The Whitewater Schools have an operational referendum on the ballot this November. The referendum figures, for a conventional four-year term, will allow the district to continue regular programming and services without interruption. Nothing in this operational request involves more capital (construction) or expansion of services – the amounts authorized will simply allow Whitewater’s schools to continue their existing (increasingly good) work. (Information about the particulars of the referendum may be found online.)
Support for this referendum is in Whitewater’s interest (1) to assure continued services and progress, (2) to avoid the distracting & debilitating disorder that has beset nearby communities, and (3) as a safeguard against uncertain state and national economic trends.
Although I have been skeptical of past construction referendums, this is an operational referendum, to maintain class sizes and current programming for the district’s students. This sort of referendum merits one’s support.
There’s been clear progress in Whitewater these last two years. This new administration has based its primary efforts on broad-based gains for students. Longtime readers may recall that a few years ago I was – rightly – critical of using the test scores only of a small sample to tout progress for the district. The state has since then required testing from more students, and this new administration has worked successfully to improve scores generally. Recent good scores have come from a larger population rather than a smaller, selected one. Standardized testing is only one measure of success, but now the district can be proud of improving numbers from many and not few.
Meanwhile, nearby districts have descended into conflicts over capital spending, debates that necessarily distract from discussions of programming. (There are only so many hours in a day.) Predictably, the officials in those other districts have not only failed to keep an even keel, but they’ve also resorted to lies and open government violations to hide their errors.
We have avoided other communities’ disorder and dishonesty, and maintaining existing programming is the simplest, most practical way to remain free from others’ debilitating mistakes.
We face, also, an uncertain state and national politics. There is so much that one doesn’t know about the immediate future, especially state fiscal policy or national economic conditions. Faced with uncertainty, the most practical course is to continue with the last two years of steady local progress.
And look, and look – there are particular policies with which one will disagree. And yet, and yet – it would be counterproductive to interfere with a positive direction.
Support for students’ genuine day-in, day-out educational needs is the purpose of this referendum, and that’s a cause worth supporting. I urge others in our community, of whatever politics, to join in support on November 6th.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifty-two. Sunrise is 7:30 AM and sunset 5:46 PM, for 10h 16m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 39.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission is scheduled to meet at 6 PM.
On this date George Safford Parker was born in Shullsburg. While studying telegraphy in Janesville, he developed an interest in fountain pens. In 1891 he organized the Parker Pen Company in Janesville. The company gained world-wide acclaim for innovations like the duo-fold pen and pencil. Parker served as president of the company until 1933. Parker died on July 19, 1937.
Recommended for reading in full — a roadmap for Mueller, the law(s) on collusion, why Trump cannot tone it down, using an executive order to violate the Constitution, and video on choosing a landing site on Mars —
U.S. archivists on Wednesday revealed one of the last great secrets of the Watergate investigation — the backbone of a long-sealed report used by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski to send Congress evidence in the legal case against President Richard M. Nixon.
The release of the referral — delivered in 1974 as impeachment proceedings were being weighed — came after a former member of Nixon’s defense team and three prominent legal analysts filed separate lawsuits seeking its unsealing after more than four decades under grand jury secrecy rules. The legal analysts argued the report could offer a precedent and guide for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as his office addresses its present-day challenge on whether, and if so, how to make public findings from its investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, including any that directly involve President Trump.
The legal specialists said they and Watergate veterans sought to have the Jaworski report made public because of the historical parallels they see to the current probe and the report’s potential to serve as a counterexample to independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s report before President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
….
“There were no comments, no interpretations and not a word or phrase of accusatory nature. The ‘Road Map’ was simply that — a series of guideposts if the House Judiciary Committee wished to follow them,” Jaworski wrote in his 1976 memoir, “The Right and the Power: The Prosecution of Watergate.”
As we explain in a new report, “collusion” is not the name of a codified crime.[1] Nevertheless, the term has come to be shorthand for the possibility that the Trump campaign, its advisors or the president himself coordinated with Russia to help Trump win the 2016 presidential election. Indeed, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been authorized to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” and to prosecute federal crimes arising from that investigation.[2]
The president and his proxies have frequently advanced the claim that such coordination, even if it occurred, would not be unlawful. Their refrain that “collusion is not a crime” is in one sense correct. Collusion is not a single crime. It is instead a rubric that encompasses many possible offenses. We detail some of the principal ones in this report.
All turn on the possibility that Trump or his associates took action in connection with Russia’s attempts to impact the outcome of our country’s presidential election. The criminal nature of the Russian effort is already well-known. The special counsel’s 191 charges brought against 35 individuals and companies spell out some of the crimes allegedly committed in furtherance of the Russian attack on our democracy. Those include indictments of Russian individuals and entities for their participation in conspiracies to hack into the computer and email systems of Trump’s political opponents and release damaging information and to engage in a social media disinformation campaign using fake identities.
It logically follows that if the president or his campaign aides worked with the Russians in connection with those efforts, they too may be liable. That is not just common sense—it is also the law. The specific “collusion” crimes that may be implicated by any coordinated efforts between the president or his campaign aides and Russian operatives principally fall under the rubric of conspiracy: an agreement to further illegal action. The core federal conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, would be implicated if there was any agreement between members of the Trump campaign (or Trump himself) and Russian agents to do something that the law prohibits.
His refusal to give up the divisiveness, some might say, is simply evidence that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. That may be, but the problem is deeper. If Trump did not divide, lie, boast and incite, what would he possibly have to talk about?
Seriously, here are the topics he would have to avoid if he wanted to cut down on hateful language and stop dividing the country:
The Clintons
George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer
Possible 2020 opponents
The Russia “hoax”
The deep state (including agencies and department for which he appointed leaders)
The Fed’s pace of interest-rate hikes
President Obama
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
“Socialism”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)
The caravan, the wall and the imaginary crime wave caused by immigrants
Allies ripping us off
The money we “owe” to trading partners (his misconception of the trade deficit)
The media
NATO taking advantage of us
The epidemic of voting fraud (of which there is none)
Globalism, nationalism
That takes up, what, like an hour of his campaign speeches? With the stock market now so erratic (can’t talk about his stock market being better than Obama’s) and attempts at Obamacare a failure (so now he’s the big defender of protections for preexisting conditions!), I honestly don’t think he would have more than 15 minutes of material for his rallies if he cut out all the items above.
In an exclusive interview with Axios, President Trump said he plans to sign an executive order that removes birthright citizenship to children of non-citizens and unauthorized immigrants in the US. [Axios / Jonathan Swan and Stef W. Kight]
Through this order, Trump essentially wants to change the US Constitution, which was amended 150 years ago to include these words: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” This clause came to become part of the 14th Amendment in 1868. [CNN / Kevin Liptak and Devan Cole]
Experts widely agree that this cannot be done. Not only is the 14th Amendment considered one of the driving laws that govern the US, but Trump’s executive order would be invalid under a longstanding Supreme Court precedent. [Vox / Sean Illing]
Trump told Axios that the order to revoke birthright citizenship is still in the works; it’s unclear how such an executive order would work or what the timeline would be. Not long after, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wrote that he’ll introduce legislation in Congress along with the president’s proposed reform. [BBC]
News of this comes just one week before the midterm elections, for which Trump has been campaigning by strongly advocating against illegal immigration. One of his key points during rallies for Republican candidates has been stopping the Honduran migrant caravan, which crossed Mexico and is traveling to the US border. [Vox / Dara Lind]
This is just the latest move in Trump’s proposed hardline immigration reform. During his tenure in the White House, he’s upheld a Muslim ban, suggested a multibillion-dollar investment in security at the US-Mexico border, and demanded an end to so-called chain migration. [NPR / Susan Davis and Scott Detrow]
Here’s the twelfth annual FREE WHITEWATER list of the scariest things in Whitewater. (The 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 editions are available for comparison.)
The list runs in reverse order, from mildly scary to truly frightening.
10. Illuminated Signs. There’s a nice-looking new sign in front of our high school, with an illuminated message board, of the kind that ones see in front of schools, business, and even churches. The sign here, unfortunately, met unnecessary delay and fuss before its installation this year, as though it were something mildly scary. It’s not – it’s a nice-looking sign.
9. Cravath. Someone’s going to have to reclaim Cravath Lake somehow, but for all the talk about how to drain the lake, no one seems to have considered that there might be something worse than fish waiting at the bottom.
Good luck to all concerned.
8. One’s Own Eyes. In nearby Jefferson, Wisconsin, a bottom-shelf festival has received more favorable press than Ringling Bros. Greatest Show On Earth® ever did. A local newspaper wants readers to accept its mendacious accounts over what anyone can see with his or her own eyes.
7. Competition. If someone wants to sell a new toothpaste, no one would form a Toothpaste Preservation Committee to keep out the new product. And yet, if someone wants to build a new residential complex, the local business league conveniently supports ‘neighborhood preservation efforts’ that have as a key objective keeping out competitors to the incumbent landlord that runs the local business league. It’s an obvious anti-competition tactic.
6. DYKWIA? Some still have the bad habit of expecting the community to follow the lead of a few supposedly prominent people because they are, well, a few supposedly prominent people.
And yet, and yet – if these prominent people were what they say they are, then there wouldn’t be need of any other people in town. But there is, and so they’re not.
5. Community as Horde. A real scare here – using ‘community-minded’ appeals to call forth a complainant-ignoring horde to flack for some official or another.
4. Stagnation. Whitewater is a low-income, economically-stagnant community. The one thing Whitewater’s Community Development Authority has not developed is what matters in a productive, free-market economy: gains in individual and household income.
2. Trumpism. A bigoted, ignorant, autocratic politics of nationalism holds this nation’s federal government in its fleshy grip.
1. Harassment and Assault. For two university administrations, harassment and assault – of real people in this city – has been ignored or rationalized for the sake of ambitious but amoral leaders. There is no right without an individual redress. Whitewater draws closer to becoming Missoula or Steubenville with each passing day. There will be no relent on this matter until there is wholesale change.
This last year has been difficult for many of our fellow residents, but Americans are a resolute people – we will see this through.
Halloween in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifty-eight. Sunrise is 7:28 AM and sunset 5:47 PM, for 10h 19m 05s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 51.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Trick or Treat in the city limits is from 4 to 7 PM today. Haunt responsibly.
On this date the Milwaukee Bucks claimed their first victory, a 134-118 win over the Detroit Pistons in the Milwaukee Arena. The Bucks were 0-5 at the time, and Wayne Embry led Milwaukee with 30 points
Recommended for reading in full — Trump’s unconstitutional proposal, using Ivanka to escape culpability for bigotry, investors sue Trump for fraud, Czech spies tracked Trump in the 80s, and video of a family of bears breaking into a photographer’s blind —
Birthright citizenship sprang from the ashes of the worst Supreme Court decision in U.S. history, Dred Scott v. Sandford,the 1857 decision that said that slaves, and the children of slaves, could not be citizens of the United States. The blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans was shed to repudiate that idea.
Afterward, the drafters of the 14th Amendment declared in their very first sentence, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The drafters were motivated by their utter revulsion toward slavery and a system that relegated people to subordinate political status because of their birth. They weren’t thinking of, or concerned with, any exceptions to birthright citizenship other than the absolutely essential.
And what they wrote was simple and clear. Both proponents and opponents of the language at the time knew exactly what it meant: Virtually anyone born in the United States is a citizen. In 1898, the Supreme Court affirmed just that: It held that the “Fourteenth amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory” — “including all children here born of resident aliens.” The exception? “Two classes of cases” in which the United States could not apply its laws to foreigners under historic Anglo-American legal principles: “children born of alien enemies in hostile occupation, and children of diplomatic representatives of a foreign state.”
Neither of those narrow exceptions supports what Trump proposes to do by executive order. He is threatening, with the stroke of a pen, to declare certain people who are born in the United States ineligible for citizenship — despite the plain words of the 14th Amendment.
Because you know who doesn’t need a Jewish daughter to prove he’s not an anti-Semite when he goes to visit grieving Jews? A person who’s not an anti-Semite.
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But why does the president need to keep insisting that he doesn’t hate blacks or Jews? Why the need for these human props?
Because his policies are so blatantly racist and anti-Semitic. From his Muslim ban to his recent interest in repealing the fourteenth amendment, Trump is constantly on the defensive because his policies are so blatantly unfavorable to ethnic and religious minorities.
At the end of the day, Ivanka Trump is her father’s greatest grift: the Jew who enables anti-Semitism, just as she is the woman who enables his misogyny.
At issue are promotional spots and speeches that Trump made on behalf of marketing company ACN, also known as American Communications Network, which charged $499 for the chance to sell video phones licensed by the company, and sometimes extracted thousands of dollars later to have a chance of recouping the money.
Trump earned $450,000 each for three speeches he gave for ACN, according to his government disclosure form, but in marketing videos he told potential investors that the opportunity came “without any of the risks most entrepreneurs have to take” and that his endorsement was “not for any money.”
The plaintiffs allege that the investments were a sham and that Trump and his family promoted them — including twice on his TV show “Celebrity Apprentice” — despite knowing they were fraudulent.
In a 164-page complaint filed with the Southern District of New York, the plaintiffs ask for damages including financial relief and a ruling barring the Trumps and their company from promoting such offers in the future.
The Guardian reveals that the Statni bezpecnost (StB), the Czechoslovakian intelligence service, first noticed Donald Trump when he was a celebrity-seeking real estate developer more than 40 years ago.
The StB had been interested in Trump since 1977, when he married a Czechoslovakian-born woman, Ivana Zelnickova. News of the wedding reached the StB bureau in Zlin, the town in Moravia where Ivana grew up and where her parents lived. Ivana’s father, Milos, regularly gave the StB information on his daughter’s visits from the US and his son-in-law’s burgeoning career.
The StB’s work on Donald and Ivana intensified in the late 1980s, after Trump let it be known he was thinking of running for president. The StB’s first foreign department sat up. Inside the Soviet bloc, Czechoslovakia’s spies were reputed to be skilled professionals, competent and versatile English speakers who were a match for the CIA and MI6.
(…)
Jarda was one of four StB collaborators who spied on the Trumps during the cold war. Jarda’s real name was Jaroslav Jansa …
… Now aged 74, and living in an apartment bloc on the outskirts of Prague, Jansa is reluctant to talk about his past. When the Guardian and the Czech magazine Respekt knocked on his door, he refused to open it. In an email, he said he was tired and wanted to be left in peace. He added: “You are trying to put me in the tomb.”
(…)
It’s unclear to what degree the KGB and StB shared or coordinated Trump material. The two spy agencies worked closely together, signing cooperation agreements in 1972 and October 1986. The KGB was always the dominant partner – it would have closely monitored Trump when he and Ivana visited the USSR in summer 1987, following a Kremlin invitation.
Number of published words from Chancellor Beverly Kopper in support of five complainants alleging sexual assault or harassment from her publicly appointed assistant-to-the-chancellor spouse.
448
Number of published words from Chancellor Beverly Kopper in reply to one remark from a single sportscaster during a single Packers preseason game.
(It’s not that one shouldn’t reply – of course one should have pride in one’s school. That’s admirable and understandable. It’s the confirmation of Kopper’s public-relations priorities that’s concerning. Injured people deserve the highest priority.
By the way, perhaps someone will explain to Kopper that in her letter she awkwardly used premiere – a first showing of performance – when premier – something of the first rank – was the correct choice. Her media relations team might consider springing for a dictionary.)
476
Number of days between the first known written complaint about her publicly appointed assistant-to-the-chancellor spouse and Kopper’s disclosure of his repeated conduct. (5.26.17 to 9.14.18. Reported administrative complaint – time does not include prior incidents, unwritten concerns, or any awareness apart from what’s now known of the written administrative process.)
84
Number of days between a ban on the publicly appointed assistant-to-the-chancellor spouse of Beverly Kopper and her disclosure to her own campus. (6.22.18 to 9.14.18)
Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of fifty-five. Sunrise is 7:27 AM and sunset 5:49 PM, for 10h 21m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 63.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s School Board will meet tonight (for an operational referendum listening session) at 6 PM.
“The War of the Worlds” is an episode of the American radio drama anthology series The Mercury Theatre on the Air. It was performed as a Halloween episode on Sunday, October 30, 1938, and aired over the Columbia Broadcasting System radio network, directed and narrated by actor and future filmmaker Orson Welles as an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ novel The War of the Worlds (1898). It became famous for causing panic among the audience; the scale of that panic is disputed, however, as the program had relatively few listeners.[2]
….
In the days after the adaptation, widespread outrage was expressed in the media. The program’s news-bulletin format was described as deceptive by some newspapers and public figures, leading to an outcry against the broadcasters and calls for regulation by the Federal Communications Commission.[2] Nevertheless, the episode secured Welles’s fame as a dramatist.
Recommended for reading in full — New emails call into question Gov. Walker’s claims about the Lincoln Hills prison review, Trump’s new NAFTA is bad for dairy farmers, how the Trump family pushed a conspiracy theory, naming those responsible for bigotry, and video explaining how a vortex helps dandelions fly —
New emails, obtained after months of records requests by 7 Investigates, call into further question the answer Gov. Scott Walker has given about the former head of a national prison organization saying the governor’s staff ordered former corrections secretary Ed Wall to stop an independent Lincoln Hills review as reports of inmate abuse and staff attacks were about to become public in 2015.
The emails, written two weeks before Gov. Walker said he was learning about the Lincoln Hills’ crisis for the first time, show then-Corrections Secretary Ed Wall telling state Justice Department leaders he was attempting to obtain the independent review.
“We are arranging to have an outside agency with experience in the operation of juvenile facilities come in to do an assessment of the institution, security operations, policies, training, report structures, complaints and staffing,” Wall wrote on Nov. 18, 2015.
As 7 Investigates first reported, the retired executive director of the national non-profit Association of State Correctional Administrators, George Camp, confirmed Wall had sent him a copy of the letter dated two days before Gov. Walker said he was first learning about the youth prison scandal on Dec. 2, 2015, and was ordering Wall to take “aggressive action.”
The dairy industry was a sticking point in the contentious renegotiations of the free trade deal between the U.S., Canada and Mexico that concluded last month.
U.S. President Donald Trump demanded concessions from the protected Canadian dairy industry and said on Twitter that Canada was hurting U.S. farmers with high tariffs. After Canada gave some ground, Trump claimed a big victory and said farmers would have more export options.
But Canada opened less than 4 percent of its dairy market to U.S. farmers – a concession unlikely to make much of a dent in U.S. oversupply or improve the lot of farmers like Fritsche, producers on both sides of the border say.
What’s as notable is how concern about promoting theories that may touch on those things is no longer so taboo. The idea that Soros, a wealthy, liberal Jewish donor, was funding the caravan in fact dates to the last time a caravan was headed to the U.S.-Mexico border in April. But while it had a difficult time getting beyond the pages of Infowars back then, this time it had some Republican congressmen, cable-news talkers and a president’s son to push it.
The theory began proliferating in mid-October in the form of questions about who was funding the latest caravan — without invoking Soros specifically.
“I want to talk a little bit about who is funding the caravan,” Fox News’s Laura Ingraham said Oct. 16. She noted that the Honduran “foreign ministry spokesman cited political sectors as culpable — unidentified political influences. Somebody is funding these caravans.”
Trump has eradicated red lines of civility, refused to condemn neo-Nazis and offered a steady diet of grotesque stereotypes of immigrants. He has demonized the press and raised fear of foreign terrorists embedded among refugees. His campaign and now his presidency fan the flames of white grievance; he has done more to mainstream nonfactual conspiracies than any president. To say he bears no moral or political responsibility when disturbed or fringe characters hear him, take him seriously, extrapolate from his remarks and engage in horrible acts is willful blindness. He is not solely responsible. He is not mainly responsible. But the guy with the biggest megaphone on the planet is partly responsible when unbalanced people are inspired by his toxic rhetoric and that of followers whom he refuses to repudiate.
The uptick in racial violence, anti-Semitic acts and hateful rhetoric that have become omnipresent in the Trump years did not arise out of thin air. (And for now, I’ll leave the absolute refusal to address any reasonable gun laws out of it; but in that, the National Rifle Association and its obedient minions are hardly blameless.) We must all be more specific in identifying names of those who share responsibility for the toxic fumes that violent, unstable people inhale. So here goes.
Rupert Murdoch, the executives, on-air talent and shareholders of Fox need to self-reflect. Fox is home to anti-immigrant cranks such as Lou Dobbs and Laura Ingraham. It’s where the caravan is attributed to Jewish billionaire George Soros, where Sean Hannity leads his audience to believe immigrants are especially prone to commit crimes and where Tucker Carlson has adopted the language of white nationalism, decrying diversity in America. Unless and until Fox cleans up its act — drop conspiracies made up out of whole cloth, end demonization and hysteria about immigrants, and stop invoking Soros to explain every political threat (real or imagined) — people of good will should not appear on Fox News, advertise on it or watch it.
Despite ridicule from countless people, the Daily Union continues to deceive about the performance of Jefferson, Wisconsin’s the latest ‘Wizards and Warriors’ festival.
This is something like shipping magnate J. Bruce Ismay insisting that the Titanic‘s maiden voyage wasn’t too bad, except for an iceberg here or there. (Ismay was on that tragic voyage, by the way, but he made sure that he found his way to a lifeboat, taking space that might have gone to an ordinary passenger.)
If the festival couldn’t handle the October weather, the problem was more than the weather.
(Many Christmas parades, for example, manage in much colder weather with much better experiences for all concerned.)
There’s a dark absurdity here – the DU has a publisher, editor, and reporter who will print even absurdities that are easily debunked by residents in their own community.
This Tuesday, October 30th at 12:30 PM, there will be a showing of A Quiet Place @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin community building:
A Quiet Place (Drama/Horror)
Tuesday, October 30 12:30 pm
Rated PG-13. 1 hour, 30 min. (2018)
In a Post-Apocalyptic world, a family is forced to live in total silence while hiding from Things That Go Bump in the Night that possess ultra-sensitive hearing. Stars Emily Blunt and John Krasinski.
In addition to the really spooky story, we will witness a “Skelton Dance” (cartoon), a dreadful short (“The Masks”) and then our Main Creature Feature, “A Quiet Place.” Mark will have Halloween treats for all!
Monday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-three. Sunrise is 7:26 AM and sunset 5:50 PM, for 10h 24m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 74.4% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s School Board will meet tonight (for a strategic planning discussion) at 6 PM.
Recommended for reading in full — Secretive moves in the Wisconsin legislature, Trump’s incitement, Jewish agency fulfilling Biblical injunction to aid immigrants drew attention of mass murderer, Russian disinformation on Facebook, and video explaining the expression ‘foot the bill’ —
Since 2010, when voters swept Republicans into power, Wisconsin legislators have increasingly used such secretive maneuvers to keep the public in the dark about major spending and policy changes, interviews and records show.
An investigation by the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism found the Legislature systematically diminishes the voices of the public by:
— Introducing budget amendments at the end of the approval process with no public notice or debate.
— Approving anonymous, last-minute budget motions containing a grab bag of changes, including major policy items that have nothing to do with state spending.
— Changing the scope and impact of a bill after its public hearing has been held, which excludes regular citizens from having meaningful influence on legislation before it is enacted.
Adam Serwer writes Trump’s Caravan Hysteria Led to This (“The president and his supporters insisted that several thousand Honduran migrants were a looming menace—and the Pittsburgh gunman took that seriously”):
Ordinarily, a politician cannot be held responsible for the actions of a deranged follower. But ordinarily, politicians don’t praise supporters who have mercilessly beaten a Latino man, as “very passionate.” Ordinarily, they don’t offer to pay supporters’ legal bills if they assault protesters on the other side. They don’t praise acts of violence against the media. They don’t defend neo-Nazi rioters as “fine people.” They don’t justify sending bombs to their critics by blaming the media for airing criticism. Ordinarily, there is no historic surgein anti-Semitism, much of it targeted at Jewish critics, coinciding with a politician’s rise. And ordinarily, presidents do not blatantly exploit their authority in an effort to terrify white Americans into voting for their party. For the past few decades, most American politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, have taken care not to urge their supporters to take matters into their own hands. Trump did everything he could to fan the flames, and nothing to restrain those who might take him at his word.
Many of Trump’s defenders argue that his rhetoric is mere shtick. That his attacks, however cruel, aren’t taken 100 percent seriously by his supporters. But to make this argument is to concede that following Trump’s statements to their logical conclusion could lead to violence against his targets, and it is only because most do not take it that way, that the political violence committed on Trump’s behalf is as limited as it currently is.
….
The apparent spark for the worst anti-Semitic massacre in American history was a racist hoax inflamed by a U.S. president seeking to help his party win a midterm election. There is no political gesture, no public statement, and no alteration in rhetoric or behavior that will change this fact. The shooter might have found a different reason to act on a different day. But he chose to act on Saturday, and he apparently chose to act in response to a political fiction that the president himself chose to spread, and that his followers chose to amplify.
When Mazen Hasan had to flee his native Iraq because his work for the American military had drawn threats on his life, it was a Jewish refugee resettlement agency called HIAS that helped him and his family to settle in Pittsburgh.
“They did everything they can to help us and make it easy to adjust to a new life here,” said Mr. Hasan, 61, an engineer who arrived in the United States in 2014.
HIAS is one of nine agencies with contracts from the State Department to help refugees acclimate to the United States. It has aided immigrants with diverse talents from all corners of the world, including the co-founders of Google and WhatsApp.
It is also the target of many anti-Semitic rants posted on social media by Robert Bowers, the suspect in the mass shooting on Saturday at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh — including one post published only a few hours before the shooting. Eleven worshipers were killed in the attack.
In the spring of 2015, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was desperate for Mark Zuckerberg’s help. His government had been urging Facebook to stop the Kremlin’s spreading of misinformation on the social network to foment distrust in his new administration and to promote support of Russia’s invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine.
To get Zuckerberg’s attention, the president posted a question for a town hall meeting at Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters. There, a moderator read it aloud.
“Mark, will you establish a Facebook office in Ukraine?” the moderator said, chuckling, according to a video of the assembly. The room of young employees rippled with laughter. But the government’s suggestion was serious: It believed that a Kiev office, staffed with people familiar with Ukraine’s political situation, could help solve Facebook’s high-level ignorance about Russian information warfare.
“You know, over time it’s something that we might consider,” the chief executive responded. “So thank you for — the Ukrainian president — for writing in. I don’t think we’ve gotten that one before.”
In the three years since then, officials here say the company has failed to address most of their concerns about Russian online interference that predated similar interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The tactics identified by officials, such as coordinated activity to overwhelm Facebook’s system and the use of impostor accounts, are the same as in the 2016 contest — and continue to challenge Facebook ahead of next month’s midterm elections.
The powder is sprinkled in lion enclosures at Smithsonian’s National Zoo. It is dotted in the exhibit that’s home to Fred, an American elk at the Oklahoma City Zoo. It is dusted about the living space of bears and foxes at the Cincinnati Zoo. And these animals love it, keepers say.
But few furry creatures embrace the pumpkin spice lifestyle as enthusiastically as Bei Bei, the National Zoo’s young panda, who was introduced to the autumnal additive last year and immediately doused his head with it. His caretakers sometimes use pumpkin spice to lace a rotted log, creating a combination that Bei Bei finds bewitching.
Sunday in Whitewater will see occasional showers with a high of forty-nine. Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 5:52 PM, for 10h 26m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 83.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
A ceremony of dedication was held on the afternoon of October 28, 1886. President Grover Cleveland, the former New York governor, presided over the event.[100] On the morning of the dedication, a parade was held in New York City; estimates of the number of people who watched it ranged from several hundred thousand to a million. President Cleveland headed the procession, then stood in the reviewing stand to see bands and marchers from across America. General Stone was the grand marshal of the parade. The route began at Madison Square, once the venue for the arm, and proceeded to the Battery at the southern tip of Manhattan by way of Fifth Avenue and Broadway, with a slight detour so the parade could pass in front of the World building on Park Row. As the parade passed the New York Stock Exchange, traders threw ticker tape from the windows, beginning the New York tradition of the ticker-tape parade.[101]
Recommended for reading in full — Trump’s attacks on the media, why Republicans prefer Trumpocracy, synagogue shooter’s online screed, mail bomber’s affinity with Russians, and video on the mystery of the eagle ray —
Shortly before federal authorities arrested Cesar Sayoc Jr. — a registered Republican with a criminal record whose social media accounts were filled with right-wing conspiracy memes — the president was back on Twitter.
“Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this ‘Bomb’ stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows — news not talking politics,” he wrote in a 10:19 a.m. post on Friday.
By referring to likely domestic terrorism as “this ‘Bomb’ stuff” and tying it to the coming midterm elections, Mr. Trump was making the not-so-veiled suggestion that the news media was exaggerating the story because of some political motivation. Even in a national crisis, he was sticking with his anti-media strategy.
The question is, is it working?
The short answer is yes. Increasingly, the president’s almost daily attacks seem to be delivering the desired effect, despite the manyexamples ofpowerful reporting on his presidency. By one measure, a CBS News poll over the summer, 91 percent of “strong Trump supporters” trust him to provide accurate information; 11 percent said the same about the news media.
Mr. Trump was open about the tactic in a 2016 conversation with Lesley Stahl of CBS News, which she shared earlier this year: “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you,” she quoted him as saying.
Sean Illing: What’s the main argument you’re making in this book?
David Frum: The argument I’m making is that Donald Trump’s rococo personality is outrageous and ridiculous and consumes all of our attention, but what we really need to pay attention to is his system of power. A president does not rule by personal authority and personal charisma. He is part of a system, and you have to understand that whole system — who supports him and why.
Sean Illing: Let’s talk about that system. Is it broken, or is it merely being tested?
David Frum: Trump has taken control of the Republican Party and the conservative media infrastructure. They started off opposing him; even Fox opposed him. He bent Fox to his will, and he defeated the organized Republican Party. He’s leveraged his control of the Republican Party, then, to dominate the American political system.
I think a lot of people console themselves by noting how little policy impact he’s having. Some people will note that to the extent that he’s having an impact, it’s a pretty conventional Republican policy vision. But that’s not what’s new about Trump.
What’s new is the way he’s shutting down the ethical standards of the US government, and thwarting the defense of the country against foreign espionage intervention in those elections.
The postings, which were listed under Bowers’s name on the social media site Gab before the account was deactivated Saturday afternoon, could offer the clearest window into the mindset of the 46-year-old, who police say stormed Tree of Life synagogue shouting anti-Semitic slurs and firing an assault rifle in an attack that left 11 people dead and six wounded, including one in critical condition.
Gab, a social media site similar to Facebook and Twitter that is popular with white supremacists and other far-right figures, confirmed that it had deactivated an account in Bowers’s name following the shooting.
The account, which appeared to have been started in January, included a bio that reads: “jews are the children of satan.” His background photo was a radar gun that reads “1488,” a number that combines two codes — the “14” referring to a 14-word white supremacist slogan and the “88” being a neo-Nazi symbol meaning “Heil Hitler.”
A Facebook account apparently belonging to the man charged with sending pipe bombs to prominent Democrats this week included references to Russian associates and propaganda links that echo Kremlin views on the Syrian civil war, alongside ramblings about soccer, women and U.S. politics.
Cesar Sayoc, 56, a vocal supporter of President Trump who was arrested in Florida on Friday and charged with multiple federal crimes, apparently spoke of “my Russian brothers” on several occasions on a Facebook page in 2015. The meaning of the references to Russians is not clear, nor is it clear how Sayoc came to view and share propaganda sympathetic to Russian actions in Syria.
Facebook removed the account from public view after news spread of Sayoc’s arrest. But The Washington Post obtained hundreds of public posts from 2015 and 2016 from Columbia University social media researcher Jonathan Albright, who downloaded them Friday before Facebook removed the information.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of fifty-three. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 5:53 PM, for 10h 29m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 90.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this date William Cushing led an expedition to sink the Confederate ram, the Albermarle, which had imposed a blockade near Plymouth, North Carolina and had been sinking Union ships. Cushing’s plan was extremely dangerous and only he and one other soldier escaped drowning or capture. Cushing pulled very close to the Confederate ironclad and exploded a torpedo under it while under heavy fire. Cushing’s crew abandoned ship as it began to sink. The Albemarle also sunk. Cushing received a “letter of thanks” from Congress and was promoted to Lieutenant Commander. He died in 1874 due to ill health and is buried in the Naval Cemetery at Annapolis, Maryland. [Source: Badger Saints and Sinners by Fred L. Holmes, p.274-285]
Recommended for reading in full — Trump’s dark inspiration, a one-party outlook, conspiracy theorists stick with their false theories, Megyn Kelly has nowhere good to go, and video of NASA’s test of a Martian parachute —
For three long days this week, the Republican Party held its breath as a serial bomber sent a dozen devices to CNN’s New York headquarters, two former Democratic presidents, a former Democratic vice president, two former CIA directors, several elected Democrats, and Democratic activists George Soros and Tom Steyer. After months of rabid attacks on his opponents as enemies of the people, Donald Trump’s crop of crazy came to fruition this week and was almost ready for harvest. By either incompetence, luck, design flaws, or providence, none of the bombs in this campaign of political terror cost life or limb.
….
Introspection isn’t exactly one of this president’s strong suits, and the discovery that the MAGA Bomber was one of the millions of creatures he created, inspired, and motivated to wage war against those he describes as Enemies of the People will never trouble the placid waters of his stunningly shallow intellect. Worry about his responsibility will never penetrate the vacuum of his moral landscape. Trump made an enemies list, and then he weaponized his social media power to push that enemies list into the minds of the furious and febrile who slavishly lap up his every utterance. What, precisely, did he think would happen?
….
This is why we need to look objectively at Trump’s role in this affair. No one in American political life has even a fraction of his power to inspire behavior and action. No one. It’s time we recognize that Trump’s unique social media presence is a weapon of radicalization. No one else in the American political landscape stokes the resentments, fears, and prejudices of his base with equal power.
Trump always misses the chance to be bigger and better. He never fails to close the door on opportunities to be a consequential leader and not a winking, simpering buffoon who holds the title but never wears the mantle of the presidency. As we saw after Charlottesville, his defiance of every American norm and his eagerness to “both sides” every argument is an extended middle finger to our republic.
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that Trump sometimes yearns for a one-party state. It’s a thread that runs through his opposition to critical press coverage and threats to throttle the media, his celebration of violence against the press, his incitements to violence against protesters, and his threats to prosecute and imprison political rivals like Hillary Clinton.
The result is that Trump is unable to extricate a criticism of him from a criticism of federal-government policy, and vice versa. When, for example, Puerto Ricans complained that aid was not reaching the island’s residents fast enough following Hurricane Maria, Trump took that as a personal affront and launched a long-running feud with the mayor of San Juan. For Trump, l’etat, c’est lui.
This produces a strange transference that makes Trump the ultimate victim of everything. The bombs are an attack on him because he is the government; they are also an attack on him because he is the head of the Republican Party, which he fears might be hurt by the fact of political violence aimed at Democrats.
The sending of package bombs to prominent Democrats and other high-profile figures this week was accompanied by a disturbing phenomenon. Baseless conspiracy theories, once confined to the fringes in the wake of violent acts, leaped with shocking speed into the mainstream discussion of the attacks.
A surprisingly large number of figures from the conservative establishment — commentators, radio hosts, a Trump family member, and other pro-Trump figures — shared, liked, hinted at, raised questions about or otherwise endorsed an evidence-less theory that this was a “false-flag” attack — one that was staged to advance the political goals of the very people it seemed intended to hurt (in this case, Democrats).
But the FBI’s arrest of a suspect Friday pointed to the hollowness of these claims, raising questions about why they were voiced on such a fraught issue in the absence of evidence. The bombs were not “hoax devices,” FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said Friday. The suspect, 56-year-old Cesar Sayoc, “appears to be a partisan,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said. And images circulating of the suspect’s van, which was plastered with pro-Trump and anti-Democrat imagery, and what was believed to be his social media feed, painted a portrait of a distinctly right-wing ideology.
Several media industry experts told The Daily Beast on Friday that even when Kelly’s blackface crucible is finished, she will likely have very few career opportunities—and none on a par with NBC News. Perhaps she’d be welcome at a second-tier conservative-leaning cable channel like One America News Network or a local station consortium like Sinclair.
In recent days, executives at CBS, ABC and CNN—outlets that might once have jumped at the chance of hiring her—have displayed a decided lack of interest in her services; even Fox News, where she spent a dozen years and left for NBC after a series of controversies—including accusing the late Fox News founder Roger Ailes of sexually harassing her, an allegation he denied—has slammed the door on a possible Kelly return, issuing a statement that essentially said there was zero room for her in their programming lineup.
“She could be hired by an outlet that is not interested in attracting African-American audiences,” said former CNN President Jonathan Klein, who once wished he’d hired Kelly from Fox News. In those days, a decade ago, “she was an impressive, accomplished, tough, edgy, in-your-face, kickass journalist,” Klein said. But when she came to NBC and tried to impersonate a female-friendly morning show host, “she tried so hard to spin it the other way to the point where it never felt authentic,” Klein added. “I think what she needs to do is be her authentic self and find a media home that allows her to be whatever that is.”
The Whitewater Schools have an operational referendum on the ballot this November. The referendum figures, for a conventional four-year term, will allow the district to continue regular programming and services without interruption. Nothing in this operational request involves more capital (construction) or expansion of services – the amounts authorized will simply allow Whitewater’s schools to continue their existing (increasingly good) work. (Information about the particulars of the referendum may be found online.)
