Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see morning showers, then afternoon clearing, with a high of eighty-five.  Sunrise is 6:40 AM and sunset 6:54 PM, for 12h 13m 54s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1863, the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia, ends:

For three days, 58,000 Union troops had faced off against 66,000 Confederates in the war’s second-bloodiest battle. The battle left Union troops pinned inside Chattanooga, Tennessee, and temporarily halted their advance into the heart of the Confederacy. Nine Wisconsin regiments participated.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Greg Miller shares an excerpt from ‘The Apprentice’ book excerpt: At CIA’s ‘Russia House,’ growing alarm about 2016 election interference:

The warren of cubicles was secured behind a metal door. The name on the hallway placard had changed often over the years, most recently designating the space as part of the Mission Center for Europe and Eurasia. But internally, the office was known by its unofficial title: “Russia House.”

The unit had for decades been the center of gravity at the CIA, an agency within the agency, locked in battle with the KGB for the duration of the Cold War. The department’s prestige had waned after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and it was forced at one point to surrender space to counterterrorism officers.

But Russia House later reclaimed that real estate and began rebuilding, vaulting back to relevance as Moscow reasserted itself. Here, among a maze of desks, dozens of reports officers fielded encrypted cables from abroad, and “targeters” meticulously scoured data on Russian officials, agencies, businesses and communications networks the CIA might exploit for intelligence.

In the months leading up to the 2016 election, senior Russia House officials held a series of meetings in a conference room adorned with Stalin-era posters, seeking to make sense of disconcerting reports that Moscow had mounted a covert operation to upend the U.S. presidential race.

By early August, the sense of alarm had become so acute that CIA Director John Brennan called White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough. “I need to get in to see the president,” Brennan said, with unusual urgency in his voice.

“The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy” by Greg Miller (HarperCollins)

Brennan had just spent two days sequestered in his office reviewing a small mountain of material on Russia.

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon showers, with a high of seventy-six.  Sunrise is 6:39 AM and sunset 6:56 PM, for 12h 16m 47s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1832, the Sauk and Fox cede Iowa lands:

On this date Sauk and Fox Indians signed the treaty ending the Black Hawk War. The treaty demanded that the Sauk cede some six million acres of land that ran the length of the eastern boundary of modern-day Iowa. The Sauk and Fox were given until June 1, 1833 to leave the area and never return to the surrendered lands. Some sources place the date as September 21. [Source: Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark, p. 160-161]

Recommended for reading in full — 

Patrick Marley reports Teen prison guard fired in incident that left teen brain damaged gets reinstated and nearly $30,000 in back pay:

A fired prison guard who falsely claimed she had repeatedly checked on a teen inmate before the inmate hanged herself in her cell has won reinstatement — with back pay.

Taxpayers must pay guard Rosemary Esterholm about $29,000 after the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission determined last week that she was wrongly fired in March and must get her job back.

The decision follows a round of firings in March around the time the state reached an $18.9 million settlement with a former 16-year-old inmate who was severely brain damaged after she hanged herself at Copper Lake School for Girls.

Copper Lake and Lincoln Hills School for Boys, which sit on the same campus north of Wausau, have been under criminal investigation since 2015 for prisoner abuse and child neglect. The facilities are slated to close by 2021.

Lauren Bauer writes Behind the numbers: Millions seeking a path out of poverty:

Today, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 39.7 million Americans experienced poverty last year – statistically the same as last year. In order to effectively craft policies to combat poverty, we need to know exactly who is poor – not just whether their pre-tax income falls below a given number.  Millions of Americans – including children and their parents, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and workers – make up the national number of people living in poverty.

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see a mix of sunshine, clouds, and occasional thunderstorms, with a high of eighty.  Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 6:58 PM, for 12h 19m 40s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 65.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1863, Wisconsin troops prepare for battle at Chickamauga:

Major General Alexander McCook’s command, including the 15th Wisconsin Infantry, arrived at Chickamauga, Georgia, the night before the Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia. The 1st, 10th, 15th, 21st, and 24th Wisconsin Infantry regiments along with the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry and the 3rd, 5th, and 8th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries would participate in some of the fiercest fighting.

Recommended for reading in full — 

► Grigor Atanesian reports How Hackers Could Attack Wisconsin’s Elections And What State Officials Are Doing About It (“Cybersecurity Experts Warn Private Vendors, Modems, Removable Memory Devices Make State’s Decentralized Voting System Vulnerable To Attack”):

In July, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism reported that Russian hackers have targeted websites of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, the state Department of Workforce Development and municipalities including Ashland, Bayfield and Washburn. Elections in this swing state are administered by 1,853 municipal clerks, 72 county clerks and the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Top cybersecurity experts from the United States, Canada and Russia interviewed by the Center said some practices and hardware components could make voting in Wisconsin open to a few types of malicious attacks, and that Russian actors have a record of these specific actions.

And it is not just Wisconsin — this is a nationwide threat, the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine stated in its newly released report, Securing the Vote.

“With respect to foreign threats, the challenge is compounded by the great asymmetry between the capabilities and resources available to local jurisdictions in the United States and those of foreign intelligence services,” according to the report.

► Anna Nemtsova writes Russia Shows Us What Happens to ‘Enemies of the People’: Bloodied Heads, Murdered Reporters, Poisoned Dissidents:

Media experts have monitored an increasing number of attacks on journalists all over Russia. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 38 reporters have been targeted for murder in Russia since 1992, and in 33 of those cases the killers acted with impunity. Just speak with any independent reporter in Russia today and you will hear stories of death threats and violence.

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny, with a high of eighty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 7:00 PM, for 12h 22m 32s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

It’s Constitution Day in America. On this day in 1787, the Constitutional Convention takes up a final draft of their work:

From August 6 to September 10, the report of the committee of detail was discussed, section by section and clause by clause. Details were attended to, and further compromises were effected.[31][33] Toward the close of these discussions, on September 8, a “Committee of Style and Arrangement” – Alexander Hamilton (New York), William Samuel Johnson (Connecticut), Rufus King (Massachusetts), James Madison (Virginia), and Gouverneur Morris (Pennsylvania) – was appointed to distill a final draft constitution from the twenty-three approved articles.[33] The final draft, presented to the convention on September 12, contained seven articles, a preamble and a closing endorsement, of which Morris was the primary author.[28] The committee also presented a proposed letter to accompany the constitution when delivered to Congress.[35]

The final document, engrossed by Jacob Shallus,[36] was taken up on Monday, September 17, at the Convention’s final session. Several of the delegates were disappointed in the result, a makeshift series of unfortunate compromises. Some delegates left before the ceremony, and three others refused to sign. Of the thirty-nine signers, Benjamin Franklin summed up, addressing the Convention: “There are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them.” He would accept the Constitution, “because I expect no better and because I am not sure that it is not the best”.[37]

The advocates of the Constitution were anxious to obtain unanimous support of all twelve states represented in the Convention. Their accepted formula for the closing endorsement was “Done in Convention, by the unanimous consent of the States present.” At the end of the convention, the proposal was agreed to by eleven state delegations and the lone remaining delegate from New York, Alexander Hamilton.[38]

Recommended for reading in full — 

Mark Sommerhauser reports Critics call WisDOT’s preferred plan for I-39/90 at Beltline ‘brand-new bottleneck’:

The department recently told federal highway officials it recommends rebuilding the I-39/90 interchange with the Beltline such that the northbound side narrows, through its core section, to two lanes.

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 6:36 AM and sunset 7:02 PM, for 12h 25m 25s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 45.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, Wisconsinites are engaged in Tennessee:

The Wisconsin 13th Infantry participated in an operation against Confederate generals Forrest and Hood in Tennessee.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Ross Douthat comments on Conservatism After Christianity (“A new survey reveals the Republican Party’s religious divide”):

One of the many paradoxes of the Trump era is that our unusual president couldn’t have been elected, and couldn’t survive politically today, without the support of religious conservatives … but at the same time his ascent was intimately connected to the secularization of conservatism, and his style gives us a taste of what to expect from a post-religious right.

The second point was clear during the Republican primaries, when the most reliable churchgoers tended to prefer Ted Cruz but the more secular part of the party was more Trumpist. But it was obscured in the general election, and since, by the fact that evangelical voters especially rallied to Trump and have generally stood by him.

Now, though, a new survey reveals the extent to which a basic religious division still exists within Trump’s Republican Party. The churchgoers who ultimately voted for Trump over Clinton still tend to hold different views than his more secular supporters, and the more religious part of the G.O.P. is still the less Trumpist portion — meaning less populist on economics, but also less authoritarian and tribal on race and identity.

The survey was conducted by the Cato Institute’s Emily Ekins for the Voter Study Group, who analyzed the views of Trump voters based on their frequency of church attendance — from “never” to “weekly” or more often. The trend was consistent: The more often a Trump voter attended church, the less white-identitarian they appeared, the more they expressed favorable views of racial minorities, and the less they agreed with populist arguments on trade and immigration.

(It’s impossible to overstate how important these findings are. It’s simply false to contend that increasing secularization necessarily tends toward a progressive position – Trumpism is proof that an increasingly secular core of followers can – and in this case does – lead not leftward but to reactionary and nihilist demands for a herrenvolk.… Continue reading

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 6:35 AM and sunset 7:03 PM, for 12h 28m 18s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 35.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1940, Britain wins decisive victories in engagements during the Battle of Britain:

On 15 September, two massive waves of German attacks were decisively repulsed by the RAF by deploying every aircraft in 11 Group. Sixty German and twenty-six RAF aircraft were shot down. The action was the climax of the Battle of Britain.^[248]

Two days after the German defeat Hitler postponed preparations for the invasion of Britain. Henceforth, in the face of mounting losses in men, aircraft and the lack of adequate replacements, the Luftwaffe completed their gradual shift from daylight bomber raids and continued with nighttime bombing. 15 September is commemorated as Battle of Britain Day.

Recommended for reading in full — 

The New York Times editorial board describes Medicine’s Financial Contamination (“Disclosure rules may seem arcane, but money corrupts medical research”):

The fall from grace last week of Dr. José Baselga, the former chief scientific officer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, illuminated a longstanding problem of modern medicine: Potentially corrupting payments by drug and medical device makers to influential people at research hospitals are far more common than either side publicly acknowledges.

Dr. Baselga, a giant in cancer research whose work led to the discovery of the lifesaving drug Herceptin, resigned on Thursday after The New York Times and ProPublica reported that he had repeatedly failed to properly disclose millions in industry payments.

Decades of research and real world examples have shown that such entanglements can distort the practice of medicine in ways big and small. Even little gifts have been found to influence doctors’ prescribing habitsand their perceptions of a given company’s products. Larger payments have been shown to affect the design of clinical trials and the reporting of trial results, among other things. And such financial entanglements have proved devastating to individual patients — and to society at large. The opioid epidemic, to take one recent example, was partly spread by doctors who were persuaded to ignore warning bells and prescribe these drugs liberally by companies that showered them with gifts and consulting fees.

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 6:34 AM and sunset 7:05 PM, for 12h 31m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 27.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1812, French dictator Napoleon enters Moscow, only to find the city abandoned:

On September 14, 1812, Napoleon moved into Moscow. However, he was surprised to have received no delegation from the city. At the approach of a victorious general, the civil authorities customarily presented themselves at the gates of the city with the keys to the city in an attempt to safeguard the population and their property. As nobody received Napoleon he sent his aides into the city, seeking out officials with whom the arrangements for the occupation could be made. When none could be found, it became clear that the Russians had left the city unconditionally.^[85] In a normal surrender, the city officials would be forced to find billets and make arrangements for the feeding of the soldiers, but the situation caused a free-for-all in which every man was forced to find lodgings and sustenance for himself. Napoleon was secretly disappointed by the lack of custom as he felt it robbed him of a traditional victory over the Russians, especially in taking such a historically significant city.^[85] To make matters worse, Moscow had been stripped of all supplies by its governor, Feodor Rostopchin, who had also ordered the prisons to be opened.

Before the order was received to evacuate Moscow, the city had a population of approximately 270,000 people. As much of the population pulled out, the remainder were burning or robbing the remaining stores of food, depriving the French of their use. As Napoleon entered the Kremlin, there still remained one-third of the original population, mainly consisting of foreign traders, servants and people who were unable or unwilling to flee. These, including the several hundred strong French colony, attempted to avoid the troops.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Patrick Marley reports Legal woes at teen prison have cost Wisconsin $20.6 million and counting:

Lawsuits over the problems at Wisconsin’s juvenile prison complex have cost the state $20.6 million so far and those costs will continue to rise — possibly by large sums if some cases aren’t resolved in the state’s favor.