Of all the thousands of lies that Trump has told since becoming president, perhaps the most fundamental lie is his insistence that he somehow represents a majority of his fellow citizens.
In the survey, 49% back Trump’s impeachment and removal while 46% oppose it. In the NBC/WSJ poll a month ago, a 49% plurality opposed impeachment and removal while 43% favored it.
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In addition, Trump faces entrenched opposition significantly larger than his hard-core base. A 46% plurality of Americans said they were almost certain to vote against the president next November, compared to 34% almost certain to vote for him.
The sheltered, insulated, cosseted, and cocooned viewers of Fox News are led astray when they hear that Trump is wildly popular. In fact, only about a third of Americans say that they’re sure to vote for him. The number adamantly opposed to Trump is far larger.
One has often heard the expression that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people that he does not exist; the greatest trick Trump ever pulled was convincing a fanatical minority that he speaks for an American majority.
Monday in Whitewater will see showers yielding to partly sunny skies with a high of forty-six. Sunrise is 6:33 AM and sunset 4:43 PM, for 10h 09m 29s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter with 50.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1956, Soviet troops intervene to suppress the Hungarian popular revolution against communist rule.
Former Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky died in Cambridge, England, on Sunday night. He was 76, an age far greater than he expected to reach back when he was in and out of Soviet prisons and going on the hunger strikes that made him a potent symbol of resistance to Communist oppression.
For so many of us in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, Bukovsky’s name had the air of a legend, since he had been forcibly ejected from the Soviet Union in 1976. Soviet authorities had grown afraid of his ability to organize the prisoners wherever he was jailed, but turning him into a martyr was also unattractive. Remember that this was the 1970s, when there were still strong voices in Europe and on both sides of the U.S. political aisle in support of holding the Soviets accountable for their treatment of dissidents such as Bukovsky, Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
In his writings and public statements, Bukovsky remained steadfastly in favor of direct opposition to the Soviet Union, condemning for collaboration and collusion those such as Henry Kissinger who favored amoral realpolitik. Bukovsky saw clearly that the “peaceful coexistence” touted by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and his successors was a sham. No nation capable of imprisoning and torturing its citizens the way the Soviet Union did, Bukovsky said, could ever be a part of a civilized world of human rights and individual liberty.
Clashes are erupting between local and federal officials over the hundreds of joint task forces that operate around the country, specializing in missions such as finding fugitives, fighting drug dealers or tracking potential terrorists.
Washington provides money, expertise and weaponry. Local law enforcement agencies provide much of the manpower. Their officers are deputized as federal agents, which among other things means that the Justice Department can shield them from litigation and local oversight.
At least five cities, including Atlanta, have pulled out of task forces since 2017, and Houston, the nation’s fourth largest, has threatened to follow.
The problem, police officials say, is that local cops assigned to joint task forces are not bound by department rules, such as wearing body cameras, which the feds have prohibited. The FBI and U.S. Marshals allow the use of deadly force if a person poses an “imminent danger,” using a definition that is less strict than many police departments’. California recently adopted a law stating that deadly force may be used only when “necessary.” Task-force members are also immune to civilian lawsuits in a way that regular officers are not.
First, the resolution directs all six committees instructed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to participate in the inquiry—Intelligence, Financial Services, Foreign Affairs, Judiciary, Oversight and Reform, and Ways and Means—to “continue their ongoing investigations as part of the existing House of Representatives inquiry.” This posture—directing a continuation of work rather than authorizing the inquiry—reflects House Democrats’ long-standing assertion that the impeachment inquiry need not be specifically authorized by the full House to be valid. In addition, it would seem the scope of the inquiry, at least for now, is not strictly limited to issues related to President Trump’s conduct with respect to Ukraine. It is hard to say whether issues being investigated in other committees will eventually find their way into articles of impeachment, but this resolution certainly leaves that possibility open.
(Reynolds and Taylor continue with a thorough description.)
Embedded below, the resolution and a fact sheet from the House Committee on Rules:
Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-five. Sunrise is 6:32 AM and sunset 4:44 PM, for 10h 11m 59s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 40.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 2014, One World Trade Center (Freedom Tower) opens as the principal building on the former World Trade Center site.
A Racine County Sheriff’s Office deputy was dispatched to Union Grove Elementary School, 1745 Mildrum St., on Thursday for a report of an intoxicated parent trying to leave the school with children. The deputy located Raboine’s vehicle on Main Street and 15th Avenue (the intersection of highways 11 and 45) and activated the police squad’s emergency lights and sirens.
The deputy reported that the vehicle did not slow down or pull over but continued to maneuver around other vehicles that had. The driver pulled into a driveway in the 700 block of 9th Avenue, exited the vehicle and ran towards the back of the residence. The deputy pursued on foot, found the driver attempting to unlock the back door and asked her to stop. She opened the back door and allegedly attempted to close it on the pursing deputy. The driver was identified as Raboine and she was taken into custody.
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According to court records, Raboine was arrested for operating while intoxicated earlier this month in a similar incident. On Oct. 16, the principal had summoned law enforcement because Raboine had not picked up her children from school. Raboine called the school from the parking lot, asking that the children be sent to the car; she was allegedly slurring her words. She was told she needed to enter the building to collect her children and was reportedly stumbling while walking and slurring her speech. The principal then called the Sheriff’s Office.
At her initial appearance on Thursday, bail for Raboine was set at $1,000. Her preliminary hearing is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 6.
(Assuming these allegations are true, Raboine would be a danger to her children, to others, and to herself. Restrictions on the number of taverns – something I oppose – aren’t what serial over-drinkers need most. They, and we, need a criminal law with a therapeutic approach that acts quickly to prevent and then treat cases of alcohol abuse. Wisconsin is lax in this regard, and modern-day temperance warriors who focus on sales rather than over-consumption are simply ignoring the problems of addiction. Addicts will find – or improvise – the substances of their craving; they’ll sometimes risk others’ safety while doing so. If all the taverns and gin joints in Wisconsin disappeared tomorrow, we’d still have significant alcoholism and numerous drunk drivers. Along the way to a healthier community, members of the Tavern League who over-sell to patrons should be held to account by a repeal of Wis. Stat. § 125.035 ‘Civil liability exemption: furnishing alcohol beverages.’)
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-eight. Sunrise is 7:31 AM and sunset 5:45 PM, for 10h 14m 36s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 31.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
What led to Trump’s first meeting on June 20, 2017, with Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko? Ukraine had hired the lobbying firm BGR Group in January 2017 to foster contact with Trump, but nothing had happened .?.?. and then the door opened. Why?
On June 7, less than two weeks before Poroshenko’s White House meeting, Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had visited Kyiv to give a speech for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, headed by a prominent Ukrainian oligarch. While Giuliani was there, he also met with Poroshenko and his prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, according a news release issued by the foundation.
Just after Giuliani’s visit, Ukraine’s investigation of the so-called black ledger that listed alleged illicit payments to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was transferred from an anti-corruption bureau, known as NABU , to Poroshenko’s prosecutor general, according to a June 15, 2017, report in the Kyiv Post. The paper quoted Viktor Trepak, former deputy head of the country’s security service, saying: “It is clear for me that somebody gave an order to bury the black ledger.”
The New York Times reported in May 2018 that Ukraine had “halted cooperation” with Mueller’s investigation. The paper quoted Volodymyr Ariev, a parliament ally of Poroshenko, explaining: “In every possible way, we will avoid irritating the top American officials.”
Was there any implicit understanding that Poroshenko’s government would curb its cooperation with the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation of Manafort, who would later be indicted by Mueller?
Wisconsin also again bears the distinction of having the worst gap between black and white academic success of any state, according to new results of the National Assessment of Education Progress — known as the Nation’s Report Card.
Wisconsin has the highest percentage of black students exhibiting skills considered below a basic level, according to the assessment, taken by fourth and eighth graders earlier this year.
State superintendent Carolyn Stanford Taylor, the first African American leader of the Department of Public Instruction, said the results indicate a “crisis.”
“We have work ahead to achieve our rigorous expectations,” she said in a statement. “Our persistent achievement gaps are a crisis. Closing these gaps is not only the right thing to do, it is imperative for our state.”
The new test results underscore the hurdles facing the black children in Wisconsin — 82% of whom are considered to be economically disadvantaged by the state DPI.
In a cluttered world of boutique fitness studios and high-end gear, Guillermo Piñeda Morales reminds us that we don’t actually need much to be our best.
November in Whitewater begins with rain and a high of thirty-nine. Sunrise is 7:29 AM and sunset 5:46 PM, for 10h 17m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1863, George Safford Parker, founder of the Parker Pen Company, is born.
The cornerstone of President Trump’s domestic economic agenda is the tax cut he signed into law in late 2017. It would, he said, lift U.S. sustained annual economic growth to 3%, or even as high as 6%. His advisers said it would boost average household incomes by at least $4,000 a year. His Treasury secretary said it would pay for itself.
Nearly two years later, none of those things have happened, and there is scant sign they will. The U.S. economy did enjoy a burst of 3% annualized growth after the tax cut first took effect at the start of 2018. But it has since slipped. It grew at a 1.9% annual rate in the third quarter. In the past 12 months, the economy grew 2%, about the same as it averaged from 2011 through 2017.
This should not come as a surprise. The administration’s claims rested on the belief that cutting the corporate tax rate to 21% from 35% and allowing companies to immediately write off the cost of new equipment would boost business investment and thus worker productivity and wages. Yet numerous other advanced countries had already cut their corporate rates in the prior two decades without experiencing anywhere near the growth boost the Trump administration promised. Many experienced no boost at all.
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Macroeconomic Advisers, a private forecasting firm, compared what it thought in 2017 the economy would do without a tax cut to what actually happened through the second quarter. Business investment on buildings and other structures significantly underperformed the projections while investment in intellectual property outperformed. This was despite the tax law treating structures most favorably and intellectual property least. “The patterns of investment growth were inconsistent with changes in investment incentives” in the tax law, Jane Gravelle, a tax expert at the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, told Congress in July.
(Emphasis added. The tax bill was discernibly bad to anyone not drunk, comatose, or deluded.)
As news of the change spread, some of those city and state leaders, all Democrats, endorsed Trump’s decision.
“Good riddance,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo tweeted. “It’s not like @realDonaldTrump paid taxes here anyway … He’s all yours, Florida.”
Corey Johnson, New York’s city council speaker, agreed: “GOOD RIDDANCE!!,” he bade Trump in a tweet.
“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out or whatever,” quipped Mayor Bill de Blasio.
In the declaration, Trump refers to Trump Tower — his home since the early 1980s, the place where he launched his presidential campaign — in the past tense: “I formerly resided at 721 Fifth Avenue.”
Here’s the thirteenth annual FREE WHITEWATER list of the scariest things in Whitewater. (The 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 editions are available for comparison.)
The list runs in reverse order, from mildly scary to truly frightening.
10. Meeting Videos. There must be something intimidating about meeting videos, because it takes local government days to publish them online, as though someone has to work up the courage to upload a document to Vimeo. Be strong, publicly-paid officials, be strong.
9. Details. A nearby local newspaper can’t seem to find a reporter who can keep up with simple details of a meeting. Keep looking, editor Sid Schwartz – there simply has to be someone in a bus station, flop house, or parole-board hearing who’s looking for work.
8. Innovation Centers. Like poltergeists, Foxconn’s ‘innovation centers’ are eerily invisible.
7. Potholes. We have new paving going in on Milwaukee Street, but for months a popular thoroughfare like Walworth Avenue was so pothole-riddled it looked like a U.S. Air Force bombing range.
5. Confidence. Officials with good plans should confidently share them in every agenda packet and online. Fear not!
4. Witches. So you thought stories about witches in Whitewater were disturbing? These recent years we’ve had something far worse walking around this city.
3. Means to Ends. UW-Whitewater’s last two administrations (Telfer, Kopper) both ended badly – meeting with justified local, statewide, and even national criticism. UW-Whitewater’s Media Relations team defended both these leaders right up to the point when their defenses weren’t worth a damn. Media talking points won’t help this new chancellor by falsely insisting systemic problems are situational ones, or by debasing academic standards by flacking junk studies as serious work. No one worthily serves the noble end of diversity and outreach by the ignoble means of lying and condescending to the communities one hopes to attract.
2. Cravath. I warned last year about what might lie under the waters of Cravath. Draining that lake is ecologically necessary, but risky. FREE WHITEWATER has obtained exclusive underwater photographs of the aquatic creatures that have dwelled these recent years beneath Cravath’s murky surface. Our city government may be too skittish to publish these photos, but I’ve not that same timid disposition. Now, for the first time, look – if you dare – on a gallery of the hideous things that lurk below:
1. Bad Goes to Worse. Gerrymandered, septuagenarian multimillionaire F. James Sensenbrenner is retiring. State senator Scott Fitzgerald wants to replace Sensenbrenner as the representative of the Fifth Congressional Distinct, in which Whitewater is absurdly located. It’s true that, as a member of Congress, Fitzgerald is likely to be in the minority, and safely far from Wisconsin. And yet, if he should return now and again, we’ll likely have to endure another round of his singing —
Halloween in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of thirty-three. Sunrise is 7:28 AM and sunset 5:48 PM, for 10h 19m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 14.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1940, the Battle of Britain ends in victory over the Luftwaffe.
The senior senator from Wisconsin has taken on a unique role in the impeachment saga, largely because of his own close involvement with Ukraine issues, as chair of the foreign relations subcommittee on Europe and as a member of the Senate’s bipartisan Ukraine Caucus. That placed him in conversations and meetings that are being scrutinized by House investigators. As a senator, he has also looked into unproven claims that Ukraine assisted Democrats in the 2016 election.
House Democrats on the three investigative committees (Oversight, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs) say they are open to hearing from Johnson, though they were cautious about how to request the testimony of a fellow member of Congress.
“Let’s put it this way, it would be nice to have more explanation from and about Ron Johnson’s activities with respect to Ukraine,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a member of the House Oversight Committee. “What was his role? What did he see as his role? And what did he do? And why did he do it?”
As the summer wore on, and President Donald Trump would not budge on his decision to withhold almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine, the Pentagon warned the White House: If its portion of the money wasn’t released quickly, the Defense Department would not be able to spend it before the fiscal year ended on September 30.
The Pentagon even gave the White House a deadline. In late July, as panic spread within the administration over the president’s worrisome decision, the National Security Council led a series of interagency meetings to discuss what to do about the military assistance to Ukraine. At one of these meetings, Defense Department officials told the White House that if the $250 million in security assistance was not released by August 6, it would not be able to spend it all by the end of the fiscal year, according to two sources familiar with the deliberations.
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And the Pentagon was also clear that providing Ukraine the security assistance was in the national security interests of the United States, on that point Trump’s Cabinet agreed.
Pres. Obama gave a statement after Osama bin Laden’s death, and Pres. Trump gave a statement after Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death. The statements were, to put it mildly, different in character.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty. Sunrise is 7:27 AM and sunset 5:49 PM, for 10h 22m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1938, Orson Welles directs and narrates a Mercury Theatre radio production of The War of the Worlds.
MANITOWOC, Wis. — Sachin Shivaram, the chief executive of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, started to worry this summer when orders for his brake housings and conveyor belt motors first grew scarce. Within weeks, what began as mild concern snowballed into a business drought that has seen bookings plunge by 40 percent.
In August, Shivaram, 38, reluctantly laid off two dozen workers, hoping to recall them when the outlook improved. It hasn’t.
“Things are not good. We didn’t anticipate this level of deterioration,” he said. “Orders are down across the board.”
The sudden slump at this 110-year-old company illustrates the economic erosion that is challenging President Trump’s signature promise to restore a lost era of American manufacturing greatness.
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Already, plants in several Midwestern states that will be crucial to the president’s reelection campaign are shedding workers. Manufacturing employment is down by almost 9,000 in Pennsylvania over the past year and 6,800 in Wisconsin. Michigan, Indiana and Minnesota also have lost factory jobs, though in Ohio, assembly lines continue to add them.
The president’s tariffs on China, Canada, Mexico and the European Union — and those trading partners’ retaliation against the United States — are sapping manufacturers’ strength, economists said. Through August, Wisconsin companies’ exports to China of $822 million were 25 percent less than in the same period in 2018, according to the Census Bureau.
Scott Walker …. has been particularly active both on the electric Twitter machine and in real life. He is running some operation to ensure that gerrymandering stays in place, and he’s also the head of the Young Americans for Freedom, that hoary old relic of the John Birch Society’s heyday. Meanwhile, back in America’s Dairyland, his most conspicuous legacy continues to be the biggest bag of magic beans ever sold to an allegedly sentient politician.
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Foxconn has been playing Wisconsin like a ten-cent yo-yo ever since Walker showed up at the company’s doorstep with the state’s economy in his mouth, like a beagle who’s brought home a rabbit. Last February, the company floated a story that even the main campus was in doubt, announcing that plans had changed and that a smaller facility might be built. This, as MarketWatch informed us a couple of years ago, is Foxconn’s general M.O.
But the details are important, given Gou’s history of making and breaking promises in numerous countries and regions over the years, including in the U.S. A pledge to invest $30 million in a factory in central Pennsylvania in 2013 was also greeted with much ballyhoo, as reported by the Washington Post.…
This morning, I posted about the 10.28.19 Whitewater Unified School District board meeting. SeeSchool Board, 10.28.19: 3 Points. That post, I mentioned that I would request copies of the goals presentations from Monday night that were not included in the agenda packet. Today, before submitting my request, I received a note from the district (to which I have replied) that the goals presentations have now been added to the WUSD’s website.
So, readers can find these presentations one of two ways — on the district’s website (as attachments to the agenda) or embedded below. The links in the presentation for our middle school can be found in full as documents on the the district website.) Each presentation is worth reading and considering – educational goals are among the most important work of any community. Included are the presentations for Lakeview School, Whitewater Middle School, and Pupil Services. Also embedded below is one the of WUSD online documents about a possible consolidation with Palmyra-Eagle (with supporting documents available online).
