Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 56. Sunrise is 5:39 AM and sunset 8:03 PM, for 14h 23m 33s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 16.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1920, Soviet Russia recognizes the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia only to invade the country six months later.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Nathalie Baptiste reports The Wave of GOP Anti-Protest Bills Will Criminalize Protesters—and Sabotage Police Reform, Too:

In the wake of the widespread George Floyd protests last year, Republican lawmakers across the country flooded the zone with so-called anti-riot bills. Last month, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law the draconian “Combating Public Disorder” measure that expands the definition of riot to mean a “violent public disturbance involving 3 or more people,” increases the penalty for participating in a riot, and gives police the discretion to decide what a riot is—and isn’t.

“The criminal aspects of this bill are already illegal,” Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried said. “[It] protects no one, makes no one safer, and does nothing to make people’s lives better. It’s simply to appease the Governor’s delusion of widespread lawlessness.”

Despite being criticized for extremism, dozens of Republican-dominated states like Ohio and Arizona have similar measures succeeding in state legislatures and on their ways to become laws. “I think you’re going to see other states sort of picking up the ideas as well, so yeah, this is a real victory for him,” Florida State University Professor Carol Weissert told an NBC affiliate.

 Bruce Vielmetti reports Lawsuit alleges cheese fraud in Bagel Bites Pizza Snacks:

An Elroy woman has sued food giant Kraft Heinz, saying the packaging of its Bagel Bites Pizza Snacks amounts to fraud.

Kaitlyn Huber’s federal lawsuit, filed over the weekend in Madison, says a box featuring the Real Dairy seal, and the large type announcing mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce, are “false, deceptive and misleading.”

The suit, which seeks class-action status on behalf of anyone who bought the bites in Wisconsin, asks the court to make Kraft Heinz correct its packaging and for unspecified damages.

“Wisconsin consumers want real mozzarella cheese in pizza because they value (1) its soft, moist texture, (2) its milky, yet tangy taste and (3) its high protein and relatively low calories and sodium compared to other cheeses,” the suit states.

The suggestion that Bagel Bites Pizza Snacks are made with tomato sauce is also bogus, according to Huber’s suit.

“Reasonable Wisconsin consumers expect a product claiming to contain ‘Tomato Sauce’ will contain only tomato ingredients and seasonings instead of thickeners like cornstarch and methylcellulose,” it reads.

Huber’s lawsuit claims Wisconsin and federal regulations require any purported mozzarella that contains added food starch — in place of milk — to be labeled as imitation mozzarella cheese.

Traffic: This 100-Year Failure Is Getting a Solution:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of 61. Sunrise is 5:40 AM and sunset 8:01 PM, for 14h 21m 12s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 24.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Landmarks Commission meets via audiovisual conferencing at 3:30 PM, the Alcohol Licensing Committee meets via audiovisual conferencing at 4:45 PM, and the Community Development Authority via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1889, the Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Alec MacGillis reports Kushner Companies Violated Multiple Laws in Massive Tenant Dispute, Judge Rules:

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh brought the consumer-protection case against Westminster Management, the property-management arm of Kushner Companies, in 2019 following a 2017 article by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine on the company’s treatment of its tenants at the 15 housing complexes it owned in the Baltimore area, which have served as profitable ballast for a company better known for its gleaming properties in New York. The article revealed the company’s aggressive pursuit of current and former tenants in court over unpaid rent and broken leases, even in cases where tenants were in the right, as well as the shoddy conditions of many units.

To build its case, the attorney general’s office subpoenaed records from the company and solicited testimony from current and former tenants, who provided it via remote video link to Administrative Law Judge Emily Daneker late last year.

In her 252-page ruling last week, which was first reported by the Baltimore Sun, Daneker determined that the company had issued a relentless barrage of questionable fees on tenants over the course of many years, including both the fees identified in the 2017 article and others as well. In more than 15,000 instances, Westminster charged in excess of the state-maximum $25 fee to process a rental application. In more than 28,000 instances, the company also assessed a $12 “agent fee” on court filings against tenants even though it had incurred no such cost with the courts — a tactic that Daneker called “spurious” and which brought the company more than $332,000 in fees. And in more than 2,600 instances, the Kushner operation assessed $80 court fees to tenants at its two complexes within the city of Baltimore, even though the charge from the courts was only $50. “The practice of passing court costs on to tenants, in the absence of a court order,” Daneker wrote, “was deceptive.”

The manifold fees suggested a deliberate strategy to run up tenants’ tabs, Daneker wrote, repeatedly calling the practices “widespread and numerous.” She concluded that “these circumstances do not support a finding that this was the result of isolated or inadvertent mistakes.”

 Christina Lieffring reports The Price of Vaccine Hesitancy: More Than 1,000 Wasted Doses a Week in Wisconsin:

Demand has dropped off so sharply that 1,000 to 2,000 doses are being wasted per week, Wisconsin’s No. 2 health official said Tuesday. Vials of vaccine contain multiple doses that must be used within hours of the vial being opened.

During a press briefing on Tuesday, Julie Willems Van Dijk, deputy DHS secretary, said that her department had anticipated a slowdown once “the people who were most eager or most anxious, or most committed to getting vaccines largely have been able to secure a vaccine.” But she did not anticipate how quick the drop-off would be.

“I would call it a pretty precipitous drop in demand,” Willems Van Dijk said. “When the vaccine supply started to stabilize and we opened up to larger and larger populations, people were very quickly able to get doses. And then very quickly we saw a demand dropoff here in Wisconsin, as we have seen in other places.”

Starship SN15 High-Altitude Flight Test:

Video set to play at 10 seconds before liftoff; successful landing begins at 12:00 mark.

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 63. Sunrise is 5:42 AM and sunset 8:00 PM, for 14h 18m 52s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 33.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a joint meeting of the Whitewater Planning Commission, Common Council, and Community Development Authority via audiovisual conferencing at 6 PM, followed by an audiovisual meeting of the Whitewater Common Council.

On this day in 1862, troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla in Mexico.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Michael S. Schmidt reports Judge Says Barr Misled on How His Justice Dept. Viewed Trump’s Actions:

A federal judge in Washington accused the Justice Department under Attorney General William P. Barr of misleading her and Congress about advice he had received from top department officials on whether President Donald J. Trump should have been charged with obstructing the Russia investigation and ordered that a related memo be released.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the United States District Court in Washington said in a ruling late Monday that the Justice Department’s obfuscation appeared to be part of a pattern in which top officials like Mr. Barr were untruthful to Congress and the public about the investigation.

The department had argued that the memo was exempt from public records laws because it consisted of private advice from lawyers whom Mr. Barr had relied on to make the call on prosecuting Mr. Trump. But Judge Jackson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011, ruled that the memo contained strategic advice, and that Mr. Barr and his aides already understood what his decision would be.

“The fact that he would not be prosecuted was a given,” Judge Jackson wrote of Mr. Trump.

She also singled out Mr. Barr for how he had spun the investigation’s findings in a letter summarizing the 448-page report before it was released, which allowed Mr. Trump to claim he had been exonerated.

“The attorney general’s characterization of what he’d hardly had time to skim, much less study closely, prompted an immediate reaction, as politicians and pundits took to their microphones and Twitter feeds to decry what they feared was an attempt to hide the ball,” Judge Jackson wrote.

Her rebuke shed new light on Mr. Barr’s decision not to prosecute Mr. Trump. She also wrote that although the department portrayed the advice memo as a legal document protected by attorney-client privilege, it was done in concert with Mr. Barr’s publicly released summary, “written by the very same people at the very same time.”

