Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 6:37 PM, for 11h 45m 46s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

There will be a Hwy 12/CTH N Intersection Public Meeting at 5 PM (an earlier closed session will run from 4:30 to 5 PM).

On this day in 1954, the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, is commissioned, under the command of Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson, USN.

Recommended for reading in full:

Kevin Poulsen writes GOP Shows Russian Trolls How It’s Done With Whistleblower Smear:

From Donald Trump on down, prominent Republicans used part of their weekend to falsely accuse Trump’s hand-picked intelligence community inspector general (IC IG) of secretly changing the requirements for intelligence workers to submit whistleblower tips as part of a deep state plot to clear the way for the Aug. 12 complaint about Trump’s phone call to the president of Ukraine.

The smoking gun in the putative conspiracy is an obscure government form, IC IG ICWSP Form 401, also known as the Disclosure of Urgent Concern Form. The document is put out by the IC IG for intelligence workers who need to file urgent complaints that trigger special treatment under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act.

According to the GOP and an army of conservative commentators, the old version of the form prohibited workers from submitting urgent complaints based on secondhand information; only misconduct witnessed personally could be reported. That changed in early August, the false claim goes, when ICIG Michael Atkinson snuck through a hasty revision to the complaint form that reversed long-standing policy.

….

The kernel of fact near the center of the conspiracy theory is that there is, indeed, a new version of Form 401 dated August 2019.

A question on the form explicitly anticipates tips based on secondhand information, and asks the whistleblower to check a box: “I have direct and personal knowledge,” or, “I heard about it from others.” The Federalist used a screenshot of that field to illustrate its story.

What the article didn’t mention or screenshot is a nearly identical field gracing Form 401 since at least May 2018, making it impossible that it was added as an easement for Trump’s whistleblower. 

(Emphasis added.)

Tim Mak reports NRA Was ‘Foreign Asset’ To Russia Ahead of 2016, New Senate Report Reveals:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of sixty-four.  Sunrise is 6:50 AM and sunset 6:39 PM, for 11h 48m 39s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.0% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1957, the Green Bay Packers dedicate City Stadium, now known as Lambeau Field.

Recommended for reading in full:

Stephanie Leutert writes One County, 650 Migrant Deaths: An Introduction:

Brooks County is the deadliest county in Texas for migrants trying to enter the United States—and it isn’t even directly along the border. Over the past few years, while American policy focus has lasered in on asylum-seeking Central American families and unaccompanied minors, there is another migration pattern 70 miles north of the border. Here in Brooks County, groups of almost exclusively adult migrants hike remote trails and look to evade the Border Patrol in their bid to enter the United States. Some are caught, and some make it through the county undetected. But at least 650 people have passed away on this Texas ranchland since 2009, only a few hours south of San Antonio and Austin. Each time a body is discovered on a ranch in Brooks County, a death report ends up in Benny Martinez’s office in a white three-ring binder like the one I saw on his desk in August 2018.

Emily Kassie writes Detained (‘How the United States created the largest immigrant detention system in the world’):

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny of sixty-five.  Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 6:41 PM, for 11h 51m 33s of daytime.  The moon is new with 0.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, Ted Williams becomes last player to hit .400.

Recommended for reading in full:

Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey, and Ellen Nakashima report Trump told Russian officials in 2017 he wasn’t concerned about Moscow’s interference in U.S. election:

President Trump told two senior Russian officials in a 2017 Oval Office meeting that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election because the United States did the same in other countries, an assertion that prompted alarmed White House officials to limit access to the remarks to an unusually small number of people, according to three former officials with knowledge of the matter.

The comments, which have not been previously reported, were part of a now-infamous meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in which Trump revealed highly classified information that exposed a source of intelligence on the Islamic State. He also said during the meeting that firing FBI Director James B. Comey the previous day had relieved “great pressure” on him.

A memorandum summarizing the meeting was limited to a few officials with the highest security clearances in an attempt to keep the president’s comments from being disclosed publicly, according to the former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters

….

It is not clear whether a memo documenting the May 10, 2017, meeting with Lavrov and Kislyak was placed into that system, but the three former officials said it was restricted to a very small number of people. The White House had recently begun limiting the records of Trump’s calls after remarks he made to the leaders of Mexico and Australia appeared in news reports. The Lavrov memo was restricted to an even smaller group, the former officials said.

Julian E. Barnes, Michael Crowley, Matthew Rosenberg, and Mark Mazzetti report White House Classified Computer System Is Used to Hold Transcripts of Sensitive Calls:

Chris Wallace Calls Trump’s Defenders ‘Deeply Misleading:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of sixty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:48 AM and sunset 6:42 PM, for 11h 54m 25s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 2.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, the 29th Wisconsin Infantry musters in: “It would go on to participate in the battles of Port Gibson, Champion Hill, the Sieges of Vicksburg and Jackson, the Red River Campaign, the siege of Spanish Fort and the capture of Fort Blakely, Alabama.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Karen DeYoung reports More than 300 former officials call Trump’s actions concerning Ukraine ‘profound national security concern’:

More than 300 former U.S. national security and foreign policy officials have signed a statement warning that President Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine are a “profound national security concern” and supporting an impeachment inquiry by Congress to determine “the facts.”

“To be clear, we do not wish to prejudge the totality of the facts or Congress’ deliberative process,” said the statement, released Friday. “At the same time, there is no escaping that what we already know is serious enough to merit impeachment proceedings.”

[Read the full statement from former officials]

The collection of signatures was set in motion by National Security Action, an organization founded and largely populated by officials from the Obama administration to call attention to Trump’s “reckless leadership.”

Many of the signers are former Obama officials. But the list includes others who served as career officials in both Democratic and Republican administrations, including Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s national security division under President George W. Bush and director of the National Counterterrorism Center under President Barack Obama.

Phil Helsel and Kurt Chirbas report N. Carolina detective accused of sending inappropriate messages to sex assault victims is fired (‘He is said to have sent messages to women whose sexual assault cases he had previously investigated’):

Paul G. Matrafailo III, who had been a member of the Fayetteville Police Department’s crisis intervention team, was fired from the force earlier this year, NBC affiliate WRAL of Raleigh reported Thursday, citing a dismissal letter.

Fayetteville police did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday.

The May 7 dismissal letter, which was shared with NBC News, says that police received a complaint March 5 that accused Matrafailo of contacting a sexual assault victim through Instagram and “began a conversation with her that she felt was inappropriate” and making a second attempt at contact March 9. Matrafailo had investigated the victim’s 2016 case.

Deanne Gerdes, executive director of the Rape Crisis Volunteers of Cumberland County, told WRAL that three women who had been sexually assaulted complained that Matrafailo, who had handled their cases, was sending them inappropriate texts or messages.

One woman told the station that Matrafailo sent her messages about lingerie she was planning to buy.

Can Facebook And Google Detect And Stop Deepfakes?:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-nine.  Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 6:44 PM, for 11h 57m 18s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 7.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM, and the Board of Zoning Appeals meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1960, the first (of four) Kennedy-Nixon debates is televised.

Recommended for reading in full:

Conservative attorney David French observes The Trump–Ukraine Transcript Contains Evidence of a Quid Pro Quo:

I haven’t been a litigator since 2015. I haven’t conducted a proper cross-examination since 2014. But if I couldn’t walk a witness, judge, and jury through the transcript of Donald Trump’s call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and demonstrate that a quid pro quo was more likely than not, then I should just hang up my suit and retire in disgrace. Far from being “scattershot” — as my esteemed colleague Kyle Smith declares — the actual sequence is extremely tight, and the asks are very clear.

Indeed, as I also laid out today in Time and on Twitter, the sequence unfolds quite literally in consecutive paragraphs.

First, right near the beginning of the call, President Trump signals his displeasure with Ukraine. He notes that while the United States has been “very good” to Ukraine, he “wouldn’t say” that Ukraine has been “reciprocal” to the United States. There’s nothing subtle about this statement. It’s plain that Trump wants something from Ukraine.

In the next paragraph, Zelensky responds with the key ask. He wants more Javelin missiles, an indispensable weapon system in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia. It’s an anti-tank missile that helps address the yawning power imbalance between the two countries. It doesn’t level the playing field, but it does help deter Russian aggression by raising the possibility of substantial armor losses on the battlefield.

And what is Trump’s response? The next words out of his mouth are, “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” He raises Crowdstrike, the firm the DNC used to investigate the Russian election hacks. From context, it seems as if Trump is asking for additional assistance in investigating the 2016 election-interference scandals.

….

But then, in the following paragraph, Trump continues his ask. He says he is going to ask Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, to call Zelensky, and he asks Zelensky to take the call. Then, Trump says this: “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that, so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.” He continues, “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it . . . It sounds horrible to me.”

And what is Zelenksy’s response? He pledges that the new Ukrainian prosecutor will be “100 percent” his person and that “he or she will look into the situation.”

Boston Dynamics Spot hands-on: new dog, new tricks:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of seventy-four.  Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 6:46 PM, for 12h 00m 11s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 15.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1789, Pres. Washington signs the Judiciary Act of 1789, legislation that established the federal judiciary of the United States.

Recommended for reading in full:

Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, and Benjamin Wittes write So You Want to Impeach the President (‘What to include – and what not to include – in articles of impeachment’):

The Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives suddenly seems to be careening toward impeachment. The resistance to this measure, led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appears to be crumbling in the face of the new scandal over President Trump’s bullying of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to produce damaging information on Joe Biden and his son. Whether the newfound momentum will sustain itself over the coming days is anyone’s guess. But the sudden and urgent focus on impeachment raises an important question: What should the House impeach President Trump for? If the House is no longer considering whether to impeach Trump and has really decided to move forward, it needs to think about what articles of impeachment should—and should not—contain.

This is actually a difficult question. Trump’s misconduct presents what the military calls a target-rich environment. There’s a huge range of activity that a reasonable member of Congress could in good conscience regard as impeachable. That said, it would be a very bad idea for the House to take the approach of throwing a lot of spaghetti at the wall and seeing what, if anything, sticks. That approach could potentially trigger political blowback, giving the president’s allies more material with which to portray congressional Democrats as just a bunch of crazed and partisan attack dogs. And it could also risk doing real institutional damage. When Congress passes an article of impeachment, it makes a statement about the nature of offenses that justify removal from office. It is important to be careful when making such statements so as not to create ill-considered precedents that will justify future mischief.

Jackson Gode writes On National Voter Registration Day [9.24.19], examining ways to expand voter registration:

Americans view paying taxes and voting as two actions that are inherent to democratic participation. Research has shown that when Americans pay taxes to the government, they believe it should come with the right to play a role in determining how the money is spent. For families who rely on the earned income and child tax credits, tax filing can enhance feelings of citizenship and social inclusion. By giving all eligible citizens the opportunity to register when they file their taxes, the government creates an efficient elections system that strengthens democracy.

The process of connecting voter registration with tax filing has proven to be effective in other countries. In Canada, filers are prompted on their income tax form to update their voter registration.

How To Use The iPhone’s New Voice Control Feature:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of seventy-eight.  Sunrise is 6:45 AM and sunset 6:48 PM, for 12h 03m 04s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 25.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1789, Pres. Washington signs the Judiciary Act of 1789, legislation that established the federal judiciary of the United States.

Recommended for reading in full:

Gina Barton and Patrick Marley report Investigating police shootings like plane crashes gets closer to reality in Wisconsin:

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ plan for criminal justice reform includes an idea championed by a retired Air Force pilot from Wisconsin: Analyze police-involved deaths the same way the National Transportation Safety Board investigates plane crashes.

Even if Harris isn’t elected, the plan could become a reality in Wisconsin. State Sen. Van Wanggaard, a Racine Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, is working on a bill that would allocate $3 million to make it happen.

The bill would create a Police and Community Safety Board tasked with helping law enforcement learn from fatal and near-fatal incidents that victimize officers, civilians or both.

Aviation’s methods include examining and sharing the factors that contributed to a crash or near-miss with an eye toward prevention. The idea of bringing similar techniques to police work has gained traction in recent years in light of a number of high-profile police-involved deaths, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York.

Karoun Demirjian, Josh Dawsey,  Ellen Nakashima, and Carol D. Leonnig report Trump ordered hold on military aid days before calling Ukrainian president, officials say:

President Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine at least a week before a phone call in which Trump is said to have pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate the son of former vice president Joe Biden, according to three senior administration officials.

Officials at the Office of Management and Budget relayed Trump’s order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They explained that the president had “concerns” and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent.

Administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of an “interagency process” but to give them no additional information — a pattern that continued for nearly two months, until the White House released the funds on the night of Sept. 11.

Meg Jones reports Spotted cows spotted at Spotted Cow brewery in New Glarus:

A herd of spotted cows busted out of their corral early Monday, shuffled and sauntered around a mile and a half before arriving at their destination — the brewery that manufactures the uber-popular, only-sold-in-Wisconsin Spotted Cow beer.