Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-nine.  Sunrise is 5:54 AM and sunset 8:06 PM, for 14h 12m 02s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 58.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1974, Pres. Nixon announces his resignation, to take effect the next day at noon.

Recommended for reading in full:

Molly Beck reports Nearly everyone supports universal background checks for gun buyers. Here’s why Wisconsin is unlikely to make it law:

The vast majority of people in Wisconsin agree on making that policy change, according to 2018 polling by Marquette University Law School. Nationally, 96% of Democrats, 84% of Republicans and 89% of Independents support the measure, according to a recent Marist poll.

Despite overwhelming support, the move likely won’t be made here anytime soon.

“For any Republican to say ‘I support universal background checks’ would be career suicide,” Clemson University political scientist Steven Miller said.

The National Rifle Association’s political arm likely would help elect a primary opponent of any Republican candidate who seeks or supports such restrictions, Miller said, and support for the added safeguard, while wide, isn’t that intense.

“Most people think that’s a good idea, but most people don’t care too much and the people who oppose that are really serious about that,” he said. “Because the minority is much more mobilized, they are more likely to get what they want.”

  VOX-Pol released its latest report in the VOX-Pol publication series, titled The Alt-Right Twitter Census: Defining and Describing the Audience for Alt-Right Content on Twitter, authored by J.M. Berger, on 15 October 2018:

Key Findings

There were four overlapping themes apparent that dominated the alt-right network in this study:

• Support for US President Donald Trump, support for white nationalism, opposition to immigration (often framed in anti-Muslim terms), and accounts primarily devoted to transgressive trolling and harassment.

• @realdonaldtrump was the most influential Twitter account among all users analysed in this study; @richardbspencer was the most influential account within the specific network of users who followed accounts that contained the phrase ‘alt-right’ in their Twitter profiles.

• Support for Trump outstripped all other themes by a wide margin, including references to his name and various campaign slogans in hashtags and user self-descriptions. The most common word in user profiles was ‘MAGA’ (short for Make America Great Again, Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan), and the most common word pair in user profiles was ‘Trump supporter’.

• The alt-right network was most consistently ‘for’ Trump, but users frequently defined themselves by what they were ‘against’. Top word pairs in user self-descriptions included ‘anti-EU’, ‘anti-Islam’, ‘anti-globalist’, ‘anti-feminist’ and ‘anti-Zionist’.

• While the alt-right’s presence on Twitter was substantial, probably encompassing more than 100,000 users as a conservative estimate, the sample analysed here showed extensive evidence of manipulation, including manipulated follower counts, follower tracking, and automated tweeting. Neither the source nor the exact scope of these efforts could be conclusively determined.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the Amos-17 communications satellite for Spacecom Ltd. of Israel on Aug. 6, 2019:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with evening thunderstorms, and a high of eighty-two.  Sunrise is 5:53 AM and sunset 8:07 PM, for 14h 14m 26s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1782, Gen. Washington creates the order of the Purple Heart.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Thomas Kaplan reports How the Trump Campaign Used Facebook Ads to Amplify His ‘Invasion’ Claim:

President Trump’s re-election campaign has harnessed Facebook advertising to push the idea of an “invasion” at the southern border, amplifying the fear-inducing language about immigrants that he has also voiced at campaign rallies and on Twitter.

Since January, Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign has posted more than 2,000 ads on Facebook that include the word “invasion” — part of a barrage of advertising focused on immigration, a dominant theme of his re-election messaging. A review of Mr. Trump’s tweets also found repeated references to an “invasion,” while his 2016 campaign advertising heavily featured dark warnings about immigrants breaching America’s borders.

Mr. Trump’s language on immigration — particularly his use of the word “invasion” — is under scrutiny after the mass shooting in El Paso on Saturday. The suspect in that shooting, which left 22 people dead, appeared to be the author of a manifesto declaring that “this attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

Seema Metha and Melanie Mason report Orange County, longtime GOP stronghold, now has more registered Democrats than Republicans:

Orange County, long a Republican stronghold, has officially turned blue.

The county that nurtured Ronald Reagan’s conservatism and is the resting place of Richard Nixon is now home to 547,458 registered Democrats, compared with 547,369 Republicans, according to statistics released early Wednesday morning by the county Registrar of Voters. And the number of voters not aligned with a political party has surged in recent years, and now tops 440,770, or 27.4% of the county’s voters.

Democratic leaders attributed the shift to changing demographics, aggressive recruitment efforts and President Trump.

“Trump’s toxic rhetoric and exclusionary policies alienate women, millennials, suburban voters, immigrants and people of color — critical components of the electorate in Orange County,” said Katerina Ioannides, chairwoman of the Orange County Young Democrats, which conducted voter registration drives aimed at young voters, one of several groups that worked to increase party registration. “The Republican Party’s platform no longer resonates in a rapidly diversifying, increasingly college-educated Orange County.

Jennifer Rubin writes It’s increasingly obvious how just getting rid of Trump will help:

Even if we get a Democratic president Americans don’t like all that much, or whose limitations are obvious, we’ll be in a better spot than we would be with President Trump. That’s an unsurprising assumption by Democrats. But, increasingly, independents and disaffected Republicans — as seen from their praise of former president Barack Obama’s remarks on the mass murders in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio — know this to be true. “Anyone but Trump” should be the goal for all Americans, even Republicans.

Why Best Buy Failed In The U.K.:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-two.  Sunrise is 5:52 AM and sunset 8:09 PM, for 14h 16m 49s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 36.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1945, the United States detonates an atomic bomb over Hiroshima.

Recommended for reading in full:

Video games are not the cause of mass shootings or supremacist ideology:

Helanine Olsen writes Trump’s speech was like a hostage video:

 “We are sickened by this monstrous evil,” said the president on Monday. We need, he said, to “find the courage to answer hatred with unity, devotion and love.”

Nice sentiments. Too bad Trump said them in a flat voice, like he was recording a hostage video. And then, on the final reference, he referred to the city where the second shooting occurred as Toledo. Nothing shows how much you care more than misstating the name of the city where nine people died in a mass shooting, especially after you read it right from the teleprompter only minutes earlier.

Trump is literally the last person who can bring comfort to the grieving, never mind solve the problem of gun violence in the United States. Our president is a failure as both a human being and a leader. We’ve seen it demonstrated time and time again.

Trump has spent the better part of a decade inciting anger and hate. He’s our bully in chief. He went from pushing racist birther theories about President Barack Obama to calling Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants “rapists” and “animals” and “thugs.” He referred to migration to the United States as an “infestation” and “invasion.”

At a rally in the Florida Panhandle in May, Trump asked the crowd, “How do you stop these people?” A man in the crowd answered, “Shoot them.” Trump didn’t miss a beat. “Only in the Panhandle can you get away with that statement.” The crowd cheered widely.

Kelly Weill writes From El Paso to Christchurch, a Racist Lie Is Fueling Terrorist Attacks:

In El Paso this weekend and across the globe this year, white supremacists have left manifestos referencing a racist conspiracy theory to justify slaughtering religious and ethnic minorities.

Alleged killers in Christchurch, New Zealand; Poway, California; and El Paso, Texas believed a theory that claims white people are being “replaced” by people of color through mass immigration. Conspiracy theorists often falsely claim this is a deliberate effort by any number of groups demonized on the far right: liberals, Democrats, Jews, Muslims. It’s the theory peddled by white-supremacist groups seeking recruits and the torch-bearing marchers in Charlottesville two years ago.

….

In name alone, the conspiracy theory began in 2011, with the book The Great Replacement by French author Renaud Camus. The anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant text likened the growth of non-white populations to the genocide of white people in European countries. This supposed genocide is nonexistent.

Why Silicon Valley Is Eyeing The Infant Formula Industry:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-six.  Sunrise is 5:51 AM and sunset 8:10 PM, for 14h 19m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 26% of its visible disk illuminated.

Downtown Whitewater, Inc. meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1825, a great council of native Americans and settlers begins at Prairie du Chien.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Reed Galen writes Republicans: The Whigs of the 21st Century:

The Whigs’ support for the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act precipitated their near-electoral destruction in the first half of that decade. The party’s leaders, split between North and South, publicly projected an ambivalence about the future of slavery in the United States. While slavery served as the lever around which the Whigs would spin into oblivion, it was their moral failure regarding so odious an institution to so many Americans that ultimately killed them off.

….

Like the Whigs of old, Donald Trump’s GOP is staring at a similar fate should it continue on this path. Many evangelical Christians, seeing themselves as arbiters of moral righteousness, tout the president as the tonic to so many of the country’s problems. The reality is, however, that the party’s outward failures are distinctly grounded in a lack of moral compass, ugly politics and nonexistent policy; for which the electoral consequences have only just begun.

….

Regarding how they see the world, their personal priorities, what they believe to be the most pressing issues facing the country, the GOP is out of step with a large and growing cohort. On the other hand, the older voters that Republicans have long relied on — white, more conservative, more working class — will represent a plurality of registered voters and their impact will drop accordingly.

Jennifer Rubin writes First, the GOP shrinks. Next it should get crushed:

Not coincidentally, Republicans in the Trump era are losing House seats (more than 40 in 2018), governorships (down a net 6 in 2018) and state legislatures. (“Six chambers changed partisan control in the 2018 elections. Democrats captured the Colorado State Senate, Maine State Senate, Minnesota House of Representatives, New Hampshire House of Representatives, New Hampshire State Senate, and New York State Senate. . . . In 2018, 322 incumbents, including 49 Democrats and 253 Republicans, were defeated in the general elections.”)

….

Shouting into the wind brings us no closer to a Trump-free GOP or a Trump-free White House. The only plausible path at this point is to crush the Republican Party so resoundingly at every level that it is forced to abandon Trumpism, recruit an entirely different generation of leadership and devise an agenda that is not based on right-wing nationalism. Helping Democrats achieve that end should be the goal of all decent Americans — including Republicans who want one day to be able to vote in good faith for a Republican Party true to the tradition of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.

How Emoji Are Made:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with a shower or thunderstorm in spots late this afternoon, and a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 5:50 AM and sunset 8:11 PM, for 14h 21m 30s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, the 8th Wisconsin Light Artillery participates in reconnaissance of Bay Springs, Mississippi.

Recommended for reading in full:

Craig Gilbert writes Wisconsin could swing the 2020 presidential election:

But to many strategists on both sides, the clearest path to victory for Democrats against Trump is to take back Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, since they have a history of voting Democratic and were decided so narrowly in 2016. That logic puts these three at the very epicenter of the 2020 election.

In a nail-biter, any one of them could turn out to be the difference-maker. But there is a sizeable school of thought that views Wisconsin as the most pivotal.

Why?

Because it’s seen by many analysts as a little harder for Democrats to win back than Michigan and Pennsylvania, a perception based on the voting history of these states and their demographic makeup.

Wisconsin was not only the “tipping point” state in 2016, it was nearly captured by the GOP in 2000 and 2004 and has produced a lot of Republican victories at the state level over the past decade.

Wisconsin also has a higher share of blue-collar white voters than either Michigan or Pennsylvania, and that group is the president’s demographic base.

None of this guarantees that Wisconsin will “decide” the next presidential election. If the election isn’t close, no single state will be decisive. If it is close, there are a handful of other states that could be difference-makers.

But what it does guarantee is that both sides will have to campaign as if their fates depend on Wisconsin (and a few other places).

They will treat the election as if every vote matters in the handful of states that matter.

(No better place to be than here – a decisive place at a decisive time.)

Joe Deaux reports Steelmaker That Praised Trump Tariffs Now Suing U.S. for Relief:

Less than a year after JSW Steel (USA) Inc. lauded U.S. metal tariffs for aiding the steel industry, the company is suing because it’s not exempted from the levies.

The producer says the Commerce Department wrongfully denied waivers for steel-slab raw materials, forcing the steelmaker to pay tens of millions of dollars in tariffs. It relies on imports of these materials from India and Mexico because the U.S. doesn’t produce steel slab of sufficient quality or quantity, JSW said in its complaint.

(Live by Trump’s tariffs, perish by Trump’s tariffs.)

This One’s for Bicycle Lovers:

The undisputed godfather of the lowrider bicycle. Bike Batman, a real-life superhero who recovers stolen bikes and returns them to their rightful owners. A 15-year-old cyclist who refuses to let a serious health issue get in the way of her dream to compete in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with a thunderstorm in one or two spots this afternoon, and a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 5:49 AM and sunset 8:12 PM, for 14h 23m 48s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 8.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1958, the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, becomes the first watercraft to travel beneath the ice cap reach the geographic North Pole.

Recommended for reading in full:

The Washington Post‘s editorial board writes of A smart way to keep Putin out of the next U.S. election:

THERE IS a lot Congress could do to better protect U.S. elections, and a lot Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not allowed lawmakers to achieve. Now, two senators are offering one more opportunity.

Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) are urging colleagues negotiating this year’s defense spending bill to include an amendment in that legislation that they believe would make Russia less likely to repeat its 2016 interference. The provision would mirror parts of the duo’s stand-alone Deter Act, and it also would build on a proposal tacked on to a version of the reauthorization act the House passed last month.

The senators’ Deter Act idea differs from its House counterpart in a few ways, the most important of which is that it is more carefully targeted actually to deter. The House bill would impose additional sanctions on Russia’s sovereign debt immediately and make them difficult to remove. Mr. Van Hollen and Mr. Rubio instead suggest readying sanctions that would take effect in the event of future interference. It’s a smart strategy.

Any state that considers taking aggressive action against another weighs the potential costs against the gains. The U.S. response to Russian malfeasance has not been consistent or credible enough to change Vladimir Putin’s calculus. President Trump’s sternest reprimand to the Kremlin leader has been a smirking “Don’t meddle,” so altering the equation is up to Congress. The House bill would make Russia suffer now, no matter whether it decides to attack again, and the bar for removing sanctions is so high that the country has no guarantee of relief even if it does not. Mr. Van Hollen and Mr. Rubio, on the other hand, would give Russia a clear reason to refrain.

The senators’ suggestion has another advantage: Because there is a small stock of sovereign debt available, they would include a panoply of other punishments, including blocking transactions with Russia’s energy, banking and defense sectors, as well as sanctioning oligarchs and other figures participating in any interference efforts.

New Milky Way 3D Map Reveals S-Like Structure:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 5:48 AM and sunset 8:14 PM, for 14h 26m 04s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1832, Black Hawk meets defeat on the second and final day of the Battle of Bad Axe.

Recommended for reading in full:

Andrea Shalal and Nandita Bose report U.S. retailers blast new China tariffs, say move will raise prices further, hurt jobs:

President Donald Trump’s threat to impose 10% tariffs on the remaining $300 billion of Chinese imports from Sept. 1 will hurt consumer purchases, raise prices further and limit hiring, four large retail trade groups warned on Thursday.

Trump on Thursday moved to impose fresh tariffs after U.S. and Chinese negotiators failed to kick-start trade talks between the world’s two largest economies.

The National Retail Federation, which counts Walmart Inc (WMT.N) and Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) among its members, called the decision to impose new tariffs a flawed strategy that will hurt American consumers.

“We are disappointed the administration is doubling-down on a flawed tariff strategy that is already slowing U.S. economic growth, creating uncertainty and discouraging investment,” Senior Vice President for Government Relations David French said in a statement.

Another influential trade lobby, The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), which counts retailers like Walmart, Target Corp (TGT.N) and Home Depot (HD.N) among its members, said the tariffs will raise prices for everyday items like clothing, toys, home goods and electronics.

Rachel Siegel reports Former top economic adviser Gary Cohn says Trump’s trade war is hurting the U.S. economy:

Gary Cohn, who left the administration last year amid an internal clash over Trump’s protectionist trade policies, told the BBC that the trade battle was having a “dramatic impact” on American manufacturing and that it offered a “convenient excuse” for China to slow down its economy. Cohn said the Chinese economy “is driven by credit and credit availability,” which is determined by the central government.

“They can turn credit on and they can turn credit off,” Cohn said. “They needed to slow down an overheated economy where prices and real estate prices and everything were getting out of hand. I think President Trump provided that excuse for the Chinese.”

….

Cohn emphasized that “everyone loses in a trade war.” Constant uncertainty about tariffs stops businesses from investing, he said, and tariffs drive up the cost of importing crucial products from China, negating the intended benefits of Trump’s tax cuts. And the U.S. isn’t creating manufacturing jobs, he added.

“When you build plant equipment, you’re buying steel, you’re buying aluminum, you’re buying imported products and then we put tariffs on those, so literally the tax incentive we gave you with one hand was taken away with the other hand,” Cohn said.

Perseid Meteor Shower and Moon in August 2019 Skywatching:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty.  Sunrise is 5:46 AM and sunset 8:15 PM, for 14h 28m 19s of daytime.  The moon is new with 0.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Unified School District’s Employee Handbook Committee meets at 3:30 PM, and Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1832, the armed steamboat Warrior blocks the retreat of Black Hawk and the British Band across the Mississippi.

Recommended for reading in full:

Hailey BeMiller reports Nine people in Wisconsin criminally charged after thousands of rape kits tested:

Nine people, including two men accused of sexually assaulting children, have so far been criminally charged after an analysis of thousands of previously untested rape kits, the state Department of Justice announced Wednesday.

The charges come after department officials in 2014 learned that over 6,000 untested rape kits sat in police and hospital storage rooms across Wisconsin for decades, preventing survivors from getting justice. Trained medical professionals collect samples of skin, fingernails and more for these kits that can be analyzed for DNA if a victim consents to testing.

The Department of Justice has since analyzed over 4,300 kits, with 101 remaining that still need to be tested in cases where someone was already convicted. Nearly 500 DNA results have matched offender profiles in the FBI’s national database, and over 1,000 profiles were uploaded to the system.

Laura Reiley reports Trump’s $16 billion farm bailout will make rich farmers richer, report says:

The Trump administration last week revealed details of a $16 billion aid package for farmers hit in the U.S.-China trade war, with key provisions meant to avoid large corporations scooping up big payouts at the expense of small farmers.

According to a report released Tuesday by the nonprofit Environmental Working Group (EWG), most of the $8.4 billion given out so far in last year’s farm bailout went to wealthy farmers, exacerbating the economic disparity with smaller farmers.

An EWG analysis found that the top one-tenth of recipients received 54 percent of all payments. Eighty-two farmers have each so far received more than $500,000 in trade relief.

One farm, DeLine Farm Partnership of Charleston, Mo., has so far received $2.8 million.

The top 1 percent of recipients of trade relief received, on average, $183,331. The bottom 80 percent received, on average, less than $5,000, EWG said.

Ilya Arkhipov and Josh Wingrove report Trump Offered Putin U.S. Help Fighting Wildfires, Kremlin Says:

Donald Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to offer U.S. help fighting Siberian wildfires, the Kremlin said in a statement.

Wildfires in the U.S. haven’t always drawn sympathy from the American president.

Trump sparked outrage last year as wildfires devastated parts of California by insisting that poor forest management by the state’s Democratic leaders was to blame. He threatened to withhold federal money for maintaining the forests even as the fires raged through Butte County north of Sacramento, effectively destroying the town of Paradise and killing dozens of people.

Tonight’s Sky for August 2019: