Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of eighty.  Sunrise is 6:04 AM and sunset 7:53 PM, for 13h 48m 44s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 42.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, Wisconsin soldiers bury Confederate dead at Cedar Mountain, Virginia:

A soldier in the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry wrote home this day describing the aftermath of the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Virginia. He criticizes Confederate officers for withdrawing under cover of darkness and forcing Union soldiers to inter their enemies: “Instead of burying his dead, we found the plains, the hills, the villages strewn with dead and dying rebels. Oh! the sight was sickening, and beggars description. Here an arm, there a leg, yonder half of what was once a man…”

Recommended for reading in full — 

The Spectator (in a review of House of Trump, House of Putin by Craig Unger) asks Did the Russian mafia help Trump along his way to the Oval Office?:

Before he died last year, the New York muckraking reporter Wayne Barrett told me he had discovered ‘25 to 30’ connections between Donald Trump and the mob. He was talking about Italian-American organised crime but today another New York journalist, Craig Unger, says he has found ‘59’ links to the Russian mafia. He lists them all in his new book House of Trump, House of Putin, which is damning in its accumulation of detail, terrifying in its depiction of the pure evil of those Trump chose to do business with, and enraging in that — if Unger is right — Trump acted with impunity for decades to get filthy rich laundering the mob’s blood money. This is the man who now sits in the Oval Office, Unger says. In fact, he argues, they put him there.

House of Trump, House of Putin starts with Trump’s early days in business, when his lawyer was Roy Cohn, who was also consigliere to two of the five New York Italian crime families and ‘the most evil, twisted, vicious bastard ever to snort coke at Studio 54’. There were mafia figures like ‘Sonny’ Franzese, a hitman who was recorded helpfully explaining how to get rid of the bodies: ‘Dismember victim in kiddie pool. Cook div parts in microwave. Stuff parts in garbage disposal. Be patient.’ When one of these Italian gangsters met Trump to buy an apartment ‘he opened his briefcase and $200,000 in cash spilled out on Trump’s table’.

To the Russians, this was small time. Unger retells a story of Barrett’s that when a Red mafiya boss, David Bogatin, came to Trump Tower, he met Trump himself and immediately bought five apartments for $6 million in cash (about $14.5 million today). Trump didn’t seem to wonder where this money might have come from. He was one of the first developers to discover that you could sell condos to shell companies that concealed the owners’ identities, Unger says. This allowed Russian criminals ‘to launder vast amounts of money’. Trump’s willingness to sell ‘no questions asked’ was so important, Unger believes, that he gave the Russian mafia a foothold in the United States.

William H. McRaven, a retired Navy admiral, was commander of the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014. He oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. He writes Revoke my security clearance, too, Mr. President:

Like most Americans, I had hoped that when you became president, you would rise to the occasion and become the leader this great nation needs.

A good leader tries to embody the best qualities of his or her organization. A good leader sets the example for others to follow. A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself.

Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities. Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation.

If you think for a moment that your McCarthy-era tactics will suppress the voices of criticism, you are sadly mistaken. The criticism will continue until you become the leader we prayed you would be.

Anna Nemtsova writes Trump Wants to Make Asbestos Great Again:

In the Russian city of Asbest in the Ural Mountains, life and work revolves around a dark pit more than 1,000 feet deep and six miles long, the largest asbestos-producing mine in the world. The future of every household in this community of about 70,000 people depends on chrysotile, the white mineral from which asbestos fibers are extracted—fibers so extremely carcinogenic that 65 countries have banned them.

The World Health Organization is unequivocal: “Exposure to asbestos, including chrysotile, causes cancer of the lung, larynx and ovary, mesothelioma (a cancer of the pleural and peritoneal linings) and asbestosis (fibrosis of the lungs).” The WHO estimated in 2014 that 107,000 people die each year because of asbestos related diseases (PDF). Worldwide, asbestos is responsible for about half of all the work-related deaths from cancer. In the United States every year mesothelioma kills from 12,000 to 15,000 Americans.

Not surprisingly, given such statistics, the company that operates the enormous mine, Uralasbest (also written as Ural Asbest), has lost many of its buyers and significantly cut down both its production volume and staff. Since 2013 more than 1,000 of some 5,000 workers have lost their jobs, and panic has gripped the city like an epidemic.

But Russia continues to insist that chrysotile is safe if used in controlled conditions—and so, enthusiastically and notoriously, does President Donald Trump.

  Jim Tankersley reports Steel Giants With Ties to Trump Officials Block Tariff Relief for Hundreds of Firms:

Two of America’s biggest steel manufacturers — both with deep ties to administration officials — have successfully objected to hundreds of requests by American companies that buy foreign steel to exempt themselves from President Trump’s stiff metal tariffs. They have argued that the imported products are readily available from American steel manufacturers.

Charlotte-based Nucor, which financed a documentary film made by a top trade adviser to Mr. Trump, and Pittsburgh-based United States Steel, which has previously employed several top administration officials, have objected to 1,600 exemption requests filed with the Commerce Department over the past several months.

To date, their efforts have never failed, resulting in denials for companies that are based in the United States but rely on imported pipes, screws, wire and other foreign steel products for their supply chains.

The Ocean’s Cosmic Lessons:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with an afternoon shower, and a high of eighty-one.  Sunrise is 6:03 AM and sunset 7:54 PM, for 13h 51m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 32.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1896, the Klondike Gold Rush begins:

The Klondike Gold Rush[n 1] was a migration by an estimated 100,000 prospectors to the Klondike region of the Yukon in north-western Canada between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896, and, when news reached Seattle and San Francisco the following year, it triggered a stampede of prospectors. Some became wealthy, but the majority went in vain. It has been immortalized in photographs, books, films, and artifacts.

To reach the gold fields, most took the route through the ports of Dyea and Skagway in Southeast Alaska. Here, the Klondikers could follow either the Chilkoot or the White Pass trails to the Yukon River and sail down to the Klondike. Each of them was required to bring a year’s supply of food by the Canadian authorities in order to prevent starvation. In all, their equipment weighed close to a ton, which for most had to be carried in stages by themselves. Together with mountainous terrain and cold climate, this meant that those who persisted did not arrive until summer 1898. Once there, they found few opportunities, and many left disappointed.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz reports Chicago-area manufacturer to lay off 150 people, move operations to Mexico, to avoid tariffs on Chinese metal:

Stack-On Products plans to lay off 128 people at its facility in north suburban Wauconda and 25 people at its McHenry plant when it closes both facilities Oct. 12, said Al Fletcher, human resources director for Alpha Guardian, the Las Vegas-based parent company.

“The operation is really not profitable,” Fletcher said. He said the decision to relocate operations to Juarez, Mexico, was made about two months ago when President Donald Trump announced tariffs on numerous goods and materials from China as well as other countries, to reduce what the president has called an unfair trade deficit.

“Mr. Trump is part of this,” Fletcher said. So far, the United States has imposed tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese technology goods and $3 billion of Chinese steel and aluminum, and has proposed another $16 billion.

David A. Graham observes The End of the David Clarke Era (“The successor to the controversial former Milwaukee County sheriff lost his primary on Tuesday, the latest law-enforcement officer to lose to a reformist this year”):

Remember David Clarke? He became a national celebrity for his support of Donald Trump during the 2016 election, speaking at the Republican National Convention and delivering often inflammatory remarks on the campaign trail.

But as Clarke’s large array of badges and oversize hat were intended to remind, he was first and foremost a lawman—the sheriff of Milwaukee County, in office since 2002. In that position, Clarke was a prominent advocate for giving law enforcement wide latitude, and he fiercely criticized criminal-justice reform and scrutiny of the police. These stands were notable because he is African American and a registered Democrat. It was a partly self-interested stand: Clarke was himself under scrutiny for his management of the sheriff’s department, and especially for the multiple deaths in the county jails he ran.

Clarke left office in 2017 with the promise of a job in the Trump administration that never actually materialized. (He later joined a pro-Trump political-action committee.) On Tuesday, however, the police-reform movement won a victory over Clarke’s legacy in the county, turning out his successor and former deputy in the Democratic primary for sheriff. Earnell Lucas won roughly 57 percent of the vote, handily defeating Acting Sheriff Richard Schmidt, who took 34 percent. (A third candidate finished far back.)

Margot Sanger-Katz reports Bleak New Estimates in Drug Epidemic: A Record 72,000 Overdose Deaths in 2017 (“Fentanyl is a big culprit, but there are also encouraging signs from states that have prioritized public health campaigns and addiction treatment”):

Drug overdoses killed about 72,000 Americans last year, a record number that reflects a rise of around 10 percent, according to new preliminary estimates from the Centers for Disease Control. The death toll is higher than the peak yearly death totals from H.I.V., car crashes or gun deaths.

Analysts pointed to two major reasons for the increase: A growing number of Americans are using opioids, and drugs are becoming more deadly. It is the second factor that most likely explains the bulk of the increased number of overdoses last year.

The picture is not equally bleak everywhere. In parts of New England, where a more dangerous drug supply arrived early, the number of overdoses has begun to fall. That was the case in Massachusetts, Vermont and Rhode Island; each state has had major public health campaigns and has increased addiction treatment. Preliminary 2018 numbers from Massachusetts suggest that the death rate there may be continuing to fall.

  Aaron Blake writes Not even Republicans buy the Trump team’s ‘collusion isn’t a crime’ defense:

Rudy Giuliani has said that collusion isn’t technically a crime. President Trump has said it’s totally normal to seek opposition research — even if it was from Russia.

Not even Republicans buy these defenses.

A new poll from Quinnipiac University shows there is actually a bipartisan consensus on the appropriateness of seeking information about a political opponent from a hostile foreign country. Fully 79 percent of Americans say it’s never acceptable, including 92 percent of Democrats and 69 percent of Republicans.

(Blake notes that “[a]bout 1 in 5 Republicans (19 percent) say it is acceptable to do such a thing, even though it is rather clearly against the law.  One can reasonably count that nineteen percent as Trump’s hardcore base.  The overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens know better.)

The Parker Solar Probe is a Mission to Touch the Sun:

(The probe has begun its journey. See A Fireball and a Wall of Sound: What NASA’s Epic Solar Probe Launch Felt Like.)

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with an afternoon thunderstorm, and a high of eighty-one.  Sunrise is 6:02 AM and sunset 7:56 PM, for 13h 53m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1862, the 24th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry musters in:

On this date in Milwaukee, the 24th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry was mustered in. The 24th was organized in late 1862 from the Milwaukee and the surrounding areas under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Herman L. Page. The regiment was encamped at Camp Sigel in Milwaukee. Page resigned one day after the muster in and Charles H. Larrabee was appointed Colonel. On September 5th, the regiment left Wisconsin for Kentucky. At Louisville they were assigned to the 37th Brigade, under Colonel Gruesel, of the 11th Division, under General Phillip Sheridan. The 24th was mustered out on June 10, 1865. [Source: 24th Wisconsin Infantry page]

Recommended for reading in full — 

Craig Gilbert remarks on the Wisconsin vote in yesterday’s fall primary:

with the caveat that these things are NOT always predictive of the fall, it’s worth noting that it looks like Dem turnout clearly outstripped GOP turnout in WI even though GOP primary was closer and had much higher spending #WIPrimary https://t.co/qI3S365LjE

— Craig Gilbert (@WisVoter) August 15, 2018

Norman Eisen unpacks Presidential pardons and obstruction of justice:

• If a president were to issue pardons in order to block an investigation for a wrongful purpose—like a president protecting himself because he believed that someone who was pardoned would disclose incriminating evidence against that president—that would constitute obstruction of justice.
• Congress has said that it is a crime in the United States to obstruct justice.
• There’s a debate over whether a sitting president can be prosecuted.
• Another option would be for the Department of Justice to refer the case to Congress. With (or without) a report, Congress could have hearings in the House Judiciary Committee as to whether a president committed obstruction of justice by giving a pardon with corrupt intent to himself or those around him.
• Trump’s frequent use of pardons has broader implications.
• Many analysts and advisers to President Trump have reported that President Trump is delighted by his power to pardon, viewing it as a sign of unconstrained authority.
• Trump may be issuing pardons strategically, “dangling” pardons before witnesses who might testify against him to disincentivize them from cooperating with investigations.
• The signal of impunity this may send to witnesses, subjects, targets, and defendants participating in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is profoundly troubling.

The Committee to Investigate Russia writes Court Upholds Mueller Authority:

Business Insider:

“By investigating and prosecuting Concord, the Special Counsel did not exceed his authority,” [Judge Dabney] Friedrich wrote in her opinion.

She also rejected the company’s argument that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, acting on behalf of Attorney General Jeff Sessions after his recusal, was out of bounds in bringing in Mueller to investigate the alleged Russian meddling.

Concord’s lawyers, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday, had argued that Rosenstein violated the Appointments Clause of the US Constitution in hiring Mueller in May 2017. Friedrich ruled that US Supreme Court and circuit court rulings made clear Rosenstein did have statutory authority to bring in Mueller.

  Helene Cooper and Julian E. Barnes report U.S. Officials Scrambled Behind the Scenes to Shield NATO Deal From Trump:

The work to preserve the North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreement, which is usually subject to intense 11th-hour negotiations, came just weeks after Mr. Trump refused to sign off on a communiqué from the June meeting of the Group of 7 in Canada.

The rushed machinations to get the policy done, as demanded by John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, have not been previously reported. Described by European diplomats and American officials, the efforts are a sign of the lengths to which the president’s top advisers will go to protect a key and longstanding international alliance from Mr. Trump’s unpredictable antipathy.

Allied ambassadors said the American officials’ plan worked — to a degree.

Mr. Trump did almost blow up the two-day meeting in Brussels that began on July 11. He issued a vague threat that the United States could go its own way if allies resisted his demands for additional military spending. After the gathering, he also questioned a pillar of the alliance: that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all.

This Car Wash Serves the Best Filipino Food:

Good morning.

Election day in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with a high of eighty-six.  Sunrise is 6:01 AM and sunset 7:57 PM, for 13h 56m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 13.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1864, a Union expedition into Georgia begins: “The 1st Wisconsin Cavalry was among the Union forces beginning an expedition to Jasper, Georgia.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Jim Sciutto and Jenna McLaughlin report Kremlin “pleased” with Helsinki summit, US and Western intelligence assesses:

Russian officials were “pleased” with the Helsinki summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, US and Western intelligence agencies have found, according to two intelligence sources with knowledge of the assessments.

The assessments, based on a broad range of intelligence, indicate that the Kremlin believes the July 16 summit delivered a better outcome than it had expected, but that Moscow is perplexed that Trump is not delivering more Russia-friendly policies in its aftermath.

The intelligence sources say the Russians were particularly satisfied with the press conference the two leaders gave in Helsinki after Trump and Putin met for about two hours without staff and accompanied only by translators. In the 45-minute press conference, Trump discredited US intelligence and American policies more broadly, saying “the United States has been foolish” about ties with Russia, a country that has engaged in ongoing attacks on US democracy.

John Sipher contends Convergence Is Worse Than Collusion (“Trump and Putin share many more goals than just Trump’s election”):

Two Donald Trump supporters were recently photographed at a rally wearing shirts emblazoned with the phrase I’D RATHER BE RUSSIAN THAN A DEMOCRAT. To some supporters of President Trump, praising Russia and denigrating Democrats is simply a means of expressing tribal loyalties, or of goading liberals. However, as heated political rhetoric becomes part of the media landscape, such fringe views are becoming more mainstream, displaying an increasing convergence of interests between Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the views of Trump supporters.

While many Americans are concerned that the Trump campaign may have colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election, Trump’s outright convergence of interests with Putin’s Russia may well prove far more damaging for U.S. interests in the long run. Convergence can be defined as distinct groups doing the same things for different reasons, or as a unity of interests evolving from separate starting points. Both Putin and Trump seek to inject chaos into the U.S. political system. They support an assault on U.S. foreign-policy elites, encourage fringe and radical groups, and envision a United States untethered from traditional allies. They also share a willingness to utilize informal and semi-legal means to achieve their goals. The common interest shown by Russia and the alt-right in exploiting fears surrounding the routine Jade Helm military exercise in Texas in 2015? That’s convergence.

As the Trump T-shirts signify, even collusion can be easy to justify if you view your domestic opponents as the real enemy. But having a U.S. president who shares character deficiencies with the president of Russia is one thing. Becoming the enemy is worse. Trumpism shares a disturbing amount in common with Putinism, including promoting racist hatred of outsiders; the belief that the rich are above the law; the reflexive use of propaganda lies and denial; and the shredding of legal and political norms.

(As with members of the Bund generations ago, the democratic order now faces a large & organized domestic movement with expressed sympathies for a foreign dictator.)

Tim Craig reports Once a rising star, Scott Walker is still looking for his path in Trump’s Republican Party:

Amid uncertainty over how Trump’s bombastic presidency would translate to the 2018 elections here, Walker has been trying to insulate himself from a potential Democratic onslaught.

In April, after Democrats won a hard-fought race for a state Supreme Court seat, Walker tweeted that he was likely to face a “blue wave” this year. More recently, he’s blasting donors with appeals citing various public opinion polls that show a Democratic challenger as much as 13 points ahead.

In a sign of just how competitive the race could be, the Republican Governors Association has reserved $5.1 million in television ad spending here. Last month, the Democratic Governors Association announced it had reserved $3.8 million in airtime.

(Any accommodation with Trumpism is error: cooperation is humiliation, collaboration is degradation.  A path in a party Trump dominates is the wrong path.)

  Andrew Lawler writes Colonial America’s Little Secret: It’s Always Been Miscegenation Nation (“The very first English colonists brought with them people of varied ethnicities, and the historical record is clear that they also promptly intermarried with Native Americans”):

“America was founded by white people,” says David Duke. “It was founded for white people. America was not founded to be a multiracial, multicultural society.” It’s an old belief, but one that is factually incorrect.

There is no denying the American debt to British representative democracy and common law, not to mention our language. And it is true that the bulk of our citizens trace most of their ancestry back to Europe. But thanks to excavations in trenches and among archives, we know that the United States was, from its very beginning, a multiracial and multicultural society, and it never ceased being so.

Of course, myths can’t be conquered by facts, and beliefs are not subject to scientific proof. But if we want to prevent the sort of violence that wracked a quiet Virginia college town one year ago, we will have to move beyond the corrosive concept of a nation founded by only one sort of people. We will have to embrace an America that is, as Vice President Hubert Humphrey said, is “all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.”

Divers Rescue Whale Shark From Fishing Rope:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high of eighty-six.  Sunrise is 6:00 AM and sunset 7:59 PM, for 13h 59m 02s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 6.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6:30 PM, and the Whitewater School Board will meet in Central Office beginning at 7 PM.

On this day in 1961, the East German communist government begins construction of the Berlin Wall:

The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer … was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.[1] Constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall cut off (by land) West Berlin from virtually all of surrounding East Germany and East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989.[2] Its demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and finished in 1992.[1][3] The barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls,[4] accompanied by a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained anti-vehicle trenches, “fakir beds” and other defenses.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Jesse Garza reports Trump says Harley-Davidson boycott would be ‘great’:

President Donald Trump tweeted Sunday that it’s “great” some Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners plan to halt future purchases of the bike in response to plans by the Milwaukee-based company to move some production overseas.

Many @harleydavidson owners plan to boycott the company if manufacturing moves overseas. Great! Most other companies are coming in our direction, including Harley competitors. A really bad move! U.S. will soon have a level playing field, or better.

Trump’s 6 a.m. tweet followed a New York Times story Saturday that quotes several Harley owners attending the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, who say they are angry with the company, which plans to move production of motorcycles destined for the European Union to its international factories in response to tariffs the EU has imposed on its bikes.

Harley has said the impact of the 31 percent tariffs, up from 6 percent previously, could be $100 million per year on the company, or roughly $2,200 per motorcycle.

(One reads “While saying nothing about the president’s latest swipe at Harley-Davidson, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kevin Nicholson quickly issued a tweet of his own telling Baldwin, “you don’t understand our economy …. “We do need better trade deals, not the ones engineered by you and other members of the political class,” Nicholson said.”  Nicholson’s reply is laughably rhetorical – anyone who truly understands the economics of this sees that tariffs are, in effect, bad taxes. It’s Nicholson who either doesn’t understand or simply battens on the ignorance of Trump-leaning voters.)

Rex Nutting asks Confused by emoluments? The Founding Fathers would have impeached Trump in a New York minute:

It seems the Founding Fathers had Donald Trump (or someone very like him) in mind when they wrote those clauses into the Constitution. They were concerned about our government officials being corrupted by foreign or domestic powers. Alexander Hamilton argued in Federalist Paper #73 that the domestic emoluments clause was designed to keep the president independent and incorruptible.

The key passage in the Constitution is Article I, Section 9: “No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

The point of this clause is to prevent any foreign power from gaining influence over the U.S. government by providing gifts, titles, jobs or other benefits to its officials.

No exceptions

Article II, Section 1 specifically limits the president and does not allow Congress to approve exceptions: “The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.”

(Emphasis in original.)

Max Boot observes You can tell who Trump is through the company he keeps:

There was no secret about Manafort’s record as an influence-peddler on behalf of corrupt dictators and oligarchs when he went to work for Trump. On April 13, 2016, Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake wrote a prescient article headlined: “Trump Just Hired His Next Scandal.” Trump couldn’t have cared less. His whole career, he has surrounded himself with sleazy characters such as the Russian-born mob associate Felix Sater, who served prison time for assault and later pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, as well as lawyer-cum-fixer Michael Cohen, who is reportedly under investigation for a variety of possible crimes, including tax fraud.

These are the kind of people Trump feels comfortable around, because this is the kind of person Trump is. He is, after all, the guy who paid $25 million to settle fraud charges against him from students of Trump University. The guy who arranged for payoffs to a Playboy playmate and a porn star with whom he had affairs. The guy who lies an average of 7.6 times a day.

And because everyone knows what kind of person Trump is, he attracts kindred souls. Manafort and Gates are only Exhibits A and B. There is also Exhibit C: Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), the first member of Congress to endorse Trump, is facing federal charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and false statements as part of an alleged insider-trading scheme. Exhibit D is Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who has been accused by Forbes magazine, hardly an anti-Trump rag, of bilking business associates out of $120 million. (Both Collins and Ross have denied the charges.)

  Tom Boggioni writes Authoritarianism expert hints Lindsey Graham may be covering for Trump due to the 2016 Russian hacking of his own emails:

“Lindsey Graham, talk about confusing, he confuses me,” Capehart stated. “On some days he is ‘the president must be held accountable,’ and then here he seems to be carrying the president’s water. Can you explain what he is doing?”

“I can offer some theories. Lindsey Graham was one of the people who called for the investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to the Kremlin,” Kendzior began. “He did that all the way back in 2016 before Trump was inaugurated. He has then done a complete 180. He’s been supporting Trump, he’s been covering for Trump.”

“There are a few things we should remember, ” she advised. “The RNC was hacked; no one knows what happened to those emails. Lindsey Graham personally was hackedand nobody knows who has those emails. The RNC is complicit financially and politically and broadly in what the Trump campaign has done in terms of illicit interactions with Russia.”

Much goes into Designing the Perfect Airport Runway:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny, with a high of eighty-six.  Sunrise is 5:58 AM and sunset 8:00 PM, for 14h 01m 33s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1939, the Wizard of Oz has its world premiere, in Oconomowoc:

According to the fan site, thewizardofoz.info [now http://thewizardofoz.info/wiki/Oz_FAQ], “The first publicized showing of the final, edited film was at the Strand Theatre in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin on August 12, 1939. No one is sure exactly why a small town in the Midwest received that honor.” It showed the next day in Sheboygan, Appleton and Rhinelander, according to local newspapers. “The official premiere was at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on August 15, attended by most of the cast and crew and a number of Hollywood celebrities.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Monica Davey reports Wisconsin Faces a Political Crossroads Tuesday. Which Way Will It Go?:

Mr. Walker is still Wisconsin’s governor, still harboring national ambitions, and Wisconsin Democrats and Republicans have only grown more divided over Mr. Trump and the state’s place in national politics. Those dynamics are now on display as Wisconsin prepares for a major primary election on Tuesday: Mr. Walker’s bid for a third term is at stake; Wisconsin Democrats’ desire to deal blows to Trump Republicanism is intense; Republicans are deeply concerned about their future hold on state government; and the very identity of the state, which swings between progressivism and conservatism, feels up for grabs.

“This just wasn’t what Wisconsin was, not what it used to be,” said Sally Mather, 69, a retired social worker, who sat in the back room of a cafe in this village of 1,700 last week.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro reports For Wisconsin’s Dairy Farmers, Tariffs Could Reshape The Race For The Senate:

It’s here where Clark and her family begin work each day at 5:30 a.m., doing chores and milking cows. But times are tough. Milk prices have already fallen 4 percent this year, continuing a steady decline since 2014, according to data from the Labor Department. Meanwhile, net farm income, a broad measure of profits, is forecast to drop this year to its lowest level since 2006, according to the Department of Agriculture.

“It hits my bottom line,” Clark says about falling milk prices. “The last two years have been most challenging.”

Even tougher times might be ahead, she worries. Wisconsin is the number two dairy supplier in the country. In an industry where margins can be razor thin, farmers like Clark have come to rely on selling their milk products abroad, specifically Mexico, which is one of the biggest importers of U.S. dairy.

David A. Graham asks Why Can’t Trump Just Condemn Nazis? (“In marking the one-year anniversary of a white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, the president again fails to differentiate between bigots and those who oppose them”):

Trump’s tweet Saturday shows that his vision of what happened hasn’t gotten any clearer with the passage of a year. He’s still unable to name Nazis, white supremacists, and white nationalists for what they are, and unable to differentiate between those groups and those that oppose them.

The condemnation of “all types of racism” is, on its face, a positive, but it can also be read as a coded reference to the idea that there is a anti-white racist movement seeking “genocide” of white people. White supremacists will certainly read it that way.

The condemnation of “all … acts of violence,” apologizes for the instigators in Charlottesville under the guise of reasonability. There’s no debating that violence is bad. There’s also no question who was responsible for touching off the violence in Charlottesville: the group of white supremacists and Nazis who marched on the town, many carrying weapons, to shout racist slogans and defend statutes that commemorate a traitorous rebellion that sought to preserve the enslavement of black people. One person, Heather Heyer, died when one of the ralliers drove a car into a crowd. Others were beaten.

(Trump knows precisely what he’s doing; he’s appealing to white nativists. His ‘base’ knows precisely what they’re supporting; they’re supporting white nativism.)

  Cleve R. Wootson Jr. reports ‘Not the enemy of the people’: 70 news organizations will blast Trump’s attack on the media:

Now, the editorial board of the Boston Globe is proposing that newspapers across the nation express their disdain for the president’s rhetoric on Aug. 16 with the best weapon they have: their collective voice.

The rally calls for the opinion writers that staff newspaper editorial boards to produce independent opinion pieces about Trump’s attacks on the media. So far, according to the Associated Press, 70 news organizations have agreed — from large metropolitan daily newspapers such as the Miami Herald and Denver Post to small weekly newspapers with four-digit circulation numbers.

The Globe’s appeal is limited to newspaper opinion writers, who operate independently from news reporters and editors. As The Post’s policy explains, the separation is intended to serve the reader, “who is entitled to the facts in the news columns and to opinions on the editorial and ‘op-ed’ pages.”

(Trump’s hardcore supporters scream ‘fake news’ and ‘enemy of the people’ whenever they’re too shiftless or too stupefied to think and express themselves clearly.)

How Japan Keeps Millions of Residents Safe From Floods:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with a high of eighty-seven.  Sunrise is 5:57 AM and sunset 8:01 PM, for 14h 04m 04s of daytime.  The moon is new with 0% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1919, the Green Bay Packers are founded:

On this date the Green Bay Packers professional football team was founded during a meeting in the editorial rooms of Green Bay Press-Gazette. On this evening, a score or more of young athletes, called together by Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun, gathered in the editorial room on Cherry Street and organized a football team.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Dean Acheson reports School Board President: Political Ad Crossed School’s Non-Partisanship Line:

THREE LAKES — Some 60 people showed up Thursday night for a special Three Lakes School Board meeting, demanding answers as to why a political ad appeared to show the district supporting Gov. Scott Walker’s re-election bid.

What they got was a public apology from District Administrator George Karling: “Recently, I failed to vet the purpose of the governor’s visit as thoroughly as I should have even though the intent and purpose was expressed to me,” Karling said, reading from a prepared statement. “This was a mistake on my part, and I apologize for that. It will not happen again.”

The board also adopted a new policy that expressively prohibits political actions and use of school resources by school employees and school board members while serving in a school role. The policy does not infringe, however, on their First Amendment rights, including political activities and speech, outside of a school setting.

Board president Tom Rulseh said the campaign ad, “Teach Our Kids” prepared by “Friends of Scott Walker,” caught board members by surprise, even through they knew the governor was coming to visit. But no one, apparently, thought the visit and the filming of the governor would turn into a political ad for television, online and social media. “I knew nothing of the visit turning into a campaign advertisement,” Rulseh said.

Ken Krall reports Gov. Walker Says Controversial Ad Will Continue To Run:

Emily Rauhala reports New evidence emerges of China forcing Muslims into ‘reeducation’ camps:

ZHARKENT, Kazakhstan — First-of-its-kind courtroom testimony here has corroborated allegations that the Chinese government has built a network of internment camps in western China where Muslim minorities are held without charge for “reeducation.”

Sayragul Sauytbay, an ethnic Kazakh Chinese national, said she crossed from China’s Xin­jiang region to Kazakhstan without proper papers after being forced to work at a camp where around 2,500 ethnic Kazakhs were being held for indoctrination.

“In China, they call it a political camp, but really it was a prison in the mountains,” she told a court last month packed with Kazakh villagers, reporters and a few tight-lipped Chinese diplomats.

Interviews by The Washington Post with 20 other people in Kazakhstan familiar with the experiences of ethnic Kazakhs in China, including three former detainees and more than a dozen people who say they believe a family member is in detention, provided similar accounts of the camps, with additional details.

  Heather Long reports In U.S., wage growth is being wiped out entirely by inflation:

Rising prices have erased U.S. workers’ meager wage gains, the latest sign strong economic growth has not translated into greater prosperity for the middle and working classes.

Cost of living was up 2.9 percent from July 2017 to July 2018, the Labor Department reported Friday, an inflation rate that outstripped a 2.7 percent increase in wages over the same period. The average U.S. “real wage,” a federal measure of pay that takes inflation into account, fell to $10.76 an hour last month, 2 cents down from where it was a year ago.

The stagnation in pay defies U.S. growth, which has increased in the past year and topped 4 percent in the second quarter of 2018 — the highest rate since mid-2014.

(Long’s August reporting follows an earlier July story to which this site linked that described the same unfortunate low-wage trend.)

The Truth About the First Academy Awards and the Dog Rin Tin Tin: