Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 4:31 PM, for 9h 43m 22s of daytime.  The moon is in its first quarter with 50.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority is scheduled to meet at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1864, Sherman’s March to the Sea begins:

Sherman’s March to the Sea (also known as the Savannah Campaign) was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia from November 15 until December 21, 1864, by Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The campaign began with Sherman’s troops leaving the captured city of Atlanta on November 15 and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. His forces followed a “scorched earth” policy, destroying military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property and disrupting the Confederacy’s economy and its transportation networks. The operation broke the back of the Confederacy and helped lead to its eventual surrender. Sherman’s bold move of operating deep within enemy territory and without supply lines is considered to be one of the major achievements of the war.

Recommended for reading in full — Facebook’s many excuses, investigating Trump’s possible money laundering for Russians, incompetence and authoritarianism are both dangerous, years of damage from Trumpism, and video of a dog who traveled three thousand miles to be reunited with its owner —

  Sheera Frenkel, Nicholas Confessore, Cecilia Kang, Matthew Rosenberg, and Jack Nicas report Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis:

But as evidence accumulated that Facebook’s power could also be exploited to disrupt elections, broadcast viral propaganda and inspire deadly campaigns of hate around the globe, Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg stumbled. Bent on growth, the pair ignored warning signs and then sought to conceal them from public view. At critical moments over the last three years, they were distracted by personal projects, and passed off security and policy decisions to subordinates, according to current and former executives.

When Facebook users learned last spring that the company had compromised their privacy in its rush to expand, allowing access to the personal information of tens of millions of people to a political data firm linked to President Trump, Facebook sought to deflect blame and mask the extent of the problem.

And when that failed — as the company’s stock price plummeted and it faced a consumer backlash — Facebook went on the attack.

While Mr. Zuckerberg has conducted a public apology tour in the last year, Ms. Sandberg has overseen an aggressive lobbying campaign to combat Facebook’s critics, shift public anger toward rival companies and ward off damaging regulation. Facebook employed a Republican opposition-research firm to discredit activist protesters, in part by linking them to the liberal financier George Soros. It also tapped its business relationships, lobbying a Jewish civil rights group to cast some criticism of the company as anti-Semitic.

Dan Friedman reports House Democrats May Investigate Alleged Trump Ties to Russian Money Laundering:

Rep Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has signaled plans to use his newly won subpoena power to aggressively investigate whether Russian interests laundered money through Donald Trump’s businesses and used the connection as leverage over the president, a line of inquiry sure to enrage Trump.

Schiff and other committee Democrats have recently said they do not intend to launch an entirely new Russia probe but will instead pursue investigative angles that other inquiries have not delved into. Schiff has repeatedly asserted that the question of whether Trump’s businesses relied on laundered Russian funds tops that list.

“No one has investigated the issue of whether the Russians were laundering money through the Trump Organization and this is the leverage that the Russians have over the president of the United States,” Schiff said at a Brookings Institution panel discussion last month, before Democrats regained control of the House in the midterm elections. He reiterated that sentiment in an NPR interview on Wednesday.

Matthew Yglesias writes Trump’s incompetence and authoritarianism are both scary:

While promoting an excellent article by Weekly Standard editor Jonathan Last about President Donald Trump’s tendency to be the vaporware president, New York Times columnist David Brooks offers an unfortunate false dichotomy, saying that Americans should fear Trump’s incompetence rather than his authoritarianism.

This is a frequent theme among intelligent conservative commentators who find themselves trapped between the bombast of the MAGA-maniacs and the ideological betrayals of the hardcore Never Trumpers. Ross Douthat wrote in January in the New York Times, for example, that “Trump so far is more farce than tragedy.”

….

Trump’s primary interest is in putting people in place who will aggressively support Trump rather than people who know what they are doing. Consequently, he’d rather have a DHS head who suggests arresting local politicians for disagreeing with Trump than a DHS head who advises Trump to avoid doing illegal stuff.

This is simultaneously a recipe for vaporware and for autocracy. Homan, at the end of the day, probably won’t actually go around arresting liberal mayors — it’s just something that sounded good to say. But when you fill your Cabinet with people who make these kinds of suggestions and make it clear that’s what you want to hear from your top lieutenants, sooner or later, someone goes and does it.

Max Boot writes America will need years to clean up the toxins Trump has released:

But that is the Trump effect: He is pushing otherwise sane Republicans down conspiratorial rabbit holes. It is big news when Republican Martha McSally in Arizona is willing to graciously concede her Senate race without claiming she was the victim of fraud. What used to be routine is now extraordinary.

McSally is, after all, a member of the same party as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.). He tweeted a video of a man handing currency to women and girls under the caption: “BREAKING: Footage in Honduras giving cash 2 women & children 2 join the caravan & storm the US border @ election time. Soros? US-backed NGOs? Time to investigate the source!” Trump retweeted the video, writing: “Can you believe this, and what Democrats are allowing to be done to our Country?” It turned out the footage was from Guatemala, not Honduras, and it showed local merchants contributing money to the refugee caravan. There was no connection to George Soros, but that hasn’t stopped Trump, Gaetz & Co. from trafficking in this anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

Trump also hasn’t been shy about insulting the intelligence of African Americans. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), one of the longest-serving members of the House, is an “extraordinarily low I.Q. person.” CNN anchor Don Lemon is “the dumbest man on television” and makes LeBron James “look smart, which isn’t easy to do.” CNN reporter Abby Phillip, a Harvard University graduate, asks “a lot of stupid questions.” Stacey Abrams, a Yale Law School graduate and former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, is “not qualified” to be governor of Georgia. Trump insults lots of people, including whites such as CNN’s Jim Acosta (“a rude, terrible person”), but his barbs about intelligence are primarily aimed at minorities.

Dog Travels 3000 Miles To Reunite With Soldier:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of thirty-four.  Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 4:32 PM, for 9h 45m 31s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 40.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission is scheduled to meet at 5 PM.

On this day in 1851, the American edition of Moby-Dick is “published and the same day reviewed in both the Albany Argus and the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer.”

Recommended for reading in full — Whitaker’s shabby past, Maryland sues over Whitaker appointment, hate crime data up for 2017, Trump pouts over election losses, and video on growing crops in the desert with sea water —

  Ryan Foley and David Pitt report Whitaker abandoned taxpayer-funded project in Iowa in 2016:

While in private business, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker walked away from a taxpayer-subsidized apartment-rehabilitation project in Iowa after years of cost overruns, delays and other problems, public records show.

The city of Des Moines ultimately yanked an affordable housing loan that Whitaker’s company had been awarded, and another lender began foreclosure proceedings after Whitaker defaulted on a separate loan for nearly $700,000. Several contractors complained they were not paid, and a process server for one could not even find Whitaker or his company to serve him with a lawsuit.

Beginning in February 2015, city officials said they repeatedly communicated the urgency of finishing the project to Whitaker during meetings, letters and phone calls. But by March 2016, an inspection showed “there had been minimal, if any, additional rehabilitation work completed since the previous inspection” several months earlier, city planner Mary Neiderbach wrote to Whitaker on April 1, 2016.

“In addition, more damage had occurred to the building’s interior because of what appears to be a roof leak and missing downspouts on the back of the building,” she wrote, adding that Whitaker’s company “appears to have abandoned the property.”

The letter informed Whitaker that the city was terminating the loan agreement and gave him 30 days to pay back $151,620 that he had been advanced. It noted that the city had to complete the work by the end of 2016 or repay HUD, and that it did not have confidence Whitaker’s company was up to that task.

(Kakistocracy: confidence men, liars, and frauds otherwise properly rejected have found a home in Trumpism.)

The Committee to Investigate Russia writes Maryland Sues Over Whitaker Appointment:

The State of Maryland filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in federal court Tuesday asking that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein replace Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, arguing Whitaker’s appointment is unconstitutional.

NYT:

Maryland is asking a judge — Ellen L. Hollander of the Federal District Court for the District of Maryland, a 2010 Obama appointee — to rule on who is the real acting attorney general as part of a lawsuit in which it sued [former Attorney General Jeff] Sessions in his official capacity. Because Mr. Sessions is no longer the attorney general, the judge must substitute his successor as a defendant in the litigation, so she has to decide who that successor legally is.

Devlin Barrett reports Hate crimes rose 17 percent last year, according to new FBI data:

Reported hate crimes in America rose 17 percent last year, the third consecutive year that such crimes increased, according to newly released FBI data that showed an even larger increase in anti-Semitic attacks.

Law enforcement agencies reported that 7,175 hate crimes occurred in 2017, up from 6,121 in 2016. That increase was fueled in part by more police departments reporting hate crime data to the FBI, but overall there is still a large number of departments that report no hate crimes to the federal database.

The sharp increase in hate crimes in 2017 came even as overall violent crime in America fell slightly, by 0.2 percent, after increases in 2015 and 2016.

(See also Hate crimes are soaring but many jurisdictions still don’t report any.)

Eli Stokols reports Trump, stung by midterms and nervous about Mueller, retreats from traditional presidential duties:

For weeks this fall, an ebullient President Trump traveled relentlessly to hold raise-the-rafters campaign rallies — sometimes three a day — in states where his presence was likely to help Republicans on the ballot.

But his mood apparently has changed as he has taken measure of the electoral backlash that voters delivered Nov. 6. With the certainty that the incoming Democratic House majority will go after his tax returns and investigate his actions, and the likelihood of additional indictments by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Trump has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment, according to multiple administration sources.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of a brooding president “trying to decide who to blame” for Republicans’ election losses, even as he publicly and implausibly continues to claim victory.

(For all his braggadocio, Trump is a pouty, petulant man.)

Growing Crops in the Desert with Seawater:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of twenty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:45 AM and sunset 4:33 PM, for 9h 47m 43s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 31.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1858, the Heileman Brewery is founded:

 [O]ne of Wisconsin’s best-known breweries was established by John Gund and Gottlieb Heileman (1824-1878). By the time Gund retired in 1872, the firm’s annual beer production had increased from 500 barrels in 1860 to 3,000. By the turn of the century, as this postcard shows, it had become one of the city’s largest manufacturing concerns, and throughout the 20th century its storage tanks (painted to resemble a six-pack of beer) were a LaCrosse landmark.

Recommended for reading in full — North Korea continues missile deployment despite Trump’s optimism, America’s struggle for moral coherence, trolls work to get around social media bans, GOP rep Steve King caught lying, and video on whether peanut butter is the new condiment for burgers —

  David E. Sanger and William J. Broad report In North Korea, Missile Bases Suggest a Great Deception:

North Korea is moving ahead with its ballistic missile program at 16 hidden bases that have been identified in new commercial satellite images, a network long known to American intelligence agencies but left undiscussed as President Trump claims to have neutralized the North’s nuclear threat.

The satellite images suggest that the North has been engaged in a great deception: It has offered to dismantle a major launching site — a step it began, then halted — while continuing to make improvements at more than a dozen others that would bolster launches of conventional and nuclear warheads.

The existence of the ballistic missile bases, which North Korea has never acknowledged, contradicts Mr. Trump’s assertion that his landmark diplomacy is leading to the elimination of a nuclear and missile program that the North had warned could devastate the United States.

“We are in no rush,” Mr. Trump said of talks with the North at a news conference on Wednesday, after Republicans lost control of the House. “The sanctions are on. The missiles have stopped. The rockets have stopped. The hostages are home.”

….

The secret ballistic missile bases were identified in a detailed study published Monday by the Beyond Parallel program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a major think tank in Washington.

(The only thing that’s stopped is any reason to take Trump at his word on North Korea policy. To be honest, credulity on the topic never should have started.)

Andrew Delbanco considers lessons opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law in America’s Struggle for Moral Coherence:

Through most of his career, Lincoln himself tried to walk the line between compliance and resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law. Repulsed by the Southern demand that “we must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure,” he nevertheless pledged to respect the law. Even after his election as president and well into the Civil War, he continued trying to reconcile his revulsion at slavery with his devotion to the union. Accused from the right of being an antislavery radical, he was reviled from the left for dragging his feet in the struggle against slavery for the sake of the illusory dream that the union could be preserved.

In that sense, Lincoln was the embodiment of America’s long struggle to remake itself as a morally coherent nation. Under his leadership, the Civil War finally resolved the problem of fugitive slaves by destroying the institution from which they had fled. By the time of his death, some 4 million black Americans were no longer at risk of forcible return to their erstwhile masters. They had entered the limbo between the privations of their past and the future promise of American life—a state of suspension in which millions of black Americans still live.

The problem of the 1850s was a political problem specific to a particular time and place. But the moral problem of how to reconcile irreconcilable values is a timeless one that, sooner or later, confronts us all.

Ben Collins reports In secret chats, trolls struggle to get Twitter disinformation campaigns off the ground:

In some cases, Twitter’s algorithm could not catch up with persistent trolls working together in private chats. NBC News witnessed trolls developing new strategies on the fly to circumvent the bans. Several were successful in creating unique identities that appeared to be middle-aged women who posted anti-Trump rhetoric as part of a long-term effort to build up followings that could later be used to seed disinformation to hundreds or thousands of followers.

One troll who stole a woman’s identity came up with a plan to skirt reverse image search programs that would show users the real identity of the woman in its stolen profile picture.

“If you want a Twitter pic that is a completely unique photo and not an actual person, use the Snapchat filter where you can layer another face,” said one user. “It will be a completely unique face.”

Kristine Phillips reports Steve King dared a conservative magazine to release audio of him calling immigrants ‘dirt.’ It did:

Rep. Steve King, the newly reelected Iowa Republican with a history of incendiary comments about race and immigration, dared a conservative magazine to show evidence that he had called immigrants “dirt.”

“Just release the full tape,” King, who eked out a victory last week despite affiliations with white nationalists, told the Weekly Standard’s online managing editor Saturday on Twitter. Days earlier, the magazine reported that King had made an inflammatory joke about immigrants.

The Weekly Standard released the recording — a two-minute audio in which King can be heard bantering with a handful of supporters at the back of an Iowa restaurant during a campaign stop on Nov. 5, the magazine reported. He talked about pheasant hunting and his “patented pheasant noodle soup” sprinkled with whole jalapeño peppers he had grown himself. Around the 1:20 mark, King joked that he’d have to get some “dirt from Mexico” to grow his next batch of peppers because they didn’t have enough bite.

Is Peanut Butter The New Burger Condiment?:

For more about this tune, see Library of Congress, notated music, Pine Apple Rag.

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-one.  Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 4:34 PM, for 9h 49m 57s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 22.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1863, the 33rd Wisconsin Infantry leaves for the South:

The 33rd Wisconsin Infantry left Wisconsin for The South. It would go on to serve in Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, and Louisiana. It participated in the sieges of Jackson and Vicksburg, the Red River Expedition, the Battle of Nashville, the siege of Spanish Fort and the capture of Fort Blakely. It would lose 202 men during service. Three officers and 30 enlisted men were killed. Two officers and 167 enlisted men died from disease.

Recommended for reading in full — ICE employees claim privilege to sex with detainees, what the blue wave in the House looks like, Trump’s beginning to lose white support, Trump shown to be so ignorant he didn’t know the difference between the Baltics and the Balkans, and video on the origins of the vacuum cleaner —

  Victoria López and Sandra Park write ICE Detention Center Says It’s Not Responsible for Staff’s Sexual Abuse of Detainees:

All 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government impose criminal liability on correctional facility staff who have sexual contact with people in their custody. These laws recognize that any sexual activity between detainees and detention facility staff, with or without the use of force, is unlawful because of the inherent power imbalance when people are in custody. Yet, one immigration detention center is trying to avoid responsibility for sexual violence within its walls by arguing that the detainee “consented” to sexual abuse.

E.D., an asylum-seeker and domestic violence survivor from Honduras, was sexually assaulted by an employee while she was detained with her 3-year-old child at the Berks Family Residential Center in Pennsylvania. At the time of the assault, E.D. was 19 years old.

She filed suit against the detention center and its staff for their failure to protect her from sexual violence, even though they were aware of the risk. The record in the case, E.D. v. Sharkey, shows that her assailant coerced and threatened her, including with possible deportation, while the defendants stood by and made jokes.

Although the employee pled guilty to criminal institutional sexual assault under Pennsylvania law, the defendants contend that they should not be liable for any constitutional violations. Their argument rests in part on their assessment that the sexual abuse was “consensual” and that they should be held to a different standard because the Berks Family Residential Center is an immigration detention facility rather than a jail or prison.

(There’s Trumpism in full: a claim of privilege for the degenerate acts of government employees.)

Mark Harris writes of the House results that 

If you’re tired of looking at a big red map even when Democrats win, this, from @nytimes, is what the new House of Representatives really looks like.

William H. Frey writes 2018 exit polls show greater white support for Democrats:

The 2018 exit polls indicate that a considerable share of Democratic gains came from shifts in white voting patterns, even as Democrats retained strong support from racial minorities. Moreover, in key Midwest statewide elections, Democrats lost fewer white working-class male votes while retaining support among white female college graduate voters.

….

Among those who voted, partisan differences by race remained in 2018, but shrank from their 2016 levels. Comparing the national vote for 2018 House of Representative members with the 2016 presidential vote, the white Republican vote advantage decreased by half, from a D-R margin (percent voting Democratic minus percent voting Republican) of -20 in 2016 to -10 in 2018. In contrast, positive D-R margins (favoring Democrats) remained the same or increased for non-white groups (Figure 2).

Mark Lowen writes of Trump’s ignorance: 

In today’s @lemondefr: When #Trump received the leaders of #Estonia, #Latvia and #Lithuania, he began by blaming them for the war in Yugoslavia. It took them a few moments to realise he’d mixed up the Balkans and the Baltics. @SylvieKauffmann

 So, Who Invented the Vacuum Cleaner?:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:42 AM and sunset 4:35 PM, for 9h 52m 11s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

In 1918, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a ceasefire comes into effect following the surrender of Germany ending the First World War:

Contemporaneously described as the “war to end all wars”,[7] it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history.[8][9] An estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a direct result of the war, while it is also considered a contributory factor in a number of genocides and the 1918 influenza epidemic, which caused between 50 and 100 million deaths worldwide.[10] Military losses were exacerbated by new technological and industrial developments and the tactical stalemate caused by gruelling trench warfare. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history and precipitated major political changes, including the Revolutions of 1917–1923, in many of the nations involved. Unresolved rivalries at the end of the conflict contributed to the start of the Second World War about twenty years later.[11]

Recommended for reading in full — Trump cancels visit to American veterans’ cemetery in France due to rain, photo shows even a French cyclist could handle the light rain, Trump’s acting attorney general threatened consumers who lost life savings but they filed complaints against company he served anyway, DNR under Walker pressured to build on rare wetlands to suit Kohler, and video about a tiny island that was a big deal for lumberjacks —

  Luke Baker reports Trump cancels WW1 memorial at U.S. cemetery in France due to rain:

PARIS (Reuters) – President Donald Trump could not attend a commemoration in France for U.S. soldiers and marines killed during World War One on Saturday because rain made it impossible to arrange transport, the White House said.

The last minute cancellation prompted widespread criticism on social media and from some officials in Britain and the United States that Trump had “dishonored” U.S. servicemen.

….

The decision prompted a rash of criticism on Twitter, with Nicholas Soames, a British member of parliament who is a grandson of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, saying that Trump was dishonoring U.S. servicemen.

“They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn’t even defy the weather to pay his respects to the Fallen”, Soames wrote on Twitter.

….

Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser for strategic communications under President Barack Obama, said the excuse about the inclement weather did not stand up.

“I helped plan all of President Obama’s trips for 8 years,” he wrote on Twitter. “There is always a rain option. Always.”

(Emphasis added.)

François Heisbourg writes:

A view of the weather in Paris which is supposed to have deterred @realDonaldTrump from paying his respects to the brave American soldiers who gave their lives for freedom at the AisneMarne war cemetery this afternoon. Nothing a cyclist can’t handle, let alone a presidential helo

Sarah Whites-Koditschek reports Former DNR employee: Staff pressured to OK Kohler golf course on rare Wisconsin wetlands and state park:

Trochlell said the DNR completed its environmental assessment before seeing detailed plans from Kohler — backwards of the normal process. She assumed Kohler’s request for a wetland permit, required to build the golf course, would never be granted. She was wrong.

Despite their assessment that rare wetlands would be impacted, the agency okayed the wetland permit for the 18-hole course, which would also require removal of up to 120 acres of forest. Trochlell believes the loss of trees, installation of fertilized turf and other changes would negatively affect the area’s dunes and wetlands.

Trochlell: DNR pressured to approve project
Trochlell determined the project did not meet state standards. But she said her bosses told her the permit should be approved no matter what.

“I was in a meeting with managers … and I asked the question of what would happen if we wouldn’t sign off on these permits, and I was told that if we didn’t sign off on these permits, we would be … moved to another job or fired, I think that’s how I interpreted it,” Trochlell recalled.

Diana Hembree writes ‘Scam’ Company Advised by Matthew Whitaker Threatened Victims, But Hundreds Filed Complaints Anyway:

The Iowa attorney Trump has named as the acting Attorney General has only been on the job a day or so, but he’s already enveloped in scandal.

Matthew Whitaker, who replaced Jeff Sessions after he was forced out by Trump, served on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing, a Florida-based “scam that has bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars,” according to a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

As part of a settlement with the FTC this May, the company was banned from the invention promotion business.  Documents in the FTC’s docket show that Whitaker, who served on the World Patent Marketing board from 2014 to 2017, was not just a paid advisory board member — he  threatened at least one victim who complained.

Whitaker and the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The settlement resolved charges that the agency brought against it in 2017, which alleged that “consumers paid the defendants thousands of dollars to patent and market their inventions based on bogus ‘success stories’ and testimonials,” according to an FTC press release.

“After stringing consumers along for months or even years, the defendants did not deliver what they promised,” the agency charged, “and many people ended up in debt or lost their life savings with nothing to show for it.”

  This Tiny Island Was a Hub for Lumberjacks:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset 4:36 PM, for 9h 54m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1969, Sesame Street premieres.

Recommended for reading in full —  Whitaker is unfit to serve as acting attorney general, Whitaker play a key role in a fraudulent company, Republicans really did get clobbered in the midterms, Trump’s trade war may have won Democrats the House, and video of people trying to toss pizza dough — 

The Washington Post editorial board writes There is no way this man should be running the Justice Department:

IS MATTHEW G. WHITAKER the legitimate acting attorney general? From approximately the second President Trump ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions and tapped Mr. Whitaker to temporarily exercise the office’s vast authority, legal experts have sparred over whether Mr. Trump can unilaterally elevate someone from a role that does not require Senate confirmation to one that does. But regardless of whether the promotion is legal, it is very clear that it is unwise. Mr. Whitaker is unfit for the job.

….

First, there are Mr. Whitaker’s statements criticizing the Russia probe of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. At the least, they require him to consult Justice Department ethics counsel about whether he can oversee the inquiry with a plausible appearance of evenhandedness. He will do immediate and lasting harm to the Justice Department’s reputation, and to the nation, if he assumes the role of president’s personal henchman and impedes the Mueller probe.

Then there is Mr. Whitaker’s connection to a defunct patent promotion company the Federal Trade Commission called “an invention-promotion scam that has bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars.” Mr. Whitaker served on its board and once threatened a complaining customer, lending the weight of his former position as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa to the company’s scheme.

Finally, and fundamentally most damning, is Mr. Whitaker’s expressed hostility to Marbury v. Madison, a central case — the central case — in the American constitutional system. It established an indispensable principle: The courts decide what is and is not constitutional. Without Marbury, there would be no effective judicial check on the political branches, no matter how egregious their actions.

(Trumpism is a true kakistocracy, a rule by the worst: ignorant, dim-witted, or corrupt men & women otherwise rejected in a well-functioning society find themselves at the center of power by appointment from an ignorant, dim-witted, and corrupt autocrat.)

Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman report Federal investigators scrutinized Whitaker’s role in patent company accused of fraud, according to people with knowledge of case:

Federal investigators last year looked into whether Matthew G. Whitaker, as an advisory board member of a Miami patent company accused of fraud by customers, played a role in trying to help the company silence critics by threatening legal action, according to two people with knowledge of the inquiry.

Whitaker, named this week by President Trump as acting attorney general, occasionally served as an outside legal adviser to the company, World Patent Marketing, writing a series of letters on its behalf, according to people familiar with his role.

But he rebuffed an October 2017 subpoena from the Federal Trade Commission seeking his records related to the company, according to two people with knowledge of the case.

The FTC alleged in a 2017 complaint that the company bilked customers with fraudulent promises that it would help them market their invention. The FBI has also investigated World Patent Marketing, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.

(There’s America’s ‘Acting Attorney General’: a man who rebuffed a federal subpoena over a fraud investigation.)

Jennifer Rubin observes Three days later: Hey, Republicans really did get clobbered:

n the House, as of this writing, the Democratic gains are up to 30 with about five more races still to be called — in which Democrats are leading. A gain of 35 seats would be the largest House pickup for Democrats since the first post-Watergate midterm election in 1974.

The Democrats picked up seven governorships, with Stacey Abrams, as of now, still fighting to make it to a runoff in Georgia, and Andrew Gillum trailing by 0.4 percentage points, enough to trigger a recount in Florida.

In the Senate, Democrats may not quite have pulled off an inside straight, but they had two aces — in Nevada and Arizona. With 26 seats to defend, many in red states, it now looks as if their losses will be small. Democrats won in Nevada and are now poised to pick up a seat in Arizona. In the latter, Rep. Kyrsten Sinemasurged into the lead as additional Maricopa County ballots were counted.)

….

If you then turn to exit polls, voters said by big margins: they disapprove of Trump (54 percent to 45 percent ); regard the GOP unfavorably (52 percent to 44 percent); think the country is on the wrong track (54 percent to 42 percent), thought Trump’s immigration policies were too harsh (46 percent, with 33 percent saying they were about right and 17 saying not tough enough); favor tougher gun laws (59 percent to 37 percent); think his foreign policy makes the country less safe (46 percent to 38 percent); disapprove of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh (47 percent to 44 percent); want to uphold Roe v. Wade (66 percent to 25 percent); think it is somewhat or very important to elect more minorities (72 percent to 24 percent) and somewhat or very important to elect more women (78 percent to 20 percent); think sexual harassment is a big problem (84 percent to 14 percent); and are more concerned about people being denied the right to vote than voter fraud (53 percent to 36 percent).

It drives Trump’s critics to distraction to watch him dominate every news cycle and repeat lies that have long since been debunked. They should be upset ; the president’s lies, racism, meanness and ignorance debase the presidency. However, Trump’s not helping himself or his party. To the contrary, Democrats just had an extremely successful election and are winning most major policy debates. They should send him a nice fruit basket or something for the holidays.

Jeff Stein writes Trump’s trade war may have helped Democrats win the House:

“It’s very clear, based on how they lost seats in the Upper Midwest, that declining agricultural markets likely led to the overturning of the GOP majority in the House,” said Joe Brusuelas, an economist with RSM, an international accounting firm. “It’s hard to imagine that these seats would have flipped anyway.”

….

Two of Democrats’ House pickups came in Iowa, where Abby Finkenauer beat incumbent Rep. Rod Blum (R) and Cindy Axne beat incumbent Rep. David Young (R). J.D. Scholten, a Democrat running against Rep. Steve King (R), lost but came closer than Democrats had in the last several cycles against King, a 15-year incumbent.

Farmers in Iowa districts who have voted Republican and supported Trump before were this year “discouraged and not as motivated to go out and vote” because of the tariffs, said Aaron H. Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union.

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