Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:31 AM and sunset 8:30 PM, for 14h 58m 15s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 39.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, the Atomic Age begins when the United States successfully detonates a plutonium-based test nuclear weapon near Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Recommended for reading in full — 

David Frum writes There’s a Word for What Trumpism Is Becoming:

The relentless messaging by Trump and his supporters has inflicted a measurable wound on American democracy. Before the 2020 election, about 60 percent of Democrats and Republicans expected the election to be fair. Since Trump began circulating his ever more radical complaints, Republican confidence in the election has tumbled by half, to barely more than 30 percent, according to polling supported by the Democracy Fund.

The Trump movement was always authoritarian and illiberal. It indulged periodically in the rhetoric of violence. Trump himself chafed against the restraints of law. But what the United States did not have before 2020 was a large national movement willing to justify mob violence to claim political power. Now it does.

….

In the United States, the forces of legality still mobilize more strength than their Trumpist adversaries. But those who uphold the American constitutional order need to understand what they are facing. Trump incited his followers to try to thwart an election result, and to kill or threaten Trump’s own vice president if he would not or could not deliver on Trump’s crazy scheme to keep power.

Dan Diamond, Hannah Knowles, and Tyler Pager report Vaccine hesitancy morphs into hostility, as opposition to shots hardens:

On July Fourth, President Biden celebrated dramatic progress in the war on the coronavirus, with more than 150 million adults fully vaccinated and infections plunging 93 percent since Inauguration Day. “Together, we’re beating the virus,” Biden said at a party on the White House lawn.

But at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference, attendees celebrated a different — essentially opposite — milestone: that Biden had missed his goal of vaccinating 70 percent of adults.

“Clearly they were hoping — the government was hoping — that they could sort of sucker 90 percent of the population into getting vaccinated,” activist Alex Berenson told the crowd Saturday, seeming to inflate Biden’s target. “And it isn’t happening.”

The crowd clapped and cheered at that failure.

What began as “vaccine hesitancy” has morphed into outright vaccine hostility, as conservatives increasingly attack the White House’s coronavirus message, mischaracterize its vaccination campaign and, more and more, vow to skip the shots altogether.

Tim Murphy writes It’s Wild That the Attorney General Leading the War on Voter Fraud Has Been Under Indictment for Six Years:

And it’s dissonance that becomes all the more pronounced when you consider that Paxton, the man leading the fight against this kind of fraud in Texas, is himself under indictment for…fraud. First elected attorney general after admitting to violating securities laws, [Texas A.G. Ken Paxton was indicted for security fraud during his first year in office and has been under indictment ever since without going to trial—six years, all told—because political allies succeeded in effectively defunding the prosecution. Even while styling himself as a champion of law and order and democratic  institutions, he has used his enormous privilege and donor networks to thus far evade accountability for his own alleged transgressions (which now include a staff revolt and additional federal investigation into an entirely separate allegation of corruption).

Oregon Bootleg fire threatens 2,000 homes as new wildfires erupt in western states:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with scattered showers and a high of 86. Sunrise is 5:30 AM and sunset 8:31 PM, for 15h 01m 21s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 29.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Joint Review Board meets at 4:30 PM, and the Community Development Authority at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1815, Napoleon surrenders aboard HMS Bellerophon.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Michael Gerson writes GOP anti-vaxxers are sacrificing citizens’ lives for political gain:

Here is perhaps the most important medical and political fact of our time: 99.5 percent of all covid-19-related deaths in the United States occur among unvaccinated people; 0.5 percent of covid deaths occur among vaccinated people. If you tell people not to be vaccinated, you add to the former category.

In this light, the recent outbreak of applause at the Conservative Political Action Conference for the United States’ failure to meet its vaccination target was macabre. Here were political activists — many of whom would call themselves “pro-life” — cheering for the advance of death. How did we get to such a strange, desperate place?

….

In the case of Fox News celebrities in particular, they must know that discouraging vaccination — by exaggerating risks, highlighting unproven alternative therapies and normalizing anti-vaccine voices — will result in additional, unnecessary deaths. This is hard to get my head around. If someone were to pay me as a columnist to argue that cigarette smoking is healthy for children, or to encourage teenagers to take naps on railroad tracks after underage drinking, I don’t think I could make an ethical case for accepting the deal. Should it matter if I belonged to a news network where producing child smokers and trisected teens were institutional policies? Or if one-half of a major political party endorsed such goals? I don’t see why.

 Reis Thebault reports Joint Chiefs chairman feared potential ‘Reichstag moment’ aimed at keeping Trump in power:

As Trump ceaselessly pushed false claims about the 2020 presidential election, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, grew more and more nervous, telling aides he feared that the president and his acolytes might attempt to use the military to stay in office, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker report in “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year.”

Milley described “a stomach-churning” feeling as he listened to Trump’s untrue complaints of election fraud, drawing a comparison to the 1933 attack on Germany’s parliament building that Hitler used as a pretext to establish a Nazi dictatorship.

 Tom Winter reports Banker convicted of bribery for plot to land Trump administration job:

A former Chicago bank executive was convicted Tuesday in a scheme to arrange $16 million in loans for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in exchange for a high-level position in the Trump administration.

Stephen Calk, the former CEO of The Federal Savings Bank, was found guilty of financial institution bribery and conspiracy to commit financial institution bribery after a three-week trial in Manhattan.

“Calk used the federally-insured bank he ran as his personal piggybank to try and buy himself prestige and power,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement. “Today’s verdict sends the message that corruption at the highest levels of federally regulated financial institutions will be prosecuted by this office.”

This Sand Castle is Now the Guinness World Record Holder for Tallest Ever Built:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 86. Sunrise is 5:30 AM and sunset 8:31 PM, for 15h 01m 21s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 19.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1960, Jane Goodall arrives at the Gombe Stream Reserve in present-day Tanzania to begin her study of chimpanzees in the wild.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Katelyn Ferral reports After years of failure, Defense Department moves to address sex assault in National Guard:

For years, the Defense Department has failed to hold the National Guard accountable for its longstanding sexual assault problem.

But now, the agency is considering adopting broad reforms in how the Guard handles such cases.

Routine audits, prevention policies and more data are among the changes the agency is considering and that were outlined in a Defense Department task force report in June.

The task force’s report reflects the findings of a Journal Sentinel/Cap Times investigation earlier this year that found Guard units have buried sexual assault allegations and do not have basic data on such claims. The investigation also showed how the Guard’s bureaucracy and complex state-federal structure is so impenetrable that it is difficult for victims to navigate and easy for commanders to weaponize.

The task force largely agreed, calling for distinct reforms for the Guard, which is different than full-time, active duty forces and the U.S. Reserves because the Guard is made up of militias in 54 U.S. states and territories and answers to the governor of each state rather than the federal government.

“Recent independent investigations of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the Guard and Reserve have surfaced troubling findings,” the task force report said. “These components face special jurisdictional challenges by their very nature that simply do not resonate with the Active Duty component.”

 Ed Pilkington reports Ken Starr helped Jeffrey Epstein with ‘scorched-earth’ campaign, book claims:

In Perversion of Justice, the Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown writes about Starr’s role in securing the secret 2008 sweetheart deal that granted Epstein effective immunity from federal prosecution. The author, who is credited with blowing open the cover-up, calls Starr a “fixer” who “used his political connections in the White House to get the Justice Department to review Epstein’s case”.

The book says that emails and letters sent by Starr and Epstein’s then criminal defense lawyer Jay Lefkowitz show that the duo were “campaigning to pressure the Justice Department to drop the case”. Starr had been brought into “center stage” of Epstein’s legal team because of his connections in Washington to the Bush administration.

Perversion of Justice will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

Rachel Pannett reports Iranian intelligence agents plotted brazen abduction of Brooklyn dissident journalist, U.S. prosecutors say:

Iranian intelligence agents plotted to abduct an Iranian American journalist living in Brooklyn and spirit her away to the Middle Eastern country, possibly via a daring maritime evacuation, the Justice Department alleged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

Four Iranians were charged in federal court in Manhattan with conspiring to kidnap the exiled journalist and women’s rights activist, Masih Alinejad, who has long been critical of the regime in Tehran. Alinejad was not identified by prosecutors, but she confirmed on Twitter that she was the intended target.

“I am grateful to FBI for foiling the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Intelligence Ministry’s plot to kidnap me. This plot was orchestrated under Rouhani,” she wrote on Tuesday, referring to outgoing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Lab-Grown Foie Gras is Here to Take Away Ethical Concerns:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:29 AM and sunset 8:32 PM, for 15 h 02m 49s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 12% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1973, Alexander Butterfield reveals the existence of a secret Oval Office taping system to investigators for the Senate Watergate Committee.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Patrick Marley reports Wisconsin man who’s scanning ballots, conducting election review was convicted of fraud:

A small group of Wisconsinites conducting a review of the presidential election — including a felon convicted of fraud — hopes soon to scan ballots in Brown County.

The group of about a half dozen volunteers has collected images of about 2 million ballots using the state’s open records law, said Gary Wait, a former private investigator who is helping lead the effort. Those involved have visited two Dane County communities to scan ballots and examine them with microscopes.

Assisting Wait is Peter Bernegger of New London, who was convicted in 2009 of bank fraud and mail fraud. A federal judge in Mississippi sentenced him to 70 months in prison and ordered him to pay restitution of $2.1 million.

An appeals court upheld his conviction but lowered his restitution to $1.7 million. Bernegger has spent years fighting his conviction, filing numerous appeals.

 Josh Dawsey reports The Republican Party’s top lawyer called election fraud arguments by Trump’s lawyers a ‘joke’ that could mislead millions:

Justin Riemer, the Republican National Committee’s chief counsel, sought to discourage a Republican Party staffer from posting claims about ballot fraud on RNC accounts, the email shows, as attempts by Donald Trump and his associates to challenge results in a number of states, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, intensified.

“What Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court,” Riemer, a longtime Republican lawyer, wrote to Liz Harrington, a former party spokeswoman, on Nov. 28, referring to Trump attorneys Rudolph W. Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. “They are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing.”

Jamelle Bouie writes The Less Trump Pays for Jan. 6, the More It Costs Us:

For two months after the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump fought to invalidate and overturn the results. When election administrators and judges refused to play ball, he urged his most loyal followers to march on Congress, to prevent final certification of the electoral vote. “We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he told a crowd of thousands on Jan. 6.

“We’re going to the Capitol,” Trump said, and though he did not, many of his supporters did.

Trump was impeached for his leading role in the insurrection, but not convicted. The stain of that second impeachment notwithstanding, he left office without sanction. He lives in freedom, cushioned by continued wealth and influence. He still has the Republican Party in his thrall, and within that party, the only orthodoxy that matters is whether you also want to “stop the steal.” After a brief and uncharacteristic silence on this point, Trump now hails the Jan. 6 insurrectionists as heroes.

“These were peaceful people, these were great people,” he said during a recent interview on Fox News, in which he also embraced the MAGA martyrdom of Ashli Babbitt, who was killed inside the Capitol.

We are not the only democracy to have had a corrupt, would-be authoritarian in high office. But we have had a hard time holding that person minimally accountable, much less keeping him out of contention for future office, which would have been accomplished had he been removed from the White House.

World’s Deepest Pool Opens in Dubai:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:28 AM and sunset 8:32 PM, for 15h 04m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 6.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM, and her Planning Commission at 6 PM.

On this day in 1962, The Rolling Stones perform for the first time at London‘s Marquee Club.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Kevin Sieff reports The Trump administration used an early, unreported program to separate migrant families along a remote stretch of the border:

The Trump administration began separating migrant families along a remote stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border months earlier than has been previously reported — part of a little known program coming into view only now as the Biden administration examines government data.

In May 2017, Border Patrol agents in Yuma, Ariz., began implementing a program known as the Criminal Consequence Initiative, which allowed for the prosecution of first-time border crossers, including parents who entered the United States with their children and were separated from them.

From July 1 to Dec. 31, 2017, 234 families were separated in Yuma, according to newly released data from the Department of Homeland Security, almost exactly the same number as were separated in a now well known pilot program in El Paso that year. Because the Yuma program began in May, and the existing data on family separations begins only in July, the number of separations there was likely higher than 234, a prospect the Biden administration is now investigating.

Some of the parents separated under the Yuma program still remain apart from their children four years later. Others are missing — lawyers and advocates have been unable to locate them since they were deported alone. The children separated in Yuma in 2017 were as young as 10 months old, according to government data.

 Tiffany Hsu reports Despite Outbreaks Among Unvaccinated, Fox News Hosts Smear Shots (‘Months after Rupert Murdoch got a Covid-19 dose, one of his network’s stars, Tucker Carlson, called a Biden vaccination proposal “the greatest scandal in my lifetime” ‘):

Back in December, before the queen of England and the president-elect of the United States had their turns, the media mogul Rupert Murdoch received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Afterward, he urged everyone else to get it, too.

Since then, a different message has been a repeated refrain on the prime-time shows hosted by Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham on Mr. Murdoch’s Fox News Channel — a message at odds with the recommendations of health experts, even as the virus’s Delta variant and other mutations fuel outbreaks in areas where vaccination rates are below the national average.

Mr. Carlson, Ms. Ingraham and guests on their programs have said on the air that the vaccines could be dangerous; that people are justified in refusing them; and that public authorities have overstepped in their attempts to deliver them.

Peter Beaumont reports Haiti police say murder suspect is middleman living in Florida:

As Haiti descended ever deeper into a dangerous political chaos, with notorious gang leader Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier calling on Haitians to “mobilise”, the motive for the killing of [Haitian Pres. Jovenel] Moïse remained clouded in mystery.

The latest suspect was identified by police as Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a Haitian in his 60s living in Florida who describes himself as a doctor and has accused his homeland’s leaders of corruption.

“He arrived by private plane in June with political objectives and contacted a private security firm to recruit the people who committed this act,” Haiti’s police chief, Léon Charles, said, describing a private Venezuelan security company based in Florida called CTU.

See Virgin Galactic Unity 22 travel to space and back:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with scattered showers, and a high of 72. Sunrise is 5:27 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 05m 37s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1839, Ebenezar G. Whiting of Racine receives patent #1232 for his improved plow, the first patent issued to someone from Wisconsin.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Rich Kremer reports Eau Claire County District Attorney to Resign Amid Sexual Harassment Investigation:

Eau Claire County District Attorney Gary King, who is being investigated for sexually harassing employees and being intoxicated in court, will resign from office in August. 

In a letter sent to employees Friday, King said he will step down from his position Aug. 14.

“I feel this decision is in the best interest of the office,” wrote King. “It is my hope that this decision will allow the work of the office to move forward without further distraction.”

King had been the focus of a sexual harassment investigation since Feb. 10. After an employee had asked the county’s human resources department for assistance in addressing her concerns about King’s behavior, an outside attorney was hired to write an investigatory report.

The report contained interviews with unnamed employees in the district attorneys office that cited instances where King had rubbed a female employee’s foot when she had taken a shoe off, pulled her onto his lap and asked her if she would participate in a threesome with him and a resident living nearby the county courthouse.

 Mitchell Schmidt reports Tony Evers vetoes bills eliminating personal property tax, creating legislative human resources office:

Another bill vetoed Thursday would have established a nonpartisan human resources office with a director appointed by and reporting to the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization, which Republicans control.

The office would have provided human resources services to the Legislature, and also with establishing a formal complaint process to review and investigate allegations of harassment, discrimination, retaliation, violence or bullying by legislators or legislative or service agency staff.

Open records advocates raised concern over specific language in the bill regarding confidentiality that they said could be used to shield investigatory records from public access.

“While I would support a clean bill that establishes a Legislative Office of Human Resources, I cannot support a bill that would be used to hide official misconduct from public scrutiny,” Evers wrote in a veto message.

Dan Spinelli reports Under Trump, Presidents Got More Power to Fire Agency Heads. Biden Just Used It:

On Friday, Joe Biden fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul, a Trump administration appointee who had clashed with congressional Democrats and disability rights activists. Originally appointed by Donald Trump in 2018, Saul’s term was set to last until 2025.
….

While federal law says that the Social Security Commissioner can only be fired for cause, recent Supreme Court rulings have strengthened Biden’s ability to oust independent agency leaders as he likes. Last year, in a case brought during the Trump administration, a conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled that Congress’ mandate that the president only be able to fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “with cause”—and not “at will”—was unconstitutional. The issue arose after the Obama-appointed CFPB director, Richard Cordray, resigned to run for governor of Ohio, kicking of a complicated legal- and power- struggle over the agency’s leadership.

Under that ruling, Biden was able to replace Trump’s permanent CFPB director shortly after entering the Oval Office. Last month, the justices ruled that the president can similarly fire the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency without cause, clearing the way for Biden to quickly replace the Trump holdover leading that office.

Why Championship Chess Sets Are So Expensive: