Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 5:26 AM and sunset 8:16 PM, for 14h 49m 40s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 96.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board is scheduled to meet at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1863, Union forces regroup at Vicksburg, Mississippi:

After the unsuccessful assault on Vicksburg the previous day, Union forces regrouped in front of the city. The 1st Wisconsin Light Artillery and the 8th, 11th, 18th and 23rd Wisconsin Infantry regiments joined the 14th and 17th Infantries to prepare for the next attack. While these arrangements were taking place at Vicksburg, the 4th Wisconsin Infantry fought in a skirmish in Cheneyville, Lousiana.

Recommended for reading in full:

David Haynes writes Wisconsin is losing people in their prime working years. Are more foreign workers the answer?:

Unemployment is low, jobs are being created and businesses are having trouble finding workers.

These are all signs that the economy in Wisconsin — and the nation — remains strong.

But behind those statistics is a problem that could put the brakes on growth: The number of people in their prime working years is declining.

Wisconsin has 150,000 fewer people between the ages of 25 and 54 than it did in 2007, which could create a host of problems for communities as fewer homes are built, the tax base shrinks and entrepreneurs say no thanks to starting a business.

“It’s a major concern when 50% of counties overall in Wisconsin are losing population outright but nearly every county is losing prime working age population,” said John Lettieri, author of a recent study by the Economic Innovation Group. EIG, a bipartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., recommends a new visa program to allow more skilled foreign workers into the United States.

….

EIG recommends:

The program should target regions facing population declines and underserved by existing immigration programs. It should be voluntary. It should tie workers to a place, not a company. It should be in addition to current immigration quotas. It should provide a path to permanent residency. Additional federal and state funding should be provided to help visa holders find work and assimilate. The cap on green cards should be increased. Visa holders would have to find and maintain a job or start a business within a reasonable period of time.

(Free markets in capital, goods, and labor are a superior solution to quotas and planned outcomes, but even a partial lessening of labor restrictions is a good, next-best outcome.)

Brian Fung reports Rural America feels the sting of Trump’s China trade war:

Farmers have already been struggling to adapt to Chinese tariffs on US soybeans, corn and wheat.

“Farmers were [Trump’s] base,” John Wesley Boyd Jr., a Virginia-based soybean farmer, told CNN’s Brianna Keilar in a recent interview. “They helped elect this President … and now he’s turning his back on America’s farmers when we need him the most.”

Anatomy of a Scene: How to Create a Funny Action Scene in ‘Pokémon Detective Pikachu’:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thunderstorms with a high of sixty-nine.  Sunrise is 5:27 AM and sunset 8:15 PM, for 14h 47m 48s of daytime.  The moon is full with 99.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1863, a direct Union assault on Vicksburg, Mississippi begins:

For three days in May 1863, Union forces attempted to capture the city of Vicksburg to gain control of shipping on the Mississippi River. The troops climbed up steep ravines and crossed trenches to attack the fortifications above them. The 14th and 17th Wisconsin Infantry regiments participated in this unsuccessful assault. At the end of the day, the Union had lost nearly 1,000 soldiers without achieving its goal.

Recommended for reading in full:

Rick Barrett reports ‘Struggling to tread water’: Dairy farmers are caught in an economic system with no winning formula (‘Family farms are at the mercy of trade wars, economies of scale and a complex pricing system’):

The dairy crisis worsened last year when China and Mexico imposed steep tariffs on U.S. dairy products in retaliation for President Donald Trump slapping tariffs on foreign aluminum and steel.

Trump’s criticisms of Mexico, the largest foreign market for American dairy products, heightened trade tensions. When the president threatened to close the Mexican border, it alarmed former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, now president of the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

Closing the border would be a “gut punch” that could set the dairy industry back 20 years, Vilsack said.

More than one in seven days’ worth of U.S. milk ends up in products sold in foreign countries. Trade wars, and the failure of the United States, Mexico and Canada to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement — meant to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement — worries the industry.

“We shipped $1.4 billion in dairy products to Mexico last year, which accounts for more than one-fourth of U.S. dairy exports,” Vilsack said. “Without a trade treaty with Mexico in place, the dairy industry would be hard-pressed to maintain and expand these sales, as our competitors in Europe are expected to implement a lucrative trade deal with Mexico by next year.”

Wisconsin farmers have received more than $10 million in payments from a Trump program meant to help producers of milk, pork, soybeans, corn and other commodities who have seen prices tumble in trade disputes.

That’s about $725 for a 55-cow dairy which probably lost between $36,000 and $48,000 in income in 2018 from low milk prices, according to Wisconsin Farmers Union. A 290-cow dairy stood to receive $4,905 but would have lost several hundred thousand dollars in income.

The Mess family [of Watertown] said the payment they received didn’t even cover 10% of what they had to borrow to remain in business.

“We want trade, not aid,” Carrie Mess said.

….

Wisconsin still has about 1.3 million cows spread across nearly 8,000 dairy farms, more than any other state. The dairy industry contributes $43.4 billion to Wisconsin’s economy each year, or more than $82,500 per minute.

The Parrot Whisperer Can Fix Your Bird Woes:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see an occasional thunderstorm with a high of seventy-five.  Sunrise is 5:28 AM and sunset 8:14 PM, for 14h 45m 53s of daytime.  The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano in Skamania County, Washington erupts. 

Recommended for reading in full:

Eliza Newlin Carney writes Republicans Abandon Election Security:

Russian attacks on the U.S. election infrastructure in 2016 were even more serious than reported at the time, recent disclosures show, and intelligence officials say they are bracing for more aggressive attacks from a wider array of foreign adversaries in 2020.

Yet instead of moving to shore up the nation’s vulnerable voting machines and databases, the Trump administration is sabotaging efforts to enhance election security at every turn. Trump’s determination to portray Russian interference as a hoax has made it taboo for members of his own administration to even talk about foreign meddling, and has derailed the leading bipartisan election security bill on Capitol Hill.

To make matters worse, Republicans have signaled that they don’t even plan to hold a single hearing on election security legislation—despite a growing list of bills introduced in recent weeks to block foreign interference on multiple fronts, many of them bipartisan. The reason? It seems that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is in such a fit of pique over House Democrats’ approval of sweeping democracy legislation that he’s unwilling to discuss election legislation of any kind.

….

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s redacted report on Russian interference disclosed for the first time that Russian hackers accessed election information from “at least one” Florida county—we now know it was two—in 2016. Mueller also disclosed that Russian hackers infiltrated and installed malware on the network of a U.S. vendor that manufactures voter registration software.

Jackson Diehl explains The real reason Venezuela’s Maduro survives: Dirty money:

When asked to explain why their efforts to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro have fallen short, Trump administration officials typically cite the sinister influence of Cuba and Russia, which they say has stiffened the regime’s resistance. What they don’t speak about so much is a possibly more important factor: the Cartel of the Suns.

That colorful term refers to the drug-trafficking network that each year flies hundreds of tons of Colombian cocaine from Venezuelan airfields to Central America and the Caribbean for eventual distribution in the United States and Europe — and that includes some of the most senior officials in the Maduro regime. These men are not clinging to power because they are true believers in socialism, or because of their fealty to Vladimir Putin and Raúl Castro. They hang on because, in spite of Venezuela’s economic implosion, they are still reaping millions — and they are likely to find themselves imprisoned in Venezuela or the United States if they walk away.

  Watch Jeff Bezos Reveal Blue Origin’s Detailed Plan For Colonizing Space:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see afternoons thunderstorm with a high of fifty-four.  Sunrise is 5:29 AM and sunset 8:13 PM, for 14h 43m 56s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1954, the United States Supreme Court unanimously decides Brown v. Board of Education. From that decision’s syllabus (a summary of the decision):

Segregation of white and Negro children in the public schools of a State solely on the basis of race, pursuant to state laws permitting or requiring such segregation, denies to Negro children the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment — even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors of white and Negro schools may be equal. Pp. 486-496.(a) The history of the Fourteenth Amendment is inconclusive as to its intended effect on public education. Pp. 489-490.(b) The question presented in these cases must be determined not on the basis of conditions existing when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, but in the light of the full development of public education and its present place in American life throughout the Nation. Pp. 492-493.(c) Where a State has undertaken to provide an opportunity for an education in its public schools, such an opportunity is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. P. 493.(d) Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even though the physical facilities and other “tangible” factors may be equal. Pp. 493-494.(e) The “separate but equal” doctrine adopted in Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, has no place in the field of public education. P. 495.(f) The cases are restored to the docket for further argument on specified questions relating to the forms of the decrees. Pp. 495-496.

See also Trump judicial nominees decline to endorse Brown v. Board under Senate questioning.

Recommended for reading in full:

Steve Liesman reports Trump’s tariffs are equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in decades:

President Donald Trump, having championed one of the larger tax cuts in recent years, has now enacted tariffs equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in decades.

A CNBC analysis of data from the Treasury Department ranks the combined $72 billion in revenue from all the president’s tariffs as one of the biggest tax increases since 1993. In fact, the tariff revenue ranks as the largest increase as a percent of GDP since 1993 when compared with the first year of all the revenue measures enacted since then, according to the data.

….

Kent Smetters of the Penn-Wharton Budget Model and a former Treasury official during the Bush administration, estimates that the tariff increase will cost the median U.S. household with earnings of $61,000 about $500 to $550 a year. It’s the equivalent, he said, of raising the Social Security retirement tax by 1 percentage point to 11.6%.

This Musician Plays the Leaf:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see an afternoon thunderstorm with a high of seventy-nine.  Sunrise is 5:30 AM and sunset 8:12 PM, for 14h 41m 57s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1933, the military is mobile against a ‘milk strike’:

seventy-five members of the Janesville-based 32nd Tank Company and 121st Field Artillery were mobilized to quell potential violence in the Wisconsin farmers’ statewide milk strike. The strike was called to protest low milk prices and protesters employed “milk dumping” as their main tactic.

Recommended for reading in full:

The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial board – usually pro-Trump – writes of Trump’s Dubious Hungarian Friend (‘Viktor Orban has done a tremendous job,’ the president says. What a disgrace):

“Respected all over Europe. Probably, like me, a little bit controversial, but that’s OK.” With these remarks, the U.S. president gave his seal of approval to Europe’s leading illiberal politician less than two weeks before elections for the European Parliament.

David Cornstein, the U.S. ambassador to Hungary and a personal friend of Mr. Trump, remarked in a recent interview: “I can tell you, knowing the president for a good 25 or 30 years, that he would love to have the situation that Viktor Orban has.”

This is easy to believe. The 2019 Freedom House survey demoted Hungary’s status from “free” to “partly free.” The report shows that Mr. Orban and his Fidesz party have mounted “sustained attacks on the country’s democratic institutions” by imposing restrictions on—or asserting control over—“the opposition, the media, religious groups, academia, NGOs, the courts, asylum seekers, and the private sector.”

According to the report, Mr. Orban’s administration has deployed government advertising, which represents a substantial share of Hungary’s media revenue, to bolster supportive media outlets and weaken his critics. This encouraged the formation of a massive pro-government media conglomerate, which the government then exempted from Hungary’s antitrust laws, which almost certainly would have prohibited it.

In Hungary, the press has been brought to heel. It is no longer the enemy of the people. No wonder Mr. Trump is envious.

….

Against this backdrop, Mr. Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Viktor Orban was a disgrace that no amount of White House realpolitik can justify.

(Again: Trump’s friends are democracy’s enemies.)

David J. Lynch writes China is paying Trump’s tariffs?:

The president’s continued insistence that China is bearing the cost of his import taxes has become a notable and unusual feature of his “America First” trade offensive. Many industry groups and most economists describe tariffs as a tax on Americans, paid by the American companies that bring foreign goods into the United States.

A pair of recent studies, by two teams of economists from institutions such as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, as well as Princeton, Yale and Columbia universities, both concluded that Americans are bearing nearly the entire cost of Trump’s tariffs.

Why Uber Is Losing Money:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of seventy-four.  Sunrise is 5:31 AM and sunset 8:11 PM, for 14h 39m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1941, the first Allied jet-propelled aircraft, a Gloster-Whittle E 28/39, flies. 

Recommended for reading in full:

Annie Lowrey writes How Trump Thinks Tariffs Work (And How They Actually Work):

In Trump’s mind, tariffs are a potent, unilateral weapon, and protectionism is a potent, necessary economic philosophy. He argues that his tariffs are a direct tax on Beijing—a way of sapping Chinese manufacturers, raising American revenue, aiding domestic businesses, and giving Washington leverage in trade negotiations. “Tariffs are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars worth of goods & products,” he said on Twitter. “These massive payments go directly to the Treasury of the U.S.”

This is not at all how it works; the Chinese government is no more apt to fork over billions of yuan for Trump’s tariffs than Mexico’s government is to pay for a border wall. Rather, tariffs fall on the American importers of Chinese goods, who often pass those cost increases onto American consumers. That means every time Trump raises tariffs, he risks raising costs on families and businesses.

….

Trump’s misconceptions on trade are not limited to tariffs. He continues to argue that the United States’ trade deficit with China is a sign it is getting ripped off, and that it is bleeding itself dry by engaging in commerce with the Chinese: “The United States has been losing, for many years, 600 to 800 Billion Dollars a year on Trade. With China we lose 500 Billion Dollars. Sorry, we’re not going to be doing that anymore!” There are many issues with the two countries’ economic relationship, and many ways that China does not play fair. But trade imbalances are not in and of themselves a bad thing. The United States has a trade deficit with China in large part because goods are cheaper to produce there, and Americans choose to consume huge amounts of them; the deficit is not a way of measuring capital losses in the United States.

As for tariffs bringing “FAR MORE wealth to our Country”: The trade war thus far has not caused tremendous macroeconomic damage. But it has hit certain industries and businesses very hard—dairy farms in Wisconsin, for instance—while increasing consumer prices a smidge. Economists have estimated that Trump’s trade war cost the country a sliver of GDP last year, in part by forcing businesses to rejigger their supply chains. (The pain is worst in heavily Republican counties, one analysis found.) Given Trump’s new tariffs and China’s retaliatory measures, the cost might be yet greater this year.

(Emphasis in original. Trump is an ignorant person’s idea of a knowledgeable person, a dense person’s idea of a clever one.)

High school track star overcomes homelessness, receives college scholarship: