed in 2025.”
[…]
Lower-income and middle-class families were impacted more by Trump’s tariffs than their richer counterparts because they spend more of their income on goods like groceries and household essentials, the report said. Meanwhile, wealthier families spend proportionally more on services, whose costs are less impacted by the tariffs.
See Jaeha Jang, New report reveals cost of Trump tariffs on Wisconsin households, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 24, 2026.
The small faction of landlords in Whitewater who manipulated local economic policy over the last generation sometimes present themselves, especially in these recent years, as champions of ordinary taxpayers. An evergreen reminder: each time they have done so, as with Trump, it has been a self-serving mendacity.
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Trump dons ‘TRUMP 2028’ hat, jokes about ‘fourth term’:
Conservation, Daily Bread, Nature, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 7.25.26: Surrounded by Nature
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:39 and sunset is 8:23 for 14 hours 44 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1897, author Jack London embarks on a sailing trip to take part in the Klondike Gold Rush, from which he wrote his first successful stories.
We talk about our natural surroundings, and immersion into that experience is to be surrounded by nature:
This summer Wisconsin will open its first certified forest bathing trail.
Located just south of Eagle River in Vilas County, the quarter-mile Tara Lila trail will offer self-guided mindfulness activities as people immerse themselves in nature.
But the practice of forest bathing has nothing to do with getting clean.
[…]
The practice originated in the 1980s in Japan, where it is known as Shinrin-yoku. It has become a vital part of Japanese preventative healthcare, according to Japan’s national tourism organization.
Walters says the practice strengthens the immune system, lowers blood pressure and restores energy levels.
The global organization Walters works for helps certify forest bathing trails across the globe. There are only 51 worldwide including the one in Vilas County.
See Mackenzie Krumme, Wisconsin’s first certified ‘forest bathing’ trail opens in Vilas County (‘People can immerse themselves in nature on the quarter-mile Tara Lila trail’), Wisconsin Public Radio, July 21, 2026.
The terms used to describe the experience, whether in Japanese or any other language, matter less than the experience itself.
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Grasslands, often overlooked:
Daily Bread, Economy, Tariffs, Trump
Daily Bread for 7.24.26: A Bad Economic Outlook Gets Worse
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 79. Sunrise is 5:38 and sunset is 8:24 for 14 hours 46 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1935, the Dust Bowl heat wave reaches its peak, sending temperatures to 109 °F in Chicago and 104 °F in Milwaukee.
A troubled economic outlook will soon be made worse:
Tariffs could exacerbate the affordability crunch, a chief concern for voters heading into the midterm elections. The Section 301 duties, which cover 99.4 percent of U.S. imports, are expected to raise the effective tariff rate paid by U.S. importers, according to the Yale Budget Lab, and sap the spending power of households and companies.
Exemptions on imports of certain foods, fuel and fertilizer could ease the burden somewhat. But the new tariffs, plus the return of $100-a-barrel oil (more on that below), risk reigniting inflation fears.
That could put central banks in a bind. The Fed meets next week and is expected to keep interest rates on hold. But traders now see a September hike as highly probable, a move that would most likely rankle Trump.
The bond market looks spooked. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, a rate that underpins most commercial loans, topped 4.7 percent on Thursday. That’s helped push the 30-year fixed rate mortgage rate to its highest level of the year, a move that could chill the housing market.
The new tariffs are raising uncertainty for businesses. Trump is expected to unveil new duties on countries in Europe and Asia in the coming months, arguing that they are necessary to combat unfair trade practices.
War was already weakening the global economy. Now, a new tariff barrage “will pile on the misery,” Olu Sonola, the head of U.S. economics at Fitch Ratings, told The Times.
See Andrew Ross Sorkin, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Brian O’Keefe, Ian Mount, Vivienne Walt, and Nancy Scola, Trump’s Renewed Trade War Risks Dealing a Fresh Economic Blow (‘Households and businesses were already contending with an affordability crunch. A new round of tariffs could inflict more pain’), New York Times, July 24, 2026.
If Trump is looking for an even more destructive economic policy, he’ll be reduced to sticking his finger in an electrical socket.
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Spanish wildfires force elderly and animals to evacuate in Madrid region:
Cats
Friday Catblogging: Nicely Situated
by JOHN ADAMS •
Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2026, Politics, Toxic Positivity, Wisconsin, WisDems
Daily Bread for 7.23.26: A News Headline for Our Time
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:37 and sunset is 8:24 for 14 hours 47 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1829, inventor William Austin Burt patents the typographer, a precursor to the typewriter.
Americans are an optimistic people, and yet among some of us optimism simply goes too far:
That combination of optimism (he can win) and optimism that goes too far (enough voters will learn about him) nicely summarizes the situation for about half of the candidates in the Democratic gubernatorial primary.
Corrinne Hess writes of Brennan’s situation:
If Brennan was hoping for party leaders to rally around his campaign overnight, it didn’t happen. Instead, Rodriguez dropped out, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley dropped back in, and Evers endorsed Crowley over Brennan and others who had worked for the governor.
[…]
[Director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Barry] Burden said because Brennan has never been elected to public office, he is largely unknown across the state. But because of his career, he’s very well known to people in politics and Democratic insiders. He’s also the brother-in-law of Kevin Conroy, the founder of Exact Sciences.
See Corrinne Hess, Democrat Joel Brennan says he can win the governor’s race — if voters get to know him, Wisconsin Public Radio, July 23, 2026.
Seems a bit late in the game to build familiarity with hundreds of thousands of voters (the primary is in nineteen days), but hope springs eternal.
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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
If Wisconsin politics is in flux, at least we don’t yet have bears on the rampage:
The Wall Street Journal reports on the ursine invasion of Lake Tahoe:
Black bears are on a rampage across America, riding a population rebound driven in part by greater protection of the species. Around small cities and suburbs, the predators follow their keen sense of smell to dumpsters, cars and homes. In Gatlinburg, Tenn., police in May freed a bear that locked itself in a hotel restroom. A contractor in Steamboat Springs, Colo., opened his truck door in June to find a bear cub devouring his lunch.
[…]
An estimated 60,000 roam California alone, triple the number in the 1990s. Few places see more activity than the turquoise shores of Lake Tahoe.
South Lake Tahoe police have received 174 bear calls this year through Wednesday, compared with 97 over the same period in 2025. The reports range from brazen burglaries to visitors nervous about a bear wandering by.
Mike Webb cut short a family fishing outing last week after a 200-pounder approached, minutes after Webb’s 11-year-old son caught something. “I was relieved the bear didn’t notice, otherwise we could have had a situation on our hands,” said Webb, 38.
It was a wise move, as the same bear lunged at other visitors minutes later.
See Jim Carlton, Bears Are Running Amok in Lake Tahoe and Causing Chaos Among Locals, Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2026.
Japan has faced bear attacks and responded only with futile measures that, most likely, the bears themselves have understandably derided. Americans are simply going to have to do more.
City, Culture, Daily Bread, Local Government, Politics
Daily Bread for 7.22.26: True Popularity’s Not So Common in These Parts
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 73. Sunrise is 5:33 and sunset is 8:25 for 14 hours 49 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 60.8 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4 PM.
On this day in 1933, aviator Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field in New York City, completing the first solo flight around the world in seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes.
There was a moment during the Whitewater Common Council meeting last night when a resident mentioned that a police-funding referendum in 2025 passed with 54 percent of the vote. That’s correct, but it’s also telling. Fifty-four percent is hardly a resounding victory, especially for public safety. (It’s also true that some of the most critical views on policing, especially on funding, come from right-leaning voters.)
It’s simply the case that few departments, institutions, or organizations in the city (or other cities) are resoundingly popular. Resounding popularity is to be found elsewhere: puppies, Christmas, and properly roasted coffee beans.
It’s also true that public comments during council meetings often involve the same few people, many of them over fifty. They represent smaller factions in a city more fragmented than during the last generation. Within political ideologies of both the left and right, younger voters (under fifty) also hold views far different from those of older voters otherwise identified as holding the same ideology.
Some of those speaking present themselves as though they represent large coalitions in the city, but there are no large coalitions left in the city. That was thirty years ago, and thirty years ago isn’t coming back.
_____
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Louvre Museum reopens gallery after jewelry heist:
Business, City, Daily Bread, Development, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 7.21.26: Vacancy Is the Worst Business
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 5:35 and sunset is 8:26 for 14 hours 51 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 51 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1904, Louis Rigolly becomes the first man to break the 100 mph (161 km/h) barrier on land. He drove a 15-liter Gobron-Brillié in Ostend, Belgium.
It’s natural when people hear about a business that might open at a location to offer their own suggestions. They’ll say what they’d prefer (and where they’d prefer it).
In Whitewater, in every other community in our area, and in most communities anywhere, it’s never so easy as expressing social media preferences. Only a few business opportunities come along, and the alternative is the worse prospect: of nothing coming along at all.
When nothing is good enough, nothing comes along. Vacancy is the worst business.
_____
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Rescued bird is ‘likely’ one of Big Bear Valley’s famous eagles:
Business, Daily Bread, Gov. Evers, Legislation, Legislature, Speaker Vos, State Government, Tom Tiffany, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 7.20.26: The Shifting Politics on Data Centers
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 85. Sunrise is 5:34 and sunset is 8:27 for 14 hours 53 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 41.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Parks and Recreation Board – Food Pantry Subcommittee meets at noon and the Library Board at 6:30 PM. The Whitewater School Board meets at 6 PM.
On this day in 1969, Apollo 11‘s crew successfully makes the first human landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility.
The politics of data center construction have shifted greatly over these last few years. While this libertarian blogger has argued for the minimum set of state regulations to make data center policy uniform across Wisconsin, that’s a minority position. Indeed, it’s now so evidently a minority position that the Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany has forgotten (or is lying) about legislation passed as recently as the 2023-2025 legislative session that offered tax breaks for data centers:
A 2023-25 budget provision granting a sales tax exemption to data centers was passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed by the Democratic governor in July 2023.
The Legislative Fiscal Bureau said in March that the tax break will cost the state more than $2 billion in sales tax revenue, mostly from massive data centers in Beaver Dam, Port Washington and Mount Pleasant. When the budget was approved in July 2023, hyperscale data centers were so new the fiscal bureau didn’t estimate how much an exemption would affect state tax collections should they be built.
While the high cost has drawn scrutiny, the incentive was originally designed to drive economic growth. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 38 states offer tax incentives on data centers.
See Audrey Lopez-Stane, Was a Wisconsin data centers tax break put in place solely by Gov. Tony Evers?, Wisconsin Watch, July 20, 2026.
Now, Tiffany wants to assign all the responsibility for data center tax breaks to Gov. Evers. Democrat Evers could not have signed tax-break legislation if the Republican-controlled legislature had not passed that legislation.
It’s worth noting that I support those tax breaks just as I support the minimum set of statewide regulations on data centers (so that each community can either build or refrain as it wishes).
The waxing statewide view is, however, hostile to data centers and rapidly growing more so. It’s so hostile that it’s caused Tiffany either to forget or deceptively to abandon his own party’s past.
(Note well, for those few in Whitewater or elsewhere who think Speaker Robin Vos will have an ongoing influence: Vos’s influence fades by the hour. Leaders in both parties are even now consigning Vos to the faded newsprint and the brittle pages of yesterday’s news.)
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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Music
Monday Music: Cannonball Adderley, Bangoon
by JOHN ADAMS •
Animals, Birds, Conservation, Daily Bread, Nature, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 7.19.26: Bird Banding at the Hemlock Draw Preserve
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 81. Sunrise is 5:33 and sunset is 8:28 for 14 hours 55 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 31.3 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 64, the Great Fire of Rome causes widespread devastation and rages on for six days, destroying half of the city.
Trained and licensed bird banders make tracking migratory birds possible. Several beautiful species were banded at The Nature Conservancy’s Hemlock Draw Preserve last month:
_____
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Dark Energy Camera Reveals a Real-Life ‘Starry Night’ in Space:
Daily Bread, Gubernatorial Race 2026, WisDems, WISGOP
Daily Bread for 7.18.26: A Large Wisconsin Gubernatorial Field Is Nothing New
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 87. Sunrise is 5:32 and sunset is 8:29 for 14 hours 57 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 25 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1968, Intel is founded in Mountain View, California.
There are several candidates for Wisconsin governor (mostly among Democrats, but even the Republicans nominally have more than one, although Tiffany is the only one who matters). For the WisDems, this is nothing new:
If the 2026 Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor seems large, 2018 certainly had it beat.
That year, 10 names were on the Democratic primary ballot, plus an 11th write-in candidate, according to results of the 2018 partisan primary kept by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Two Republican candidates and two additional write-ins appeared on the 2018 GOP primary ballot.
The Aug. 11, 2026, primary ballot includes seven Democrats and two Republicans.
In both years, a few candidates dropped out of the race, but their names remained on the ballot due to approval deadlines.
As of July 14, that includes Democrats Missy Hughes and David Crowley. So, only five of the Democrats on the Aug. 11 ballot are still campaigning.
In 2018, two higher-profile candidates had also dropped out by late June: Andy Gronik and Dana Wachs, though both appeared on the ballot.
Hope Karnopp, Did more Democrats run for Wisconsin governor in 2018 than in 2026?, Wisconsin Watch, July 16, 2026.
Even now, the field is flux: Crowley, it turns out, may return to campaigning.
Perhaps, for partisans, all this is stressful — which person will their party nominate?
If, by contrast, you are part of a larger, supportive coalition yet not a Democrat (as I am not), then your outlook may be different. (At least, this libertarian blogger’s outlook is different.) One fights with the candidate that one has, and although I will vote in the partisan primary, it’s mostly Democrats who will decide their nominee. One hopes they’ll pick their strongest remaining candidate for the fall, although that’s not certain. It’s not even probable, candidly.
One carries on, regardless, as part of a broader coalition. Any Democrat remaining in the race, even the least favorable choice for the fall, would be better than Trump’s man for Wisconsin.
Never means never.
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Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Naked mole-rat queens’ secret sauce for domination:
City, Culture, Daily Bread, Local Government
Daily Bread for 7.17.26: Civic Participation Has Been Low in Many Communities for Many Years
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with scattered afternoon thundershowers and a high of 90. Sunrise is 5:31 and sunset is 8:29 for 14 hours 58 minutes of daylight. The moon is a waxing crescent with 13.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1821, the Kingdom of Spain cedes the territory of Florida to the United States.
A resident often finds significant and interesting work from the municipal administration in the Whitewater Common Council’s consent agenda. A memo among the consent agenda items for the July 21 council meeting addresses participation on city boards and commissions. See Memorandum from Becky Magestro, Chief of Staff, City of Whitewater, to Whitewater Common Council, Board and Commission Resignations and Volunteer Recruitment (July 21, 2026). However regrettable, it has been true for many years that in Whitewater (and cities across this country) civic participation has often been low.
This topic of low participation, where the city relies on a small number of the same people to fill commission and board vacancies, was broached in Whitewater nearly a decade ago. When the city manager at that time first mentioned the problem publicly, this libertarian blogger was surprised: Old Whitewater disfavored discussions that might call into question the culture of the city. Admittedly, Old Whitewater’s decline as a force was already evident, and while its many mistakes were undeniable, it still had some kick to it. This problem, however, was not unique to Whitewater then or now.
I’ll not suggest that I have an adequate answer. It is plainly, however, a longstanding and common affliction across our area and beyond. In this, Whitewater is not alone and is now managing civic participation as well as anyone nearby.
_____
Upcoming posts (in no decided order): A Whitewater Comparative Analysis and a New Ethics Ordinance.
Cats, Science/Nature
Friday Catblogging: Not All Cat Grooming Is a Friendly Gesture
by JOHN ADAMS •
Sometimes cats groom each other for friendly reasons … but sometimes not:
Morgane Van Belle, another cat behavioral scientist at Ghent University and the study’s lead author, was observing her own cats, Fabio and Giovanni, interacting over a favorite napping spot in the sun and noticed something.
“I saw these weird grooming patterns in my own cats where I thought, This is not super friendly at all,” she said. “Sometimes one cat would lay on the blanket near the window and the other cat would come up and start licking it — but in an annoying way.” The interaction would induce the licked cat to get up and forfeit the sunny spot, she said.
To check whether this behavior was more widespread, Ms. Van Belle and her colleagues looked at 53 households across Europe with two or more cats. After telling the pet owners what to look for, the researchers had them submit videos of their cats’ interactions. The scientists then randomly selected a submission from each participant and used statistical analyses to tease apart the hidden nuance in cat-licking behavior.
[…]
The results revealed two things. The first was consistent with typical grooming behavior: The cats licked each other on the head, neck or ears. In these videos, the cats were much more likely to mimic each other’s body postures, either cuddling together or sitting next to one another before and after the grooming. The licks were clearly friendly gestures.
The other side of the cat-licking coin revealed something more in line with bullying. A subset of the videos showed that licking often preceded conflict. These interactions were defined by differing body postures, where one cat might stand and lick the other sitting cat. The aggressive licks were followed by signs of stress in the licked cat, including staring, yowling, rotating the ears, licking the lips or swiping at the other cat. The results were inconsistent with the prior conception of cat allogrooming.
See Taylor Mitchell Brown, Your Cat Is Being Nice? Think Again (A new study finds that sometimes cats groom each other specifically to be annoying), New York Times, July 10, 2025.