 Dan Diamond reports The coronavirus vaccine skeptics who changed their minds:

Kim Simmons, a 61-year-old small-business owner in Illinois, vividly remembers the moment she went from vaccine skeptic to vaccine-ready: watching a Johns Hopkins University doctor on C-SPAN make the case for why the shots are safe.

For Lauren Bergner, a 39-year-old homemaker in New Jersey, it was when she realized it would make it easier for her family to attend New York Yankees games, after the team announced fans would need to show proof of a negative coronavirus test or that they had been vaccinated.

And for Elizabeth Greenaway, a 34-year-old communications consultant in Pennsylvania, it was the sudden fear that if she got sick, she wasn’t sure who would take care of her 2-year-old daughter, who has a rare health condition.

“Thinking about herd immunity, thinking about my daughter, thinking about all of that, I just realized — it’s about being a part of something bigger than yourself,” said Greenaway, who’s had to cut back on work to care for her daughter.

Space-aged wine could sell for $1 million after spending 14 months on International Space Station:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of 61. Sunrise is 5:43 AM and sunset 7:59 PM, for 14h 16m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 43.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1814, Napoleon arrives at Portoferraio on the island of Elba to begin his (first) exile.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Elliot Hughes reports Two more Wisconsin men — one of them a National Guard member — charged with entering U.S. Capitol during Jan. 6 riot:

Two more Wisconsin men — one of them a member of the Wisconsin Army National Guard — were charged Monday in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

According to federal court documents, the men drove from the Madison area to Washington in January and entered the U.S. Capitol during the storming of the building.

Brandon Nelson and Abram Markofski, the Guard member, both admitted entering the building after attending then-President Donald Trump’s rally south of the White House earlier in the day, according to a criminal complaint.

The two have been charged with entering a restricted building, disorderly conduct in a restricted building, violent entry, and parading or demonstrating in a Capitol building.

They are at least the fourth and fifth Wisconsin residents — among more than 400 nationwide — charged in connection with the Jan. 6 raid on the Capitol.

 Haley BeMiller reports Radisson gunman threatened former boss before deadly shooting but allowed by court to possess firearms:

ASHWAUBENON – A gunman who killed two people and injured a third at Duck Creek Kitchen + Bar was under a restraining order, but still allowed to possess firearms, after he threatened his former boss.

Brown County Sheriff Todd Delain said Monday that Bruce K. Pofahl shot and killed Ian J. Simpson, 32, and Jacob T. Bartel, 35, and seriously injured 28-year-old Danny Mulligan in an attack Saturday that began at the restaurant inside the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center. The hotel is attached to the Oneida Casino in Ashwaubenon.

Police shot and killed the 62-year-old gunman outside the building.

Pofahl was fired from his job as the restaurant’s food and beverage manager earlier this year, Delain said. He was not allowed to be on the property.

 Tom Humburger reports U.S. trustee opposes NRA bankruptcy petition in blow to gun rights group:

The recommendation bolstered the arguments of New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), whose office has fought the NRA’s attempts to relocate from New York to Texas, and came after senior NRA executives acknowledged in court testimony that they received lavish perks.

Linda Lambert, a lawyer with the U.S. trustee’s office — which participates in bankruptcy cases to protect taxpayer interests and enforce bankruptcy laws — told the court that the evidence presented in the hearing showed that the nonprofit organization lacked proper oversight and that personal expenses were masked as business costs.

Adam Levitin, a bankruptcy expert at the Georgetown University Law Center, said the position of the trustee — a Justice Department official who typically remains neutral in a bankruptcy proceeding — does not bode well for the NRA.

“I don’t see how the NRA pulls off a win here,” he said, adding: “I think it’s pretty clear that the NRA loses. The real question is what the remedy will be.”

 Apple Faces Landmark App Store Lawsuit:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see scattered showers and a thunderstorm with a high of 71. Sunrise is 5:44 AM and sunset 7:58 PM, for 14h 14m 03s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 53.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1952, Lieutenant Colonels Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict of the United States land a plane at the North Pole.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Hope Kirwan reports Wisconsin County Fairs Gearing Up To Return This Summer:

With the Wisconsin State Fair returning this summer, county fairs around the state are also gearing up to return to in-person events this year.

Tom Barnett is coordinator of the Oneida County Fair. His county was one of many that decided to cancel its fair last year due to concerns about COVID-19. But Barnett said they decided at the start of this year that they would be bringing back the fair no matter what in 2021.

“We were counting on the vaccine to come out and people feeling more comfortable,” Barnett said. “So we decided way back then that one way or another … that we were going to have a fair.”

 Ashley Parker and Marianna Sotomayor report For Republicans, fealty to Trump’s election falsehood becomes defining loyalty test:

Debra Ell, a Republican organizer in Michigan and fervent supporter of former president Donald Trump, said she has good reason to believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“I think I speak for many people in that Trump has never actually been wrong, and so we’ve learned to trust when he says something, that he’s not just going to spew something out there that’s wrong and not verified,” she said, referring to Trump’s baseless claims that widespread electoral fraud caused his loss to President Biden in November.

In fact, there is no evidence to support Trump’s false assertions, which culminated in a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But Ell, a Republican precinct delegate in her state, said the 2020 election is one of the reasons she’s working to censure and remove Jason Cabel Roe from his role as the Michigan Republican Party’s executive director — specifically that Roe accepted the 2020 results, telling Politico that “the election wasn’t stolen” and that “there is no one to blame but Trump.”

 Michael Levenson reports Newsmax Apologizes for False Claims of Vote-Rigging by a Dominion Employee:

The conservative news outlet Newsmax formally apologized on Friday for spreading baseless allegations that an employee of Dominion Voting Systems had rigged voting machines in an effort to sink President Donald J. Trump’s bid for re-election last year.

In a statement posted on its website, Newsmax acknowledged that it had found “no evidence” for the conspiracy theories advanced by Mr. Trump’s lawyers, supporters and others that the employee, Eric Coomer, had manipulated Dominion voting machines, voting software and the final vote counts in the election.

“On behalf of Newsmax, we would like to apologize for any harm that our reporting of the allegations against Dr. Coomer may have caused to Dr. Coomer and his family,” the statement said.

London Zoo welcomes new Asiatic lioness:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 5:45 AM and sunset 7:57 PM, for 14h 11m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 64.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, the US 82nd Airborne Division liberates Wöbbelin concentration camp finding 1000 dead prisoners, most of whom starved to death.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, and Tom Hamburger correct and update an earlier Washington Post story in FBI was aware prominent Americans, including Giuliani, were targeted by Russian influence operation:

Correction: An earlier version of this story, published Thursday, incorrectly reported that One America News was warned by the FBI that it was the target of a Russian influence operation. That version also said the FBI had provided a similar warning to Rudolph W. Giuliani, which he has since disputed. This version has been corrected to remove assertions that OAN and Giuliani received the warnings.

The FBI became aware in late 2019 that Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of a Russian influence operation aimed at circulating falsehoods intended to damage President Biden politically ahead of last year’s election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Officials planned to warn Giuliani as part of an extensive effort by the bureau to alert members of Congress and at least one conservative media outlet, One America News, that they faced a risk of being used to further Russia’s attempt to influence the election’s outcome, said several current and former U.S. officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains highly sensitive.

Following the Washington Post story, Riley Vetterkind reports Sen. Ron Johnson admits that he was warned he was the target of Russian disinformation:

But Johnson, who confirmed to The Washington Post this week he received such a warning, said he disregarded it due to a lack of evidence provided by intelligence officials.

“Regarding reports that I received an FBI briefing warning me that I was a target of Russian disinformation, I can confirm I received such a briefing in August of 2020,” Johnson said in a statement to The Washington Post. “I asked the briefers what specific evidence they had regarding this warning, and they could not provide me anything other than the generalized warning. Without specific information, I felt the briefing was completely useless and unnecessary (since I was fully aware of the dangers of Russian disinformation).

“Because there was no substance to the briefing, and because it followed the production and leaking of a false intelligence product by Democrat leaders, I suspected that the briefing was being given to be used at some future date for the purpose that it is now being used: to offer the biased media an opportunity to falsely accuse me of being a tool of Russia despite warnings.”

(At this site, commenter Joe previously highlighted Johnson’s reported role, and now Johnson admits to it all, but Johnson contends that he saw through the Russian disinformation and is now somehow also the victim of FBI disinformation that he expected. Holy cow, that’s embarrassing. Johnson wants people to believe that he was smarter than the Russians and the FBI.  If so smart, why did Johnson expect the FBI to leak information of a warning and do nothing for months to preempt the FBI leak that was sure to make him took like a dupe? That’s… not so smart.)

SpaceX returns astronauts to Earth in rare night-time splashdown:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:47 AM and sunset 7:56 PM, for 14h 09m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 74.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1898, at the Battle of Manila Bay, the Asiatic Squadron of the United States Navy destroys the Pacific Squadron of the Spanish Navy after a seven-hour battle.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Danielle Kaeding reports Enbridge Could Face Millions In Penalties For Failing To Report Spill In Fort Atkinson:

Canadian firm Enbridge, Inc. could face millions of dollars in fines after the company failed to report a leak on one of its oil pipelines in Jefferson County for more than a year.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources is alleging Enbridge violated Wisconsin’s spills law for not promptly reporting a release that occurred on its Line 13 pipeline April 26, 2019, in Fort Atkinson. The 20-inch pipeline runs from Manhattan, Illinois, through Wisconsin to Edmonton in the Canadian province of Alberta.

State law requires entities to immediately report discharges of hazardous substances by calling the DNR’s 24-hour hotline.

“Enbridge failed to report the hazardous substance discharge to the department until July 31, 2020,” wrote the agency in an April 27 letter.

Up to 1,386 gallons of diluent liquids leaked from the pipeline, contaminating groundwater and soil in the area. Enbridge said the substance is similar to camping fuel and is used to thin out heavy crude oil carried through the company’s pipelines.

Marc Fisher reports From memes to race war: How extremists use popular culture to lure recruits: 

The far-right groups that blossomed during Donald Trump’s presidency — including white supremacists, self-styled militias and purveyors of anti-government conspiracy theories — have created enduring communities by soft-pedaling their political goals and focusing on entertaining potential recruits with the tools of pop culture, according to current and former members of the groups and those who study the new extremism.

….

“All these people who stormed the Capitol and later said, ‘What did I do wrong? I didn’t think it was illegal’ — they want what we all want: belonging, friendship, cultural meaning,” said Robert Futrell, a sociologist at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who studies white-power movements. “We gloss over that too often, but in any movement, there’s a festival atmosphere. They gain a feeling of power from being surreptitiously connected through things they enjoy, like music. This is much more complex than just an ideological movement.”

Before conspiracy theories take root, before people decide to break the law because they think society is somehow rigged against them, there is first a bonding process, a creation of connection and camaraderie that encourages members to believe they will now be privy to answers that outsiders cannot know or understand.

….

“The pandemic has meant people have more time, more attention span,” Futrell said, “and that time is clearly being directed into extremist spaces. The appeal of a video like ‘The Last Battle’ is that it’s all emotion. At first, they’re pro-Trump images, juxtaposed against a Biden dystopia. But by the end of the five minutes, it conveys a sense of White genocide. Arm up and train up and have babies, it says, or the White way of life is gone.”

 Ingenuity sees Perseverance, 3 rockets launch (in 2-hour span) & more:

The Ingenuity helicopter captured imagery of the Perseverance rover on Mars during its 3rd flight. In the span of 2 hours, China launched a new space station module, SpaceX launched a new batch of Starlink satellites and an Arianespace Vega rocket returned to flight. Also, SpaceX’s Starship SN15 was seen being prepared for flight and a zoom-in of ‘campfires’ on the sun was released.

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of sixty. Sunrise is 5:48 AM and sunset 7:55 PM, for 14h 06m 40s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 84.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1803, the United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of our young nation.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, and Tom Hamburger report FBI warned Giuliani, key Trump ally in Senate of Russian disinformation campaign targeting Biden:

The FBI warned Rudolph W. Giuliani in late 2019 that he was the target of a Russian influence operation aimed at circulating falsehoods intended to damage President Biden politically ahead of last year’s election, according to people familiar with the matter.

The warning was part of an extensive effort by the bureau to alert members of Congress and at least one conservative media outlet, One America News, that they faced a risk of being used to further Russia’s attempt to influence the election’s outcome, said several current and former U.S. officials. All spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains highly sensitive.

Giuliani received the FBI’s warning while deeply involved with former president Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign and related activities in Ukraine to surface unflattering or incriminating information about the Biden family. The revelation comes as the FBI this week seized Giuliani’s cellphone and other electronic devices as part of a long-running criminal investigation into whether the onetime New York mayor and personal attorney for Trump acted as an unregistered foreign agent.

The warning, made by counterintelligence agents, was separate from the Justice Department’s ongoing criminal probe, but it reflects a broader concern by U.S. intelligence and federal investigators that Giuliani — among other influential Americans and U.S. institutions — was being manipulated by the Russian government to promote its interests and that he appears to have brazenly disregarded such fears.

(A knowing, willing Russian asset. Worse than a fellow traveler – Giuliani was a true fifth columnist.)

 Steven Pifer writes The first 100 days: Breaking with Trump on Russia:

President Joe Biden is the first president since the Cold War to begin his term not seeking closer relations with Russia; there will be no “reset.” He has indicated instead that he will push back against Russian misbehavior while seeking to cooperate where doing so advances U.S. interests. In his first 100 days Mr. Biden has sought to distinguish his policy from that of Donald Trump, who seemed incapable of criticizing Vladimir Putin or Russian transgressions.

The first full day of his administration illustrated Mr. Biden’s approach. The White House said he would extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) for five years, essentially accepting an offer Mr. Putin had made more than a year earlier—but something that was very much in the interest of U.S. national security. White House officials also announced that Mr. Biden had asked for assessments of Russian actions such as interference in the 2020 presidential election and the Solar Winds cyber hack, promising that the administration would “hold Russia to account for its reckless and adversarial actions.”

Mr. Biden described his policy directly to Mr. Putin in a January 26 phone call. He discussed New START and strategic stability but also raised issues of concern, including Ukraine, election interference and Kremlin-opponent Alexey Navalny’s poisoning. The White House read-out of the call (there were several important Trump-Putin calls with no read-outs) noted that the president had also said that the United States would “act firmly in defense of its national interests in response to actions by Russia” that caused harm to America or its allies.

Alligator Crashes Toronto FC Soccer Practice in Florida:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see times of sun and clouds and a passing shower this afternoon with a high of sixty-eight. Sunrise is 5:49 AM and sunset 7:54 PM, for 14h 04m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 91.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1986, American and European spy satellites capture the ruins of the 4th reactor at the Chernobyl Power Plant.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Ezra Klein writes Democrats and Republicans Can’t Agree on Anything. They Shouldn’t Have To:

If anything, past legislation in America is too stable. More old policy should be revisited, and if it’s not working, uprooted or overhauled. There’s nothing wrong with one party passing a bill that the next party repeals. That gives voters information they can use to decide who to vote for in the future. If a party repeals a popular bill, they will pay an electoral price. If they repeal an unpopular bill, or replace it with something better, they’ll prosper. That’s the way the system should work.

We are a divided country, but one way we could become less divided is for the consequences of elections to be clearer. When legislation is so hard to pass, politics becomes a battle over identity rather than a battle over policy. Don’t get me wrong: Fights over policy can be angry, even vicious. But they can also lead to changed minds — as in the winning coalition Democrats built atop the successes of the New Deal — or changed parties, as savvy politicians learn to accept the successes of the other side. There is a reason Republicans no longer try to repeal Medicare and Democrats shrink from raising taxes on the middle class.

This is what Manchin gets wrong: A world of partisan governance is a world in which Republicans and Democrats both get to pass their best ideas into law, and the public judges them on the results. That is far better than we have now, where neither party can routinely pass their best ideas into law, and the public is left frustrated that so much political tumult changes so little.

Maya Wei-Haas reports Rare chunks of Earth’s mantle found exposed in Maryland:

Standing among patches of muddy snow on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland, I bent down to pick up a piece of the planet that should have been hidden miles below my feet.

On that chilly February day, I was out with a pair of geologists to see an exposed section of Earth’s mantle. While this layer of rock is usually found between the planet’s crust and core, a segment peeks out of the scrubby Maryland forest, offering scientists a rare chance to study Earth’s innards up close.

Even more intriguing, the rock’s unusual chemical makeup suggests that this piece of mantle, along with chunks of lower crust scattered around Baltimore, was once part of the seafloor of a now-vanished ocean.

Over the roughly 490 million years since their formation, these hunks of Earth were smashed by shifting tectonic plates and broiled by searing hot fluids rushing through cracks, altering both their composition and sheen. Mantle rock is generally full of sparkly green crystals of the mineral olivine, but the rock in my hand was surprisingly unremarkable to look at: mottled yellow-brown stone occasionally flecked with black.

“Those rocks have had a tough life,” says George Guice, a mineralogist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

 Bank of England looks into launching its own ‘Britcoin’:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-five. Sunrise is 5:51 AM and sunset 7:52 PM, for 14h 01m 38s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Tech park Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 7 AM and the Pedestrian and Bicycle Meeting meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5 PM.

On this day in 1973, The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, recorded in Abbey Road Studios goes to number one on the US Billboard chart, beginning a record-breaking 741-week chart run.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Hamid Aleaziz reports ICE Will No Longer Arrest Immigrants At Courthouses Unless There’s A Public Safety Threat:

On Tuesday, the Biden administration will issue a policy that sharply limits the immigrants whom ICE officers can arrest at courthouses after years of criticism of the practice, according to government officials and documents. The policy also applies to US Customs and Border Protection officials as well.

“Ensuring that individuals have access to the courts advances the fair administration of justice, promotes safety for crime victims, and helps to guarantee equal protection under the law,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “The expansion of civil immigration arrests at courthouses during the prior administration had a chilling effect on individuals’ willingness to come to court or work cooperatively with law enforcement. Today’s guidance is the latest step in our efforts to focus our civil immigration enforcement resources on threats to homeland security and public safety.”

(These arrests during the last administration weren’t about safety, they were an attempt to deny access to the courts.)

Paul Farhi reports A New York Post story about Kamala Harris triggered conservative outrage. Almost all of it was wrong. Now the reporter has resigned:

A longtime New York Post reporter said she has resigned after being “ordered” to write a false story that claimed undocumented minors were being welcomed to the United States with copies of a children’s book written by Vice President Harris.

“The Kamala Harris story — an incorrect story I was ordered to write and which I failed to push back hard enough against — was my breaking point,” Laura Italiano tweeted Tuesday afternoon, several hours after her viral article about the books had been deleted from the Post’s website and replaced with corrected versions.

Italiano, who has written for the Post since the 1990s, according to news archives, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Since the Post published the story on its front page Saturday, the conservative mediascape has been in an uproar over the supposed distribution of Harris’s 2019 book, “Superheroes Are Everywhere,” at migrant shelters. A slew of prominent Republicans expressed outrage over the possibility that taxpayers were funding the program. Even the White House press secretary was grilled about it.

And then on Tuesday, in a one-sentence note at the bottom of the original online article, the Post acknowledged that almost none of it was true.

“Editor’s note: The original version of this article said migrant kids were getting Harris’ book in a welcome kit, but has been updated to note that only one known copy of the book was given to a child,” it read in full.

In fact, it’s not even clear whether a child actually received that single copy of the book, which was photographed by Reuters on a vacant bed at a shelter in Long Beach, Calif., last week. It was one of many items, including toys and clothing, donated by residents in a citywide drive, Long Beach officials said. No government funds were used to purchase the items, according to a city spokeswoman.

 Building Houses on Mars:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-six. Sunrise is 5:52 AM and sunset 7:51 PM, for 13h 59m 05s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets via audiovisual conferencing at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1986, the city of Pripyat and surrounding areas are evacuated due to Chernobyl disaster.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Craig Gilbert writes Wisconsin will neither gain nor lose a US House seat in long-awaited reapportionment data:

The U.S. Census Bureau released its highly anticipated 2020 state population counts Monday, showing Wisconsin with 5,893,718 residents, placing it 20th among the 50 states.

The new apportionment data unveiled by the Census Bureau determines the number of U.S. House seats and the number of Electoral College votes for each state over the next decade.

As expected, the size of Wisconsin’s U.S. House delegation will remain unchanged between now and 2032 at eight seats, even though some other Midwestern states —  Michigan, Illinois and Ohio — will lose a seat due to population changes.

Kelly Meyerhofer reports UW-Madison engineering professor who led ‘toxic’ lab will resign this summer:

Akbar Sayeed, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 1997, will resign Aug. 1, according to an email sent by department chairwoman Susan Hagness on Monday.

Sayeed’s resignation comes more than four years after the 2016 death of doctoral student John Brady, who left behind a trail of digital evidence documenting the damaging effect Sayeed had on the well-being of students working in his lab.

UW-Madison officials investigated Sayeed’s behavior and found he violated a policy against hostile and intimidating behavior. A university report described the lab’s environment as “toxic.”

The case, first reported by the Wisconsin State Journal in the fall of 2019, brought attention to the power imbalance between graduate students and the faculty advisers who oversee them.

It also brought scrutiny to an administrators’ decision allowing Sayeed to return to UW-Madison in 2020, following a two-year unpaid leave in which he landed a prestigious job working for the National Science Foundation. He was fired from the job after UW-Madison belatedly informed the agency about the circumstances behind his university leave.

Peter Stone reports Republican lawyer is key player in voter suppression drive across US:

It was an abrupt end to two decades as a partner at legal giant Foley & Lardner for the influential and conservative election lawyer Cleta Mitchell.

Days after Mitchell participated in Donald Trump’s controversial 2 January phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state where the then president pressured him to “find” him more votes to reverse Joe Biden’s win, Mitchell resigned her post in the midst of an internal firm review and mounting criticism.

But Mitchell, a combative and top lawyer in the right’s drive to promote unproven charges of sizable voting fraud in 2020 and tighten future voting laws, was not idle for long. She has now emerged in a series of roles that have put her at the heart of what many see as a ferocious Republican push on limiting voting rights that now reaches across America.

Last month, Mitchell was tapped by the libertarian FreedomWorks to spearhead a $10m drive in seven key states including Georgia, Arizona and Michigan to change voting laws to curb potential but unproven election fraud, which many Democrats and legal experts view as aimed at limiting minority votes.

(Note well: if FreedomWorks were ever ‘libertarian,’ it was long years ago; like many other professedly libertarian organizations, it’s controlled by conservative donors.)

Goldendoodle shows stunning breakaway speed, hounds high school runner at finish line:

(Holly the Goldendoodle enters the competition at 1:40 on the video.)