Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of seventy-eight.  Sunrise is 6:52 AM and sunset 6:35 PM, for 11h 42m 54s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1890, an act of Congress creates Yosemite National Park.

Recommended for reading in full:

Devlin Barrett, Shane Harris, and Matt Zapotosky report Barr personally asked foreign officials to aid inquiry into CIA, FBI activities in 2016:

Attorney General William P. Barr has held private meetings overseas with foreign intelligence officials seeking their help in a Justice Department inquiry that President Trump hopes will discredit U.S. intelligence agencies’ examination of possible connections between Russia and members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, according to people familiar with the matter.

Barr’s personal involvement is likely to stoke further criticism from Democrats pursuing impeachment that he is helping the Trump administration use executive branch powers to augment investigations aimed primarily at the president’s adversaries.

….

The direct involvement of the nation’s top law enforcement official shows the priority Barr places on the investigation being conducted by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, who has been assigned the sensitive task of reviewing U.S. intelligence work surrounding the 2016 election and its aftermath.

The attorney general’s active role also underscores the degree to which a nearly three-year-old election still consumes significant resources and attention inside the federal government. Current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials expressed frustration and alarm Monday that the head of the Justice Department was taking such a direct role in reexamining what they view as conspiracy theories and baseless allegations of misconduct.

Reminder: What Attorney General Barr said vs. what the Mueller report said:

Ishaan Tharoor writes China’s 70th anniversary party can’t hide a sense of unease:

The rise of “a true opposition movement would take a systemic crisis — say, a real economic meltdown or a climate-induced catastrophe — that doesn’t yet seem likely,” Beijing-based journalist Ian Johnson noted. “And so, superficially at least, the Communist Party seems to go from strength to strength, relying on China’s capable civil service to make sure the high-speed trains run on time, the highways hum with new cars, and the aircraft carriers get built.”

But there’s a tension burrowed inside this seeming stability, Johnson concluded: “It is precisely this return to prosperity that has given people the opportunity to contemplate a century-old question: what exactly holds their country together other than brute force?”

Tonight’s Sky for October 2019:

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: