Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-one.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:35 PM, for 9h 09m 56s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 70.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 2004, Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 All 10 living former defense secretaries write Involving the military in election disputes would cross into dangerous territory:

Ashton Carter, Dick Cheney, William Cohen, Mark Esper, Robert Gates, Chuck Hagel, James Mattis, Leon Panetta, William Perry and Donald Rumsfeld are the 10 living former U.S. secretaries of defense.

As former secretaries of defense, we hold a common view of the solemn obligations of the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Department. Each of us swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. We did not swear it to an individual or a party.

American elections and the peaceful transfers of power that result are hallmarks of our democracy. With one singular and tragic exception that cost the lives of more Americans than all of our other wars combined, the United States has had an unbroken record of such transitions since 1789, including in times of partisan strife, war, epidemics and economic depression. This year should be no exception.

Our elections have occurred. Recounts and audits have been conducted. Appropriate challenges have been addressed by the courts. Governors have certified the results. And the electoral college has voted. The time for questioning the results has passed; the time for the formal counting of the electoral college votes, as prescribed in the Constitution and statute, has arrived.

As senior Defense Department leaders have noted, “there’s no role for the U.S. military in determining the outcome of a U.S. election.” Efforts to involve the U.S. armed forces in resolving election disputes would take us into dangerous, unlawful and unconstitutional territory. Civilian and military officials who direct or carry out such measures would be accountable, including potentially facing criminal penalties, for the grave consequences of their actions on our republic.

 Steve Schmidt describes The Seven Aspects of Trumpism [three excerpted below]:

Trumpism is an American autocratic movement with fascistic markers. There are seven specific parts that comprise its core.

1. THE LEADER: Donald Trump is the unquestioned leader of this movement. It is a cult of personality, and there are no serious challengers against his leadership.

2. THUGS: The Proud Boys are but one example in a toxic stew of heavily-armed militias, white nationalists and other right-wing extremists. As is always the case, their ranks are filled with people on the fringes of society; the lonely, dispossessed, aggrieved and resentful. Not so long ago, there would have been a near-societal consensus around describing these people as losers. These people bring the menace of violence to politics and are akin to the same thuggish rabble that were wearing brown and black shirts 100 years ago.

4. PROPAGANDISTS: Autocratic movements are built on and sustained by lies. Political lying and conspiracy theories have become billion-dollar businesses. Fox News, Newsmax, One America News Network, social media, talk-radio dividers, Infowars, and others have poisoned the American polity and created the conditions for Trump to create an alternate reality that is now a lethal threat to American liberty.

  Bali’s famous beaches covered in plastic garbage:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of twenty-eight.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:34 PM, for 9h 08m 53s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 80% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1777, the Continental Army defeats the British at the Battle of Princeton.

Recommended for reading in full — 

E. Tammy Kim writes This Is Why Nursing Homes Failed So Badly (‘The first coronavirus outbreak in the United States happened in a nursing home in February. Since then, it’s only gotten worse’):

The first coronavirus outbreak in the United States occurred in a nursing home near Seattle, in late February. Since then, the country has endlessly revised its hot spot map. Yet the situation in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities has only gotten worse: More than 120,000 workers and residents have died, and residents are now dying at three times the rate they did in July.

Long-term care continues to be understaffed, poorly regulated and vulnerable to predation by for-profit conglomerates and private-equity firms. The nursing aides who provide the bulk of bedside assistance still earn poverty wages, and lockdown policies have forced patients into dangerous solitude.

A few weeks ago, nursing home workers and residents began to receive vaccinations for the coronavirus, but even full immunization will not allay the tragedy that has unfolded in long-term care — not just the deaths, but also the isolation and neglect.

Lori Smetanka, the executive director of the National Consumer Voice for Quality Long-Term Care, an advocacy nonprofit, told me stories of nursing home residents who’ve gone weeks without being showered or having their teeth brushed. Residents with dementia have suffered terribly from a lack of human contact, leading to depression and loss of weight, mobility and speech.

 The Associated Press reports British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s father reportedly seeks French citizenship:

CALAIS, France — France’s government cast a favorable light Friday on a reported bid by the father of Britain’s prime minister to take up French nationality, saying it shows how attached Britons are to the European Union that they’re no longer part of.

Reports that Stanley Johnson, the father of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is seeking to keep a foot in Europe by taking up French citizenship made headlines just as his son led Britain’s split Thursday from the EU. Britain left the European bloc’s vast single market for people, goods and services at 11 p.m. London time on New Year’s Eve.

Visiting Calais on Friday to inspect how the French port is adjusting post-Brexit, France’s minister for European affairs, Clément Beaune, described the citizenship application as emblematic of enduring British sentiment for Europe.

“If Mr. Johnson’s father has a right to French nationality, wants to remain a European citizen and become a French citizen, then we will examine that,” he said. “To me, this is a wink, or a sign, that lots of British people, in different ways, still love Europe.

….

French nationality would give the elder Johnson the automatic rights that other Britons have lost, including being able to travel and live freely in all of the 27 EU countries.

  Boston Dynamics Robots Dance to Do You Love Me?:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of twenty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:33 PM, for 9h 07m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 87.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1777, American forces under the command of Gen. Washington repulse a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek near Trenton, New Jersey.

Recommended for reading in full — 

David E. Sanger, Nicole Perlroth, and Julian E. Barnes report As Understanding of Russian Hacking Grows, So Does Alarm:

On Election Day, General Paul M. Nakasone, the nation’s top cyberwarrior, reported that the battle against Russian interference in the presidential campaign had posted major successes and exposed the other side’s online weapons, tools and tradecraft.

“We’ve broadened our operations and feel very good where we’re at right now,” he told journalists.

Eight weeks later, General Nakasone and other American officials responsible for cybersecurity are now consumed by what they missed for at least nine months: a hacking, now believed to have affected upward of 250 federal agencies and businesses, that Russia aimed not at the election system but at the rest of the United States government and many large American corporations.

Three weeks after the intrusion came to light, American officials are still trying to understand whether what the Russians pulled off was simply an espionage operation inside the systems of the American bureaucracy or something more sinister, inserting “backdoor” access into government agencies, major corporations, the electric grid and laboratories developing and transporting new generations of nuclear weapons.

At a minimum it has set off alarms about the vulnerability of government and private sector networks in the United States to attack and raised questions about how and why the nation’s cyberdefenses failed so spectacularly.

Andrew Fazekas writes of 10 spectacular stargazing events to watch in 2021: 

MARCH 9 AND 10: QUADRUPLE FORMATION

An impressive cosmic huddle will greet sky-watchers around the globe as four worlds cluster in the southeast morning sky. Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn will all appear in near-perfect alignment, while the nearby crescent moon will frame the trio of planets. Each planet will appear as a brilliant dot, with Mercury being the faintest and Jupiter the brightest—all easily visible to the naked eye.

Through binoculars, stargazers will be able to spot Jupiter’s four largest moons, while a small telescope will reveal Saturn’s rings. Because of Earth’s position relative to Mercury and the sun, only half of the innermost planet’s disk will appear illuminated to us. As a result, Mercury will look like a miniature version of the quarter moon through the telescope.

….

AUGUST 12 AND 13: PERSEID METEOR SHOWER PEAKS

Every mid-August, Earth travels through a cloud of debris shed by the comet Swift–Tuttle, producing a flurry of shooting stars in the skies as small meteors burn up in the upper atmosphere. This is the Perseid meteor shower, and it can produce up to 60 shooting stars an hour in a typical year.

This year promises to be particularly good for the Perseids, since the shower’s peak will coincide with a dark, moonless sky. A thin crescent moon will set during the early evening, ushering in excellent viewing conditions later in the night. The Northern Hemisphere is favored since the meteors always appear to radiate from their namesake constellation Perseus, which lies close to the horizon this time of year for those in far southern latitudes.

To get the best view of this celestial fireworks show, scout out a viewing spot with as little light pollution as possible. Even from a suburban backyard or park, dozens of shooting stars should be visible each hour under clear skies.

  Lawmakers Evacuate as Earthquake Shakes Slovenian National Assembly:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with some snow this evening, and a high of thirty-two.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:32 PM, for 9h 07m 00s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Simon Tisdall writes Trump fed our worst instincts. His global legacy is toxic and immoral:

How much damage did Donald Trump do around the world, can it be repaired, and did he accomplish anything of lasting significance? Assessing the international legacy of the 45th US president is not so much a conventional survey of achievement and failure. It’s more like tracking the rampages of a cantankerous rogue elephant that leaves a trail of random destruction and shattered shibboleths in its wake. Last week’s wild pardoning spree is a case in point.

First, the big picture. Trump’s confrontational manner, combined with his “America First” agenda, seriously undermined transatlantic relations and US global leadership. Joe Biden promises to set this right, but it will not be easy.

….

Trump encouraged authoritarian “strongman” leaders such as Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypt’s dictator Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, and hooligans such as Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro. He coddled autocrats such as Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman and Russia’s Putin. Worse, his lies eroded trust in democracy and the rule of law, at home and abroad. Yet even as, properly and electorally vanquished, he slowly departs, he continues to antagonise and divide – and to be lionised by the right.

Maybe it’s not that hard to see why. Trump’s personal brand of viciousness appealed to every worst human instinct, justified every vile prejudice, excused every mean and unkind thought. His is a blind ignorance that resonates with those who will not or cannot see. Falsehood is always easier than truth. For these reasons, Trump’s global legacy is Trumpism. It will live on – toxic, immoral, ubiquitous and ever-threatening.

Melanie D.G. Kaplan writes John Steinbeck’s classic travelogue showcases man’s best road trip buddy:

Fourteen years ago, I decided to drive across the United States. This came after a childhood of cross-country rides in the back seat of my parents’ car, visiting my grandparents in Southern California. But in 2007, when I was a full-fledged grown-up, my grandmother worried about this trip well before my departure. My mother wanted to know where I would sleep. My sister said she couldn’t imagine driving all those miles by myself.

“Don’t you wish you had someone there to share it with?” she asked.

Reminding them about my four-legged travel buddy did nothing to quell their unease. “I’m not alone,” I said, time and again. “Darwin will be with me.”

Perhaps I carried an extra air of confidence when I reiterated that statement about my co-pilot and explained that this trip was wholly different from a solo adventure. I had just read John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley: In Search of America,” and it spoke to me. Loudly.

“I took one companion on my journey — an old French gentleman poodle known as Charley,” Steinbeck wrote. He described Charley as a born diplomat, expert sniffer and poor fighter. He was an early bird, a good watchdog and friend who “would rather travel about than anything he can imagine.” The pair set off on their journey in September 1960.

Darwin was also a good friend — a sassy, independent beagle, occasional growler and regular howler who loved road trips second only to eating. In 2007, we traveled 8,800 miles in 30 days.

 Maniacal Squirrels Declare War Against New York: 

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of twenty-five.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:31 PM, for 9h 06m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1967, the Packers defeat the Cowboys (21-17) in the 1967 NFL Championship (the ‘Ice Bowl’).

Recommended for reading in full — 

Rebecca Robbins reports U.S. Officials Say Covid-19 Vaccination Effort Has Lagged:

As of Wednesday, more than 14 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had been sent out across the United States, up from 11.4 million doses on Monday morning. But just 2.1 million people had received their first dose as of Monday morning, according to a dashboard maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

….

The 2.1 million administered doses reported by the C.D.C. is an underestimate of the true number because of lags in reporting. And a C.D.C. official said in a separate news conference on Wednesday that 2.6 million people had received their first dose. Whatever the number, it falls far short of the goal that federal officials put forward as recently as this month to have 20 million people vaccinated by the end of this year.

 Steven Benen writes Trump takes aim at Georgia official’s non-existent brother:

In the weeks since his defeat, Trump’s fury toward the Georgia official [Brad Raffensperger, Republican secretary of state in Georgia] has intensified, leading to a pair of tweets published around midnight, starting with this gem.

“I love the Great State of Georgia, but the people who run it, from the Governor, [Brian Kemp], to the Secretary of State, are a complete disaster and don’t have a clue, or worse. Nobody can be this stupid. Just allow us to find the crime, and turn the state Republican.”

First, “Just allow us to find the crime” is an amazing thing for anyone to write, and a reminder that the president and his team are still searching desperately for evidence that doesn’t exist. Second, “Nobody can be this stupid” is one of those phrases I’m going to brush right past without comment.

But it was the other late-night tweet that included a new accusation of particular interest.

“Now it turns out that Brad R’s brother works for China, and they definitely don’t want ‘Trump’. So disgusting!”

Among the many problems with Trump’s accusation is that Brad Raffensperger’s brother does not work for China. We can say this with great certainly because Brad Raffensperger does not have a brother.

 Michael Kranish reports Sen. David Perdue became wealthy outsourcing work to Asia. Now the former CEO stands with Trump, who wants to ‘end our reliance on China’:

When Republican David Perdue ran for the Senate six years ago, he spoke proudly of his years as a corporate executive in Asia. He made no apologies for having said that he “spent most of my career” relying on the outsourcing of jobs. He fended off attacks that he had enriched himself as companies he led relied on offshore production, and he won the Georgia seat.

But as Perdue seeks reelection, in a contest that will determine which party controls the Senate, he has sought to shift the focus away from such work as he allies himself with President Trump, who has blasted corporate executives who move jobs overseas.

The disconnect between Trump’s rhetoric about returning manufacturing jobs from China and the experience of Perdue was evident at an October rally in Macon with Trump. Perdue did not mention specifics about his career, telling the crowd, “I’m just a dumb business guy from right over that hill.”

 Times Square Crystal Ball Gets Final Test Run Before New Year’s Eve Celebration:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-two.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:30 PM, for 9h 05m 24s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1813, British soldiers burn Buffalo, New York.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Shayna Jacobs and Jonathan O’Connell report N.Y. prosecutor hires forensic accounting experts as Trump criminal probe escalates:

NEW YORK — The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has retained forensic accounting specialists to aid its criminal investigation of President Trump and his business operations, as prosecutors ramp up their scrutiny of his company’s real estate transactions, according to people familiar with the matter.

District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. opened the investigation in 2018 to examine alleged hush-money payments made to two women who, during Trump’s first presidential campaign, claimed to have had affairs with him years earlier. The probe has since expanded, and now includes the Trump Organization’s activities more broadly, said the people familiar with the matter. Vance’s office has suggested in court filings that bank, tax and insurance fraud are areas of exploration.

Vance has contracted with FTI Consulting to look for anomalies among a variety of property deals, and to advise the district attorney on whether the president’s company manipulated the value of certain assets to obtain favorable interest rates and tax breaks, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter remains highly sensitive. The probe is believed to encompass transactions spanning several years.

 David Corn reports Kelly Loeffler’s Conflict of Interest Is Even Worse Than Reported:

When she entered the Senate in January 2020, she was given a spot on the Agriculture Committee, which oversees government regulators of the Fortune 500 business where she was recently a top officer. The company, Intercontinental Exchange (known as ICE), owns and operates a number of financial and commodity exchanges regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which falls under jurisdiction of the Agriculture Committee.

Loeffler’s assignment to the committee seemed a whopping conflict of interest: She still owned between $5 million and $25 million in ICE stock, and her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, is its CEO. Worse, Loeffler was placed on the committee’s subcommittee on commodities, which has direct oversight of the CFTC. In response to criticism, she left the subcommittee in May but remained a member of the full committee.

Yet one piece of this tale has received little notice. Her conflict of interest was even more pronounced, for while Loeffler was on the commodities subcommittee, the CFTC took several actions that impacted ICE. This means Loeffler was overseeing regulators at the same time they were engaged in activity affecting a company she was intimately tied to as a current shareholder, former executive, and spouse of its CEO.

 David Smith writes Alternative facts, witch-hunt, bigly: the Trump era in 32 words and phrases:

alternative facts

Coined by Kellyanne Conway, the White House counselor, during a Meet the Press interview in January 2017 to defend press secretary Sean Spicer’s the false assertion that Trump drew the biggest inauguration crowd ever. Together these formed the original sin of the Trump presidency, culminating in his coronavirus and election denialism.

….

globalist

This was the dark side of “America first”. Trump’s defenders claimed he was using the term to condemn globalisation and its devastating effects on American workers. But critics heard a dog whistle for racist, antisemitic and antigovernment conspiracy theorists including the alt-right. George Soros, a billionaire philanthropist, was among the targets of anti-globalist bigotry.

(A lexicon of lies and bigotries.)

  What is ‘Dance Monkey’ and How Did It Take Over the World? 

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with snow overnight, and a high of twenty-eight.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:29 PM, for 9h 04m 42s of daytime.  The moon is full with 99.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1949, KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Paul Waldman writes Trump is growing smaller before our eyes:

The myth of the stolen election is central to that project, and to the president’s own psyche: It says that the story of 2020 is not that Trump is a failure and a loser, but that he is (as always) a victim, and justice can be obtained by putting him back in his rightful place of power. But as he continues to proclaim the myth, reality might make it less compelling even to those now inclined to believe it.

For the next four years, Biden will be president. It will be his face on the nightly news and his actions on the front page of the newspaper. He will command both attention and power. And Trump? With no ability to make decisions with more practical importance, he might appear smaller than ever by comparison.

The truth is that both of these futures are possible. In one, Trump remains the leader of the opposition and a president-in-exile, his every outburst celebrated by millions of fans and his control of the GOP unchallenged. In the other, he grows smaller and smaller, his miserable complaints about the unfairness of it all only repelling people from him. We don’t know yet which will come to pass, but the second future is obviously far brighter for the rest of us. And it has never looked more likely.

(The nativist man will fade, but nativism will go on. See Man and Movement.)

 Adam Gabbatt writes As the White House changes hands, so will Fox News’ support of the presidency:

When Joe Biden is sworn in as president on 20 January, cable news viewers may witness one of the most dramatic 180-degree turns in history.

After four years of slavishly promoting the president, Fox News is expected to pump on the brakes within seconds of the inauguration ceremony.

All of a sudden, the person in the White House is not a Republican. More than that, the network can no longer rely on the willingness of the president or his aides to call into Fox News any time of the day or night.

The rightwing TV channel, and its big name hosts Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity, will spend the next four years as the party of the opposition.

(A network that spent four years justifying the abusive expansion of federal power – outside all law and tradition – will rediscover caution. Situational isn’t a substitute for serious.)

Andrea Salcedo reports Massachusetts GOP leader says he likely got COVID-19 at a White House Hanukkah party: ‘I’m paying the price’:

Earlier this month, Tom Mountain, a Massachusetts Republican Party leader, posed for a maskless photo in front of a silver menorah as dozens of other guests without face coverings mingled nearby at a White House Hanukkah party.

Three days later, the vice chairperson of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee was rushed to the hospital with a severe case of COVID-19 that later left him close to needing a ventilator.

….

“Lets put it this way: when I went down to Washington, D.C. for the White House Hanukkah event, I was perfectly fine,” Mountain, 60, told WJAR. “And three days later after that event, I was in the hospital … ready to be put on a lifesaving ventilator.”

The Rise And Fall of Twinkies: