Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-one.  Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 12m 52s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 42.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1947, WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee becomes Wisconsin’s first television station.

Recommended for reading in full:

Bob Bauer writes Trump Is the Founders’ Worst Nightmare (‘Once in the Oval Office, a demagogue can easily stay there’):

Donald Trump’s Republican congressional allies are throwing up different defenses against impeachment and hoping that something may sell. They say that he didn’t seek a corrupt political bargain with Ukraine, but that if he did, he failed, and the mere attempt is not impeachable. Or that it is not clear that he did it, because the evidence against him is unreliable “hearsay.”

It’s all been very confusing. But the larger story — the crucial constitutional story — is not the incoherence of the president’s defense. It is more that he and his party are exposing limits of impeachment as a response to the presidency of a demagogue.

The founders feared the demagogue, who figures prominently in the Federalist Papers as the politician who, possessing “perverted ambition,” pursues relentless self-aggrandizement “by the confusions of their country.” The last of the papers, Federalist No. 85, linked demagogy to its threat to the constitutional order — to the “despotism” that may be expected from the “victorious demagogue.” This “despotism” is achieved through systematic lying to the public, vilification of the opposition and, as James Fenimore Cooper wrote in an essay on demagogues, a claimed right to disregard “the Constitution and the laws” in pursuing what the demagogue judges to be the “interests of the people.”

Should the demagogue succeed in winning the presidency, impeachment in theory provides the fail-safe protection. And yet the demagogue’s political tool kit, it turns out, may be his most effective defense. It is a constitutional paradox: The very behaviors that necessitate impeachment supply the means for the demagogue to escape it.

Catherine Rampell writes The more love Always Trumpers show, the more dangerous Trump becomes:

You’ve heard of the Never Trumpers. That’s the president’s catchall slur for anyone who criticizes him or at least accurately attests to something unsavory he’s done.

But let’s talk instead for a moment about the true risk to our democracy: the Always Trumpers. These are people such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) and even the once-reasonable-sounding Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.), who excuse away any evidence of impeachment-worthy misdeeds no matter how damning.

The Always Trumpers represent a sprawling group of lackeys and co-conspirators, willing to aid, abet and (most importantly) adore President Trump no matter what he’s credibly accused of. Come hell or high crimes, Always Trumpers always truckle to Trump.

It doesn’t matter whether he’s extorting a desperate ally into announcing a fake investigation into a domestic political rival, compromising both that ally’s national security and ours. The Always Trumpers, many of whom were once Russia hawks, will stand by their man.

Trekking Through the Appalachian Mountains:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-three.  Sunrise is 7:07 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 14m 08s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 33.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1954, the United States Senate votes (67-22) to censure Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy.

Recommended for reading in full:

Bill Lueders writes Robin Vos Stonewalls on Public Records:

One of the requesters who was told by Vos’ office “We have no records responsive to your request” was Grafton resident Robert W. Chernow, who has asked for records regarding the way that state Senate District 8 was redistricted after the 2010 Census.

Chernow, in an interview, says he was trying to learn more about how the voter boundaries of this Senate district were redrawn to the advantage of Republican incumbent Alberta Darling.

After being told that no responsive records exist, Chernow says he repeatedly called Vos’ office and asked to talk to Fawcett. “Every time they heard my name the word came back that he’s not available,” Chernow says. “After about six times, I got the hint that he would not talk to me.”

And so Chernow sent a letter dated Nov. 13 to the office of the State Attorney General, which has statutory authority for interpreting and enforcing Wisconsin’s open records law. His letter notes that there have been repeated mentions in the press regarding the $850,000 fee paid by the state to a law firm advising Vos on the issue of redistricting.

“Would not Mr. Vos still have possession of this information?” Chernow asks, adding, “I cannot understand the statement that there are no records.” He continues: “Were these records destroyed? Are taxpayer funded projects that affect [the public’s] representation not public?”

Chernow says that the only response he’s gotten from Vos’ office is an Oct. 15 letter from Fawcett informing him that it had no records at all in response to his request, adding, “We now consider this matter closed.”

Elyse Samuels and Monica Akhtar write Are ‘bots’ manipulating the 2020 conversation? Here’s what’s changed since 2016:

The term “bots” often refers to automated accounts that publish lots of content and infiltrate online communities to try to sway online conversations.

….

“So the battle-space in 2020 is going to be a lot more complicated. And the hardest part of the response is going to be attributing any particular piece of activity to any particular actor,” Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at network analysis firm Graphika, told The Washington Post. “The most important thing is to isolate the behavior which is trying to distort the debate, is trying to interfere with the election, and make sure that that behavior doesn’t actually have an impact.”

….

Data scientists also point to new, more evolved tactics such as “inorganic coordinated activity” as a more nuanced online threat. “Inorganic coordinated activity” is when a group of humans, bots or a combination of both attempts to influence the online conversation by strategically releasing premeditated messaging at a specific time. The goal is for a small number of accounts — human or automated — to appear larger on Twitter than they are in reality.

Can Planting Billions Of Trees Halt Climate Change?:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered snow showers with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:06 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 15m 27s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 25% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to relinquish her seat in the “colored section” of a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled.

Recommended for reading in full:

Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes In impeachment hearings, lessons on the erosion of American democracy:

Is America becoming a 21st-century-style authoritarian state? The impeachment hearings of the last weeks would seem to provide an easy answer: no. The very fact that such an inquiry can be held, and broadcast on national television, is a sign that our democracy is working and that our institutions are holding.

Yet the impeachment hearings also showed how degraded our political culture has become and how much progress President Donald Trump has made in implementing the authoritarian playbook that he began to write for America during his campaign.

First, the hearings revealed just how much Trump’s cult of personality has tied subordinates to him, and how much of his playbook operates on keeping them in thrall to his singular threat: show loyalty, no matter what I say or do, or else.

A healthy democracy is founded on tolerance of differences of opinion, but is grounded in a shared body of norms. Autocratic governments, in contrast, need to change our opinion about what violates norms and constitutes crime and corruption.

E.J. Dionne Jr. writes What unites Trump’s apologists? Minority rule:

Two questions are asked again and again: How can white evangelical Christians continue to support a man as manifestly immoral as President Trump? And how can congressional Republicans refuse to condemn Trump’s thuggish effort to use taxpayer money to intimidate a foreign leader into helping his reelection campaign?

The answer to both relates to power — not just the power Trump now enjoys but also to the president’s faithfulness to a deal aimed at controlling American political life for a generation or more. Both evangelicals and Republican politicians want to lock in their current policy preferences, no matter how much the country changes or how sharply public opinion swings against them. As a party, the GOP now depends on empowering a minority over the nation’s majority.

This is reflected in its eagerness to enact laws restricting access to the ballot in states it controls. Rationalized as ways to fight mythical “voter fraud,” voter-ID statutes and the purging of voter rolls are designed to make it harder for African Americans, Latinos and young people to vote. The new electorate is a lot less Republican than the old one. The GOP much prefers the old one.

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons observes The GOP is not the party of G-O-D. Here’s why:

Tonight’s Sky for December 2019: