Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of seventy.  Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 6:21 PM, for 11h 19m 59s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 83.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1975, Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov wins the Nobel Peace Prize: “In a convincing manner Sakharov has emphasized that Man’s inviolable rights provide the only safe foundation for genuine and enduring international cooperation.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Karoun Demirjian, Karoun Demirjian, Josh Dawsey, Shane Harris, and John Wagner report White House escalates standoff with Congress, says it will not cooperate with impeachment inquiry of Trump:

In a scathing eight-page letter, the White House said the inquiry into the Ukraine scandal was without merit, complained that the president has been denied his due process rights and argued that Democrats were intent on overturning the results of the 2016 election and influencing the 2020 contest.

“To fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the executive branch, and all future occupants of the Office of the presidency, President Trump and his administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances,” White House counsel Pat A. Cipollone wrote to top congressional Democrats.

In response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signaled that Democrats were undeterred and would move ahead with their investigation focused on Trump’s pressure on a foreign leader to dig up dirt on a domestic political rival.

“The White House should be warned that continued efforts to hide the truth of the President’s abuse of power from the American people will be regarded as further evidence of obstruction,” Pelosi said in a statement. “Mr. President, you are not above the law. You will be held accountable.”

The White House letter, which lacked substantive legal arguments and echoed Trump’s political broadsides, capped a day of defiance and challenges as House Democrats have tried to force recalcitrant administration officials to divulge potentially incriminating information over Republican objections. But it also highlights the limitations of Democrats’ ability to exercise their oversight authority in the face of an administration that appears unfazed by flouting subpoenas.

(Emphasis added.)

Kevin Poulsen reports RealClear Media Has a Secret Facebook Page to Push Far-Right Memes:

The company behind the non-partisan news site RealClearPolitics has been secretly running a Facebook page filled with far-right memes and Islamophobic smears, The Daily Beast has learned.

Called “Conservative Country,” the Facebook page was founded in 2014 and now boasts nearly 800,000 followers for its mix of Donald Trump hagiography and ultra-conservative memes. One recent post showed a man training two assault rifles at a closed door with the caption “Just sitting here waiting on Beto.” Others wink at right-wing conspiracy theories about Barack Obama’s “ties to Islam” or the Clintons having their enemies killed, or portray Muslim members of Congress as terrorist infiltrators. The page is effusive with praise for Vladimir Putin, and one post portrays Russia as the last bastion of freedom in Europe.

  How Does Autopilot Actually Work?:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-five.  Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 6:23 PM, for 11h 22m 51s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets in at 6 PM.

On this day in 1871, the Peshtigo Fire kills over a thousand:

On this date Peshtigo, Wisconsin was devastated by a fire which took 1,200 lives. The fire caused over $2 million in damages and destroyed 1.25 million acres of forest. This was the greatest human loss due to fire in the history of the United States.

Recommended for reading in full:

Dan Balz and Scott Clement report Majority of Americans say they endorse opening of House impeachment inquiry of Trump:

The findings indicate that public opinion has shifted quickly against the president and in favor of impeachment proceedings in recent weeks as information has been released about Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian government officials to undertake an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden, a potential 2020 campaign rival, and Biden’s son Hunter.

Previous Post-Schar School or Post-ABC News polls taken at different points throughout this year found majorities of Americans opposing the start of an impeachment proceeding, with 37 percent to 41 percent saying they favored such a step. The recent revelations appear to have prompted many Americans to rethink their position.

Jeffrey Toobin observes Donald Trump’s Ukraine Scandal Has Its Roots in Russia:

But the Russia and Ukraine scandals are, in fact, one story. Indeed, the President’s false denials in both of them capture the common themes: soliciting help from foreign interests for partisan gain, followed by obstruction of efforts to uncover what happened. Both, too, share roots in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Mueller’s two indictments of Russian interests—the first involving the use of social media and the second the hacking of Democratic Party e-mails—are perhaps the most detailed chronicle ever published of foreign interference in a U.S. political campaign. Trump’s team was appreciative. When a public-relations adviser to a Russian oligarch’s family e-mailed Donald Trump, Jr., offering dirt on Hillary Clinton that was “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” the candidate’s son gave a straightforward reply: “If it’s what you say I love it.”

Just two years earlier, Putin had invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The government in Kiev went back and forth between leaders who wanted to accommodate Putin’s regime and others who wanted to enlist the help of the West to push back against it. The political consultant of choice for the pro-Russian faction was Paul Manafort, who served as Trump’s campaign chair in the summer of 2016. As Mueller documented, Manafort passed proprietary campaign polling data to pro-Russian Ukrainians. The campaign-era Trump portrayed in the report suffered from one major limitation: he wasn’t President. He clearly welcomed Putin’s assistance, and promised a better relationship with Russia, but he was still just a businessman from New York. The whistle-blower’s complaint is the epilogue to Mueller’s report: the coming of age of an aspiring colluder.

Photographer builds a ‘Photo Ark’ for endangered animals:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-five.  Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 6:25 PM, for 11h 25m 42s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 67.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s school board meets in closed session at 6:30 PM, with an open session scheduled for 7:30 PM.

On this day in 1774, Wisconsin becomes part of Quebec:

On this date Britain passed the Quebec Act, making Wisconsin part of the province of Quebec. Enacted by George III, the act restored the French form of civil law to the region. The Thirteen Colonies considered the Quebec Act as one of the “Intolerable Acts,” as it nullified Western claims of the coast colonies by extending the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River on the south and to the Mississippi River on the west. [Source: Avalon Project at Yale Law School]

Recommended for reading in full:

Justin Baragona reports GOP Sen. Ron Johnson Loses It on ‘Meet the Press’: I Do Not Trust the FBI or CIA:

In an extremely contentious and heated interview with Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd on Sunday, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) declared that he does not trust the CIA or FBI while launching into a series of conspiratorial attacks on Democrats and intelligence officials regarding the Ukraine scandal.

Johnson—who last week said he was told about a quid pro quo involving Ukrainian investigation into the 2016 election and that President Trump blocked him from telling Ukraine military aid was coming—immediately began his interview on the defensive, complaining that Todd was biased and the president was being sabotaged.

The Republican senator then proceeded to accuse former members of the FBI and CIA of conspiring to set up the president after his election, claiming this has “everything to do with Ukraine.”

“Why a Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff is popping up on here, I have no idea,” an exasperated Todd noted at one point.

Accord Sure enough…Ron Johnson really is America’s Dumbest Senator™.  (Most people are sharp; Johnson is the exception to that plain truth.)

Desmond Butler, Michael Biesecker, and Richard Lardner report Aiming to profit, Trump allies pressed Ukraine over gas firm:

KYIV, Ukraine – As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic.

Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans.

Their plan hit a snag after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko lost his reelection bid to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose conversation with Trump about former Vice President Joe Biden is now at the center of the House impeachment inquiry of Trump.

 Electric eels leap to shock predator:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-four.  Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 6:27 PM, for 11h 28m 33s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 58.0% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s CROP Hunger Walk takes place today, with a sign in at 12:30 PM at Fairhaven Senior Services, 435 W. Starin Road, and the walk beginning at 1 PM.

On this day in 1917, Sen. Robert La Follette supports free speech in wartime:

He responded to charges of treason with a three-hour defense of free speech in wartime. La Follette had voted against a declaration of war as well as several initiatives seen as essential to the war effort by those that supported U.S. involvement in the First World War. His resistance was met with a petition to the Committee on Privileges and Elections that called for La Follette’s expulsion from the Senate. The charges were investigated, but La Follette was cleared of any wrongdoing by the committee on January 16, 1919.

Recommended for reading in full:

Rosalind Helderman reports Mounting evidence buttresses claims in whistleblower complaint:

Since the revelation of an explosive whistleblower complaint that sparked an impeachment crisis for President Trump, he and his Republican allies have coalesced around a central defense: The document was based on secondhand information, mere hearsay riddled with inaccuracies.

But over the past two weeks, documents, firsthand witness accounts and even statements by Trump himself have emerged that bolster the facts outlined in the extraordinary abuse-of-
power complaint.

The description of a July 25 phone call between Trump and the president of Ukraine, which formed the heart of the complaint and was still secret at the time the claim was filed in mid-August, matches a rough transcript of the call that the White House released a day before the complaint was made public.

The whistleblower’s assertion that records related to the phone call were transferred to a separate electronic system intended for highly classified material has since been confirmed by White House officials.

And the whistleblower’s narrative of the events that led up to the call — including a shadow campaignundertaken by Trump’s personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani and the attempts of State Department officials to navigate his activities — have been largely confirmed by the text messages of three diplomats released Friday, as well as Giuliani himself in media interviews.

Independent evidence now supports the central elements laid out in the seven-page document. Even if they disregarded the complaint, legal experts said, lawmakers have obtained dramatic testimony and documents that provide ammunition for the whistleblower’s core assertion: that the president of the United States used “the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 U.S. election.”

Trump Tramples Constitution, Aligns With Foreign Adversaries:

5 True Tales of Manhattan:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of fifty-nine.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 6:28 PM, for 11h 31m 25s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 2017, the New York Times publishes its investigation into allegations against Harvey Weinstein.  See Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades.  (Kantor & Twohey now have a book, She Said, about their reporting on Weinstein’s serial violence.)

Recommended for reading in full:

Adam Taylor writes Foreign allies who gambled on Trump face big losses:

The Trump administration has had a rough few weeks, but spare a thought for the president’s closest foreign allies. From Britain to Australia, Japan to Saudi Arabia, foreign leaders who decided to gamble on America’s unpredictable leader are probably wondering whether they made a losing bet.

In the United States, the ongoing scandal about President Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sparked a swell of momentum for impeachment. Democrats argue that the phone call, in which Trump said Zelensky should open a criminal investigation against the son of one of his rivals, amounted to an abuse of office.

But there was more than one world leader on that phone call. Some critics in Ukraine have condemned Zelensky’s attempts to placate Trump during the conversation. “Now we’re a part of American elections, and I don’t like it,” Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of former president Petro Poroshenko’s party, told The Washington Post. “Ukraine has problems enough without this.”

(Emphasis in original. Foreign leaders who gambled on Trump were never worthy allies of the United States.  If they were worthy allies, then they would not have been so solicitous to a bigoted autocrat who was a threat to the liberal democratic order that defines the American republic.  We can do better.)

In Fighting Russian Disinformation, Brookings scholar Alina Polyakova on why the United States needs to go on the offense:

Russia’s attempt to swing the 2016 U.S. election campaign for Donald Trump was just one of dozens of such operations Moscow has waged in the West in recent years. Assessing the specific impact of each act of political interference is exceedingly difficult. But analysts increasingly point to a general trend that serves Russia’s interest: The operations are eroding Western voters’ overall trust in democracy.

This week on And Now the Hard Part, we trace the roots of Moscow’s political interference and talk about how countries can fight back.

“You have to send the message to those that try to undermine our democracies that there will be consequences for their actions,” says Alina Polyakova, the director of the Global Project on Democracy and Emerging Technology at the Brookings Institution and our guest this week.

The Last Video Store:

When [Miguel] Gomez moved to a small town outside Philadelphia, he lamented its lack of a video store. So he opened one himself. Roy Power’s short documentary Memory Video is a portrait of Gomez and his homespun operation—one of the last rental stores of its kind.