Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 6:35 AM and sunset 5:39 PM, for 11h 04m 10s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 60.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, and the Whitewater Unified School Board meets in open session beginning at 7 PM.

On this day in 1862, James Loom demonstrates a new canon at Camp Randall. (“James Loom exhibited a new breech-loading cannon at Camp Randall in Madison, Wisconsin The cannon was said to be effectively discharged 50 times in four minutes.”)

Recommended for reading in full:

Ellen Nakashima reports Former senior national security officials to issue declaration on national emergency:

A bipartisan group of 58 former senior national security officials will issue a statement Monday saying that “there is no factual basis” for President Trump’s proclamation of a national emergency to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

The joint statement, whose signatories include former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former defense secretary Chuck Hagel, will come a day before the House is expected to vote on a resolution to block Trump’s Feb. 15 declaration.

….

“Under no plausible assessment of the evidence is there a national emergency today that entitles the president to tap into funds appropriated for other purposes to build a wall at the southern border,” the group said.

Albright served under President Bill Clinton, and Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, served under President Barack Obama.

Also signing were Eliot A. Cohen, State Department counselor under President George W. Bush; Thomas R. Pickering, President George H.W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations; John F. Kerry, Obama’s second secretary of state; Susan E. Rice, Obama’s national security adviser; Leon E. Panetta, Obama’s CIA director and defense secretary; as well as former intelligence and security officials who served under Republican and Democratic administrations.

Juliet Eilperin reports EPA regulator skirts the line between former clients and current job:

Less than a month into his tenure as the top air policy official at the Environmental Protection Agency, Bill Wehrum hopped into the EPA’s electric Chevy Volt and rode to the Pennsylvania Avenue offices of his former law firm.

There, he met with representatives of the nation’s largest power companies — including two groups that, shortly, had been his paying clients — to brief them on the Trump administration’s plans to weaken federal environmental regulations.

The Dec. 7, 2017, meeting is just one example of interactions between Wehrum, a skilled lawyer and regulator, and former clients that ethics experts say comes dangerously close to violating federal ethics rules. Since joining the EPA in November 2017, Wehrum acknowledges that he has met with two former clients at his old firm — without consulting in advance with ethics officials, even though they had cautioned him about such interactions. He also weighed in on a policy shift that could have influenced litigation involving DTE Energy, a Detroit-based utility represented by his former firm.

Top 15 Best Global Brands Ranking (2000-2018):

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be windy, with snow flurries, and a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 6:37 AM and sunset 5:38 PM, for 11h 01m 19s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 69.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1863, the 28th and 29th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and 12th Wisconsin Light Artillery take part in an expedition to Yazoo Pass by Moon Lake in Mississippi.

Recommended for reading in full:

Andrew Prokop reports Mueller issues new sentencing memo for Paul Manafort:

Special counsel Robert Mueller has filed a second sentencing memo taking former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort to task for what he says is years of illegal activity.

“For over a decade, Manafort repeatedly and brazenly violated the law,” Mueller’s team writes. “His crimes continued up through the time he was first indicted in October 2017 and remarkably went unabated even after indictment.”

The special counsel did not recommend a specific sentence for Manafort, but said his sentence “must take into account the gravity of this conduct.”

Manafort was convicted of financial crimes after a trial in Virginia, and then struck a plea deal to avert a second trial in Washington, DC. So he will be sentenced by two different judges — T.S. Ellis III in Virginia, and Amy Berman Jackson in the District of Columbia.

Mueller’s first sentencing memo for Manafort was filed last week, in Virginia, and focused on Manafort’s financial crimes. This second sentencing memo is focused on illegal lobbying and obstruction of justice.

See Sentencing Memorandum:

Reviewing the latest sentencing memorandum, Franklin Foer considers The Loud Silence of Mueller’s Manafort Memo (“A court filing by the special counsel is filled with elegant omissions—but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there”):

The Mueller team’s sentencing recommendation is, however, an important document of Manafortology. It is the legal equivalent of a magazine profile—that is, a psychologically-driven character study with historical sweep. The prosecutors have gone back to the 1980s and toured his career.

When I first started reporting on Paul Manafort three years ago, I kept looking for a redeeming flicker of humanity. Editors would push me: “Surely, he started off as an idealist, before taking his moral tumble?” They were aching for what we call in the trade the “to-be-sure graf,” where a journalist displays all of the pieces of contrary evidence in plain view. Reader, let me tell you, I searched hard to find that sliver of goodness, and it eluded me.

It seems that the prosecutors ended up with the pretty much the same conclusion: There’s simply nothing redeeming in Paul Manafort’s career—or as they put it, “no warranted mitigating factors.” He engaged in his elaborate schemes for “no other reason than greed,” the court filing says. The prosecutors are constantly lifting their jaw from the floor, because they simply can’t believe their subject’s “hardened adherence to committing crimes.” Even when Manafort had been initially indicted, he kept right on tampering with witnesses without apparent conscience or self-consciousness.

  Find New Ways of Living on These Five Islands:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 5:37 PM, for 10h 58m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 78.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1945, U.S. Marines raise the flag on Mt. Suribachi during the Battle of Iowa Jima:

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is an iconic photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal on February 23, 1945, which depicts six United States Marines raising a U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi, during the Battle of Iwo Jima, in World War II.^[1]

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Later, it became the only photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in the same year as its publication, and came to be regarded in the United States as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war.

Three Marines in the photograph, Sergeant Michael Strank, Corporal Harlon Block (misidentified as Sergeant Hank Hansen until January 1947), and Private First Class Franklin Sousley were killed in action over the next few days. The other three surviving flag-raisers in the photograph were Corporals (then Private First Class) Rene Gagnon, Ira Hayes, and Harold Schultz (misidentified as PhM2c. John Bradley until June 2016).^[2] Both men originally misidentified as flag raisers had helped raise a smaller flag about 90 minutes earlier, and were both still on the mountaintop and witnessed – but were not part of – the specific moment of raising the larger flag that was captured in the Pulitzer Prize–winning photo.

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David Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell report Residents of another Manhattan building vote to remove ‘Trump Place’ name:

Since Election Day in 2016, the owners of five buildings have decided to remove it — a stark demonstration of Trump’s unpopularity in the city that gave him his start, and which he still calls home.

Equity Residential, an apartment company that owns three nearby buildings, took down Trump’s name just after the election. Then the condo owners at 200 Riverside — facing legal warnings from the Trump Organization — went to court and persuaded a state judge to rule that the Trump Organization could not stop them from removing their sign.

The loss of the Trump name at 120 Riverside will not cost Trump’s company any revenue. The company does not manage the building or derive any ongoing licensing revenue from its use of the Trump name.

….

In Manhattan, Trump’s name now adorns 11 condo buildings. The research firm CityRealty found that the price of condos in those buildings — measured in dollars per square foot — began to decrease in 2016 and continued to drop in 2018. Using that metric, Trump buildings once commanded a premium above other Manhattan buildings, but now the price per square foot that units in Trump buildings sell for is below average.

“Trump buildings have not performed as well as the rest of the market over the past 18 months,” said Daniel Levy, CityRealty’s president.

  Cat Contract:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-four.  Sunrise is 6:40 AM and sunset 5:36 PM, for 10h 55m 39s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1732, George Washington is born.

Recommended for reading in full:

Catherine Rampell writes President Tariff Man may be learning all the wrong lessons from his trade wars:

Here’s the bigger problem. Though Trump may hold off on raising tariffs to 25 percent, he also looks likely to keep his existing 10 percent tariffs in place. Which would still leave plenty of U.S. firms twisting in the wind.

Most of the Chinese products that Trump has slapped tariffs on, after all, are inputs that U.S. companies must buy to manufacture their own products. As Syracuse University economist Mary E. Lovely has noted, in some cases, alternative sourcing is not available, especially not on short notice.

That means U.S. firms are facing higher costs and becoming less competitive. Some are contemplating moving production out of the United States to dodge Trump’s tariffs.

Lots of other U.S. businesses are also suffering, particularly as they face tit-for-tat tariffs that may or may not be alleviated in the weeks to come. Even if China were to decide for some reason to asymmetrically lift its retaliatory tariffs while we kept our 10 percent duties in place, perhaps as part of a commitment to buy more U.S. goods, in many cases the damage has already been done: Bankruptcies across the Farm Belt have soared to their highest levels in at least a decade.

Dan Friedman reports A Judge Just Imposed a Strict Gag Order on a Groveling Roger Stone:

US District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson slapped a strict gag order on Roger Stone Thursday but stopped short of jailing him over an Instagram post by Stone showing what appeared to be a crosshairs next to Jackson’s head.  “Any violation of this order will be a basis for revoking your bond,” she told the longtime adviser to Donald Trump and self-professed dirty trickster.

Stone, who is awaiting trial on obstruction of justice and perjury charges brought by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, apologized profusely and repeatedly to Jackson on Thursday after his lawyer took the extraordinary step of putting Stone on the stand to defend his conduct.

….

Jackson ruled that Stone had posted the Instagram image with the intent of denigrating the court’s proceeding and tainting the jury pool in the case. She modified her order on media contact so that Stone’s bond will be revoked if he violates the new order. “From this moment on the defendant may not speak publicly about the investigation of this case,” she said.

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty.  Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset 5:34 PM, for 10h 52m 51s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 95% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1972, Pres. Nixon arrives in China for a week-long visit.

Recommended for reading in full:

Rick Barrett reports Dairy farmers are in crisis — and it could change Wisconsin forever:

Wisconsin lost almost 700 dairy farms in 2018, an unprecedented rate of nearly two a day. Most were small operations unable to survive farm milk prices that, adjusted for inflation, were among the lowest in a half-century.

As of Feb. 1, Wisconsin had 8,046 dairy herds, down 40 percent from 10 years earlier, according to state Department of Agriculture data.

Remaining dairy farmers have burned through their farm equity and credit to remain in business. Often, at least one family member works an off-farm job to put groceries on the table or pay for health insurance. Some work double shifts, farming during the day then heading to a local factory for the night. It’s exhausting, but it keeps families in agriculture and preserves a cherished way of life.

Much of Wisconsin’s $88 billion farm economy hangs in the balance. Hundreds of towns across the state depend on the money that dairy farmers spend at equipment dealerships, feed mills, hardware stores, cafes and scores of other businesses.

Each dollar of net farm income results in an additional 60 cents of economic activity, according to University of Wisconsin research.

This spring, though, farmers face crucial decisions. Some are running out of feed for their cattle. Do they seek operating loans to plant crops for livestock rations? Or do they quit and cut their losses that can add up to thousands of dollars a month?

  Natasha Korecki reports ‘Sustained and ongoing’ disinformation assault targets Dem presidential candidates:

A POLITICO review of recent data extracted from Twitter and from other platforms, as well as interviews with data scientists and digital campaign strategists, suggests that the goal of the coordinated barrage appears to be undermining the nascent candidacies through the dissemination of memes, hashtags, misinformation and distortions of their positions. But the divisive nature of many of the posts also hints at a broader effort to sow discord and chaos within the Democratic presidential primary.

The cyber propaganda — which frequently picks at the rawest, most sensitive issues in public discourse — is being pushed across a variety of platforms and with a more insidious approach than in the 2016 presidential election, when online attacks designed to polarize and mislead voters first surfaced on a massive scale.

Recent posts that have received widespread dissemination include racially inflammatory memes and messaging involving Harris, O’Rourke and Warren. In Warren’s case, a false narrative surfaced alleging that a blackface doll appeared on a kitchen cabinet in the background of the senator’s New Year’s Eve Instagram livestream.

See also Microsoft says it has found another Russian operation targeting prominent think tanks.

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of thirty-five.  Sunrise is 6:43 AM and sunset 5:33 PM, for 10h 50m 03s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Parks & Rec Board meets at 5:30 PM.

On this day in 1962, John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the Earth.

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 Corri Hess reports Gov. Tony Evers Says Business Incentives Should Be Discussed:

Evers said massive incentive packages are something the state is going to have to grapple with.

“I want Kimberly-Clark to be successful. I want Marinette Marine to be successful, but at the end of the day, can we continue to carry on this path?” Evers said. “I think it’s an important discussion to have as a state.”

In December, Walker reached a deal to keep a Kimberly-Clark plant open that’s worth up to $28 million over five years. Evers has said he will include $31 million in his state budget to help Fincantieri Marinette Marine expand its shipyard in northeastern Wisconsin.

Foxconn Technology Group has received the largest incentive from the state, more than $4 billion. Evers said he still believes it was too expensive. But he wants the company to be a success.

“Clearly, what they are planning to do has changed,” Evers said of Foxconn. “At the end of the day, several municipalities have provided financial support. The state has provided support. But the agreement is part of state law. We have to make sure their operation and their decision-making is more transparent than it is now.”

Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Fandos, and Michael S. Schmidt report Inside Trump’s Two-Year War on the Investigations Encircling Him:

An examination by The New York Times reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more secretive assault by Mr. Trump on the machinery of federal law enforcement. Interviews with dozens of current and former government officials and others close to Mr. Trump, as well as a review of confidential White House documents, reveal numerous unreported episodes in a two-year drama.

….

Julie O’Sullivan, a criminal law professor at Georgetown University, said she believed there was ample public evidence that Mr. Trump had the “corrupt intent” to try to derail the Mueller investigation, the legal standard for an obstruction of justice case.

But this is far from a routine criminal investigation, she said, and Mr. Mueller will have to make judgments about the effect on the country of making a criminal case against the president. Democrats in the House have said they will wait for Mr. Mueller to finish his work before making a decision about whether the president’s behavior warrants impeachment.

In addition to the Mueller investigation, there are at least two other federal inquiries that touch the president and his advisers — the Manhattan investigation focused on the hush money payments made by Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, and an inquiry examining the flow of foreign money to the Trump inaugural committee.

  To Survive, This Bug Builds a House of Bubbles:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of twenty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:44 AM and sunset 5:32 PM, for 10h 47m 15s of daytime.  The moon is full with 100% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1868, photographer Edward S. Curtis is born:

Edward Sheriff Curtis was born near Whitewater. As a young boy, he taught himself photography. His family eventually moved to the Puget Sound area of Washington state. He settled in Seattle and opened a photography studio in 1897. A chance meeting on Mount Rainier resulted in Curtis being appointed official photographer on railroad magnate E.H. Harriman’s expedition to Alaska. Curtis also accompanied George Bird Grinnell, editor of Field and Stream magazine, to Montana in 1900 to observe the Blackfoot Sun Dance. After this, Curtis strove to comprehensively document American Indians through photography, a project that continued for over 30 years. Working primarily with 6 x 8-inch reflex camera, he created over 40,000 sepia-toned images. His work attracted national attention, most notably from Theodore Roosevelt and J. Pierpont Morgan, whose family contributed generously to his project. His monumental work, The North American Indian, was eventually printed in 20 volumes with associated portfolios. Curtis’ work included portraits, scenes of daily life, ceremonies, architecture and artifacts, and landscapes. His photographs have recently been put online by the Library of Congress.

(Morning Eagle – Piegan. 1910. Original caption: “At an age of more than ninety, Apinakuipita is still hale enough to ride his horse to the tribal gatherings.“)

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Charlie Savage and Robert Pear report 16 States Sue to Stop Trump’s Use of Emergency Powers to Build Border Wall:

The lawsuit is part of a constitutional confrontation that Mr. Trump set off on Friday when he declared that he would spend billions of dollars more on border barriers than Congress had granted him. The clash raises questions over congressional control of spending, the scope of emergency powers granted to the president, and how far the courts are willing to go to settle such a dispute.

The suit, filed in Federal District Court in San Francisco, argues that the president does not have the power to divert funds for constructing a wall along the Mexican border because it is Congress that controls spending.

[Read the full lawsuit here.]

Xavier Becerra, the attorney general of California, said in an interview that the president himself had undercut his argument that there was an emergency on the border.

“Probably the best evidence is the president’s own words,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump’s speech on Feb. 15 announcing his plan: “I didn’t need to do this, but I’d rather do it much faster.”

The lawsuit, California et al. v. Trump et al., says that the plaintiff states are going to court to protect their residents, natural resources and economic interests.

  Inside Corning’s Gorilla Glass Factory: