Bill Barr has now been Trump’s attorney general for a full year.
He’s spent that year helping Trump weaponize the Justice Department for his personal benefit—showing that, like the man who appointed him, Barr is an urgent threat to American democracy.https://t.co/Xtr0BE6fVJ— The Moscow Project (@moscow_project) February 14, 2020
Good morning. 
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-three. Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 5:27 PM, for 10h 38m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 43.2% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1862, Grant is victorious at the Battle of Fort Donelson: “The capture of Forts Henry and Donelson were the first significant Union victories in the war and opened two great rivers to invasion in the heartland of the South. Grant was promoted to major general of volunteers, second in seniority only to Henry W. Halleck in the West.”
Recommended for reading in full —
Bruce Vielmetti reports In race with questions about true residency, 2 challengers seek to unseat Scott Walker court appointee:
Two candidates in the race for circuit judge want the job badly enough that they say they’re living in Milwaukee County apart from their families, and a third has exploited that fact as he campaigns.
For more than 20 years, incumbent Paul Dedinsky and his family lived in Waukesha County. His wife and children still do, but he says he has relocated to his parents’ home in Whitefish Bay, on Milwaukee County’s north shore, since former Gov. Scott Walker appointed him to the bench in late 2018.
Brett Blomme’s husband and two children live in Dane County but Blomme says his domicile is a home the couple also owns near North 68th and West Burleigh streets in Milwaukee.
At a recent candidates’ forum, Zach Whitney said he lives in Milwaukee because he “loves it, not because I’m running for judge.”
Danielle Citron explains How Campaigns Can Counter Deepfakes:
“Within months, technologists say, it will be impossible…to detect deepfakes” with counter-technology, says Danielle Citron, a [Boston University] School of Law professor of law, a MacArthur Fellow (an award commonly called a genius grant), and vice president of the nonprofit Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI). The sheer volume of different ways to make deepfakes will confound efforts to detect them “and therefore to filter and block them,” she says. So Citron has devised an eight-point plan for political campaigns this election year, from president to dogcatcher, to protect against this cyber-sabotage.
The plan includes campaigns pledging not to disseminate deepfakes knowingly; designating a rapid-response team of media and legal staffers to manage a deepfake incident (something few campaigns have done); establishing “points-of-contact” both at technology companies whose platforms might be used for deepfakes and with media fact-checkers, to understand their verification procedures; and preparing “contingency web content” to counter and correct a deepfake attack.
Distinguishing between deepfakes and other forms of political lies is important, Citron says. The video of Nancy Pelosi released last year, where the US Speaker of the House appeared to speak haltingly, as if cognitively impaired, was a real video that was altered and slowed down. While damaging and misleading, that’s not a deepfake, where the video is a manufactured avatar of the person it impersonates.
Technology is coming that will enable manufactured sex videos of people who never did what’s depicted in the videos, Citron warns. BU Today spoke with Citron about her eight-point plan, the 2020 campaign, and the perilous state of technology.
(Full article enumerates the proposal.)
Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 5:26 PM, for 10h 35m 35s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 53.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1898, the battleship USS Maine explodes and sinks in Havana harbor, killing 274.
Recommended for reading in full —
David Corn writes Trump Unleashed: The Trump Presidency Enters Its Most Dangerous Phase:
Through the Trump Era, it’s been fashionable for some of his critics—especially on Twitter—to assail his actions as the coming of kleptocracy, autocracy, authoritarianism, and, yes, fascism to the United States. Recently, in an airport, an elderly women stopped me to say that she survived the Holocaust in a camp and now fears she is experiencing what her mother went through eighty-five years ago as the catastrophe approached in Germany. I tried to persuade her that as bad as things are now, there remains institutions, organizations, and millions of people who will not accept what is happening to the nation’s democratic institutions and who can oppose a complete power-grab from Trump and his cult (a.k.a. the Republican Party).
I still believe that. But Trump’s hostile take-over of the Justice Department this week is yet another sign that the task of countering Trump’s extremism is becoming both harder and more crucial.
By now, you know the basics: After the Justice Department requested a seven-to-nine years sentence for Roger Stone, a longtime Trump intimate who was convicted of lying to Congress and witness-tampering (to protect Trump in the Russia scandal), Trump tweet-whined that this sentence would be too harsh, and the DoJ dutifully rescinded it. Four federal prosecutors, apparently in protest, withdrew from the Stone case, with one quitting the department. Then Trump attacked the federal judge handling the case. Still on the rampage the next day, Trump—again in a tweet—threatened to withhold assistance for New York State if it did not smother investigations related to Trump.
On Thursday afternoon, Attorney General Bill Barr seemed to rebuke Trump by saying he would not “be bullied or influenced by anybody,” including the president. But Barr has already done so much of Trump’s bidding—undermining the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report, opening investigations that appeared designed to unearth information that support Trump’s favorite conspiracy theories—his declaration of independence was too late, if not ludicrous.
Bruce Vielmetti reports Former federal agent acquitted on 4 of 5 counts in sexual assault trial:
A jury late Friday found a former federal agent not guilty of sexually assaulting two women after a nine-day trial that featured explicit testimony from three former girlfriends, but guilty of assaulting a third.
David Scharlat, 55, of Oconomowoc, was charged in April 2018 with five counts of sexual assault against the three women over five years. Scharlat, who had steady dating relationships with all of the women, says the charged incidents were all consensual.
His attorney, Paul Bucher, called the conviction inconsistent with the other verdicts and said Scharlat will appeal. “The fight is not over,” he said.
In her closing argument, Assistant District Attorney Michele Hulgaard said the evidence showed Scharlat to be a predator who had no regard for the women in his life and took what he wanted from them, emotionally and physically. He used the authority of his badge and gun to intimidate them, she said.
So, Donald Trump had a deal in mind when wrote about a meeting with the governor of New York. New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, had a reply for him —
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Good morning.
Valentine’s Day in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of fourteen. Sunrise is 6:52 AM and sunset 5:25 PM, for 10h 32m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 64.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1960, Sen. Kennedy campaigns in Fort Atkinson.
Recommended for reading in full —
I writes Trump’s authoritarian style is remaking America:
The president’s demagoguery has left a deep mark on American society. An investigation by my colleagues sifted through 28,000 reports of bullying in U.S. schools and found hundreds of incidents in which Trump-inspired rhetoric was used to harass children, especially students from Hispanic, black or Muslim backgrounds.
“Since Trump’s rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America,” my colleagues wrote. “Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.”
This unsettling trend speaks of a deeper malaise and entrenched divisions. David Roberts at Vox argued that the United States is in the grips of an “epistemic” crisis: A decades-long right-wing project to create its own media bubble cemented a polarized political reality in which rival camps can’t even agree on the facts of their disagreements.
“That is what a tribalist like Trump wants: for communication and compromise across tribal lines to become impossible, so that loyalty becomes the only measure and everything is reduced to pure struggle for dominance,” Roberts wrote.
….
“The Republican Party is betraying democracy, and these are historical times,” Jason Stanley, a Yale philosophy professor and author of “How Fascism Works,” told Business Insider. “The Republican Party has shown that it has no interest in multi-party democracy. … They are much more concerned with power, with consolidating power.”
Michael Brice-Saddler reports Attorney General William Barr condemned by 39 prosecutors for ‘dangerous and failed’ approach to criminal justice:
Thirty-nine elected prosecutors in a joint statement condemned Attorney General William P. Barr for recent his rhetoric that attacked progressive policies, arguing that his “dangerous and failed” approach to criminal justice disproportionately punished poor people and racial minorities while diverting resources away from more serious crimes.
“Sadly, we are perceived as a threat by some who are wedded to the status quo or, even worse, failed policies of past decades,” the 39 state, county and city prosecutors wrote. “Critics such as Attorney General William P. Barr seek to bring us back to a time when crime was high, success was measured by how harsh the punishment was, and a fear-driven narrative prevailed.”
In their letter, the signatories warned against returning to a “‘tough on crime’ era” that ignored facts and encouraged mass incarceration. Instead, they argued, evidence shows that a data-based approach is not only more effective, but also strengthens community trust.
“We know policies based on fear don’t work; they simply deepen divides and promote a false narrative,” the letter read. “For too long communities were told that locking up poor people for crimes like shoplifting and drug possession would make them safer, when time and time again all it resulted in was the fracturing of families, intergenerational cycles of incarceration, a destabilization of communities and a growing distrust of law enforcement.”
Red supergiant star Betelgeuse’s ‘apparent shape is changing’:
Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be snowy, with a high of twelve. Sunrise is 6:53 AM and sunset 5:24 PM, for 10h 30m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 76.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1960, France becomes the fourth country to possess nuclear weapons after a successful nuclear test codenamed Gerboise Bleue.
Recommended for reading in full —
McKay Coppins writes The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President (‘How new technologies and techniques pioneered by dictators will shape the 2020 election):
Every presidential campaign sees its share of spin and misdirection, but this year’s contest promises to be different. In conversations with political strategists and other experts, a dystopian picture of the general election comes into view—one shaped by coordinated bot attacks, Potemkin local-news sites, micro-targeted fearmongering, and anonymous mass texting. Both parties will have these tools at their disposal. But in the hands of a president who lies constantly, who traffics in conspiracy theories, and who readily manipulates the levers of government for his own gain, their potential to wreak havoc is enormous.
The Trump campaign is planning to spend more than $1 billion, and it will be aided by a vast coalition of partisan media, outside political groups, and enterprising freelance operatives. These pro-Trump forces are poised to wage what could be the most extensive disinformation campaign in U.S. history. Whether or not it succeeds in reelecting the president, the wreckage it leaves behind could be irreparable.
The campaign is run from the 14th floor of a gleaming, modern office tower in Rosslyn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. Glass-walled conference rooms look out on the Potomac River. Rows of sleek monitors line the main office space. Unlike the bootstrap operation that first got Trump elected—with its motley band of B-teamers toiling in an unfinished space in Trump Tower—his 2020 enterprise is heavily funded, technologically sophisticated, and staffed with dozens of experienced operatives. One Republican strategist referred to it, admiringly, as “the Death Star.”
Bruce Thompson describes The Republicans’ Gerrymander Scheme:
In recent weeks there has been widespread speculation that the Republican-dominated Legislature would try to exclude Governor Tony Evers from a say in redistricting the state following the 2020 census. GOP legislators would do this by passing revised districts in a joint resolution from the state Assembly and Senate rather than a bill. Unlike a bill, a joint resolution cannot be vetoed by the governor.
….
The idea of cutting the governor out of this normal legislative process has come up before: In a 1961 decision, Reynolds v. Zimmerman, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected a previous attempt to use a joint resolution process for redistricting. Fundamental to this decision was the consideration that, while individual legislators represented the interests of their districts, only the governor represented the interests of Wisconsin as a whole.
The behavior of the present conservative majority on the state Supreme Court has led to concerns that the court might be willing to reverse Reynolds v. Zimmerman and allow Republican legislators to adopt a new gerrymander through a joint resolution rather than a legislative bill. This concern reflects both the majority’s willingness to ignore stare decisis—the principle that the court should be reluctant to overturn past decisions. It also reflects a perception that where the court comes down is influenced by what would help Republicans.
Perhaps Yorkshire terriers dream each night of being ferocious wolves. If that should be so, and if even tiny dogs imagine themselves as mighty predators, then there may be a natural explanation – in animals and people – for the yearning of smarmy local development men for gigantic corporate welfare schemes.
Of those men and those schemes, however, one should take the firm stand of Noah Smith when he writes that Amazon HQ2 and Foxconn Should Never Happen Again:
One big problem with business incentives is that even when they’re successful at luring companies, they often aren’t worth it. A number of studies have found that the local economic benefits of paying for a factory or office tend to be fleeting or nonexistent. A new paper by economists Cailin Slattery and Owen Zidar confirms these findings.
….
But the biggest drawback that Slattery and Zidar found is that the incentives don’t seem to stimulate additional economic activity. Cities and states that offer incentives usually hope that a big new factory or office will be an anchor for a regional economic expansion that draws in other companies in the same industry, creating even more jobs. Every city probably wishes it could become a self-sustaining industrial cluster like Silicon Valley or New York. But this hope is rarely fulfilled. Slattery and Zidar found that outside of the very narrowly defined industry category of the company that relocates, places that offer incentives see no job growth. In other words, incentives can bring in one company but others don’t often follow.
What’s worse, the authors found that low-wage locations tend to offer bigger subsidies. That suggests that poor, desperate places are shelling out money they can’t really afford to chase the elusive dream of creating an economic cluster. Companies that get to sit back and watch as cash-strapped governments ply them with gifts are the only real beneficiaries of this rat race.
Small towns like Whitewater are not, and have no need to be, self-sustaining industrial clusters. What a shame, truly, that in so many rural communities years and millions have been wasted on projects little better than the grandiose dreams of pampered pups.
Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with occasional snowfall, and a high of thirty-six. Sunrise is 6:55 AM and sunset 5:22 PM, for 10h 27m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 85.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1809, Abraham Lincoln is born.
Recommended for reading in full —
Mikhaila Fogel, Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, Benjamin Wittes write The President Tweets and the Justice Department Complies:
Corruption of the justice system has two major elements. The first—at issue in the Ukraine scandal—is the use of state power to go after one’s enemies. The other is the ability to restrain government power to reward one’s friends and allies.
A dramatic display of this latter power took place today, Feb. 11, when the U.S. Department of Justice, having articulated in court its view of an appropriate sentence for President Trump’s associate Roger Stone—convicted recently on multiple felony counts—confronted an angry presidential tweet and then meekly reversed course in a second filing.
The action prompted multiple career prosecutors to withdraw from the case.
….
We don’t know exactly what might have gone on within the Justice Department during the hours between when the first Stone memo was filed and when the department decided it had made an egregious error. But it is highly irregular for the department to act as it did today, intervening to overrule career prosecutors to urge leniency for a presidential friend. To act as it did in the immediate wake of a presidential statement decrying the handling of the case and in the face of the withdrawal from the matter of the prosecutors in question creates a heavy presumption of irregularity.
Nor is this the first time that the Justice Department has backtracked on a sentencing recommendation in a high-profile Mueller-related case. In December 2018, nearly two years after former national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI regarding his contacts with Russian officials prior to the Trump inauguration, the special counsel’s office filed a sentencing memo suggesting a downward departure from the zero to six months of prison time recommended by the guidelines—meaning that Flynn would get no custodial sentence at all.
Julia Davis reports Russians Think Triumphant Trump Is More Their Man Than Ever:
Russian state media have welcomed enthusiastically the recent U.S. Senate acquittal of President Donald J. Trump. Having predicted this outcome for his impeachment trial, Russian experts and state-media pundits are anticipating beneficial side effects for the Kremlin as Trump is more Trump—and more Russia’s Trump—than ever.
Dmitry Kiselyov, the host of Russia’s popular Sunday news program Vesti Nedeli, said, “Democrats are openly raging, but while they’re licking their wounds, Trump can now objectively afford to pursue a more positive course of action toward Russia—just as he planned all along while being elected for the first term.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent invitation to Trump to attend Victory Day festivities in Moscow this spring is designed to bring the U.S. president ever deeper into the Kremlin fold. Appearing on Sunday Evening With Vladimir Soloviev, politician Sergey Stankevich asserted, “Donald Trump has to come to Moscow in May, no doubt about it. He is obligated to be here.”
Standard Poodle ‘Siba’ Walks Away With Best In Show @ Westminster:
Over at the conservative Bulwark, there’s a published email in which the email’s author anecdotally describes how some Trump supporters are ignorant of significant daily political events:
I will also point out that the same people who were extremely knowledgeable about what was going on during the Obama administration amazingly have very little knowledge of what’s going on day-to-day in the Trump administration and frankly they tell me they don’t want to know. Out of three people not one watched the East Room performance last Thursday, nor did they read about it or hear even drops from the tirade.
There is definitely a marked regression in knowledge of what’s going on politically during the Trump administration. Out of sight, out of mind.
It was difficult to challenge their points or even have informed discussions with them, because whatever I mentioned, they had no knowledge of it occurring. Very much short on facts. Had all of the repeated Trumpisms, witch hunt, hoax, etc. down pat. But if you try to drill down a little deeper you couldn’t hit home.
The best approach is a focus on Trump, His Inner Circle, Principal Surrogates, and Media Defenders, including officials pushing Trumpism Down to the Local Level.
