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Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.11.19

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-one.  Sunrise is 6:56 AM and sunset 5:21 PM, for 10h 25m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 35.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the eight hundred twenty-fourth day.

Whitewater’s Planning Board meets at 6:00 PM.

This day in 1846 sees a shooting in the Territorial Legislature:

The legislature was debating the appointment of Enos S. Baker for sheriff of Grant County when Charles Arndt made a sarcastic remark about Baker’s colleague, James Vineyard. After an uproar, adjournment was declared and when Arndt approached Vineyard’s desk, a fight broke out during which Vineyard drew his revolver and shot Arndt.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Richard Parker explains Why the Wall Will Never Rise:

If President Donald Trump ever gets the funding for his long-promised wall, he will have to plot a course through Texas. But he will never make it all the way through here, the 800-mile stretch from Laredo to nearly El Paso. There will be no “concrete structure from sea to sea,” as the president once pledged. Taking this land would constitute an assault on private property and require a veritable army of lawyers, who, I can assure you, are no match for the state’s powerful border barons.

….

Although many big ranchers and landowners backed Trump, they are conservative in the most traditional senses. They actually believe in small government, free enterprise, free trade, and private property. And nobody puts a wall through their brush. These men and women are a pretty private bunch, too. You won’t find their names in the newspaper screaming bloody murder.

But they know how to make their presence felt. Last year, a couple of dozen border barons from the Laredo region summoned local politicians, cops, and representatives from the Customs and Border Patrol. It was a private, even secret event—no cameras, no press. According to Steve LaMantia, who led the group, the landowners delivered a warning to the feds not to build a wall through their land. To underscore their point, they held another meeting. And just in case it wasn’t crystal clear, they’re going to have another one.

“The general sentiment—to a person—is that everybody is in favor of additional border security,” said LaMantia. But seizing land through eminent domain? “That is diametrically opposed by everybody, from Zapata to Del Rio.”

….

If the border barons lose in court, that still won’t mean victory for Trump. They could simply chew up the wall by chewing up the clock on Trump’s time as president. They could demand an injunction blocking the government from taking the land before arriving at a settlement. And their lawyers could wrap the government up in years of haggling over dollars.

  One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Cyborg:

… Continue reading

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, February 12th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, The Old Man and the Gun

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This Tuesday, February 12th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of The Old Man and the Gun @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building:

The Old Man and the Gun (Comedy/Drama/Crime Story)

Tuesday, February 12, 12:30 pm
Rated PG-13; 1 hour, 33 minutes (2018)

Based on the true story of Forrest Tucker (Robert Redford) and his escape from San Quentin at age 70, then to commit bank heists that confounded the authorities and enchanted the public. In hot pursuit are a younger detective (Casey Affleck) who becomes captivated with Forrest’s commitment to his craft, and a woman (Sissy Spacek) who loves Forrest, despite his chosen profession. Robert Redford has said that this is his last acting job. (He’ll continue to produce and direct.)

One can find more information about The Old Man and the Gun at the Internet Movie Database.

Enjoy.… Continue reading

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.10.19

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will bring snow with a high of twenty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 5:20 PM, for 10h 22m 50s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 26.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the eight hundred twenty-third day.

 

On this day in 1763, the Treaty of Paris cedes formerly French-controlled land, including the Wisconsin region, to England.

Recommended for reading in full:

Joshua Partlow, Nick Miroff, and David A. Fahrenthold report ‘My whole town practically lived there’: From Costa Rica to New Jersey, a pipeline of illegal workers for Trump goes back years:

Angulo learned to drive backhoes and bulldozers, carving water hazards and tee boxes out of former horse pastures in Bedminster, N.J., where a famous New Yorker was building a world-class course. Angulo earned $8 an hour, a fraction of what a state-licensed heavy equipment operator would make, with no benefits or overtime pay. But he stayed seven years on the grounds crew, saving enough for a small piece of land and some cattle back home.

….

It’s a common story in this small town.

Other former employees of President Trump’s company live nearby: men who once raked the sand traps and pushed mowers through thick heat on Trump’s prized golf property — the “Summer White House,” as aides have called it — where his daughter Ivanka got married and where he wants to build a family cemetery.

“Many of us helped him get what he has today,” Angulo said. “This golf course was built by illegals.”

Soo Rin Kim, Katherine Faulders, and Matthew Mosk report Trump campaign paid legal fees to firm representing Jared Kushner:

President Donald Trump‘s campaign has spent nearly $100,000 of donor money to pay legal bills to the firm representing Jared Kushner, the latest campaign finance records show.

The president’s re-election campaign made two payments to the firm, Winston & Strawn LLP – $55,330 and $42,574. The expenditures were payments to Kushner’s attorney Abbe Lowell for Kushner’s legal fees, sources with knowledge of the payments told to ABC News. Lowell joined the firm in May 2018.

“Low dollar” contributions – $200 or less – made up 98.5 percent of the total funds raised by the Trump campaign in the last quarter of 2018, a consistent trend throughout the year, according to a press release by the campaign, along with the latest campaign finance filings.

 Patrick Marley reports Wisconsin GOP billing taxpayers almost twice as much as Democratic governor for lawyers in lame-duck lawsuits:

Republican lawmakers are charging taxpayers nearly twice as much an hour as Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the legal fight over Wisconsin’s lame-duck laws.

Taxpayers will pay the lead attorney for lawmakers $500 an hour, according to contracts released Friday under the state’s open records law. The law firm Evers has hired is charging taxpayers $275 an hour.

The deals Evers cut are capped at $100,000, though that limit could be raised if the litigation is extensive. There are no caps on how much attorneys for the Republicans can charge.

  Five of the Best Street Food Finds in Paris:

… Continue reading

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.9.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of nineteen.  Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 5:19 PM, for 10h 17m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the eight hundred twenty-second day.

 

On this day in 1870, Pres. Grant signs a joint resolution authorizing a national weather service, long a dream of Milwaukee scientist Increase Lapham:

Lapham, 19th-century Wisconsin’s premier natural scientist, proposed a national weather service after he mapped data contributed over telegraph lines in the Upper Midwest and realized that weather might be predicted in advance.

Recommended for reading in full:

David Glovin and Andrew Martin report Manafort Prosecutors Have Questions About $1 Million Condo Loan:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller wants to know more about a $1 million loan made to Paul Manafort’s family in the days after the FBI raided his home.

Mueller’s prosecutors on Thursday told a court they needed to know more about the August 2017 loan, from a Nevada company called Woodlawn LLC. Manafort, the onetime chairman of President Donald Trump’s campaign, guaranteed the loan, which was secured by the family’s interest in a Manhattan condominium, according to court papers.

As Manafort’s legal problems escalated, Woodlawn installed a Hollywood bit player named Joey Rappa as its “managing member” in public filings. The investor or investors funding the loan wanted to remain anonymous given the potential for embarrassment, according to a lawyer for the lender.

Now that prosecutors are seeking to seize the condo after Manafort’s conviction on tax- and bank-fraud charges, Woodlawn is staking a claim to it in order to collect on the debt.

But one riddle remains: Who actually funded the $1 million loan?

 Aaron Blake assesses What we learned from the Matthew G. Whitaker hearing:

Whitaker might not have revealed anything disastrous, but he was an unsteady witness. At the start of the hearing, he decided to tell the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), that Nadler had exceeded his allotted five minutes for questions, earning gasps and laughter from those assembled. He repeatedly told members that this was an oversight hearing and not a confirmation hearing, even though they were generally asking him about the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III (over which he has oversight). He repeatedly and obviously stalled by avoiding easy yes-or-no questions or not answering at all. He often referred to how little fun he was having during the hearing and how little time he had left in his job, given Barr has a confirmation vote next week.

None of it inspired much confidence from the nation’s active leading law enforcement official. There are ways to deftly maneuver these things without giving away too much (as Barr showed us in his confirmation hearing). But Whitaker seemed to be holding on for dear life, intent to run out the clock — both during questioning and on his time as acting attorney general.

  How Planes Land Sideways In High Winds:

… Continue reading

Books, City, Culture

The Pictures on the Wall

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During a recent visit to the public library here in Whitewater, I stopped to look at a display of photographs, of framed pictures each showing a resident of the city posing with a book.

The residents were easy to see, but the book titles harder to identify, so I drew closer to the exhibit.  As I stood there, an older woman from the library’s staff came nearby and began sorting books from a bin.  I thought it might be best to explain to her why I was standing around, so that she would not think that I was about to steal a book, or maliciously sort nearby brochures in an unalphabetized order.

So I said to her, “I’m looking at these photos.”

And she replied, “Do you recognize anyone?”

In her question, one finds an old-fashioned habit still lingering in this city: she was asking about my ability to identify the people in the photographs, not the books they were holding. Even in a library, some residents of the city would, predictably, think this way.

And so I answered her, “Yes, all of them.”  (It is, after all, a small town.)

She was incredulous. “All of them,” she replied disbelievingly.

My best guess about her skepticism is that she believed that if she could not identify someone, then surely he could not possibly be able to identify the leading figures in the city.

In Whitewater, another person – perhaps even a few of those in the photographs – might have taken umbrage, and made some bold statement of prominence, importance, etc.

I had no statement of that kind to make.  Instead, it was more than enough to walk away confident that an untainted observation of a thing matters more than a tainting declaration.

Old Whitewater – a state of mind and not a person – runs on self-promotion as fuel.

There’s no enduring hope, however, in that perspective — one makes one’s way through a cause, not celebrity.

Of books, in particular, is it not true (especially for young readers) that the words inside and out – contents, subjects, titles, and even cover art – are what catch readers’ notice and then hold them spellbound?

The interest in the photographs lies not in the people holding the books, but in the inviting titles in their hands.… Continue reading

Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin

‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn’

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The published case against Foxconn – with reporting & analysis from some of America’s finest journalists and economists – is overwhelming. Their careful, published work has set out the plain facts for well over a year. And yet, as a multi-billion dollar public failure, there are even more startling accounts still emerging.

Austin Carr reports Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn (“A huge tax break was supposed to create a manufacturing paradise, but interviews with 49 people familiar with the project depict a chaotic operation unlikely to ever employ 13,000 workers”):

“This is the Eighth Wonder of the World.”

So declared President Donald Trump onstage last June at a press event at Foxconn’s new factory in Mount Pleasant, Wis. He was there to herald the potential of the Taiwanese manufacturing giant’s expansion into cheesehead country. He’d joined Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou and then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to celebrate a partnership he’d helped broker—“one of the great deals ever,” Trump said. In exchange for more than $4.5 billion in government incentives, Foxconn had agreed to build a high-tech manufacturing hub on 3,000 acres of farmland south of Milwaukee and create as many as 13,000 good-paying jobs for “amazing Wisconsin workers” as early as 2022.

….

Shortly after Trump’s visit, things got worse. A Foxconn manager at the factory, which then had only about 60 people working there, abruptly called about 15 of them—all interns —into a room to say they should seek other jobs because there wasn’t enough work to hire them full time, according to multiple people present. Two sources recall the manager telling the group, cryptically, that there were forces outside the company’s control affecting the Wisconsin project. A number of the interns, who’d received praise from Trump and shaken Gou’s hand just weeks earlier, were stunned. “It was upsetting for people,” says James Pitman, one of the former interns. “They had hyped a lot of shit up. We were used as a publicity stunt.” Foxconn says that’s insulting and that the internships ended as scheduled.

Interviews with 49 people familiar with Foxconn’s Wisconsin project, including more than a dozen current and former employees close to its efforts there, show how hollow the boosters’ assurances have been all along. While Foxconn for months declined requests to interview executives, insiders describe a chaotic environment with ever-changing goals far different from what Trump and others promised. Walker and the White House declined to comment for this story, although a Trump administration official says the White House would be “disappointed” by any reduced investment. The only consistency, many of these people say, lay in how obvious it was that Wisconsin struck a weak deal. Under the terms Walker negotiated, each job at the Mount Pleasant factory is projected to cost the state at least $219,000 in tax breaks and other incentives. The good or extra-bad news, depending on your perspective, is that there probably won’t be 13,000 of them.

(Emphasis added.)

The full, detailed article – over 3,500 words long — is must-reading about Foxconn.

Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers,  Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition,  Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere, Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land, Foxconn Couldn’t Even Meet Its Low First-Year Goal, Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans, WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid, Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy, Laughable Spin as Industrial Policy, and Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project.’

 

 … Continue reading

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.8.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny & breezy with a high of ten.  Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 5:17 PM, for 10h 17m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 11.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the eight hundred twenty-first day.

 

On this day in 1958, a Wisconsin representative starts a fight in Congress:

Just before the Civil War, the issue of slavery tore apart the U.S. Congress. On February 8, 1858, Wisconsin Rep. John Potter (considered a backwoods hooligan by Southern aristocrats) leaped into a fight on the House floor. When Potter embarrassed a pro-slavery brawler by pulling off his wig, the gallery shouted that he’d taken a Southern scalp. Potter emerged from the melee covered in blood and marked by slave owners as an enemy. Two years later, on April 5, 1860, he accused Virginia Rep. Roger Pryor of falsifying the Congressional record. Pryor, feeling his character impugned, challenged Potter to a duel. According to Southern custom, a person challenged had the right to choose weapons. Potter replied that he would only fight with “Bowie knives in a closed room,” and his Southern challenger beat a hasty retreat. Republican supporters around the nation sent Potter Bowie knives as a tribute, including this six-foot-long one.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Molly Beck reports Scott Walker gets a new gig charging up to $25,000 per speech:

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker has a new gig charging five figures to give speeches about politics and his time in public office in Wisconsin.

Walker announced Thursday he would be joining Worldwide Speakers Group, which coordinates speaking engagements for former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.

Walker’s speaking fee ranges between $15,000 and $25,000 per engagement. According to the group’s website, Walker’s speech topics include:

  • Leadership Lessons: How big, bold reforms work.
  • Insights on the current political (and future) landscape in America
  • Crisis Management: How to turn a serious challenge into a major opportunity
  • Power to the People: Sending resources and responsibilities to the states.
  • The Power of Faith in Times of Crisis

(Oh brother: there just aren’t many organizations willing to pay $25,000 for the excitement of watching paint dry.)

 Ron Brownstein observes Trump Is Walling Off the GOP:

The strength of his appeal to the white voters most hostile to economic and social change remains a powerful asset, particularly because the Electoral College and two-senator-per-state rule amplify the influence of interior states where those voters are most prevalent. But the magnitude of the GOP’s defeat in House elections last fall suggests the size of the coalition that Trump is potentially solidifying against his party, particularly as the unprecedentedly diverse Millennial and post-Millennial generations grow as a share of the electorate. As [Peter] Wehner noted, “the real problem” Trump is creating for the GOP is that “the very thing that alienates the Republican Party from most of the public is the very thing that energizes most of the base, which is cultural identity and ethnic nationalism.”

   So, Are All Galaxies the Same?… Continue reading

Courts, Crime, Law, Walworth County

Scenes from the Alabama Walworth County Legal System

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One reads that Walworth County treatment courts face uncertain future after DA questions role:

The future of Walworth County’s treatment courts is uncertain after District Attorney Zeke Wiedenfeld at a special meeting Tuesday questioned his office’s participation in the programs and its level of control over who enters them.

Most questions from Tuesday’s meeting went to Wiedenfeld.  Although treatment courts would not necessarily cease to exist without the participation of the district attorney’s office, some committee members, including Judge Phillip Koss, signaled they would not support programs without it.

Wiedenfeld said he is “concerned” with a treatment-court structure that does not give his office authority to limit who gets into the programs. He said he did not know if he wanted to be involved with a program where it’s up to the judges.

The judge who oversees drug court, Daniel Johnson, said “I don’t think it’s fair to essentially accuse the judges of willy-nilly sending people into these programs whenever we feel like it without a rhyme or a reason to it.”

Judge David Reddy, who is the project director for the county’s treatment courts, said only two of the 69 entries into drug court were against the recommendation of the DA’s office.

Wiedenfeld said it’s his philosophy to be proactive and address small problems before they’re big.

(Emphasis added.)

(It’s telling, really, that Koss, a former prosecutor with a controversial record, would defer to the prosecutorial power rather than of his own judicial office.)

Wiedenfeld speaks of his philosophy (‘to be proactive’) and in support of public safety as though no one on the bench might have those same goals; he presumes his own statutorily-limited role as a prosecutor should include a veto even over the judicial authority in his county.

Too funny, also, that Wiedenfeld thinks threatening to take his marbles and walk away from a successful program is what it means to be proactive.

No, and no again: it’s what it means to undermine a program that’s worked effectively since 2014, with scores of positive outcomes at a significant cost saving to the community. … Continue reading

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.7.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will ee freezing rain with a high of thirty-six.  Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 5:16 PM, for 10h 15m 02s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the eight hundred twentieth day.

 

On this day in 1867, Laura Ingalls Wilder is born near Pepin, Wisconsin.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Rick Romell reports For third straight year, Wisconsin ranks last in business startup activity:

Another year, another last-place ranking for Wisconsin on the business startup front.

For the third year running, Wisconsin has placed 50th among the 50 states in startup activity as measured by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, one of the country’s leading entrepreneurship advocacy and research organizations.

Not only was Wisconsin last; the gap between Wisconsin and the next-lowest states widened significantly from 2016 and 2015. While other states are clustered with relatively small differences from one state to the next, Wisconsin stands as an outlier – on the low end.

(How very surprising, as by using a public-subsidies approach Gov. Walker insisted for each of his eight years that Wisconsin was open for business…)

 Dan Friedman reports Investigators Are Zeroing in on Top NRA Leaders’ Russia Ties—and Challenging the Gun Group’s Story:

After remaining all but mum for the past two years about news reports detailing its ties to Russia, the National Rifle Association finally spoke up this week. The gun group tried to distance itself from a 2015 trip to Moscow by top NRA officials that was arranged by Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty last year to acting as a Russian agent and participating in a conspiracy against the United States. But congressional investigators are challenging the NRA on what they think is a bogus cover story and stepping up investigations of the group.

The 2015 Moscow trip has drawn attention in particular because it appears to have been a key development in an influence campaign orchestrated by Butina and her handler, Russian official Alexander Torshin, to try to cultivate ties with American conservatives and Republicans—eventually including Donald Trump—and nudge them toward pro-Russia policies. Amid the mounting pressure, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre finally broke his silence on the matter, asserting through attorneys this week that he had opposed the trip and acted to distance the gun group from it.

But Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, who is investigating the NRA as the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has information contradicting the gun group’s claims that it had no “official” connection to the 2015 Moscow trip, sources told Mother Jones. Wyden is preparing a detailed report on the trip. And congressional investigators are homing in on David Keene, a former NRA president who was the trip’s primary organizer on the NRA side, according to people familiar with the matter.

….

Keene, a longtime conservative Republican figurehead and former opinion editor for the Washington Times, also sought an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the trip, according to reports this week, though one did not take place.

  Tiny meteorites are everywhere. Here’s how to find them:

… Continue reading

Culture, Never Trump, Ocasio-Cortez, Politics

Why Won’t You Smile?

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One can guess that libertarians oppose the anti-market economics of Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. It’s odd, to me, though, how much time conservatives have spent complaining, critiquing, and analyzing that democratic socialist from New York.

In those conservative critiques, however, one sees more than an economic or foreign policy disagreement: some of these conservatives are upset that she’s upset with Trump, and are themselves upset with the very idea that Ocasio-Cortez might be upset about anything.

In her opposition to Trump, in her revulsion to his lumpen bigotry, Ocasio-Cortez is, however, both right and sympathetic.

Consider this exchange between conservative Peggy Noonan and Ocasio-Cortez about how Noonan thinks Ocasio-Cortez should have behaved at the State of the Union address last night:

Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc):

And good natured with the white jackets, who I see some on twitter are calling the straight jackets. AOC had a rare bad night, looking not spirited, warm and original as usual but sullen, teenaged and at a loss.

Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC):

Why should I be “spirited and warm” for this embarrassment of a #SOTU?

Tonight was an unsettling night for our country. The president failed to offer any plan, any vision at all, for our future.

We’re flying without a pilot. And I‘m not here to comfort anyone about that fact.

All considered, Ocasio-Cortez is restrained, almost mild, in her reply.

She’s also on solid ground: Ocasio-Cortez owes no one a smile, least of all Noonan, an aged conservative at a Murdoch publication who’s able to live comfortably while Trump inflicts injuries on countless common people.

While I would not (and could not) speak for @AOC, for myself I will say that there will be smiling enough when both Trump and those such as Noonan find themselves in the political outer darkness they so deserve.… Continue reading

Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Crony Capitalism, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC

Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project’

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Willy Shih, of Harvard Business School, writes that Foxconn’s Wisconsin Factory Is What The Chinese Call A ‘State Visit Project’:

Last week I wrote that Foxconn’s giant flat-screen factory in Wisconsin was facing an economic reality check, and might not get built after all. On Friday, after a call between Foxconn chairman Terry Gou and President Donald Trump, it was reported to be on again.

In China, they have a term for this type of project: … “Gao Fang Xiangmu”) – a “state visit project” which is signed during a high-level visit. They are announced during the visit of a head of state, or some high-profile event where there is an important political message. Back in 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the Boeing widebody facility in Everett, Washington, and announced an order for 300 aircraft. This gave President Xi the opportunity to emphasize the importance of China to Boeing, its workers, suppliers, and the communities they operate in. The specific details would be worked out later.

….

I think Mr. Gou’s visit to Wisconsin last June was the same thing. A state visit project – a high-profile way to earn some serious good will and political capital. But as Foxconn worked through the details, I suspect they were having trouble figuring out how to make economic sense of it all, for many of the reasons I explained.

This is, of course, economically irrational, and offers benefits only for the political leaders and cronies who stand to benefit personally.

State capitalism (when the public subsidies for business deals) and crony capitalism (where insiders benefit from those publicly-subsidized deals) are the core of the Foxconn project.

There’s a wide gap between business groups that cajole for as much public money as they can get and a free market of private buyers and sellers who make their way in the world without leaching money from taxpayers.

These pro-government American conservatives are tiny versions of the hangers-on and operatives of party-controlled foreign economies.

Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers,  Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition,  Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere, Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land, Foxconn Couldn’t Even Meet Its Low First-Year Goal, Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans, WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid, Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy, and Laughable Spin as Industrial Policy.… Continue reading

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 2.6.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-five.  Sunrise is 7:02 AM and sunset 5:15 PM, for 10h 09m 57s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Today is the eight hundred nineteenth day.

Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1967, activist Stokely Carmichael speaks at UW-Whitewater.

Recommended for reading in full:

 David Frum writes Trump Doubles Down:

The 2019 State of the Union doubled down on trade wars and border walls, on ally-baiting and America-preening. Unfortunately for Trump, Option 2 only makes sense when you command a potential majority coalition, as Reagan and Obama did. When you don’t, as Trump does not, the highly divisive politics that rally your base simultaneously rally your opponents’ bigger base.

By talking so fiercely about abortion, Trump has hugely raised the stakes for his judicial nominations, including the pending nomination of Neomi Rao for the D.C. Circuit. Trump’s accusatory language about border walls seems intended to make impossible any kind of agreement on border security.

Meanwhile, Trump’s most indispensable supporters—the Republican senators—looked unconvinced and displeased through the speech’s more pitchfork-waving passages. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has little interest fighting Pharma or launching another round of tariffs against China and Mexico.

Back during the campaign, Trump defenders excused their man’s acknowledged faults by recycling a compliment President Lincoln paid General Grant: “He fights.” But Grant planned his fights. He counted his troops and those of the adversary, reconnoitered the ground, brought up supplies, devised a plan. He didn’t just plunge head first against a wall in a spasm of ill temper. Trump doesn’t do any of those things. That’s why this president who talks so much about winning is suddenly losing on almost every political front.

 Aaron Blake writes Virtually every organization Trump has run in recent years has been under investigation. Here’s where those probes stand:

News broke Monday night that federal prosecutors issued a subpoena in the burgeoning investigation of the Trump inaugural committee. And we can add that one to the list of serious investigations President Trump has faced, including of himself, his campaign, his conduct as president, his business, his charity and his “university.”

Below, we break down the latest in each, along with how much trouble each could pose for Trump.

(Blake lists investigations of the Trump inaugural committee, Trump campaign [collusion], Trump himself [obstruction of justice], Trump himself [campaign finance violations], Trump Organization, Trump Foundation, and Trump University.)

Allyson Chiu reports ‘Queen of Condescending Applause’: Nancy Pelosi clapped at Trump and the Internet lost it:

Rising from her seat along with others in attendance, Pelosi began applauding with her arms oddly extended out toward the president. When Trump turned toward her and the pair locked eyes, Pelosi, still clapping, appeared to smirk.

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(Honest to goodness, whatever else one could say, Pelosi surely does have Trump’s number.)

  How These Hummingbirds Turned Their Beaks Into Swords:

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