Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-four.  Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:43 PM, for 9h 19m 45s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 33.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1904, Henry Ford sets a land speed record:

Henry Ford personally drove the rechristened 999 with his mechanic Ed “Spider” Huff at the throttle. A new land speed record was achieved of 91.37 mph (147.05 km/h) on an ice track carved into Lake St. Clair’s Anchor Bay.  (Photo shows Ford and Barney Oldenfield in 1902 with a model 999.)

Recommended for reading in full:

Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt, and Nicholas Fandos report F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia:

WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, took over the inquiry into Mr. Trump when he was appointed, days after F.B.I. officials opened it. That inquiry is part of Mr. Mueller’s broader examination of how Russian operatives interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Trump associates conspired with them.

….

F.B.I. officials viewed their decision to move quickly as validated when a comment the president made to visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office shortly after he fired Mr. Comey was revealed days later.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

 Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare summarizes this news:

It was about Russia. Full stop. It was always about Russia.

See from Wittes What if the Obstruction Was the Collusion? On the New York Times’s Latest Bombshell.

 Why is Duct Tape So Strong?:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty-three.  Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:42 PM, for 9h 18m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 25.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1887, noted conservationist Aldo Leopold is born.

Recommended for reading in full:

Michael Tackett and Julie Hirschfeld Davis report White House Considers Using Storm Aid Funds as a Way to Pay for the Border Wall:

President Trump traveled to the border on Thursday to warn of crime and chaos on the frontier, as White House officials considered diverting emergency aid from storm- and fire-ravaged Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and California to build a border barrier, perhaps under an emergency declaration.

….

The administration appeared to be looking into just such a solution: using extraordinary emergency powers to get around Congress in funding the wall. Among the options, the White House has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to determine whether it can divert for wall construction $13.9 billion allocated last year after devastating hurricanes and wildfires, according to congressional and Defense Department officials with knowledge of the matter, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the possibility.

Administration officials are debating whether they could make such a move without the president declaring a national emergency, an action the White House counsel’s office has explored.

 Nomaan Merchant reports As Trump visits border, Texas landowners prepare wall fight:

How Combat Jets Refuel In Midair:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of twenty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:41 PM, for 9h 16m 47s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1883, the Newhall House Fire claims dozens of lives in Milwaukee:

one of America’s worst hotel fires claimed more than seventy lives when the Newhall House burned at the northwest corner of Broadway and Michigan Streets in Milwaukee. Rescued from the fire were The P.T. Barnum Lilliputian Show performers Tom Thumb and Commodore Nutt. The fire, shown here, was discovered at 4:00 a.m. on the 10th, but sources give the date variously as 1/9/1883 or 1/10/1883. [Sources: The History of Wisconsin, Vol. 3, p.452; WLHBA]

Recommended for reading in full:

 Annie Gowen, Jeff Stein, and Sean Sullivan report Already reeling from tariff war, some farmers aren’t receiving government support checks amid shutdown:

The government check hadn’t arrived, and John Boyd was out of seeds.

So he left his family farm here in southern Virginia on Tuesday and went to the local Farm Service Agency office, a last-ditch attempt to see if any essential personnel with the U.S. Agriculture Department were still working. He was hoping they could help, even with the partial federal government shutdown stretching on with no end in sight.

The Trump administration had promised to help farmers like Boyd, those who suffered as a result of the international trade war after Chinese purchases of soybeans — once 60 percent of the market — plummeted to next to nothing. With farmers on the edge of ruin, the U.S. government offered $12 billion in support since September, checks that had become a lifeline.

But with the government shutdown moving into its third week, Boyd was left waiting for his support check to arrive. Other farmers who still must have their crop totals approved by the government to receive aid were left with no way to apply for it.

….

“This shutdown is affecting small people like myself, but if it continues, America is going to feel the impact everywhere — grocery stores, small businesses,” Boyd fumed, angry about the “fiasco” he feels Trump has created. “Right now, I need seed and diesel fuel; I do not need a damn wall. That does not help me in my farming operation.”

 Jeff Stein reports Trump farm bailout money will go to Brazilian-owned meatpacking firm, USDA says:

Helping People with Disabilities Become Working Artists:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of twenty-two.  Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:39 PM, for 9h 15m 24s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1493, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, while sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees what he believes to be three mermaids – truly manatees–and describes them as “not half as beautiful as they are painted.”

Recommended for reading in full:

 Jennifer Rubin describes Trump’s nothingburger speech:

The only thing surprising about President Trump’s address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night was how totally unnecessary and un-newsworthy it was. Trump did not declare he was reopening the government. He did not issue an “emergency” declaration. He did not even offer any new arguments for a border wall that voters say they don’t want for a crisis that doesn’t exist. Instead, he delivered a weak, unconvincing promise to sit down with Democrats. Never has he looked so helpless and small.

….

the speech was littered with falsehoods. He claimed there was a growing crisis along the U.S-Mexico border, though illegal crossings are a fraction of what they were in 2000. He bemoaned the influx of heroin, but didn’t mention that the vast majority of heroin doesn’t come over the border but through airports and other ports of entry. He claimed the wall would be paid for by NAFTA 2.0, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, but that’s bunk, and no official has adequately explained how it would work.

 Sharon LaFraniere, Kenneth P. Vogel, and Maggie Haberman report Manafort Accused of Sharing Trump Polling Data With Russian Associate:

As a top official in President Trump’s campaign, Paul Manafort shared political polling data with a business associate tied to Russian intelligence, according to a court filing unsealed on Tuesday. The document provided the clearest evidence to date that the Trump campaign may have tried to coordinate with Russians during the 2016 presidential race.

Mr. Manafort’s lawyers made the disclosure by accident, through a formatting error in a document filed to respond to charges that he had lied to prosecutors working for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, after agreeing to cooperate with their investigation into Russian interference in the election.

The document also revealed that during the campaign, Mr. Manafort and his Russian associate, Konstantin V. Kilimnik, discussed a plan for peace in Ukraine. Throughout the campaign and the early days of the Trump administration, Russia and its allies were pushing various plans for Ukraine in the hope of gaining relief from American-led sanctions imposed after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine.

Prosecutors and the news media have already documented a string of encounters between Russian operatives and Trump campaign associates dating from the early months of Mr. Trump’s bid for the presidency, including the now-famous meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan with a Russian lawyer promising damaging information on Hillary Clinton. The accidental disclosure appeared to some experts to be perhaps most damning of all.

An AI that thinks like a scientist:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy and windy with a high of forty.  Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:38 PM, for 9h 14m 04s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee is scheduled to meet at 6 PM, and the city’s Finance Committee also at 6 PM.

On this day in 1914, Pres. Wilson delivers to Congress his Fourteen Points on his administration’s war and peace aims.

Recommended for reading in full:

  Robert Chesney asks Can President Trump Fund the Wall by Declaring a National Emergency?:

President Trump has announced that he will address the nation on Tuesday at 9:00pm Eastern Standard Time, in relation to his ambition to have Mexico U.S. taxpayers fund a $5 billion border wall. Perhaps it will be no more than an effort at rhetorical positioning, as the White House and House Democrats struggle to assure the other is blamed for the mounting ill-effects of the shutdown.  But it also is possible that the speech will be a platform for Trump to declare a formal emergency under the National Emergencies Act of 1976, and from that foundation to invoke certain statutory authorities that he might claim enable him to get the funding he needs by redirecting military construction funds.

In case that occurs, I’ve got a primer on what you need to know to track what is happening and how it is likely to play out.  (And whether it occurs or not, I’ve also got a bingo card for you to use during his speech).

(The full post offers Chesney’s eight points of analysis.)

 Margaret Taylor considers Declaring an Emergency to Build a Border Wall: The Statutory Arguments:

Building a wall was one of the central promises of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The Trump administration initially requested that Congress appropriate $25 billion for the project after Mexico refused to pay for it, as Trump had promised on the campaign trail, but Congress specifically denied the funds in 2017 and 2018. After Congress passed a number of stopgap measures to continue funding the government while talks continued on money for the wall, on Dec. 22 Trump refused to sign another temporary measure, which caused the government to shut down.

In short, the president is looking for a way to end the government shutdown while keeping his campaign promise to build the wall. But in the absence of an appropriate statutory authority on which to rely to build the wall, such action would be unconstitutional: Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution assigns the role of making laws to Congress, and Article I, Section 9 specifies that “[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” The question, therefore, is what existing statutory authorities the president could reasonably rely on to use already-appropriated funds to build the wall.

(Taylor’s full analysis addresses the topic in three sections: Construction Authority, Declaring an Emergency, and Other Possibilities.)

This Snail Has a Jump on Climate Change:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of fifty.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:37 PM, for 9h 12m 48s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1901, Robert Marion La Follette is inaugurated as Wisconsin’s governor.

Recommended for reading in full:

  Duke Behnke reports Gov.-elect Tony Evers vows to reinvest in children, education:

Evers sat down to be at the level of children gathered before him at the Appleton Kids Gala at the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center. He spoke directly to them.

“I can’t tell you how important it is that we make changes, make sure that you have a good education, that you have good health care, that your moms and dads have good jobs, and make sure that our state is stronger and better,” Evers said.

“Because if we don’t do that for the kids of Wisconsin — the young people of Wisconsin — we will not have done our job.”

 Craig Gilbert observes In a divided Wisconsin, Scott Walker’s lightning-rod approach to politics worked for him — until it didn’t:

More than six years ago, on the eve of Gov. Scott Walker’s 2012 recall victory, the Marquette Law School measured his job approval in Wisconsin at 52 percent.

The most interesting thing about that number is that it’s the highest rating Walker ever got in 50 polls Marquette conducted over his last seven years as governor.

Walker, who leaves office Monday after losing his bid for a third term, had an average approval of 47 percent in those seven years.

His approval rating reached 50 percent or higher 13 times and was measured at less than 50 percent 37 times. His average disapproval rating was 49 percent.

In short, the man who dominated Wisconsin politics for nearly a decade was never terrifically popular.

Peter S. Goodman reports Trump Has Promised to Bring Jobs Back. His Tariffs Threaten to Send Them Away:

HOLLAND, Mich. — Plants in every direction shut down and moved their operations to Mexico, succumbing to the relentless pressure to cut costs in an age of globalization. Not EBW Electronics. As the decades passed, the family-owned business stayed put on the eastern edge of Lake Michigan, churning out lights for the auto industry.

But now, the company’s management is reluctantly mulling the possibility of moving its production to Mexico to escape the tariffs that President Trump has put on imported components, his primary weapons in a trade war waged in the name of bringing jobs home to America.

“It’s killing us,” said the chairman of the company, Pat LeBlanc, 63, a Republican who voted for Mr. Trump. He now expects the president’s tariffs will chop his 2019 profits in half. “I just feel so betrayed. If we fail because the company is being harmed by the government, that just makes me sick.”

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