Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thundershowers with a high of eighty-seven. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 18m 29s of daytime.  The moon is waxing gibbous with 51.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1846, Adolphe Sax patents the saxophone.

Recommended for reading in full —

Joshua Partlow and Josh Dawsey report Workers removed thousands of social distancing stickers before Trump’s Tulsa rally:

In the hours before President Trump’s rally in Tulsa, his campaign directed the removal of thousands of “Do Not Sit Here, Please!” stickers from seats in the arena that were intended to establish social distance between rallygoers, according to video and photos obtained by The Washington Post and a person familiar with the event.

The removal contradicted instructions from the management of the BOK Center, the 19,000-seat arena in downtown Tulsa where Trump held his rally on June 20. At the time, coronavirus cases were rising sharply in Tulsa County, and Trump faced intense criticism for convening a large crowd for an indoor political rally, his first such event since the start of the pandemic.

As part of its safety plan, arena management had purchased 12,000 do-not-sit stickers for Trump’s rally, intended to keep people apart by leaving open seats between attendees. On the day of the rally, event staff had already affixed them on nearly every other seat in the arena when Trump’s campaign told event management to stop and then began removing the stickers, hours before the president’s arrival, according to a person familiar with the event who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

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They also told us that they didn’t want any signs posted saying we should social distance in the venue,” [executive vice president of the venue’s owners, ASM Doug] Thornton said.

Derek Willis and Yeganeh Torbati report A Company Run by a White House “Volunteer” With No Experience in Medical Supplies Got $2.4 Million From the Feds for Medical Supplies:

A company created by a former Pentagon official who describes himself as a White House volunteer for Vice President Mike Pence won a $2.4 million dollar contract in May — its first federal award — to supply the Bureau of Prisons with surgical gowns.

Mathew J. Konkler, who worked in the Department of Defense during the George W. Bush administration, formed BlackPoint Distribution Company LLC in August 2019 in Indiana, state records show, but had won no federal work until May 26. The Bureau of Prisons chose the company with limited competition for a contract to supply surgical gowns to its facilities.

It is at least the second contract awarded to a company formed by an individual who had worked in or volunteered for the Trump administration; a company formed by Zach Fuentes, a former White House deputy chief of staff, won a $3 million contract just days after forming to supply face masks to the Indian Health Service. The masks did not meet FDA standards for use in health care settings, and an IHS spokesman said this week that the agency is trying to return the masks to Fuentes. Members of Congress called for investigations into the contract, and the Government Accountability Office now plans to review the deal “in the coming few months, as staff become available,” spokesman Charles Young said last week.

A Decade of Sun:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see scattered thundershowers with a high of eighty-six. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 18m 29s of daytime.  The moon is waxing crescent with 40.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1937, Solomon Juneau founds the Milwaukee Sentinel.

Recommended for reading in full —

Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt, and Michael Schwirtz report Russia Secretly Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, Intelligence Says (‘The Trump administration has been deliberating for months about what to do about a stunning intelligence assessment’):

American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.

The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.

 Philip Bump describes The ridiculous coronavirus denialism of Trump’s top economic adviser:

Larry Kudlow came to President Trump’s National Economic Council by way of a stint on cable television, a not-uncommon path for members of Trump’s team. His job is straightforward: He is responsible for ensuring that the administration enacts policies aimed at bolstering the economy, a central concern for the president as his reelection looms.

Kudlow’s most obvious efforts at massaging the economy, though, seem to echo those of Trump: assuring Americans and U.S. businesses that the coronavirus pandemic is under control.

That’s been his role for a while. In late February, Kudlow appeared on television to assure the country that the virus was contained “pretty close to airtight.” It wasn’t: The virus was already spreading without detection and the first case of that spread would be reported less than 48 hours later. It’s not just that Kudlow was incorrect. It’s that he was obviously incorrect at the time he made the claim he made.

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“There are some hot spots. We’re on it,” Kudlow reiterated Monday. “We know how to deal with this stuff now, we’ve come a long way since last winter and there is no second wave coming.”

That was Monday, when the seven-day average of new cases in the United States was 27,645, according to a Washington Post analysis. That was already up 28 percent from the average June 15. Since Monday, that average has climbed another 12 percent, leading to one of the highest averages the country has seen since the pandemic emerged.

How Laser Cleaning Works:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see afternoon thundershowers with a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 18m 58s of daytime.  The moon is waxing crescent with 29.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1963, Pres. Kennedy deliver his Ich bin ein Berliner speech in West Berlin.

Recommended for reading in full —

Neil Paine and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux write New research explores how conservative media misinformation may have intensified the severity of the pandemic (‘The three studies paint a picture of a media ecosystem that entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking steps to protect themselves and others’):

In recent weeks, three studies have focused on conservative media’s role in fostering confusion about the seriousness of the coronavirus. Taken together, they paint a picture of a media ecosystem that amplifies misinformation, entertains conspiracy theories and discourages audiences from taking concrete steps to protect themselves and others.

The end result, according to one of the studies, is that infection and mortality rates are higher in places where one pundit who initially downplayed the severity of the pandemic — Fox News’s Sean Hannity — reaches the largest audiences.

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In April, Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Dolores Albarracin of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign published a peer-reviewed study examining how Americans’ media diets affected their beliefs about the coronavirus.

Administering a nationally representative phone survey with 1,008 respondents, they found that people who got most of their information from mainstream print and broadcast outlets tended to have an accurate assessment of the severity of the pandemic and their risks of infection. But those who relied on conservative sources, such as Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, were more likely to believe in conspiracy theories or unfounded rumors, such as the belief that taking vitamin C could prevent infection, that the Chinese government had created the virus, and that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention exaggerated the pandemic’s threat “to damage the Trump presidency.”
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A working paper posted by the National Bureau of Economic Research in May examined whether these incorrect beliefs affected real-world behavior.

The authors used anonymous location data from millions of cellphones to explore how the popularity of Fox News in a given Zip code related to social distancing practices there. By March 15, they found, a 10 percent increase in Fox News viewership within a Zip code reduced its residents’ propensity to stay home, in compliance with public health guidelines, by about 1.3 percentage points.
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Another recent working paper, by economists at the University of Chicago and other institutions, similarly finds that Fox News viewers are less likely to comply with public health guidelines than consumers of other media. But their paper takes the analysis two steps further: It finds that Fox viewers aren’t a monolith, with fans of some media personalities acting distinctly from others. It also provides evidence that those behavioral differences are contributing to the spread of the coronavirus and mortality rate of covid-19 the disease it causes, in certain areas.

Philadelphia Police Violated Their Own Guidelines, Here’s How:

See also Philadelphia Officials Apologize For Using Tear Gas On Protesters; SWAT Officer In Viral Video Suspended With Intent To Dismiss. more >>

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 19m 21s of daytime.  The moon is waxing crescent with 19.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s CDA board meets at 5:30 PM via audiovisual conferencing. 

On this day in 1950, the Korean War begins after North Korea invades South Korea.

Recommended for reading in full —

Neil Paine and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux write What Economists Fear Most During This Recovery:

In partnership with the Initiative on Global Markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, FiveThirtyEight asked 34 quantitative macroeconomic economists what they thought about a variety of subjects around the coronavirus recession and recovery efforts. The most recent survey, which was conducted from June 19 through 22, echoed many of the predictions from the last round — though there were also a few new wrinkles in their forecasts.

When we first asked about the shape of the recovery, 58 percent of respondents thought the trajectory of future U.S. gross domestic product looked like a Nike “swoosh” — a sharp downturn followed by a long, slow recovery. This time around, however, a consensus has formed around a slightly different shape: a reverse radical (i.e., a mirrored version of the square-root symbol).

This shape — which 73 percent of our economists predicted for the country’s economic future — implies a steep drop followed by a quick partial recovery and a longer period of slower, mixed growth. But it isn’t necessarily an improvement over the swoosh. “There is nothing standard or smooth about this recovery,” said Lisa Cook, professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University. In her view, a reverse-radical-shaped recovery could be shaped by a spike in infections and hospitalizations, a wave of bankruptcies as unemployment benefits expire or consumers’ unwillingness to return to gyms, nail salons or other parts of their routine. That could make the bounce back from this recession bumpier than previous recessions.

Radley Balko writes Both parties’ police reform bills are underwhelming. Here’s why:

The Republican bill places no restrictions on the dangerous practice of no-knock raids. Instead, it asks that states collect data. The Democratic bill bars the use of no-knock warrants for federal drug investigations and cuts funding for any state or local jurisdiction that doesn’t do the same. But the Democrats’ bill requires only that police officers execute drug warrants “only after providing notice of his or her authority and purpose.” This “knock and announce” requirement is all but meaningless if you know that police officers frequently do so either simultaneous with or just seconds before entering. (The cops who killed Taylor, for example, claimed they did knock and announce.) A truly meaningful reform would go further and bar any forced entry into a private residence unless the police have reason to suspect someone inside presents an imminent threat to others, such as an active shooter, a kidnapping or a robbery in progress.

Neither bill satisfactorily provides for changing the current reality that bad cops are rarely held accountable. Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck, had 17 misconduct complaints in 18 years. He received only two letters of reprimand. The New York Times reported that since 2012, the Minneapolis Police Department received over 2,600 civilian complaints of police misconduct. Just 12 were upheld. This is consistent with other surveys of police departments across the country.

 Six critically ill Covid-19 patients would overwhelm this Texas hospital:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see an afternoon thunderstorm with a high of seventy-seven. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 19m 42s of daytime.  The moon is waxing crescent with 11.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1948, the Soviets begin the Berlin Blockade.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Annie Lowrey writes about risks of The Second Great Depression:

At this fraught moment, no one knows enough about consumer sentiment and government ordinances and business failures and stimulus packages and the spread of the disease to make solid predictions about the future. The Trump administration and some bullish financial forecasters are arguing that we will end up with a strong, V-shaped rebound, with economic activity surging right back to where it was in no time. Others are betting on a longer, slower, U-shaped turnaround, with the pain extending for a year or three. Still others are sketching out a kind of flaccid check mark, its long tail sagging torpid into the future.

Excitement about reopening aside, that third and most miserable course is the one we appear to be on. The country will rebound, as things reopen. The bounce will seem remarkable, given how big the drop was: Retail sales rose 18 percent in May, and the economy added 2.5 million jobs. But absent dramatic policy action, a pandemic depression is possible: the Congressional Budget Office anticipates that the American economy will generate $8 trillion less in economic activity over the next decade than it projected just a few months ago, and that a full recovery might not take hold until the 2030s.

At least four major factors are terrifying economists and weighing on the recovery: the household fiscal cliff, the great business die-off, the state and local budget shortfall, and the lingering health crisis. Three months ago, the pandemic and ensuing shelter-in-place orders caused mass job loss unlike anything in recent American history. A virtual blizzard settled on top of the country and froze everyone in place. Nearly 40 percent of low-wage workers lost their jobs in March. More than 40 million people lost their jobs in March, April, or May.

Karoun Demirjian, Matt Zapotosky, and Rachael Bade report Prosecutor to tell Congress of pressure from ‘highest levels’ of Justice Dept. to cut Roger Stone ‘a break’:

A federal prosecutor and another Justice Department official plan to tell Congress on Wednesday that Attorney General William P. Barr and his top deputies issued inappropriate orders amid investigations and trials “based on political considerations” and a desire to cater to President Trump.

Aaron Zelinsky, an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland formerly detailed to Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, will tell the House Judiciary Committee that prosecutors involved in the criminal trial of Trump’s friend Roger Stone experienced “heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break” by requesting a lighter sentence, according to Zelinsky’s prepared remarks. The expectation, he intends to testify, was that Stone should be treated “differently and more leniently” because of his “relationship with the President.”

(Read Aaron Zelinsky’s opening statement to the House Judiciary Committee.)

Zelinsky will be joined by John Elias, an official in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, who will say that Barr ordered staff to investigate marijuana company mergers simply because he “did not like the nature of their underlying business,” according to his prepared testimony.

 Apple stock hits all-time high: