Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy.  Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:27 PM, for 15h 09m 29s of daytime.  The moon is new with 1.0% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1966, NASA successfully lands Surveyor 1 on the Moon.

Recommended for reading in full:

Matt O’Brien reports The Trump tax cuts are failing badly:

There are a lot of words you could use to describe the Trump tax cuts, but “successful” isn’t one of them.

That, at least, is what the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found when it looked at how much Trump’s signature accomplishment has actually, well, accomplished so far. The answer isn’t much. Indeed, the CRS estimates that, in the past year, the tax cuts haven’t added a lot, if anything, to growth in wages, investment or the overall economy. The best you can say is that things might be better in the future.

Or, you know, they might not.

The important thing to understand here is that the Trump tax cuts were supposed to help people by helping corporations first. While households got small, temporary tax cuts — then-House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), you might remember, touted that one secretary was getting an extra $1.50 a week — companies got large, permanent ones. The idea being that this would make companies invest a lot more money in their businesses, which, in turn, would make their workers so much more productive, they’d eventually get bigger raises than they otherwise would have. The administration, for its part, rather absurdly claimed that this would be somewhere between $4,000 and $9,000 per household.

That’s why the most damning news isn’t that the gross domestic product is growing only a bit faster but rather that business investment is. If that doesn’t change, then what little boost there’s been to the economy won’t last long, and barely any of it will reach the middle class. Why is that? Well, the tax cuts were supposed to help in two ways: by giving wealthy shareholders more money to spend and corporations more reason to invest. The problem, though, is that the first part should increase growth for just a little while — and not by much, since rich people don’t tend to spend as much of any tax cut — so that second part really has to work for any of this to be sustainable. It’s also the only way, as we mentioned before, that any of this will trickle down to, shall we say, people in less-exclusive income groups. After all, they’re not getting much of a tax cut themselves, so their only hope is that the people who are benefiting more are putting that money to work in investments that will benefit them, too.

But that doesn’t seem to be happening so far. As the CRS points out, the types of investments the Trump administration cut taxes on the most actually grew less last year than others.

(Emphasis added.)

The Sandwich in a Pickle:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater begins a new month with scattered thundershowers and a high of seventy-five.  Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:26 PM, for 15h 08m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 4.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, Wisconsinites defend the Union at the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia:

On June 1, the 5th Wisconsin Infantry arrived after a long march, barefoot and exhausted. Nevertheless, they charged enemy lines and captured a number of prisoners. By the afternoon, the 36th Wisconsin Infantry lost 140 of  the 142 men who tried to take an enemy position.

Recommended for reading in full:

Catherine Rampell writes Just a few of the reasons that Trump’s Mexico tariffs are deeply stupid:

1. Americans are paying these tariffs. We already have two studies by teams of top-notch trade economists who have found that the costs of Trump’s earlier tariffs are being passed along to American businesses and consumers. An update of one of those studies pegged the cost of tariffs announced before Thursday (including the most recent escalation on $200 billion of Chinese goods) at $831 per U.S. household. It seems reasonable that this latest round of tariffs on Mexican goods will also be largely absorbed by Americans.

Industry groups, including those for produce and retail, have put out statements warning about the cost to consumers of these tariffs.

2. This will seriously screw up supply chains and hurt American companies — including American companies that need Mexican parts to make their own products that get sold here or exported abroad.

Mexico recently became our No. 1 trading partner. Two-thirds of our imports from Mexico are intra-company trade (i.e., a firm trading with itself across the border).

….

The auto industry is especially vulnerable; of U.S. auto exports, about 35 percent of the value-added comes from imported inputs, according to Deutsche Bank Securities chief economist Torsten Slok. Note also that the U.S. auto industry is already in trouble. Announced layoffs for the first four months of this year in autos are the highest since 2009, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

3. We don’t know the full economic cost of the tariffs, but it would be painful for the United States. Two years ago, a research and consulting firm calculated an estimate for the costs of a similar (20 percent) tariff on Mexican imports: “Over three years, the bill comes to $286 billion in lost value to the U.S. economy and a loss of 755,000 American jobs. Two-thirds of those job losses would be at the expense of low- to medium-skilled workers.”

….

10. If Trump does indeed manage to wreck the Mexican economy, that would likely increase the flow of immigrants trying to cross the border into the United States. When the Mexican economy is lousy, after all, demand to come to the United States rises.

(Rampell lists six other reasons, numbers 4 through 9, in her full article.)

Tonight’s Sky for June 2019:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny and a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:26 PM, for 15h 07m 01s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 9.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, the Battle of Seven Pines, Virginia, begins:

This battle was part of the Peninsula Campaign and was the largest conflict seen in the Eastern Theater up to this point. The 4th Wisconsin Light Artillery and 5th, 6th, 7th, 19th, 36th, 37th and 38th Wisconsin Infantry regiments took part in this assault.

Recommended for reading in full:

Eliot A. Cohen writes of A Stain on the Honor of the Navy (‘In acceding to a White House request to cover the name of the USS John S. McCain, officers and officials revealed a rot within the service’):

One prays to the “Eternal Father, strong to save / Whose arm hath bound the restless wave” that The Wall Street Journal has got it horribly wrong. The newspaper reports that the United States Navy, under orders from the White House and with the approval of the acting secretary of defense and the compliance of a chain of naval officers in the Seventh Fleet, did its efficient best to conceal the name John McCain from President Donald Trump’s sight when he recently visited Yokosuka Naval Base.

The ship is under repair, so it could not be moved. But sailors hung a tarp over the ship’s name, and other measures (a strategically positioned barge) helped obscure the offending words. Sailors were told to remove all coverings that might indicate that the ship is the USS John S. McCain. They were, according to the article, given the day off, lest the name John McCain, embroidered on their caps, give offense. On the day of the presidential visit, some of the sailors present wore “Make Aircrew Great Again” patches, with something that resembled Trump’s profile on them. Subsequent stories in The New York Timesand The Washington Post amended the Journal’s story somewhat, to include the assertion that naval leadership intervened at the last minute to have the tarp removed. But the basic account remained intact.

Dishonor. Not to to the late senator, nor to his father and grandfather of the same name, who rendered the same distinguished service in war and peace. Their deeds and reputations are far beyond such mean contrivances. But dishonor indeed to the civilians and officers who hold the lives of young Americans in their hands and went along with this. That the president might wish such behavior is not surprising—he is mean, petty, and vindictive, and even if he did not order this (and he quickly tweeted a denial that he had), he signaled that he wished it. It is what is known in strongman governments as “working toward the Leader.” It is the effect of a personality that contaminates and corrodes every valuable thing he touches.

Man rescues injured bald eagle trapped in the middle of a busy highway:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see scattered thunderstorms and a high of seventy-four.  Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:25 PM, for 15h 05m 42s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 16.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1860, the first street railway cars run in Milwaukee:

[T]wo cars were drawn over the line known as the “River & Lake Shore Street Railway” for the first time. The cars were drawn by four horses. The track for the cars was laid in early May from East Water Street, north to Division Street. Prominent among builders of this street railway were George H. Walker, Lemuel W. Weeks, Col. W.S. Johnson, and F.S. Blodgett. A company was organized to sell $50,000 in stock subscriptions to pay for the service.

Recommended for reading in full:

Rick Romell reports Foxconn awards contracts to ‘Wisconsin’ firms with headquarters in Connecticut and England:

Foxconn Technology Group on Wednesday announced the award of $13 million in contracts to three firms it described as “outstanding Wisconsin-based companies.”

One of the firms, however, has headquarters in Connecticut, while another is part of a 44,000-employee global company headquartered in the United Kingdom.

Benjamin Wittes asks Mueller Bows Out: What Does Congress Do Now?:

Less expected was Mueller’s announcement that he didn’t intend to make any further statements—not even before Congress in testimony that has been much anticipated. Mueller said he “hop[ed] and expect[ed]” he would not speak about the matter further and that “[t]he report is my testimony.” If called by Congress to testify, he said he “would not go beyond our report.”

In other words, that’s all folks. As far as Mueller is concerned, he has no further role to play here.

….

The absence of public hearings on the contents of the Mueller report can be blamed only in part on Don McGahn’s decision to honor the president’s claims of executive privilege and defy the judiciary committee’s subpoena. A big part of the story here is that key committees are just not pursuing a focused oversight agenda involving live testimony by the key witnesses in a fashion that is likely to prove effective. Congress has so far sought the testimony of relatively few people named in the report. It has not so far moved aggressively against anyone who has resisted.

This lack of focus on getting testimony from witnesses has combined with a deep commitment on the part of the Democratic leadership not to use the most substantial powers that it has—specifically the impeachment power. The congressional leadership seems not to know quite what it wants, but it sure knows what it doesn’t want. That’s not a good posture in which to confront a concerted presidential challenge to the very possibility of congressional investigation of executive conduct.

How U.S. Weapons Ended Up Hitting Hospitals in Yemen:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with showers and a high of sixty-nine.  Sunrise is 5:20 AM and sunset 8:24 PM, for 15h 04m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 23.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets at 9 AM, and her Parks & Rec Board at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reach the Everest summit.

Recommended for reading in full:

Lee Bergquist reports EPA scientists raised concerns over smog designation in southeastern Wisconsin. Now the agency is reviewing the decision:

Scientists at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency objected to a decision by the department last year to exempt areas of southeastern Wisconsin from impacts of stricter federal ozone regulations, including Racine County, where Foxconn Technology Group is building its manufacturing plant.

Employees of the agency also complained their agency used misleading data in its decision making that would benefit companies in the exempted counties.

The decision on May 1, 2018, to sharply limit geographical areas that would fall under more restrictive limits to control smog is being challenged by environmental groups in federal court.

And now the EPA says in court documents that it wants more time to review its ozone decision.

Michael Hiltzik reports Rich farmers, not mom-and-pop farms, will collect most of Trump’s tariff bailout:

The lone valiant farmer struggling to eke an existence from his hardscrabble farm — that’s the image President Trump wants you to think about when contemplating the $28 billion in bailouts he’s spending to cover farm losses from his trade war.

Think again. The vast majority of the dollars flowing to the agriculture industry via the bailouts is likely to go to farms with annual revenues of several million dollars. Most of them are major beneficiaries of federal crop support programs that steer billions in subsidies and low-priced crop insurance — including insurance that already covers some of their losses in the trade war.

Consider one such recipient. He’s Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, whose family farm, run mostly by his son Robin and grandson Patrick, collected $1.6 million in government subsidies in 1995-2017, according to a database compiled by the Environmental Working Group. The farm grows corn and soybeans.

Tory Newmyer reports Trump promised an auto renaissance. The industry has hit a skid:

In yesterday’s newsletter, we took a closer look at how struggling rural communities, defying the national economic bounce, could complicate President Trump’s reelection bid.

But there’s another pillar of Trump’s base — the auto industry, which he promised to transform into the engine of a manufacturing revival — that is stalling at an inopportune moment for the president.

Layoffs in the industry this year are at their highest since the economic crisis a decade ago….

How Do Birds Stop From Falling Off Branches While They Sleep?:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of sixty-five.  Sunrise is 5:20 AM and sunset 8:23 PM, for 15h 02m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 33.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 6 PM, and the Whitewater School Board meets in closed session at 6:30 PM, with open session beginning at 7 PM.

On this day in 1987, 19-year-old amateur pilot Mathias Rust lands his plane in Red Square:

Rust, a 19-year-old amateur pilot from West Germany, takes off from Helsinki, Finland, travels through more than 400 miles of Soviet airspace, and lands his small Cessna aircraft in Red Square by the Kremlin. The event proved to be an immense embarrassment to the Soviet government and military.

Recommended for reading in full:

Asawin Suebsaeng reports Trump Embraces Right-Wing One America News Network to Make Fox News Jealous:

For years, the channel has tried to supplant Fox  as a dominant force in conservative media. For the past two years, it has prolifically churned out glowing coverage of the Trump administration and its achievements. OAN’s top executives have beseeched the president on Twitter to forget about Fox and to signal-boost them instead. And in the first year of Trump’s presidency, the network produced a commercial mocking CNN’s “Facts First” apple-and-banana ad campaign, and declaring OAN the “Real News.”

….

The overt flattery seems to be paying off. Fox News is still the president’s favorite media behemoth. But OAN’s team has been catching his eye. This year, Trump has tuned in more often than ever to OAN, two sources close to him say.

Jennifer Rubin writes The press must do better:

The New York Times gives prominent placement on its home page to list all of President Trump’s juvenile nicknames for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates, including the racist Native American slur directed at Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). This serves no purpose other than to highlight his name-calling and reinforce his abusive conduct.

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders goes on “Meet the Press” to repeatedly accuse former FBI director James B. Comey of treason. She insists everyone knows about corruption at the top levels of the Justice Department. (“We already know that there was an outrageous amount of corruption that took place at the FBI.”) She claims “they” leaked information and lied. (Who? What information? When?) In an apparent reference to two investigators who were removed from the case (Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) after communicating about their private views, she insists “They were specifically working trying to take down the president, trying to hurt the president.” Sanders falsely insists the FBI was guilty of “unprecedented obstruction and corruption.”

Trump’s press secretary is not challenged on her exaggerations, distortions and outright lies, although she in essence concedes Trump has already made up his mind, issued his verdict and is expecting the attorney general to come back with evidence.

Why Does Google Kill So Many Products?:

Good morning.

Memorial Day in Whitewater will see occasional thundershowers with a high of sixty-four.  Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:22 PM, for 15h 01m 26s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 42.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Weather permitting, Whitewater’s Memorial Day parade will begin at 10:30 AM in the city’s downtown, with a ceremony thereafter at the American Legion on 292 S. Wisconsin Street beginning at 11 AM.

On this day in 1673, Marquette & Joliet Reach Green Bay:

“Embarking then in our canoes,” Marquette wrote in his journal, “we arrived shortly afterward at the bottom of the Bay des Puants, where our Fathers labor successfully for the conversion of these peoples, over two thousand of whom they have baptized while they have been there.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Pete Dougherty writes Legendary Packers quarterback Bart Starr dies at age 85:

The quarterback who guided the Green Bay Packers to five NFL championships and was as popular as any figure in franchise history has died.

Bart Starr, who served as the extension of coach Vince Lombardi on the field during the Packers’ glory days of the 1960s, died Sunday, his family said in a statement. He was 85.

….

“We are saddened to note the passing of our husband, father, grandfather, and friend, Bart Starr,” the family statement said. “He battled with courage and determination to transcend the serious stroke he suffered in September 2014, but his most recent illness was too much to overcome.

“While he may always be best known for his success as the Packers quarterback for 16 years, his true legacy will always be the respectful manner in which he treated every person he met, his humble demeanor, and his generous spirit.

….

Starr’s place in Packers lore is cemented by his role in Lombardi’s 1960s Packers dynasty, which remains the most successful seven-year stretch in NFL history with five titles, including wins in the first two Super Bowls.

Neal Rothschild reports Trump’s tweets are losing their potency:

President Trump’s tweets don’t pack the punch they did at the outset of his presidency. His Twitter interaction rate — a measure of the impact given how much he tweets and how many people follow him — has tumbled precipitously, according to data from CrowdTangle.

Why it matters: It’s a sign that his strongest communication tool may be losing its effectiveness and that the novelty has worn off.

Trump’s interaction rate has fallen from 0.55% in the month he was elected to 0.32% in June 2017 — and down to 0.16% this month through May 25. (The metric measures retweets and likes per tweet divided by the size of his following.)

David Frum observes the demand-side for doctored videos smearing Trump’s opponents:

“Misinformation is a demand problem as well as supply. “I don’t think the people who repeat them are fooled. I think they enjoy the lie themselves. They are co-producers. The demand for false information may be an even bigger problem than the supply.”

Godzilla: The True Story: