FREE WHITEWATER

Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.27.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-five.  Sunrise is 7:02 AM and sunset 4:23 PM, for 9h 21m 21s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1924, Macy’s first sponsors its Thanksgiving Parade.

Recommended for reading in full:

Geoffrey S. Corn and Rachel E. VanLandingham write The Gallagher Case: President Trump Corrupts the Profession of Arms:

Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher previously made headlines when he was found not guilty by a court-martial of murdering a wounded Islamic State captive but was convicted of the dereliction of improperly posing with the dead body. Now Gallagher, a Navy SEAL, is back in the news as controversy rages over a Navy review to decide whether Gallagher should forfeit his status as a SEAL. It appears that when President Trump seemed poised to stop the review, Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer proposed his own solution—a sham review process with a preordained outcome—and was fired as a result. Spencer portrayed his actions as a point of honor in response to what he saw as an inappropriate intervention by the president. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, in contrast, was adamant that he fired Spencer for bypassing Esper to propose a deal to Trump that would allow the process to seemingly proceed but would guarantee Gallagher would still retire with his Trident.

This chaos in military discipline and personnel actions is the direct result of Trump’s reckless dismissal of the judgments of his military commanders and his misunderstanding of the profession of arms. The president has legal authority to intervene in these matters, but his misguided actions risk not only undermining the authority of his commanders but also eroding the honor and integrity of the U.S. armed forces. The Spencer/Esper soap opera may be at the forefront of the news cycle, but the real story is the corruption of military good order and discipline.

Trump’s overt disdain for the highly effective military justice system and the commanders who rely on it to hold subordinates accountable for battlefield misconduct has been on display from the inception of Gallagher’s court-martial. His disdain was apparently not tempered even after Gallagher was acquitted for the most serious charges of war crimes.

Shamane Mills reports 2018 Sees Continued Downward Trend In Babies Born In Wisconsin:

The trend of fewer babies being born in Wisconsin continues. But the state decline in 2018 was less than it was across the United States where births dropped 2 percent compared to 2017.

In 2017, the number of babies born in Wisconsin dropped to its lowest point in decades at 64,994 births. In 2018 that number declined another 1.3 percent to 64,143 births.

“The number of births and the birth rates are at some of the lowest levels since the mid-70s. We haven’t seen this pattern for over 40 years,” said David Egan-Robertson with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Applied Population Lab.

See the Martian Clouds, Dust And Ice Change With the Seasons in Simulation:

Foreign Affairs, Mendacity, Putin, Russia, Trump, Trump-Russia

GOP Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana: Liar & Conspiracy Monger

by  • 

On Sunday, GOP Sen. Kennedy of Louisiana falsely contended that both Russia and Ukraine might have hacked a Democratic National Committee server in 2016.  Monday, he falsely contended that he misunderstood the question that he was asked.

Originally, Kennedy’s remarks from Sunday:

WALLACE: Finally, the president and his supporters have said that Ukraine was behind the hacking of the DNC computers and that it wasn’t Russia. That was a big issue this week because former NSC official Fiona Hill said that that is Russian disinformation. She debunked that.

But on the other hand, President Trump doubled down on that the very next day. Take a look, sir.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIONA HILL, FORMER WHITE HOUSE NSC AIDE: This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.

TRUMP: They gave the server to CrowdStrike, or whatever it’s called, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian. And I still want to see that server. You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Senator Kennedy, who do you believe was responsible for hacking the DNC and Clinton campaign computers, their emails? Was it Russia or Ukraine?

KENNEDY: I don’t know, nor do you, nor do any others. Ms. Hill is entitled to her —

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Well, let me interrupt to say — the entire intelligence community says it was Russia.

KENNEDY: Right, but it could also be Ukraine. I’m not saying that I know one way or the other. I’m saying that Ms. Hill is entitled to her opinion but no rebuttal evidence was allowed to be offered.

Monday night, Kennedy lied that he didn’t say what he, in fact, did say:

Kennedy claimed he’d misheard a question from Fox News anchor Chris Wallace while appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” causing him to answer incorrectly.

“I was answering one of his questions, and he interjected with a statement and asked me to react to it. What I heard Chris say was only Russia tried to interfere in the election, and I answered the question. That’s not what he said,” Kennedy said on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” noting that Wallace’s question focused on DNC servers.

“Chris is right. I was wrong,” he said. “The only evidence I have, and I think it’s overwhelming, is that it was Russia who tried to hack the DNC computer. I’ve seen no indication that Ukraine tried to do it.”

Kennedy’s answer was no mere misunderstanding of the question he was asked – he answered ‘I don’t know’ on Sunday, which would have been knowingly false about either Russian hacking of the DNC server or other Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Kennedy’s mention of Ukraine repeats the conspiracy-theory about which Dr. Hill was concerned: “And as I told this Committee last month, I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine—not Russia—attacked us in 2016.”

Kennedy’s intentional mention of Ukraine creates a false equivalence diminishing Russian attacks (and Trump’s profit by them).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.26.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-four.  Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 4:23 PM, for 9h 22m 57s of daytime.  The moon is new with none of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1838, the territorial legislature assembles in Madison for the first time.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission meets at 5:00 PM, and Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5:30 PM.

Recommended for reading in full:

Catherine Rampell writes There’s no other way to explain Trump’s immigration policy. It’s just bigotry:

It was never about protecting the border, rule of law or the U.S. economy. And it was never about “illegal” immigration, for that matter.

Trump’s anti-immigrant bigotry was always just anti-immigrant bigotry.

There’s no other way to explain the Trump administration’s latest onslaught against foreigners of all kinds, regardless of their potential economic contributions, our own international commitments or any given immigrant’s propensity to follow the law. Trump’s rhetoric may focus on “illegals,” but recent data releases suggest this administration has been blocking off every available avenue for legal immigration, too.

Last month, the number of refugees admitted to the United States hit zero. That’s the first month on record this has ever happened, according to data going back nearly three decades from both the State Department and World Relief, a faith-based resettlement organization.

….

The Trump administration’s own research — which it attempted to suppress — found that refugees are a net positive for the U.S. economy and government budgets. That is, over the course of a decade, refugees pay more in taxes than they receive in public benefits.

The Associated Press reports WADA panel recommends neutral status for Russia at Olympics:

The WADA compliance review committee proposed a four-year ban on Russia hosting major events but stopped short of asking for the blanket ban on Russian athletes that is among the possible sanctions for the most egregious violations.

The WADA executive committee will rule on the recommendations Dec. 9.

The proposal follows a lengthy investigation into lab data handed over by Russia in January. Giving the data to WADA was part of a deal to lift a suspension of the Russian anti-doping agency, and the data was supposed to be used to expose past cover-ups of drug use by Russian athletes.

But in a damning admission, WADA said the Russians were tampering with the data as late as January 2019 — days before they handed over the data that had originally been due on Dec. 31, 2018.

Among the alterations, WADA says, was the planting of evidence in an attempt to implicate the lab’s former director, Grigory Rodchenkov. The planted evidence claimed Rodchenkov, who blew the whistle on the Russian doping plot, did so as part of a scheme to extort money from athletes.

UW-Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center catches a video of a meteor flying over Lake Mendota:

Newspapers, Open Government, Public Records 2

A Local Newspaper Squeaks

by  • 

Local newspapers like the nearby Janesville Gazette often self-servingly contend that they’re like the last oasis before a news desert. It’s closer to the truth to say they’re a contributor to an increasingly arid local climate.

Even stories that reveal some information hold back from readers other key documents that would aid in fuller understanding of a controversy. For the Gazette, this typically involves requesting public records but refusing to publish what they’ve received so readers could assess a controversy fully for themselves. See The Janesville Gazette‘s Sketchy Reporting on Major Topics and A Local Press Responsible for Its Own Decline.

A recent story about students forming an ‘offensive symbol’ on a school floor in Milton, Wisconsin reveals that the symbol was a swastika, but publishes none of the public records the paper received that would better inform readers about how officials reacted and handled the matter. Instead, the Gazette shares only a few sentences from – by the Gazette’s own account – 85 pages of documents. See Antisemitism expert: Milton should be more direct in handling of swastika incident. (Pierce, reporter; Schwartz, editor.)

Failure to publish the records that one receives in full – records that under Wisconsin law are part of an established process with opportunities for vetting before disclosure (Wis. Stat. §§ 19.31 et seq.) – shortchanges readers and tells government that full disclosure is unlikely.

When a publication requests documents but does not publish them in full, officials hear only a mouse’s squeak.

The better practice: one requests under law, defends the request at law, and publishes the results in exercise of one’s rights by law.

Anything less signals to government that documents will be presented selectively and that residents will be informed only partially.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.25.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 24m 37s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 1.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1863, Gen. Grant is victorious at the Battle of Missionary Ridge.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, and the Whitewater Unified School District’s board meets at 6:30 PM in closed session with an open session beginning at 7 PM.

Recommended for reading in full:

Jennifer Rubin writes Time to call out and remove Putin’s propagandists:

Republicans are not “merely” violating their oaths of office for failing to support impeachment of a president who arguably has committed more serious “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” and acts of bribery than all his predecessors combined. None of them [of those predecessors] sacrificed national security to obtain a political advantage. President Trump has been disloyal to the United States, not only in giving Russia a leg up in its war against Ukraine, but also in broadcasting his propaganda. And for that, Republicans are just as guilty

….

If congressional Republicans have evidence our intelligence community is wrong, they need to present it. Otherwise, they need to be called out for deliberately assisting a hostile foreign power. It is up to mainstream media interviewers and every Democrat on the ballot in 2020 to directly challenge Republicans who, yes, engage in un-American activity.

In the case of Trump, he not only picks up the propaganda from domestic sources carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s water, which “worked its way into American information ecosystems, sloshing around until parts of it reached Mr. Trump”; he was duped right from the source speaking “with Mr. Putin about allegations of Ukrainian interference.” Whether the president is being blackmailed is unknown; what we do know is that he is a malleable puppet whose strings are pulled in the Kremlin.

Jacob Knutson reports Sen. John Kennedy repeats Ukraine conspiracy theory about DNC server:

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) reiterated a debunked conspiracy theory on “Fox News Sunday” that Ukraine may have interfered in the 2016 presidential election by hacking the Democratic National Committee’s computer servers, despite consensus in the U.S. intelligence community that Russia was responsible for the attacks.

CHRIS WALLACE: “Senator Kennedy, who do you believe was responsible for hacking the DNC and Clinton campaign computers — their emails. Was it Russia or Ukraine?”
KENNEDY: “I don’t know. Nor do you. Nor do any of us.”
WALLACE “Let me just interrupt to say that the entire intelligence community says it was Russia.”
KENNEDY: “Right, but it could also be Ukraine. I’m not saying that I know one way or the other.”

Why it matters: Kennedy’s comments come after former National Security Council official Fiona Hill publicly testified in an impeachment hearing last week that the conspiracy is “a fictional narrative that is being perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

(These Republicans spread Putin’s lies knowingly and repeatedly.)

The Sisyphean Solitude of a Migrant Shepherd:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.24.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-six.  Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 26m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 5.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1959, Interstate 90 opens to traffic between Janesville and Beloit.

Recommended for reading in full:

Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti writes The unholy alliance of the religious right and Trumpism is deeply anti-Christian:

The US attorney general William Barr’s speech at the University of Notre Dame last week has been widely decried by liberal commentators for violating the separation between church and state. In his speech, Barr portrayed “secularists” as enemies of American democracy. Yet few seem to have grasped the deeper political significance of Barr’s remarks.

On their face, none of Barr’s claims appear particularly new. The idea that “militant secularism” undermines the moral fabric of society, leading to all sorts of “social pathologies,” and the idea that “free government” requires the “moral discipline” afforded by religious belief, have been central tenets of official Catholic doctrine for at least a century and a half.

What is more original – and troubling – is the political use the US’s chief law-enforcement officer has made of these traditional religious themes. By subtly reworking some of the core tenets of Catholic social doctrine, he has constructed a new political theology in the service of Trumpism – one which aims to offer conservative Christians a set of principled, not just pragmatic, reasons for supporting the current US administration.

….

A more powerful retort to Barr’s speech would therefore be to point out that it is ultimately in contradiction with itself, since it runs counter to other key themes of Catholic and – more broadly – Christian theology. Most notably, the fact that Christianity was never intended to function as an exclusive identity, marking out the boundaries between those deemed fit for “free government” and those that aren’t. On the contrary, the core of the Christian message is one of universal inclusion.

This is precisely the meaning of the New Testament’s affirmation that: “There is neither Jew nor gentile, neither slave nor free, nor male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). The same point was also recently reiterated by Pope Francis when he reminded believers that “Catholicity” literally means “universality”, inferring from it that: “The church shows her catholicity by … liv[ing] in solidarity with all of humanity, and never closed in on ourselves.”

Bianca Vivion Brooks writes To Take on the Religious Right, We Need a Religious Left:

These values have been the foundation of many previous American progressive social movements. Though the civil rights movement had clear legislative aims, it was a deeply religious movement, sustained by the spiritual empowerment and social organization of Southern black churches. The church served not only as a place to worship, but also as a community support group, regular meeting space and bulletin board; a place to solve disputes and center political organizing.

The motto of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, over which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. presided, was, “To Save the Soul of America.” When their faith in the American government dwindled, black Americans relied on a unified faith in God to deliver them from the sin of racism. This hope was not a passive acceptance that their collective lot would be improved in the next life, but instead a critique of the status quo that moved them to political action in this one.

In the past, religious groups have also led the charge for immigration reform, a cause still championed by modern progressives today. During the 1980s, Presbyterian churches aiming to offer protection to undocumented refugees fleeing Central American wars formed the sanctuary movement. Sanctuary activists defended the movement on various religious grounds, including biblical precedent for providing refuge to those in need. By 1986, there were more than 300 sanctuary congregations in the United States, which also include Lutherans, United Church of Christ members, Roman Catholics and Jews. (As Susan Bibler Coutin notes in her book “The Culture of Protest: Religious Activism and the U.S. Sanctuary Movement,” the concept of “sanctuary cities” would come to supplant churches as municipal governments stepped in.)

The Mystery of the Kansas Gnome Homes:

Film

Film: Tuesday, November 26th, 12:30 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Planes, Trains & Automobiles

by  • 

This Tuesday, November 26th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of Planes, Trains & Automobiles @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

(Comedy)
Rated R (language); 1 hour, 33 min.

To commemorate the getaway for Thanksgiving, we offer two comedy classics! In the feature film, advertising executive Neal Page (Steve Martin) struggles to travel home to Chicago for Thanksgiving with Del Griffith (John Candy), an obnoxious shower curtain ring salesman. Complications ensue. Preceding this feature will be “Perfect Day,” a 1929 Laurel & Hardy 20-minute short: two families set out for a pleasant Sunday picnic in their Model T Ford…but don’t get very far.

One can find more information about Planes, Trains & Automobiles at the Internet Movie Database.

Enjoy.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.23.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-two.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 4:25 PM, for 9h 28m 06s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 12.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1924, astronomer Edwin Hubble publishes in the New York Times his then-controversial, but now-confirmed, discovery that the Andromeda ‘nebula’ is actually another island galaxy far outside of our own Milky Way. Before his work, the accepted view was that the universe extended no farther than the Milky Way.

Recommended for reading in full:

Yesterday: Rob Mentzer reports Investigators Lock Down Rhinelander City Hall In Public Misconduct Case. Today: Natalie Brophy reports Rhinelander administrator Dan Guild subject of felony investigation:

RHINELANDER – City Administrator Daniel Guild was the primary subject of two search warrants executed Thursday at Rhinelander City Hall as part of an investigation into tampering with public records and misconduct in office.

The search is part of an investigation by the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office, assisted by the Price County Sheriff’s Office, into allegations that Guild “engaged in various acts including failure to release public records in response to requests by the media and law enforcement, as well as altering email content to present it as the original,” according to search warrants filed in Oneida County Court.

Authorities were looking for emails between Guild and staff from the Wisconsin League of Municipalities, as well as emails with city council members that mention altered emails, walking quorums or open meeting violations, documents state. Law enforcement was also looking for the disciplinary record for the city’s former director of public works, Tim Kingman.

….

This is not the first time Guild has come under public scrutiny. He was previously the city administrator in Weston, but resigned in July 2018 following a 30-day suspension for breaching his employment contract.

Margaret Sullivan writes The death knell for local newspapers? It’s perilously close:

Here’s some of what happened in the past few days.

Gannett and GateHouse, two major newspaper chains, finished their planned merger, and the combined company intends to cut the combined budget by at least $300 million. That will come on top of unending job losses over the past decade in the affected newsrooms of more than 500 papers.

The McClatchy newspaper group — parent of the Herald and Charlotte Observer — is so weighed down by debt and pension obligations that analysts think it is teetering on bankruptcy.

And the storied Chicago Tribune on Tuesday fell under the influence of Alden Global Capital, a hedge fund that has strip-mined the other important papers it owns, including the Denver Post and the Mercury News in San Jose.

(Key point: when Sullivan writes about local journalism, she’s writing about serious papers, not the mediocre publications one finds near Whitewater.)

If you’re a UW-Madison student, the robots are coming for you. And they’re bringing food:

Cats, Nature

Friday Catblogging: Facts About Jaguars

by  • 

Daisy Hernandez offers 7 Amazing Facts About Jaguars, One of the World’s Coolest Cats (‘The big cats are among the fiercest apex predators in the world’).  If one is to be a predator, it’s best to be an apex predator: 

According to Live Science, jaguars are “the biggest cats in the Americas” and weigh up to 250 pounds. Adults can range between 4 to 8 feet long from head to tail with males typically weighing more and having longer bodies than females.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.22.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:56 AM and sunset 4:26 PM, for 9h 29m 55s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 21.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1963 in Dallas, Pres. Kennedy is assassinated, Texas Governor John Connally is seriously wounded, and Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit is also killed.

Recommended for reading in full:

Rob Mentzer reports Investigators Lock Down Rhinelander City Hall In Public Misconduct Case:

Officials from the Oneida County Sheriff’s Department are investigating alleged misconduct by a public official and tampering with public records, both of which are felony offenses. At 9:25 a.m., officials from Oneida, Vilas and Marathon countty sheriff’s offices started a search for evidence. They seized paper and digital documents in the search, and were also assisted by the state Department of Justice’s digital forensics support unit.

Michael Gerson writes Stephen Miller and Jim Jordan give us a taste of the Truly Trumpian Man:

Miller is best known as the prime mover behind the Muslim travel ban and the main opponent of any political compromise involving compassion for Dream Act “dreamers.” Now, with the release of a trove of emails sent to Breitbart writers and editors in 2015 and 2016 (soon before Miller became a Trump administration official), we get a glimpse of Miller’s inspirations and motivations. In response to the massacre of nine black churchgoers by a white nationalist in 2015, Miller was offended that Amazon removed merchandise featuring the Confederate flag and was concerned about the vandalization of Confederate monuments. Miller encouraged attention at Breitbart to a “white genocide”-themed novel, featuring sexualized violence by refugees. He focused on crime and terrorism by nonwhites as the basis for draconian immigration restrictions. He complained about the “ridiculous statue of liberty myth” and mocked the “national religion” of “diversity.” He recommended and forwarded stories from a range of alt-right sources.

All this is evidence of a man marinated in prejudice. In most presidential administrations, a person with such opinions would be shown the White House exit. But most of Miller’s views — tenderness for the Confederacy, the exaggerated fear of interracial crime, the targeting of refugees for calumny and contempt — have been embraced publicly by the president. Trump could not fire his alt-right alter ego without indicting himself. Miller is safe in the shelter of his boss’s bigotry.

….

The elevation of Trump to the presidency has given prominence to a certain kind of follower and permission for a certain set of social values. Bolsheviks once talked of creating the New Socialist Man. Miller and Jordan are giving us a taste of the Truly Trumpian Man — guided by bigotry, seized by conspiracy theories, dismissive of facts and truth, indifferent to ethics, contemptuous of institutional norms and ruthlessly dedicated to the success of a demagogue.

New 3D printer makes multi-material robots:

America, Authoritarianism, Congress, Impeachment, Law, Libertarians, Liberty, Never Trump, Putin, Trump-Russia

Statement and Testimony of Dr. Fiona Hill

by  • 

These many years, across generations, many (including libertarians) have wanted peaceful relations abroad, but have found instead a relentless, scheming dictatorship under the Soviets and, not longer after, under Putin.

This question in foreign policy confronted us: what is to be said, what is to be done, about imperialistic dictatorships? Some (including sadly some isolationist libertarians) felt that nothing could or should be done. Others of us (including internationalist libertarians), however doubtful about particular actions in the Cold War, were convinced and confirmed in the view that we were called to speak and act in opposition to foreign dictatorships.

Liberty is no trivial condition, let alone solely an American one. One despised the Soviet Union because it was despicable; one holds Putin’s regime in contempt because it is contemptible.

It’s hard to overstate how much one opposes those on this continent who parrot the lies and irrational expressions of Putin’s dictatorship.

Dr. Fiona Hall, the former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia, testifies before the House today. She is – and this republic may be grateful –  clear in her understanding of Putin’s designs, against American democracy and our democratic allies.

Below, an embedded feed of Dr. Hill’s testimony, and her written statement.

[embeddoc url=”https://freewhitewater.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2019-11-21-Fiona-Hill-Opening-Statement-FINAL3.pdf” width=”100%” download=”all” viewer=”google”]

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.21.19

by  • 

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see scattered morning showers with a high of fifty-three.  Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 4:26 PM, for 9h 31m 46s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 31.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1953: “the Natural History Museum in London announces that the ‘Piltdown Man’ skull, initially believed to be one of the most important fossilized hominid skulls ever found, is a hoax.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Benjamin Wittes writes Gordon Sondland Accuses the President of Bribery:

Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution makes the president subject to impeachment and removal for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Normally, we debate impeachment in terms of the last phrase—the mysterious catch-all, “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” But today, Amb. Gordon Sondland, testifying before the House in the ongoing impeachment inquiry, offered a crystal clear account of how President Trump engaged in bribery.

The meaning of the term “bribery” in the impeachment clauses is not coextensive with the meaning of the same word in the criminal code. The impeachment clause predates the federal criminal code, and its contours are decided more by the common law of impeachment than by the terms of specific criminal laws. So I’m not invoking 18 U.S.C. § 201 to evaluate whether Trump committed a crime.

That said, the bribery statute offers a reasonable working definition of what it means to bribe a public official: “Whoever … directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers or promises anything of value to any public official … to influence any official act” has committed the offense.

What’s more, the statute also offers a reasonable working definition of what it means for a public official to demand a bribe: “Whoever … being a public official … directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally … in return for … being influenced in the performance of any official act” also has committed the offense.

….

Remember the words of the statute: Whoever, being a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands anything of value personally in return for being influenced in the performance of any official act has engaged in the crime of bribery.

This exchange [between Rep. Schiff and Amb. Sondland during testimony yesterday] seems to me unambiguously to describe a corrupt demand for something personally valuable (investigations of political opponents) in return for being influenced in the performance of two official acts (granting a White House meeting and releasing hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance).

See Ben Berwick & Justin Florence, The Bad Arguments That Trump Didn’t Commit Bribery (responding to Trump’s defenders’ efforts to rebut the powerful case that Trump committed impeachable bribery).

Amy Goldstein reports Top Trump health official spent $3 million on contractors who helped boost her visibility:

Marked “privileged, pre-decisional, deliberative,” the eight-page proposal, emailed to [Seema] Verma’s deputy chief of staff, was part of an unusual campaign carried out by high-paid contractors Verma brought on at a cost to taxpayers of more than $3 million.

This work over 19 months that provided “strategic communication” services by a network of politically connected contractors and subcontractors, first reported by Politico, came as Verma spoke about the importance of fostering individual responsibility and self-reliance among the nation’s needy.

House Republicans Are Choosing not Run for Reelection: