Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with scattered showers and a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:50 AM and sunset 6:39 PM, for 11h 49m 21s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM via audiovisual conferencing, and the Whitewater Unified School District’s board meets via audiovisual conferencing in closed session at 6:30 PM and open session beginning at 7 PM.

 On this day in 1781, American forces backed by a French fleet begin the Battle of Yorktown.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig, and Mike McIntire of the New York Times report Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance:

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.

The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.

The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019. This article offers an overview of The Times’s findings; additional articles will be published in the coming weeks.

(Emphasis added.)

 Meanwhile, Michael Kranish of the Washington Post reports Donald Trump, facing financial ruin, sought control of his elderly father’s estate. The family fight was epic: 

Donald Trump was facing financial disaster in 1990 when he came up with an audacious plan to exert control of his father’s estate.

His creditors threatened to force him into personal bankruptcy, and his first wife, Ivana, wanted “a billion dollars” in a divorce settlement, Donald Trump said in a deposition. So he sent an accountant and a lawyer to see his father, Fred Trump Sr., who was told he needed to immediately sign a document changing his will per his son’s wishes, according to depositions from family members.

It was a fragile moment for the senior Trump, who was 85 years old and had built a real estate empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He would soon be diagnosed with cognitive problems, such as being unable to recall things he was told 30 minutes earlier or remember his birth date, according to his medical records, which were included in a related court case.

Racoons & Coyotes in San Franciso’s Golden Gate Park: 

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of seventy-three.  Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 6:41 PM, for 11h 52m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1777, Lancaster, Pennsylvania becomes the capital of the United States for one day after Congress evacuates Philadelphia.

Recommended for reading in full — 

David Corn writes Donald Trump Wanted to Keep This Video Deposition Secret. We Got a Copy:

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump was burdened with lawsuits that accused him and his Trump University of defrauding students who had paid thousands of dollars to learn the supposed secrets of Trump’s financial success. Though the Trump U controversy raised questions about Trump’s fitness for office, he managed to score two legal victories in the case as it proceeded. He won a postponement in the trial until after Election Day, and he managed to seal the video of a six-hour deposition he gave in the case. That meant voters would not see news reports of Trump on the stand in a federal civil fraud case or be able to watch this footage of Trump being questioned concerning allegations of fraud. But Mother Jones has now obtained the full video of Trump’s deposition, and though the written transcript of the session was released in June 2016, the video version includes several exchanges that likely would not have played well for Trump had they become public when he was chasing votes.

Trump sat for this deposition in Trump Tower on December 10, 2015. The video shows him parrying with the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jason Forge, over various issues, including false statements made by Trump University employees, and Trump’s own memory. Trump at one point griped, “It’s the most ridiculous lawsuit I’ve ever seen.” He claimed not to remember having boasted that he possessed one of the best memories in the world and repeatedly said he could not recall matters related to the case. He downplayed false and misleading statements presented by Trump University instructors as merely “hyperbole,” refusing to label them “false.” He even disavowed a passage from one of his own books in which he had assailed educational institutions for committing “fraud.” Had the video deposition been released during the campaign, it may have yielded ammo for anti-Trump ads. At the start of the deposition, Trump’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said he and Trump did not want the transcript “getting into the hands of the media.” Regarding the video, they succeeded.

….

Trump did insist that Trump University had “a lot of very good instructors.” Yet he couldn’t identify a single one:

Adam Nagourney and Jeremy W. Peters report Denial and Defiance: Trump and His Base Downplay the Virus Ahead of the Election:

From resistance to face masks and scorn for the science of the coronavirus to predicting the imminent arrival of a vaccine while downplaying the death count, President Trump and a sizable number of his supporters have aligned emphatically behind an alternate reality minimizing a tragedy that has killed an overwhelming number of Americans and gutted the economy.

This mix of denial and defiance runs contrary to the overwhelming evidence about the spread and toll of the virus, and it is at the center of Mr. Trump’s re-election effort as early voting begins in Minnesota, Virginia and other states. It is an outlook shared among his most loyal supporters and pushed by many of his allies in the political and news media establishment.

Why Sweden Loves Food in Tubes:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-seven.  Sunrise is 6:48 AM and sunset 6:43 PM, for 11h 55m 07s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 74.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1950, United Nations troops recapture Seoul from North Korean forces.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Tory Newmyer reports Biden would create stronger economic growth and more jobs, economists find:

A Democratic sweep that puts Joe Biden in the White House and the party back in the Senate majority would produce 7.4 million more jobs and a faster economic recovery than if President Trump retains power.

That’s the conclusion Moody’s Analytics economists Mark Zandi and Bernard Yaros reach in a new analysis sizing up the two presidential candidates’ economic proposals.

And they are not alone in finding a Biden win translating into brisker growth: Economists at Goldman Sachs and Oxford Economics conclude that even a version of Biden’s program that would have to shrink to pass the Senate would mean a faster rally back to prepandemic conditions.

The economic outlook is strongest if Democrats sweep Washington, the Moody’s team finds.

“In this scenario, the economy is expected to create 18.6 million jobs during Biden’s term as president, and the economy returns to full employment, with unemployment of just over 4%, by the second half of 2022,” they write.

Real after-tax income for the average American household would increase by $4,800 by the end of Biden’s first term, the economists project, and house prices and homeownership rates both would nudge upward.

(Emphasis in original.)

Alec Johnson reports Election Administration Challenges and Effects in Wisconsin:

Wisconsin bore the brunt of conducting an election amid the coronavirus pandemic when officials decided not to delay the state’s April 7 presidential primary. Whereas most states with primaries scheduled for late March and April postponed them, Wisconsin went ahead with its elections as planned.

As the state grappled with challenges presented by the coronavirus, Lawfare published an analysis covering the multitude of legal complications and attempted legislative fixes that plagued the run-up to Wisconsin’s 2020 primary. We follow up that post with an analysis of Wisconsin’s April 7 election by the numbers, quantifying participation in the primary, the use of absentee balloting, and the causes and consequences of consolidating polling places in many of Wisconsin’s cities.

We find results that offer room for cautious optimism. Wisconsin voters shifted away from voting in person on Election Day, albeit with a substantial increase in nonreturned mail ballots. Although turnout declined from the 2016 presidential primary, the decrease can be attributed primarily to Wisconsin’s less competitive presidential primaries.

However, reasons for concern remain. Most glaringly, racial disparities occurred in the most visible strains on the system—closed polling places and nonreturned mail ballots. Wisconsin has made a concerted effort to address these issues in the ensuing primaries and upcoming general election. Whether the state’s measures will be sufficient will be evident only as the general election unfolds.

Video from Space – Weekly Highlights for Week of Sept. 20, 2020:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of seventy-five.  Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 6:45 PM, for 11h 58m 00s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 64.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1890, Congress establishes Sequoia National Park.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Alec Johnson reports Some parents have sent their COVID-19 positive children to school, Washington-Ozaukee Public Health Department director says:

The Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department is asking schools in those counties to use attendance software to track students with the coronavirus after some parents have knowingly sent their children to school even after they tested positive for COVID-19.

In one instance, a student was so ill that the student went to the nurse’s office, said health department director Kirsten Johnson. The nurse discovered the student was on the list of those who had tested positive and should not have been in class.

The department has recommended schools use their attendance software to track students who are supposed to quarantine and those who are positive in an effort to keep them from showing up for in-person classes.

Johnson said there have been two other incidents in other districts where this has happened as well.

“We’ve been trying hard to work with school districts on this to help them with their contact tracing and education, and it’s been challenging,” Johnson said. “I think for us, the biggest challenge for us that we’re experiencing right now is people are just being dishonest. They don’t want their children to be quarantined from school. They don’t want to have to miss work. In doing that, they’re jeopardizing the ability to have school in person and other people’s health.”

Johnson also said there have been issues with those in quarantine trying to return to school earlier than their quarantine would allow.

In some cases, parents have refused to test their child for COVID-19 when they’re symptomatic and have sent that child’s siblings to school.

Johnson said future messaging to the community will be straightforward: “Look, your behavior, your dishonesty, is going to result in your children’s schools being shut down. You need to be honest. You need to protect the rest of your community. The end.”

Jason Wilson and Robert Evans report Revealed: pro-Trump activists plotted violence ahead of Portland rallies:

Leaked chat logs show Portland-area pro-Trump activists planning and training for violence, sourcing arms and ammunition and even suggesting political assassinations ahead of a series of contentious rallies in the Oregon city, including one scheduled for this weekend.

….

In advance of the 22 August protest, [Mark] Melchi wrote: “It’s going to be bloody and most likely shooting, they’re definitely armed… so let’s make sure we have an organized direction of movement and direction of clearing or other Patriots will be caught in the possible cross fire. When shit hits the fan.”

He advised other members to ignore weapons statutes, writing, “I saw someone say bats, mace, and stun guns are illegal downtown. If you’re going to play by the books tomorrow night, we already lost. We are here to make a change, laws will be broken, people will get hurt… It’s lawlessness downtown, and people need to be prepared for bad things.”

Following these comments, several rightwing demonstrators were recorded using gas and bats on 22 August, where Melchi and his militia were also present.

In other remarks ahead of the day, Melchi draws on what he claims is his group’s history of traveling to multiple states to engage in violence at protests.

“My Group 1776 2.0. Has been fighting Antifa in Seattle, Portland, for months”, Melchi writes, adding “this won’t be a simple fist fight. People will get shot, stabbed and beat.”

He also claims police cooperation in interstate violence, writing “Yes, going after them at night is the solution… Like we do in other states, tactical ambushes at night while backing up the police are key. You get the leaders and the violent ones and the police are happy to shut their mouths and cameras.”

 Bars and cafes have to shut or close early in France’s biggest cities:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-six.  Sunrise is 6:45 AM and sunset 6:46 PM, for 12h 00m 53s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater Unified School District’s Distinctions Committee meets via audiovisual conferencing at 2 PM, and the Community Development Authority meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM.

 On this day in 1789, Congress passes the Judiciary Act, creating the office of the Attorney General and federal judiciary system and ordering the composition of the Supreme Court.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Colby Itkowitz reports Trump won’t commit to a ‘peaceful transfer of power’ if he loses:

“Well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster —” Trump began when asked during a White House press briefing if he would ensure a peaceful transition.

“I understand that, but people are rioting; do you commit to making sure that there’s a peaceful transferral of power?” the reporter pressed, appearing to refer to incidents of violence that have broken out during some protests.

“Get rid of the ballots, and you’ll have a very — we’ll have a very peaceful, there won’t be a transfer, frankly. There’ll be a continuation,” Trump said.

See generally Parsing Trump’s ‘there won’t be a transfer’ comments.

Barton Gellman writes The Election That Could Break America (‘If the vote is close, Donald Trump could easily throw the election into chaos and subvert the result. Who will stop him?’): 

Trump’s state and national legal teams are already laying the groundwork for postelection maneuvers that would circumvent the results of the vote count in battleground states. Ambiguities in the Constitution and logic bombs in the Electoral Count Act make it possible to extend the dispute all the way to Inauguration Day, which would bring the nation to a precipice. The Twentieth Amendment is crystal clear that the president’s term in office “shall end” at noon on January 20, but two men could show up to be sworn in. One of them would arrive with all the tools and power of the presidency already in hand.

….

Nineteen summers ago, when counterterrorism analysts warned of a coming attack by al?Qaeda, they could only guess at a date. This year, if election analysts are right, we know when the trouble is likely to come. Call it the Interregnum: the interval from Election Day to the next president’s swearing-in. It is a temporal no-man’s-land between the presidency of Donald Trump and an uncertain successor—a second term for Trump or a first for Biden. The transfer of power we usually take for granted has several intermediate steps, and they are fragile.

The Interregnum comprises 79 days, carefully bounded by law. Among them are “the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December,” this year December 14, when the electors meet in all 50 states and the District of Columbia to cast their ballots for president; “the 3d day of January,” when the newly elected Congress is seated; and “the sixth day of January,” when the House and Senate meet jointly for a formal count of the electoral vote. In most modern elections these have been pro forma milestones, irrelevant to the outcome. This year, they may not be.

How an Oregon Wildfire Became One of the Most Destructive:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-seven.  Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 6:48 PM, for 12h 03m 46s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 43.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Parks & Recreation Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM, and the Whitewater Unified District School Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 6:30 PM.

 On this day in 1846, Astronomers Urbain Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Tory Newmyer reports Global banks process trillions in dirty money despite suspicions, investigation finds:

Trillions of dollars in money connected to criminal activity are sloshing through global banks. The banks and U.S. authorities know it, and they’re not doing nearly enough to stop it.

These revelations come from the bombshell leak of more than 2,500 secret documents, most of which banks provided to the federal government over the past two decades.

BuzzFeed got hold of the records — the so-called “FinCEN Files,” referencing the nickname for the U.S. Financial Crimes Investigation Network, the Treasury Department office that collected them in the first place. The outlet then shared them with 108 other news organizations around the world.

Taken together, the files depict a stunningly widespread phenomenon of criminals, corrupt officials and terrorists taking advantage of lax banking oversight. “These documents, compiled by banks, shared with the government, but kept from public view, expose the hollowness of banking safeguards, and the ease with which criminals have exploited them,” BuzzFeed’s team writes. “Profits from deadly drug wars, fortunes embezzled from developing countries, and hard-earned savings stolen in a Ponzi scheme were all allowed to flow into and out of these financial institutions, despite warnings from the banks’ own employees.”

And five banks in particular — JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Standard Chartered Bank, Deutsche Bank and Bank of New York Mellon — “kept profiting from powerful and dangerous players even after U.S. authorities fined these financial institutions for earlier failures to stem flows of dirty money,” the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists writes.

(Emphasis in original.)

 John Cassidy writes How Boeing and the F.A.A. Created the 737 MAX Catastrophe:

The basic outlines of the Boeing 737 max tragedy are already well known—or should be well known. Even so, a detailed new report that the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure released on Wednesday morning is a remarkable document. In two hundred and thirty-eight pages of clearly written prose, it goes a long way toward explaining not only what went so wrong at Boeing but what has gone badly askew with the American corporation in general, and with American governance.

….

Thanks to the official crash reports and some excellent investigative journalism, this much we already knew. Based on an eighteen-month investigation, the new report adds a wealth of new details—and it points the finger in the right places. It illustrates how Boeing’s management prioritized the company’s profitability and stock price over everything else, including passenger safety. Perhaps even more alarmingly, the report shows how the F.A.A., which once had a sterling reputation for independence and integrity, acted as a virtual agent for the company it was supposed to be overseeing.

In 2011, when Boeing’s board of directors approved the development of the 737 max, the company was racing to compete with Airbus’s A320neo, an innovative and fuel-efficient line of aircraft that had been launched the previous year.

Tour de France under a cloud after new allegations of doping emerge: