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.”

What Caused the Red Rain of Kerala?:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-nine.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:36 PM, for 9h 11m 36s of daytime.  The moon is new with 0.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, Pres. Roosevelt presents his Four Freedoms goals during his State of the Union address.

Recommended for reading in full:

  Trump has repeatedly claimed responsibility for the partial shutdown of the federal government:

Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Peter Baker report The Border Wall: How a Potent Symbol Is Now Boxing Trump In:

Before it became the chief sticking point in a government shutdown drama that threatens to consume his presidency at a critical moment, President Trump’s promise to build a wall on the southwestern border was a memory trick for an undisciplined candidate.

As Mr. Trump began exploring a presidential run in 2014, his political advisers landed on the idea of a border wall as a mnemonic device of sorts, a way to make sure their candidate — who hated reading from a script but loved boasting about himself and his talents as a builder — would remember to talk about getting tough on immigration, which was to be a signature issue in his nascent campaign.

“How do we get him to continue to talk about immigration?” Sam Nunberg, one of Mr. Trump’s early political advisers, recalled telling Roger J. Stone Jr., another adviser. “We’re going to get him to talk about he’s going to build a wall.”

Talk Mr. Trump did, and the line drew rapturous cheers from conservative audiences, thrilling the candidate and soon becoming a staple of campaign speeches. Chants of “Build the wall!” echoed through arenas throughout the country.

(Disturbingly funny: Trump’s advisors had so little respect for his intellectual ability that they fed him a simple word and idea to repeat again and again.  Yet, Trump’s advisors, themselves, had so little ability that they failed to grasp that he’d believe literally in the rhetorical trope they gave him.)

Bruce Ackerman writes No, Trump Cannot Declare an ‘Emergency’ to Build His Wall (“If he did, and used soldiers to build it, they would all be committing a federal crime”):

The Supreme Court’s 1953 decision in Youngstown v. Sawyer would be critical in Congressional consideration of such a decision. In a canonical opinion by Justice Robert Jackson, the court invalidated President Truman’s attempt in 1952 to use his powers as commander in chief to nationalize steel mills in the face of labor strikes. The decision imposed fundamental constitutional limits on the president’s power to claim that a national emergency — in this case, the Korean War — allowed him to override express provisions preventing him from using those powers domestically.

….

What this all adds up to is a potential crisis much graver than whatever immigration emergencies the president has in mind: A legally ignorant president forcing our troops to choose between his commands and the rule of law in a petty political struggle over a domestic political question.

Visit the London Park Most Locals Don’t Even Know About:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of forty-six.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:35 PM, for 9h 10m 27s of daytime.  The moon is new with 0.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1855, King Camp Gillette, razor magnate, is born in Fond du Lac.

Recommended for reading in full:

  Margaret Taylor describes How the New Congress Can Restore Its Constitutional Role:

Without naming all potential areas for inquiry, the possibilities include: (1) the administration’s policy toward, and Trump’s financial interests in, various authoritarians and dictators around the world; (2) the administration’s policy toward, and Trump’s treatment of, democratic allies; (3) the administration’s Syria, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and China policies; (4) the state of the workforce at foreign policy and national security agencies, especially the State Department, as well as foreign aid policies and plans; (5) the outcomes of the administration’s changes to Obama-era counterterrorism policies; (6) the administration’s cybersecurity policy and steps to defend against information warfare by foreign adversaries; (7) the administration’s southern border policies and actions and policy toward Central America; (8) the administration’s push for more nuclear weapons and the path forward with respect to arms control treaties; (9) the state of the United States’ human rights and democracy agenda; (10) the administration’s policy toward Israel and prospects for a two-state solution; and (11) the consequences of America’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord and the administration’s climate agenda.

Betsy Woodruff and Andrew Desiderio report Dems Move to Block Trump From Lifting Sanctions on Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska:

If successful, the resolution would prevent the Treasury Department from lifting sanctions on the Deripaska-controlled companies EN+, Rusal, and EuroSibEnergo. A mechanism in the 2017 Russia sanctions package, the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), would trigger the reversal. Passed overwhelmingly by Congress over Trump’s objections, CAATSA allows the House and Senate to block White House efforts to alter sanctions by passing a joint resolution of disapproval within 30 days of the administration’s announcement.

Lawmakers involved in the talks told The Daily Beast that CAATSA appeared to be the best legislative vehicle to block the lifting of sanctions on the Deripaska-linked businesses.

Deripaska has proven to be an inviting target for lawmakers. His ties to Trump’s former campaign chief Paul Manafort, which Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team has investigated, run deep. And the nature of the deal concerns Democrats. Lord Barker, a former U.K. energy minister who now sits as a member of the House of Lords, chairs EN+ and helped negotiate the terms under which the Treasury Department would lift the sanctions on the businesses. Barker’s Russia ties have concerned some of his British colleagues, as The Daily Mail has detailed. The Guardian reported that a parliamentary committee asked Barker for information about his work for EN+, and he refused to provide anything publicly because of his work trying to lift U.S. sanctions.

From western Australia, The Happiest Animal:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of forty-one.  Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:34 PM, for 9h 09m 23s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 1.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1923, Milton College president A.E. Whitford bans dancing by students in off-campus, semi-public places such as confectionery stores.

Recommended for reading in full:

  David Frum asks Why Is Trump Spouting Russian Propaganda? (“The president’s endorsement of the U.S.S.R.’s invasion of Afghanistan echoes a narrative promoted by Vladimir Putin”):

Let’s go to the replay:

The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there.

To appreciate the shock value of Trump’s words, it’s necessary to dust off some Cold War history. Those of us who grew up in the last phases of the Cold War used to know it all by heart, but I admit I had to do a little Googling to refresh my faded memories.

It’s amazing enough that any U.S. president would retrospectively endorse the Soviet invasion. What’s even more amazing is that he would do so using the very same falsehoods originally invoked by the Soviets themselves: “terrorists” and “bandit elements.”

….

It has been an important ideological project of the Putin regime to rehabilitate and justify the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Putin does not care so much about Afghanistan, but he cares a lot about the image of the U.S.S.R. In 2005, Putin described the collapse of the Soviet Union as (depending on your preferred translation) “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century” or “a major geopolitical disaster of the 20th century”—but clearly a thing very much to be regretted.

See also Vladimir Kara-Murza’s essay Defying history, Moscow moves to defend Soviet war in Afghanistan.

 Fatima Tils reports RT Claims WADA ‘Failed’ to Collect Data from Moscow Lab. Actually, Russian Authorities Denied Access:

The report by Russia Today (RT) report came a day after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced that Russia has missed the December 31, 2018 deadline for compliance with the World Anti-Doping Code. By that deadline, the Russian authorities were supposed to meet two conditions imposed by WADA’s Executive Committee back in September.

Also on January 2, 16 national anti-doping organizations issued a joint statement calling on WADA to suspend Russia immediately, stating: “Russia has failed to meet its obligations.”

RT’s January 2 report used language implying that it was the World Anti-Doping Agency’s own fault for not being able to access Moscow laboratory (LIMS) data, and that WADA president Craig Reedie had seemingly expressed disappointment toward his own organization.

….

WADA followed with a statement on January 2 leaving no space for doubt about who the organization blamed for the failure: “We are extremely disappointed that the Dec. 31 deadline imposed on Russia by WADA has not been adhered to by the Russian authorities.”

The Soft Lies Advertisers Are Legally Allowed To Tell You: