It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some shit you need to know.
It's a sad case when trying to find news about the war is becoming harder and harder because major news organizations are like, we're never getting out of here.
We just, there's nothing new.
But this is new.
The president said late yesterday that he was pausing.
the military's new operation to clear a transit path through the Strait of Hormuz for commercial vessels, halting the mission that it only just begun.
Even as more than 1,500 commercial ships are still waiting to get through Iran's closure of the crucial waterway.
Trump said the pause, quote, comes at the request of Pakistan and other countries and means that U.S.
military operations, including using warships to clear a path through the Strait, will be halted.
quote, for a short period of time to see whether or not the peace agreement can be finalized and signed.
I'll let you make the joke about how long it'll probably be, Jamie.
Two weeks.
Thank you.
Trump wrote in a social media post all of that yesterday.
That means that while the US Navy will continue to stop ships that have entered Iranian ports, the air and sea based operations to clear the strait for commercial vessels
is now on hold.
Both sides have exchanged fire in the past day over the strait.
So, cease fire?
I don't think they know what that means.
Trump's announcement followed two news conferences yesterday, one at the Pentagon and one at the White House, where the administration touted the effectiveness of the new military operation and strived to convince reporters that the new mission dubbed project freedom was working.
I love that they had to strive to convince reporters.
No, seriously.
Seriously, guys, it's working.
We're doing great.
Despite Iran firing missiles and drones at U.S.
ships on the initial day of
transit clearing and the U.S.
destroying at least six Iranian fast boats in return.
Earlier Tuesday, while we talked about it a little as it was happening, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the U.S.
mission to protect commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz would be temporary.
Little did he know how temporary it was going to be.
And that other nations would soon have to take responsibility.
He also emphasized that the fragile ceasefire with Iran remained in place despite ship attacks.
I would love to send a thesaurus and a dictionary, mostly a dictionary, to the administration.
If you are still firing and they are still firing, that's not a ceasefire.
No.
That is a continue fire.
Which means that the war is not actually ended No, like the president would like to tell us I mean the this entire process this entire Event chain happened before before Pete Hegseth could basically say the words get off the stage turn off the microphone fold his pocket square and move on with his day I mean it was all so quick in in what happened
It's just more of the same, right?
It really truly is because there is no, we've said it, and I don't want to keep beating the same drum, but we have to, right?
There's no plan.
There's absolutely no plan here as to what is going to happen.
There was no plan going in during the initial attack two months ago and maybe even into the summer if you want to look a little further than that.
And there's obviously no plan to get out of this.
There is no diplomacy happening.
There is no negotiation happening.
Diplomacy is not a mean tweet.
It is not a tweet of what you think is strength.
That is not what this is.
And if you're not sending anybody there to actually sit down
face-to-face with officials, there's no plan.
There's no plan.
And the plan, now it's desperation mode.
Right.
Because I'm gonna try this, didn't worry, I'm gonna try this.
And even the most right-wing news media are starting to question, I don't know if you saw
a
Newsmax reporter yesterday asking Pete Hexeth why the president had capitulated.
And man, oh man, whiskey Pete got mad at that one.
He'd know.
The president did not capitulate on anything.
He loves to use the catchphrase.
Locked and loaded, he left off the three-point stance, though.
I liked that one from the earlier press conference yesterday.
But locked and loaded, and it's America first, and the president is great, and blah, blah, blah.
And he tried to pull a trump on the reporter.
He goes, Jim, you started out great, because of course the reporter.
Give
a little smoochy to the heiny as he started his question and then asked about the capitulation Oh, and you ended up right where we knew you would end up Yeah, everybody's gonna end up there Pete because
yeah,
we see it and we need to know and you guys are flailing away trying to figure out what to do because you went in half cocked not locked and loaded and you've just been cosplaying and letting letting a guy
who has no military expertise whatsoever, run roughshod over military experts in order to facilitate some sort of fever dream about a nuclear weapon that did not exist.
And while we're all looking at, well, is oil the real deal?
Of course, the real cause of this whole thing is oil.
You try to disguise it with this nuclear weapon ridiculousness.
And then you create the problem and blame somebody else and now can't fix it.
The problem being the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which was wide open.
And in the meantime, while that's happening, everybody.
here in the United States, including in Wisconsin, and across the globe, are feeling the ramifications of all of those decisions because prices just keep skyrocketing.
Oil prices are going up.
And there is absolutely no end in sight.
And again, a reminder that even if this conflict were to end today, right, it's not.
But if it were hypothetically, those prices would not automatically just come down.
quickly.
And I mean, and we're going to talk about a little later this morning, but you know, you even look at things like travel plans for the summer.
If you need to fly, good luck book now because it's, it's pretty ridiculous.
And we'll get into a little bit more of that this morning, as far as how that's going to impact people who might have travel plans, but.
It's an across the board thing, all the way from what you're putting into your car, your gas, you're putting into your car, to your oil, to your groceries, to your energy bills, and to all of the goods that you want to buy.
And I just look at, the prices aren't coming down.
Every time I go to the store, everything is more expensive than it was the last time I went to the store.
That's the ramification.
They claim it is,
and now they're floating the, we're going to stop oil exports.
They're floating that ideal, which according to...
All industry experts is a horrible idea because while we do export a lot of oil, we also import a lot of oil, I wanted to say 16 million barrels or 60 million barrels a day, whatever it is, everything is interconnected, everything, but he doesn't see those connections.
He is impulsive and just makes a decision based on his gut, which we have seen over and over again.
His gut, I think he needs to take some probiotics because his gut is not acting correctly.
What I think what other
rest do we have to know Jamie?
There's
got to be something
there is there is some more and now the Democrats want some conversations and some words of wisdom apparently from Secretary of State Marco Rubio because they have asked him to publicly announce that Israel possesses nuclear weapons arguing that Washington must end decades of ambiguity over the issue in the middle of this conflict with Iran in a letter that they sent on Monday 30 Democrats wrote
that it was unsustainable for Donald Trump to collaborate with the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a military campaign against Iran with the stated goal of preventing the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon without publicly acknowledging the U.S.
allies' possession.
of a bomb.
In this particular letter, it says, quote, we are in the fullest sense fighting this war side by side with a country whose potential nuclear weapons program the United States government officially refuses to acknowledge.
It goes on to say Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be fully informed about the nuclear balance in the Middle East, the risk of escalation by any party to this conflict and the administration's planning and contingencies for such scenarios.
We do not believe we have received that information.
Now, in case you're wondering, Israel has never acknowledged its nuclear weapons programs and no U.S.
administration has publicly stated that it exists despite considerable evidence that it actually does.
The program traces its origins all the way back to the 1950s.
It did have assistance from U.S.
allies, including France and apartheid South Africa.
U.S.
presidents though have for decades avoided discussing the subject.
Barack Obama responded to her
reporter's question about it early in his presidency by saying he did not wish to speculate.
Interesting.
You're talking about Israel, the country that didn't cajole Donald Trump into starting a war of choice.
That's the one.
Yes.
All right.
I'm just checking.
Hey, look, something close to home.
We talked about this yesterday in the under the guidelines of.
how test scores were not being changed by cell phone bans in schools.
Well, yesterday the Madison School District unveiled its proposal for a new cell phone policy at the school board meeting and saying students could not use their phone, could only use their phone during passing time and at lunch periods they recommended an all-day ban.
for grades K through eight.
So a little leniency, like I said, when they're passing, but other than that, no, there's some school board members expressed trepidation.
I love when you express trepidation.
About a full day ban for kindergarten kids don't need a phone.
No, you taught second grade, right?
Hard stop, period,
end of story.
I taught everything from preschool to fifth.
Did they need phones in kindergarten and second grade?
They barely can wipe their nose in kindergarten, and I don't say that to be mean.
You're right,
though.
It is, yes, they can't tie their shoes.
They don't need a phone.
Trust me, if your child is in danger at school, we will protect them.
We will wrangle them.
They will not stay quiet during a, I don't know what we call them now.
I still call them.
When I started, it was active shooter drills, but now, you know, they'll be fine.
So there was the district...
The district used to let principals just determine
what
they could do in their own schools.
Now, state law requires school boards to implement those district-wide policies, which is why you got the administration involved.
The proposed policy would meet the law's requirements, mandating that Wisconsin school districts limit student cell phone usage during instructional time.
Full ban for younger students would go further than the law's mandate.
Again, there is a...
I understand parents' worries.
I don't think they're, and I know you're going to say, well, there was a shooting at a school in Madison.
I understand that.
And so I don't take away from parents' worry.
You know,
if
my daughter was still in school at this point, I would want her to have some sort of access to me.
There has to be a way to figure it out because as we talked about yesterday, studies have shown that while teachers love it because
kids aren't distracted.
It's not really having any effect on grades.
Right.
It's
not having test scores.
Everybody's still fine.
So, okay.
I think it's also important to point out that this is going to be a statewide law, but almost 90% of districts in Wisconsin already have some kind of phone restriction at the schools.
And just
because it's law, how are they... Right.
It's going to be up to each school to enforce it.
Each classroom teacher is going to have to enforce
it.
Right.
They're going to have to be creative about how they enact this, whether it's you have to leave them in the locker or you have to...
drop
them off.
Teachers are actually asking for that.
They want more clarification on all this instructor policies.
So, you know, I don't know.
They happen to be the ones with the kids all day.
Give them what they want.
What they want is to be paid fairly.
Right.
It's a wake-up call in more ways than one.
Time for some shit you need to know.
This is a very Wisconsin-centric edition of stuff you need to know, which is good.
Harley Davidson reported a first quarter profit of 25 million down significantly from 133 million at this point last year.
The motorcycle maker reported the results May 5th along with a new strategy called Back to the Bricks which it is hoping will change its fortunes for the year.
Motorcycle sales did increase 14% in North America to 23,800 units.
Overall, motorcycle shipments were down globally to roughly 37,000 motorcycles.
In terms of motorcycle sales, the company saw an 8% increase globally.
Their licensing did increase.
They knew the electric motorcycle, which seems to go against everything Harley was built on.
But I know it's a sign of the times.
Livewire reported a $5 million in revenue.
That's up.
about two million dollars from last year so it's also reported an 18 million dollar loss which is also an improvement which sounds weird but that's it up from 20 million loss in the first quarter so they sold more this year but they lost a bunch and
The new CEO, Jonathan Root, said the global tariff environment continues to evolve.
There are a number of factors at play in this space, including the potential for increased tariff recoveries, Root said.
Company is expecting a first quarter to have the largest tariff impact at $45 million.
As part of the new strategy, the company plans to leave heavily on its dealership network to enable dealers to double profitability in 2026, then double it again by 2029.
However, much like the administration, they were not specific about how those goals are going to be accomplished.
But they will.
Let's
be realistic, this was not unexpected.
We actually talked about the potential for this a few weeks ago.
They're not also going to be the only company that is probably going to see these types of losses based on the tariffs.
None of this is surprising because the tariffs have wreaked havoc on manufacturing and the economy of the United States.
None of this is surprising, but I do love that they're going to go with this back to the BRICS strategy, which kind of sounds like they're going back to rethinking things, going back to a more simplified structure.
You know, well,
I guess
we'll see.
We'll see what happens.
We will see.
What else do we need to know?
Well, it turns out that there's a salmonella outbreak across the state.
And it's at this point, second dozens of people.
And it's not just in Wisconsin.
It is across multiple states.
But it does include this great state.
It's been linked to backyard poultry, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Urban chicken farmers, that's what you're telling me?
Right.
That's right.
The summonella cases have been reported in 13 states with 34 people sickened by the bacteria, including 13 who were hospitalized.
Now, no deaths have been reported.
The illnesses started between late February and late March.
Five cases have been reported in Wisconsin, according to the CDC.
Public health officials have linked backyard poultry to this outbreak.
Of the 29 people interviewed, 23 reported contact with backyard poultry, 14 people reported owning backyard poultry, and 13 had obtained the animals after January 1st.
Now it usually takes about three to four weeks to determine if a sick person is part of an outbreak, so some of these recent illnesses may not have been reported yet.
CDC investigators in Ohio confirmed that backyard poultry had the same strain of somnilla as humans with confirmed cases.
Even chickens
ducks that appear healthy can carry salmonella.
Touching the birds or their environment and then touching your mouth, your food is a common way to transmit salmonella.
Of course, some basic, you know, just hygiene practices.
Always good if you don't want to catch salmonella, like washing your hands, maybe not eating or drinking after you work with birds, those types.
Don't snuggle your backyard
poultry.
I said don't kiss or snuggle backyard poultry.
So remember that with your ducks that are nesting outside.
No, no, no.
No snuggling your ducks.
We're
leaving them alone, but we're admiring from afar.
Regardless of how transmission happens, people infected with salmonella can experience diarrhea, fever, and stomach
Those symptoms can start six hours or six days after swallowing
the
germs.
Children under five, adults over 65 and anybody with a weakened immune system may experience more severe symptoms like extreme diarrhea, vomiting while not keeping liquids down, as well as dehydration.
So that's unfortunate with your backyard flock.
Look, I
have
friends who have chickens.
I'm cool with that, but
you know.
This is strange.
The house we moved into has a giant chicken coop.
Okay.
And I joked with my wife, should we start raising chickens?
Sure.
Somebody in the neighborhood raises chickens because I hear the roosters going in the morning and I hear the chickens clucking during the day.
It seems like a very hipster move to me.
Oh, I want to collect my own eggs and have chickens in my backyard.
My friends do it because of organic
farming and because of the cost of organic eggs.
That's why they do their
own.
Yeah, okay.
Is there a difference between organic eggs and regular eggs?
I don't know.
For my
friends, it's how they're raised.
The cage-less versus the human.
I don't know.
I don't try to ask too many questions.
I don't love birds, so I don't venture to their
backyard when I
go over there.
Let
me be real.
Know listen, we're gonna I don't want to get into a how chickens are crowded into the things.
I think
that's horrible Eggs
they eggs they have to make the eggs.
Nobody's forcing them to make eggs right chickens have to lay eggs.
I Don't know.
Yeah, just it's just if you're living in an apartment building in downtown Madison do you really need to be
Farming chickens in your backyard.
It just seems it's it's like oh look at how cool and special I am and how much it's like dude You live two blocks from the grocery store water down there and get some eggs Nobody wants to hear your farmer Jones, you know you and your overalls standing outside with your handlebar mustache
