Good morning, Whitewater.
Saturday in town will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty-one. Sunrise is 7:14 AM and sunset 4:20 PM, for 9h 06m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 56.9% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred ninety-fifth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1844, Milwaukee’s first daily newspaper, The Daily Sentinel, begins publication. On this day in 1861, Wisconsin’s first heavy artillery troops muster in: “The 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery, Battery A mustered in on this day in 1861. It remained Wisconsin’s only heavy artillery battery until 1863. Its entire service was spent in Washington, D.C., defending against Confederate attacks on the capital.”
Recommended for reading in full —
Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo report F.B.I. Warned Hope Hicks About Emails From Russian Operatives:
WASHINGTON — F.B.I. officials warned one of President Trump’s top advisers, Hope Hicks, earlier this year about repeated attempts by Russian operatives to make contact with her during the presidential transition, according to people familiar with the events.
The Russian outreach efforts show that, even after American intelligence agencies publicly accused Moscow of trying to influence the outcome of last year’s presidential election, Russian operatives were undaunted in their efforts to establish contacts with Mr. Trump’s advisers.
There is no evidence that Ms. Hicks did anything improper. According to former officials, American intelligence and law enforcement agencies became alarmed by introductory emails that Ms. Hicks received from Russian government addresses in the weeks after Mr. Trump’s election.
After he took office, senior F.B.I. counterintelligence agents met with Ms. Hicks in the White House Situation Room at least twice, gave her the names of the Russians who had contacted her, and said that they were not who they claimed to be. The F.B.I. was concerned that the emails to Ms. Hicks may have been part of a Russian intelligence operation, and they urged Ms. Hicks to be cautious….
(The news is significant, among other reasons, because the meeting prevents Hicks from responding – truthfully – to Special Counsel Mueller’s team that she was unaware of the extent of Russian outreach efforts.)
Russell Berman has The 2018 Congressional Retirement Tracker:
If you want to see a political wave forming a year before an election, watch the retirements.
They’re often a leading indicator for which direction a party is headed, and so far, 2018 is shaping up ominously for Republicans. In the last few months, two GOP senators, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona, and four Republican committee chairmen in the House have announced they won’t seek reelection next year. Several other veterans in competitive districts are also calling it quits, depriving the GOP of the advantage of incumbency in races that could determine control of the House in 2019. And more retirements are probably on the way between now and the end of the year, when lawmakers head home to discuss future plans with their families.
At the same time, a wave of allegations of sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior has scrambled the retirement picture in both parties in recent weeks, and it’s forced several lawmakers to leave Congress early. Scandals have already taken down Democratic Senator Al Franken and long-serving Representative John Conyers among Democrats, as well as GOP Representatives Trent Franks and Tim Murphy. More could be on the way as new allegations come to light.
As for those getting out in 2018, President Trump’s low approval rating and Congress’s meager legislative output may be contributing to the decisions of some Republicans to retire, including moderate Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania, Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey, and Dave Reichert of Washington state. But there are other factors at play. Unlike Democrats, Republicans have rules limiting the terms of their committee chairmen to ensure turnover and give younger members a chance to advance in the House. Congress isn’t as fun with less power, and all four of the retiring GOP committee leaders would be forced out of their roles and to the back bench in 2019….
Ariel Bogle asks Has the Google of South Korea Found a Way to Save Struggling News Outlets?:
Walk into the headquarters of South Korea’s biggest search engine, Naver, and you could be in Silicon Valley. Like Google and Facebook, the company has an affection for bean bags and primary colors. There are oversized toys in the shape of emoji from Naver’s messaging app, Line. A green wall is lined with ferns, and there’s an immaculately designed library.
Also like Google and Facebook, Naver has a tense relationship with journalists. Though the company produces no journalism itself, Naver’s desktop and mobile news portal is South Korea’s most popular news site. (The second is another local portal, Daum.) Naver hosts stories by various outlets, somewhat similar to news-aggregation apps like Apple News. In a country where around 83 percent of the population accesses news online, the company has outsize control over what Koreans read and see….
This hold that internet companies now have over digital advertising has left news outlets around the world in search of a sustainable business model. Some are doubling down on subscriptions; others rely on philanthropy. But Naver has an unusual model for working with Korean news publishers: The company directly pays 124 outlets as “Naver News in-link partners.” The outlets’ stories are published on Naver’s portal, making the site a one-stop source of articles and video and eliminating the need for readers to leave and visit the original news site. All the better for Naver’s own shopping platform and its own ads. (Another 500 or so news outlets are unpaid “search partners.” The site links to the publishers’ articles, much like Google News.) The total payout comes to more than $40 million per year.
For “in-link partners,” Naver’s model offers an alternative to relying on traffic from an aggregator like Google News, or schemes like Facebook’s Instant Articles that aim to share ad revenue. The partners have a negotiable relationship with the company that wants their work—a company that needs new content for readers each time they log on. Whether Naver’s compensation to publishers is sufficient, however, remains controversial. And like some of its fellow technology giants overseas, Naver’s news practices are under increasing scrutiny….
Barbara McQuade contends After Michael Flynn, Robert Mueller’s Next Targets Are in This Document:
The Statement of the Offense makes it clear that when Flynn spoke to Russia, he was not acting on his own as some rogue player. The Statement of Offense sets out a timeline indicating that Flynn’s conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak were being discussed in real time with a “senior member of President-elect Trump’s Transition Team” and a “very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team.” The document notes that the “senior member” was with other transition officials at the Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida, where President-elect Trump was staying at the time. Some reports indicate that the “senior member” is Flynn’s former deputy K.T. McFarland and the “very senior member” is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Regardless, Flynn knows who they are and is prepared to testify about them, according to the plea agreement. This disclosure sheds new light on the reports that Kushner sought a back channel for communication with Russia during the transition. Flynn likely can confirm or refute this report and explain why any back channel for communicating with Russia might have been sought. (Kushner denied it was a “secret back channel” and said communications were to be about Syria)….
The Statement of Offense is not a document that Mueller is required to file. Why, then, did he file it? In part, no doubt, he wants to lock Flynn into what he will testify to if necessary at any trial. But if locking in Flynn’s statement was Mueller’s goal, he could do that by having Flynn testify under oath and in private before the grand jury. So why make it public? The “senior member” and “very senior member” of the transition team mentioned in the documents know who they are. Including this language in a public document sends a message to them that if they want to cooperate, now is the time, and perhaps, they, too, can get a good deal….
Trey Griffith is Stacking His Way to the Top:
When Trey Griffith found his first set of stacking cups, his life was changed forever. He began training himself to rack and stack cups at lightning speed, competing in tournaments around the globe. Trey’s father eventually took up stacking himself as an opportunity to bond and compete alongside his son. Today, at age 14, Trey is already the fastest stacker in the state of Texas. Now, he’s ready to take on the world.