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Author Archive for JOHN ADAMS

America, Authoritarianism, Babbittry, Bigotry, Boosterism, City, Law, Liberty, Local Government, Mendacity, Never Trump, Politics, Resistance, Trump

Forget the Tender Feelings of a Pernicious Faction

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Over at the Journal Sentinel, Craig Gilbert writes about the political divide in For voters in this purple part of Wisconsin [Richland Center], the impeachment fight is a symbol of broken politics. The story establishes a false equivalence between those who support impeachment and those who oppose it, as though the conflict between these views were an irresolvable dispute over flavors or colors.

Gilbert writes that “[f]or voters on both sides, the impeachment fight is kind of an all-purpose symbol of broken politics, whether it’s the polarization of the electorate, the partisanship of the political class or the legislative impasse in Congress.”

In Gilbert’s telling, everyone’s upset, they’re all frustrated, and the conflict is all one big sad point of contention.

The views of these two sides – one seeking impeachment as a defense of accountability under the rule of law, the other pushing conspiracy theories to defend a bigoted autocrat – are nothing alike. These tired ‘we’re all divided’ stories imply an equivalence between the sides, and leave the cause of the division unspoken.

Consider: should the supposed concerns of Know Nothings, Confederates, Copperheads, Klan, and Bund be weighed as heavily as those who sought to defend a liberal democratic order?

(Prof. Jay Rosen of NYU is right: “My current rule is that all discussions and news stories framed as, “Why are we so divided? America can’t even agree on common facts…” should be framed instead as: how did the Republican Party arrive at this place?”)

A reasonable person committed to democracy under the rule of law need not – and should not – give equal weight to the views and feelings of those who peddle lies and autocracy. On the contrary, a reasonable person committed to democracy under the rule of law should consider such people his or her political adversaries, to be defeated as our forefathers defeated the Know Nothings, Confederates, Copperheads, Klan, and Bund.

Concern for the tender feelings of adherents to those vile movements scarcely mattered; it was most important that they were defeated. (After the Civil War, they should have been kept in a century-long period of Reconstruction to render them innocuous to others’ rights and well-being.)

The main focus of opposition is best kept on Trump, His Inner Circle, Principal Surrogates, and Media Defenders and that includes Trumpism Down to the Local Level.  

(Admittedly and sadly, the local boosterism of the pre-Trump years is now in retrospect worse than one might have initially believed: “across America boosters who peddled false descriptions & junk solutions during the economic hardship of the Great Recession contributed, knowingly or unknowingly, to the erosion of reason and honesty. They were at first forgettable for their absurdities, later annoying for them, and how having contributed to our present degradation they are politically unforgivable.”)

This national conflict will one day end, but it will only end when the foundations of this republic are again secure.

An unmerited sympathy for liberal democracy’s adversaries only prolongs the arrival of that better day.

 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.3.19

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-one.  Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 12m 52s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 42.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1947, WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee becomes Wisconsin’s first television station.

Recommended for reading in full:

Bob Bauer writes Trump Is the Founders’ Worst Nightmare (‘Once in the Oval Office, a demagogue can easily stay there’):

Donald Trump’s Republican congressional allies are throwing up different defenses against impeachment and hoping that something may sell. They say that he didn’t seek a corrupt political bargain with Ukraine, but that if he did, he failed, and the mere attempt is not impeachable. Or that it is not clear that he did it, because the evidence against him is unreliable “hearsay.”

It’s all been very confusing. But the larger story — the crucial constitutional story — is not the incoherence of the president’s defense. It is more that he and his party are exposing limits of impeachment as a response to the presidency of a demagogue.

The founders feared the demagogue, who figures prominently in the Federalist Papers as the politician who, possessing “perverted ambition,” pursues relentless self-aggrandizement “by the confusions of their country.” The last of the papers, Federalist No. 85, linked demagogy to its threat to the constitutional order — to the “despotism” that may be expected from the “victorious demagogue.” This “despotism” is achieved through systematic lying to the public, vilification of the opposition and, as James Fenimore Cooper wrote in an essay on demagogues, a claimed right to disregard “the Constitution and the laws” in pursuing what the demagogue judges to be the “interests of the people.”

Should the demagogue succeed in winning the presidency, impeachment in theory provides the fail-safe protection. And yet the demagogue’s political tool kit, it turns out, may be his most effective defense. It is a constitutional paradox: The very behaviors that necessitate impeachment supply the means for the demagogue to escape it.

Catherine Rampell writes The more love Always Trumpers show, the more dangerous Trump becomes:

You’ve heard of the Never Trumpers. That’s the president’s catchall slur for anyone who criticizes him or at least accurately attests to something unsavory he’s done.

But let’s talk instead for a moment about the true risk to our democracy: the Always Trumpers. These are people such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) and even the once-reasonable-sounding Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.), who excuse away any evidence of impeachment-worthy misdeeds no matter how damning.

The Always Trumpers represent a sprawling group of lackeys and co-conspirators, willing to aid, abet and (most importantly) adore President Trump no matter what he’s credibly accused of. Come hell or high crimes, Always Trumpers always truckle to Trump.

It doesn’t matter whether he’s extorting a desperate ally into announcing a fake investigation into a domestic political rival, compromising both that ally’s national security and ours. The Always Trumpers, many of whom were once Russia hawks, will stand by their man.

Trekking Through the Appalachian Mountains:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.2.19

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-three.  Sunrise is 7:07 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 14m 08s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 33.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1954, the United States Senate votes (67-22) to censure Wisconsin Sen. Joe McCarthy.

Recommended for reading in full:

Bill Lueders writes Robin Vos Stonewalls on Public Records:

One of the requesters who was told by Vos’ office “We have no records responsive to your request” was Grafton resident Robert W. Chernow, who has asked for records regarding the way that state Senate District 8 was redistricted after the 2010 Census.

Chernow, in an interview, says he was trying to learn more about how the voter boundaries of this Senate district were redrawn to the advantage of Republican incumbent Alberta Darling.

After being told that no responsive records exist, Chernow says he repeatedly called Vos’ office and asked to talk to Fawcett. “Every time they heard my name the word came back that he’s not available,” Chernow says. “After about six times, I got the hint that he would not talk to me.”

And so Chernow sent a letter dated Nov. 13 to the office of the State Attorney General, which has statutory authority for interpreting and enforcing Wisconsin’s open records law. His letter notes that there have been repeated mentions in the press regarding the $850,000 fee paid by the state to a law firm advising Vos on the issue of redistricting.

“Would not Mr. Vos still have possession of this information?” Chernow asks, adding, “I cannot understand the statement that there are no records.” He continues: “Were these records destroyed? Are taxpayer funded projects that affect [the public’s] representation not public?”

Chernow says that the only response he’s gotten from Vos’ office is an Oct. 15 letter from Fawcett informing him that it had no records at all in response to his request, adding, “We now consider this matter closed.”

Elyse Samuels and Monica Akhtar write Are ‘bots’ manipulating the 2020 conversation? Here’s what’s changed since 2016:

The term “bots” often refers to automated accounts that publish lots of content and infiltrate online communities to try to sway online conversations.

….

“So the battle-space in 2020 is going to be a lot more complicated. And the hardest part of the response is going to be attributing any particular piece of activity to any particular actor,” Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at network analysis firm Graphika, told The Washington Post. “The most important thing is to isolate the behavior which is trying to distort the debate, is trying to interfere with the election, and make sure that that behavior doesn’t actually have an impact.”

….

Data scientists also point to new, more evolved tactics such as “inorganic coordinated activity” as a more nuanced online threat. “Inorganic coordinated activity” is when a group of humans, bots or a combination of both attempts to influence the online conversation by strategically releasing premeditated messaging at a specific time. The goal is for a small number of accounts — human or automated — to appear larger on Twitter than they are in reality.

Can Planting Billions Of Trees Halt Climate Change?:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 12.1.19

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered snow showers with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:06 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 15m 27s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 25% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1955, Rosa Parks refuses to relinquish her seat in the “colored section” of a Montgomery, Alabama bus to a white passenger, after the whites-only section was filled.

Recommended for reading in full:

Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes In impeachment hearings, lessons on the erosion of American democracy:

Is America becoming a 21st-century-style authoritarian state? The impeachment hearings of the last weeks would seem to provide an easy answer: no. The very fact that such an inquiry can be held, and broadcast on national television, is a sign that our democracy is working and that our institutions are holding.

Yet the impeachment hearings also showed how degraded our political culture has become and how much progress President Donald Trump has made in implementing the authoritarian playbook that he began to write for America during his campaign.

First, the hearings revealed just how much Trump’s cult of personality has tied subordinates to him, and how much of his playbook operates on keeping them in thrall to his singular threat: show loyalty, no matter what I say or do, or else.

A healthy democracy is founded on tolerance of differences of opinion, but is grounded in a shared body of norms. Autocratic governments, in contrast, need to change our opinion about what violates norms and constitutes crime and corruption.

E.J. Dionne Jr. writes What unites Trump’s apologists? Minority rule:

Two questions are asked again and again: How can white evangelical Christians continue to support a man as manifestly immoral as President Trump? And how can congressional Republicans refuse to condemn Trump’s thuggish effort to use taxpayer money to intimidate a foreign leader into helping his reelection campaign?

The answer to both relates to power — not just the power Trump now enjoys but also to the president’s faithfulness to a deal aimed at controlling American political life for a generation or more. Both evangelicals and Republican politicians want to lock in their current policy preferences, no matter how much the country changes or how sharply public opinion swings against them. As a party, the GOP now depends on empowering a minority over the nation’s majority.

This is reflected in its eagerness to enact laws restricting access to the ballot in states it controls. Rationalized as ways to fight mythical “voter fraud,” voter-ID statutes and the purging of voter rolls are designed to make it harder for African Americans, Latinos and young people to vote. The new electorate is a lot less Republican than the old one. The GOP much prefers the old one.

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons observes The GOP is not the party of G-O-D. Here’s why:

Tonight’s Sky for December 2019:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.30.19

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of thirty-nine.  Sunrise is 7:05 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 16m 50s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 17% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, Union forces are victorious at the Battle of Franklin (Tennessee), repulsing repeated Confederate assaults.

Recommended for reading in full:

Paul Kane writes Analysis: On impeachment, gender gap grows wider: 

Poll after poll shows a clear majority of women support both Trump’s impeachment in the House and a conviction in the Senate that would remove him from office, while roughly 6 in 10 men oppose such an outcome.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll, taken just before public hearings began, found that 56% of women supported impeachment and removing Trump from office, while just 40% of women want the president to stay in office. By contrast, 54% of men oppose impeachment, the poll showed.

….

Just look at the 2018 midterm elections, when 59% of women voted for the Democratic congressional candidate, and 51% of men voted for the Republican candidate.

Susan Simpson writes Here’s the Proof that Trump’s “No Quid Pro Quo” Call Never Happened:

At the heart of the impeachment inquiry, members of Congress may have been mistakenly led to believe that there were two phone calls between President Donald Trump and Ambassador Gordon Sondland in early September—with the second call having the possibility of helping the President’s case. That’s not what happened. There was only one call, and it was highly incriminating.

The call occurred on September 7th. In this call, Trump did say there was “no quid pro quo” with Ukraine, but he then went on to outline his preconditions for releasing the security assistance and granting a White House visit. The call was so alarming that when John Bolton learned of it, he ordered his’ deputy Tim Morrison to immediately report it to the National Security Council lawyers.

Sondland has testified there was a call on September 9th in which Trump said there was “no quid pro quo,” but that he wanted President Zelenskyy “to do” the right thing. A close reading of the publicly available evidence shows that the latter call was actually the very one that sent Morrison to the lawyers, and that Ambassador Bill Taylor foregrounded in his written deposition to inform Congress of the quid pro quo.

As this article was in the publication process at Just Security, the Washington Post published a report raising doubts about the existence of the September 9 call. The analysis that follows is consistent with the Post’s report and, among other points, shows why Sondland’s “no quid pro quo” call is in fact  the same as the September 7th call that Morrison reported to NSC lawyers on September 7th.

(Emphasis added. See article for its full, detailed analysis.)

How a few degrees of change can wreck Angola’s fishing economy:

Cats, Science/Nature

Friday Catblogging: Scientific Confirmation that Cats Become Attached to People

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Caitlin O’Kane reports Cats actually do get attached to their owners, study says:

“Dog people” and “cat people” have long debated which pet is better. A new study is putting one preconceived notion about stand-offish felines to bed. The study published in Current Biology dug deep into cats’ sometimes misunderstood relationships with humans, and found the felines actually do bond with their owners.

The authors of the study acknowledge dogs have received a considerable amount of scientific attention over the years – perhaps because they form obvious attachment bonds with humans. “Despite fewer studies, research suggests we may be underestimating cats’ socio-cognitive abilities,” the study’s authors write.

The researchers found “cats display distinct attachment styles toward human caregivers,” and evidence shows cats, dogs and humans share social traits – suggesting these traits should not only be attributed to dogs alone.

The study used a Secure Base Test (SBT), conducted on 70 kittens aged 3 to 8 months. At the end of the study, almost all of the kittens were classified into attachment styles, with 64.3% being “securely attached.”

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.29.19

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:04 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 18m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1961, Enos the chimpanzee orbits the Earth during the Mercury-Atlas 5 space flight.

Recommended for reading in full:

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists describes the China Cables:

Panos Mourdoukoutas writes China Is Heading For A Long Growth Recession, Not Because Of The Trade War:

Nowadays, China is still trying to build wealth, but it’s doing the wrong way… by pursuing investments that do not raise the country’s productive capacity and growth potential.

Like bridges and roads to nowhere; like factories that no longer produce competitive products. Like apartments where nobody lives.

“If a country spends billions of dollars on infrastructure projects, its GDP will rise,” says Beckley.“But if those projects consist of bridges to nowhere, the country’s stock of wealth will remain unchanged or even decline.”

Simply put, bridges to nowhere have a “multiplier effect.” They create several rounds of jobs and income while the building takes place. But these bridges have no “accelerator effect.” They don’t create any jobs and income once the building is over.  They just waste the country’s precious resources, which could be used elsewhere.

That’s why bridges to nowhere undermine the country’s productivity and economic growth. “To accumulate wealth, a country needs to increase its productivity—a measure that has actually dropped in China over the last decade,” says Beckley. “Practically all of China’s GDP growth has resulted from the government’s pumping capital into the economy. Subtract government stimulus spending, some economists argue, and China’s economy may not be growing at all.”

A Thrilling Look at America’s First Extreme Sport:

America, History, Holiday

A Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1863

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The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward, Secretary of State

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.28.19

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Good morning.

Thanksgiving in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:03 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 19m 47s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1901, UW football has its first undefeated season (9-0) with a victory over the University of Chicago, 35-0.

Recommended for reading in full:

Heather Vogell reports Trump Tax Records Reveal New Inconsistencies — This Time for Trump Tower:

Donald Trump’s business reported conflicting information about a key metric to New York City property tax officials and a lender who arranged financing for his signature building, Trump Tower in Manhattan, according to tax and loan documents obtained by ProPublica. The findings add a third major Trump property to two for which ProPublica revealed similar discrepancies last month.

In the latest case, the occupancy rate of the Trump Tower’s commercial space was listed, over three consecutive years, as 11, 16 and 16 percentage points higher in filings to a lender than in reports to city tax officials, records show.

For example, as of December 2011 and June 2012, respectively, Trump’s business told the lender that 99% and 98.7% of the tower’s commercial space was occupied, according to a prospectus for the loan. The figures were taken from “borrower financials,” the prospectus stated.

In tax filings, however, Trump’s business said the building’s occupancy was 83% in January 2012 and the same a year later. The 16 percentage point gap between the loan and tax filings is a “very significant difference,” said Susan Mancuso, an attorney who specializes in New York property tax.

Julia Davis asks Why Are Republicans So Anxious to Play Putin’s Game on Ukraine?: 

Putin and Trump reportedly have discussed allegations of Ukrainian interference in U.S. elections. In a 2017 Oval Office meeting, Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that he was unconcerned about Moscow’s election interference. At the G20 in June of this year, Trump grinned and playfully wagged his finger as he told Putin: “Don’t meddle in the election.”

One month later, during Trump’s now infamous July 25 call with Ukraine’s Zelensky, Trump urged him to investigate Ukraine’s alleged meddling in the U.S. elections—and the lesson drawn from all this by Putin?  Appearing at the economic forum Russia Calling, he smirked: “Thank God no one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections anymore. Now they’re accusing Ukraine.”

But here’s the fact of the matter. Russia’s unprecedented interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been described, with reason, as “the most successful influence campaign in history, one that will be studied globally for decades,” and it is far from over.

Instead of counteracting Russia’s malign influence, American foreign policy under Trump is seemingly being guided by it and leaders of the Republican Party are doing their best to aid and abet that program.

Restoring a reef: A new hope for corals:

CDA, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Government Spending, WEDC, Wisconsin

Foxconn: Worse Than Nothing

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Below are the abstract and full study from George Mason University on The Economics of a Targeted Economic Development Subsidy (examining the Foxconn deal in Wisconsin).  There’s much to consider in this work, for the Foxconn project, and by reasonable extension to other government-targeted business subsidies.

Abstract:

In an effort to spur economic growth and to burnish their job-creation bona fides, policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels often dispense targeted economic development subsidies. These selective incentives include targeted tax relief, targeted regulatory relief, cash subsidies, and in-kind donations of land and other valuable goods and services. The weight of economic theory suggests that these subsidies do not work and may even depress economic activity. In this paper, we review the economic case for and against targeted economic development subsidies, using Wisconsin’s $1.2 billion to $3.6 billion subsidy to Foxconn to illustrate these points. We show that under realistic scenarios the subsidy may depress state economic activity by tens of billions of dollars over the next 15 years.

Full study:

[embeddoc url=”https://freewhitewater.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/mitchell-targeted-development-mercatus-special-study-v1.pdf” width=”100%” download=”all” viewer=”google”]

Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers,  Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition,  Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere, Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land, Foxconn Couldn’t Even Meet Its Low First-Year Goal, Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans, WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid, Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy, Laughable Spin as Industrial Policy, Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project,’ ‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn,’ Foxconn: When the Going Gets Tough…, The Amazon-New York Deal, Like the Foxconn Deal, Was Bad Policy, Foxconn Roundup, Foxconn: The Roads to Nowhere, Foxconn: Evidence of Bad Policy Judgment, Foxconn: Behind Those Headlines, Foxconn: On Shaky Ground, Literally, Foxconn: Heckuva Supply Chain They Have There…, Foxconn: Still Empty, and the Chairman of the Board Needs a Nap, Foxconn: Cleanup on Aisle 4, Foxconn: The Closer One Gets, The Worse It Is, Foxconn Confirm Gov. Evers’s Claim of a Renegotiation Discussion, America’s Best Know Better, Despite Denials, Foxconn’s Empty Buildings Are Still Empty, Right on Schedule – A Foxconn Delay, Foxconn: Reality as a (Predictable) Disappointment, Town Residents Claim Trump’s Foxconn Factory Deal Failed Them, Foxconn: Independent Study Confirms Project is Beyond Repair, It Shouldn’t, Foxconn: Wrecking Ordinary Lives for Nothing, Hey, Wisconsin, How About an Airport-Coffee Robot?, Be Patient, UW-Madison: Only $99,300,000.00 to Go!, Foxconn: First In, Now Out, Foxconn on the Same Day: Yes…um, just kidding, we mean no, and Foxconn: ‘Innovation Centers’ Gone in a Puff of Smoke.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 11.27.19

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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

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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).