Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of seventy-two.  Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM, for 15h 20m 04s of daytime.  The moon is full with 100% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Unified School Board meets tonight in closed session beginning at 6:30 PM, with open session scheduled for 7 PM.  Whitewater’s Library Board also meets at 6:30 PM.

(A necessary condition of a good government is that it has sound policies.  A second condition is that it faithfully follows those policies, should they be sound.  Anything less is a provocation.)

On this day in 1673, Marquette & Joliet reach the Mississippi: “Here we are, then, on this so renowned river, all of whose peculiar features I have endeavored to note carefully.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Early birds awoke to a treat today at The Atlantic‘s website: William Langewiesche’s extraordinary Vanished: How Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Disappeared (“The explanation lies not in the sea but on land—in Malaysia, where officials know more than they dare to say”):

1. The Disappearance

at 12:42 a.m. on the quiet, moonlit night of March 8, 2014, a Boeing 777-200ER operated by Malaysia Airlines took off from Kuala Lumpur and turned toward Beijing, climbing to its assigned cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. The designator for Malaysia Airlines is MH. The flight number was 370. Fariq Hamid, the first officer, was flying the airplane. He was 27 years old. This was a training flight for him, the last one; he would soon be fully certified. His trainer was the pilot in command, a man named Zaharie Ahmad Shah, who at 53 was one of the most senior captains at Malaysia Airlines. In Malaysian style, he was known by his first name, Zaharie. He was married and had three adult children. He lived in a gated development. He owned two houses. In his first house he had installed an elaborate Microsoft flight simulator. He flew it frequently, and often posted to online forums about his hobby. In the cockpit, Fariq would have been deferential to him, but Zaharie was not known for being overbearing.

The arrangement was standard. Zaharie’s transmissions were a bit unusual. At 1:01 a.m. he radioed that they had leveled off at 35,000 feet—a superfluous report in radar-surveilled airspace where the norm is to report leaving an altitude, not arriving at one. At 1:08 the flight crossed the Malaysian coastline and set out across the South China Sea in the direction of Vietnam. Zaharie again reported the plane’s level at 35,000 feet.

Eleven minutes later, as the airplane closed in on a waypoint near the start of Vietnamese air-traffic jurisdiction, the controller at Kuala Lumpur Center radioed, “Malaysian three-seven-zero, contact Ho Chi Minh one-two-zero-decimal-nine. Good night.” Zaharie answered, “Good night. Malaysian three-seven-zero.” He did not read back the frequency, as he should have, but otherwise the transmission sounded normal. It was the last the world heard from MH370. The pilots never checked in with Ho Chi Minh or answered any of the subsequent attempts to raise them.

Why Does Extra Data Cost Money?:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of sixty-five.  Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM, for 15h 19m 48s of daytime.  The moon is full with  99.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1832, Henry Dodge and his militia fight at the Battle of the Pecatonica:

On the morning of June 16, 1832, Colonel Henry Dodge led a party of volunteer militia on horseback in pursuit of a group of thirteen Kickapoo Indians. The militia cornered the party at a bend in the Pecatonica River in present-day eastern Lafayette County. In the quick and fierce battle that ensued, all thirteen Native Americans were killed and three militiamen wounded. This small engagement of the 1832 Black Hawk War marked an early success against Black Hawk’s band and served to enhance the reputation of Dodge, who became Wisconsin’s first territorial governor four years later.

Recommended for reading in full:

Colin Lecher reports Russia used social media to keep EU voters at home, report finds:

The report, an update on a continuing plan to battle disinformation, said some progress had been made in deterring malicious campaigns. Officials said plans to tackle disinformation campaigns through a task force had shown progress, and that work with tech companies had also stemmed the tide of false information.

The report said it could not “identify a distinct cross-border” attempt to specifically target European elections. But, the report also found, “evidence collected revealed a continued and sustained disinformation activity by Russian sources aiming to suppress turnout and influence voter preferences.” The activity included challenging the EU’s “democratic legitimacy” and exploiting controversial topics like immigration, with actors using images like the Notre Dame Cathedral fire “to illustrate the alleged decline of Western and Christian values in the EU.”

According to the report, the number of disinformation cases attributed to Russian sources doubled between 2018 and 2019, jumping from about 430 in January 2018 to nearly 1,000 a year later. While Russia was singled out for the efforts, the EU said “other external actors were also involved.”

(The most immediate threat to Western and Christian values in Europe comes from Putin’s Russia and Putin’s American admirer in the White House.)

Margaret Sullivan writes Sarah Sanders was the disdainful Queen of Gaslighting:

When Sarah Sanders said Thursday that she hopes to be remembered for her transparency and honesty, the first impulse was to laugh.

But lying to citizens while being paid by them really isn’t all that funny.

Sanders took on an impossible job when she became President Trump’s spokeswoman, a job that’s about to reach a welcome conclusion.

She would claim to represent the truth on behalf of a president who lies.

She did it disrespectfully and apparently without shame or an understanding of what the role of White House press secretary should be.

She misled reporters or tried to, and through them, misled the American people. And all with her distinctive curled-lip disdain.

Four Stories About Dogs:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see scattered thundershowers with a high of seventy-two.  Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM, for 15h 19m 30s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1215, King John of England accedes to the Magna Carta:

Recommended for reading in full:

Brian Faler reports Big businesses paying even less than expected under GOP tax law:

The U.S. Treasury saw a 31 percent drop in corporate tax revenues last year, almost twice the decline official budget forecasters had predicted. Receipts were projected to rebound sharply this year, but so far they’ve only continued to fall, down by almost 9 percent or $11 billion.

Though business profits remain healthy and the economy is strong, total corporate taxes are at the lowest levels seen in more than 50 years.

At the same time, overall taxes paid by individuals under the new tax law are up so far this year by 3 percent, thanks to higher wages and salaries, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Last year tax payments by individuals went up 4 percent.

The drop comes even as some Republicans, such as Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, have claimed, dubiously, that the law will pay for itself.

(There’s no smaller government to be had from a system of deficit spending through tax redistribution that benefits the few.)

Carol D. Leonnig, Katie Zezima, and Tom Hamburger report Inside the NRA’s finances: Deepening debt, increased spending on legal fees — and cuts to gun training:

The National Rifle Association spent growing sums on overhead in 2018 even as it cut money for core activities such as gun training and political efforts, ending the year deeper in debt, new financial documents show.

The gun rights group’s 2018 financial report, which was obtained by The Washington Post, portrays the longtime political powerhouse as spending faster than its revenue rose.

The records show that the NRA froze its pension plan for employees at the end of last year, a move that saved it close to $13 million, and obtained a $28 million line of credit by borrowing against its Virginia headquarters.

Despite that, the nonprofit group, four affiliated charities and its political committee together ended the year $10.8 million in the red. In 2017, the six groups ended the year with a $1.1 million shortfall.

Brian Mittendorf, an Ohio State University accounting professor who has studied nonprofits, including the NRA, and examined the 2018 report for The Post, said it depicted “a bad year for them financially.” He compared the NRA to a person living paycheck to paycheck, leaning on credit cards with very little cushion.

(There’s no legitimate Second Amendment defense from wasting money and aligning with the ambitions of Putin’s Russia. See Investigators Are Zeroing in on Top NRA Leaders’ Russia Ties—and Challenging the Gun Group’s Story.)

Girl invents teddy bear pouches to hide IVs:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see scattered morning showers on an otherwise partly sunny day with a high of seventy-five.  Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:34 PM, for 15h 19m 07s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 91.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1777, the Second Continental Congress passes the Flag Resolution:

Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Cary Spivak and Mary Spicuzza report Some Wisconsin lawmakers double as landlords — and have passed laws that undermine renters’ rights:

A series of sweeping laws promoting the interests of landlords at the expense of renters, local governments and even public safety have been pushed through the state Capitol since 2011 by a group of lawmakers who moonlight as landlords.

Backed by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos — a college-town landlord with 23 properties worth about $3.8 million — the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted five major bills largely benefiting landlords.

The measures speed up the eviction process, eliminate some tenant legal defenses, limit the power of cities to police landlords and cap fees tied to building code violations. They also allow landlords to toss renters’ belongings on the curb immediately after an eviction, instead of placing the property in storage.

In all, about one out of five of state lawmakers who voted on these bills owns or manages rental properties, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found in its review. At least five lawmakers who double as landlords sponsored the various measures, each of which passed on mostly party-line votes.

(This is a story about Wisconsin legislators, so it does not implicate local landlords who, for example, might have made a hash of development policy, leaving their communities in a low-income status, while promoting themselves at every turn.)

 Luke Johnson writes The Kremlin peddles a myth of Russia’s past greatness. No wonder it hates ‘Chernobyl’:

In the first episode of HBO’s miniseries “Chernobyl,” a Communist official suggests that the real danger isn’t the nuclear power plant that has just exploded, but the news of the tragedy. “It is my experience that when the people ask questions that are not in their own best interest, they should simply be told to keep their minds on their labor and leave matters of the state to the state,” says Zharkov (Donald Sumpter), a party member who seems to have been a young man during the Bolshevik Revolution. “We seal off the city. No one leaves. And cut the phone lines. Contain the spread of misinformation.” His suggestion is met not with horror, but with applause.

This speech might seem dramatic, but like the rest of “Chernobyl,” it represents a sincere attempt to convey the inhumanity, willful ignorance and lies that defined the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This quality has made “Chernobyl” a surprising must-watch summer hit in the United States. But in Russia, the series has run squarely into the historical revisionism favored by the Russian government and its amplifiers in the media, who treat critical explorations of the Russian and Soviet past as attacks on the country’s present.

 Why McDonald’s Doesn’t Have A Vegan Meat Burger In The US:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-eight.  Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:34 PM, for 15h 18m 39s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 83.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission is scheduled to meet at 5 PM, and the Zoning Board of Appeals at 6 PM (update: the latter meeting was canceled).

On this day in 1966, the United States Supreme Court hands down its decision in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), holding among other things that “[i]n the absence of other effective measures, the following procedures to safeguard the Fifth Amendment privilege must be observed: the person in custody must, prior to interrogation, be clearly informed that he has the right to remain silent, and that anything he says will be used against him in court; he must be clearly informed that he has the right to consult with a lawyer and to have the lawyer with him during interrogation, and that, if he is indigent, a lawyer will be appointed to represent him.”

Recommended for reading in full:

 Patrick Marley reports Pew drops plans for Wisconsin study after Robin Vos breaks with other Republicans over it:

Wisconsin has lost out on an opportunity to have a renowned nonprofit organization study its probation and parole system after Assembly Speaker Robin Vos declined to back it.

In a twist, top Republicans in the Senate sided with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers over the GOP speaker in trying to get the Pew Charitable Trusts to review the program that oversees more than 65,000 people on probation, parole and extended supervision.

Vos, of Rochester, refused to sign onto the request for help from Pew because he believed the state task force that would oversee the study was tipped in Democrats’ favor, according to staff emails obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Evers agreed to work with Vos on the makeup of the task force, but Vos wouldn’t sign onto a letter to Pew requesting the study, according to the emails between the chiefs of staff for Evers and Vos.

Evers and top Senate Republicans — Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald of Juneau and Senate President Roger Roth of Appleton — sent the letter in May.

(Fitzgerald, hardly a bipartisan guy, supported the Pew effort. When you’re farther out than Fitzgerald, you’ve fallen off the map.)

 Tory Newmyer reports Corporate confidence in the economy drops amid trade fears. But Republicans aren’t budging:

The Business Roundtable’s quarterly survey of top chief executives revealed a darkening mood about the country’s economic outlook. While still high, their sentiment registers at its lowest level since President Trump took office — a change participants chalked up to the chaos unleashed by his tariffs.

“They are going to do what they do. It’s not up to us,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who chairs the Business Roundtable, said of the White House on Wednesday.

 Microbrewery Makes Biodegradable, Edible 6 Pack Rings To Reduce Ocean Plastic:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy, with a few showers and a thunderstorm, and a high of sixty-three.  Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 18m 08s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1987, on a visit to West Berlin, Pres. Reagan challenges Soviet leader Gorbachev to “tear down this wall!”

Recommended for reading in full:

 The Washington Post editorial board writes The U.S. still hasn’t done nearly enough to stop election interference:

IT IS obvious to all but the willfully ignorant that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election. What is less obvious is what this country is going to do about it. So far, the signs have pointed to: not nearly enough. A report from scholars at Stanford University offers one road map — and shows how the nation remains shockingly near the beginning of the road.

The Stanford report includes 45 recommendations for protecting the U.S. democratic process. Some three years after Vladimir Putin’s government planted trolls and bots on social media sites to propagandize for Donald Trump, hacked into the emails of officials on Hillary Clinton’s campaign and probed election infrastructure for vulnerabilities, the president’s team has not pursued a single one of them. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) continues to block even the consideration of stand-alone legislation that would bolster election security.

The refusal to act is dangerous. Though Russia infiltrated voting networks in 2016, there is no evidence any machines were tampered with or votes changed. Next time, we might not be so fortunate.

Vanessa Williamson and Jackson Gode describe Red-tape voter suppression: How new, draconian voter registration rules undermine voting rights:

In Tennessee, a draconian new law aims to penalize groups engaging in voter registration campaigns. Civil rights advocates have rightly compared the legislation to the racist voter suppression policies of the Jim Crow era and are contesting the law’s constitutionality. Having experienced the effects of similar legislation in the field, we can say with confidence that if the Tennessee law is allowed to stand, it will undermine voter registration efforts and keep eligible voters off the rolls.

In 2018, in Dallas, Texas, and Cleveland, Ohio, our team conducted a randomized controlled trial of a new policy idea: offering voter registration to people when they file their income tax returns at Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites. The experiment was a success: the program doubled voter registration rates among the initially unregistered.

A less encouraging finding was the sheer disparity between our two test states. Each year, millions of Americans register to vote or update their voter registration thanks to the tireless efforts of civil society organizations that run voter registration tables, go door-to-door with voter registration forms, or otherwise remind potential voters to get registered in time to vote. But running a voter registration campaign that would be uncontroversial in other states is extremely difficult in Texas, because Texas has some of the most severe limits on voter registration of any state in the nation. It takes a simple procedure and makes it needlessly bureaucratic and extremely intimidating to both voters and volunteers, while doing absolutely nothing to make voter registration more secure

How a Company in Berlin is Turning Coffee Grounds Into Reusable Cups: 

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-eight.  Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 17m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 63.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1864, Congress honors a Civil War hero:

Colonel Joseph Bailey was honored with a “resolution of commendation,” by the United States Congress for his “distinguished services in the recent campaign on the Red River.” Bailey, a logger from Wisconsin, saved a Union fleet stuck in the Red River, Louisiana, due to a sudden drop in water level. Although his idea of damming the river to relieve the fleet was scorned by many of his peers and superiors (including many West Point graduates), his experience in logging on the Wisconsin River proved invaluable.

Recommended for reading in full:

Jon Swaine reports Company part-owned by Jared Kushner got $90m from unknown offshore investors since 2017:

A real estate company part-owned by Jared Kushner has received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since he entered the White House as a senior adviser to his father-in-law Donald Trump.

Investment has flowed from overseas to the company, Cadre, while Kushner works as an international envoy for the US, according to corporate filings and interviews. The money came through a vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven that guarantees corporate secrecy.

Kushner, who is married to Trump’s elder daughter Ivanka, kept a stake in Cadre after joining the administration, while selling other assets. His holding is now valued at up to $50m, according to his financial disclosure documents.

Tory Newmyer writes How Trump’s Mexico showdown undermines his standing in other trade talks:

The episode provides a couple of important lessons for governments (think: China, the European Union and Japan) still facing their own showdowns with the Trump administration. 

For one, Trump’s willingness to threaten a top trading partner with stiff tariffs — even as his administration pushes ratification of a trade pact with Mexico and Canada as its top legislative priority — sends a clear message about the president’s respect for his own trade deals. That is, even a signed agreement offers no protection against Trump deciding, with no warning, to launch new hostilities.

What’s more, the warmed-over offers from Mexico that Trump is touting as a major victory, along with an unverified claim about new farm purchases, suggest the president cares less about substance than his ability to declare a win. As the New York Times’s Michael Shear and Maggie Haberman detailed over the weekend, the deal “consists largely of actions that Mexico had already promised to take in prior discussions with the United States over the past several months, according to officials from both countries who are familiar with the negotiations.” And Bloomberg News found no support for Trump’s assertion, via tweet, that Mexico has agreed to “immediately begin buying large quantities of agricultural product from our great patriot farmers.”

(Emphasis in original.)

Why So Many People Are Dying On Top Of Mount Everest: