Good morning.

 Sunday in Whitewater will see afternoon showers with a high of fifty-six.  Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 6:24 PM, for 11h 25m 00s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 3.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

At 12:30 PM today, Whitewater will hold its 28th annual Crop Hunger Walk. The walk begins at Fairhaven Senior Services, 435 W Starin Road and ends at Whitewater’s Old Armory, 146 W. North Street.  Registration Time is 12:30 PM at Fairhaven, and the walk will begin at 1 PM, with walking distances of one or three miles.

On this day in 1774, Wisconsin becomes part of Quebec:

On this date Britain passed the Quebec Act, making Wisconsin part of the province of Quebec. Enacted by George III, the act restored the French form of civil law to the region. The Thirteen Colonies considered the Quebec Act as one of the “Intolerable Acts,” as it nullified Western claims of the coast colonies by extending the boundaries of the province of Quebec to the Ohio River on the south and to the Mississippi River on the west.

Recommended for reading in full — It’s a myth that economic anxiety drove the bulk of the Trump vote, Lindsey Graham as a sad story, Susan Collins as a sham maverick,  Facebook gives away users’ contact information, and a video visit to a place of 2,000 temples —

John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck debunk Five myths about the 2016 election:

MYTH NO. 4

Trump’s victory was due to economic anxiety.

One particular rationale for Trump’s victory came to the fore immediately after the election: He “tapped into the anger of a declining middle class,” as Bernie Sanders put it, with a message that appealed to “people [who] are tired of working longer hours for lower wages.” The journalist David Cay Johnston concurred: “Trump won because many millions of Americans, having endured decades of working more while getting deeper in debt, said ‘enough.’?”

But the evidence is clear: Both in the Republican primaries and in the general election, white voters’ attitudes about African Americans, Muslims and immigration were more closely associated with how they voted than were any strictly economic concerns. In fact, racial attitudes were the prism through which voters thought about economic outcomes — something we call “racialized economics.” For example, after Obama became president, attitudes toward blacks suddenly became linked with people’s views on the economy: the less favorable their view of blacks, the less favorable their view of the economy. Scholars who did extensive interviews with whites in Youngstown, Ohio, and rural Louisiana reported many racially loaded statements about economic circumstances. One Youngstown factory worker said people who received government assistance had “gold chains and a Cadillac, when I can barely afford a Cavalier.”

During the 2016 campaign, the most potent political sentiment held that “people like me” were not getting ahead because of “people like them.” In the primary race, for example, support for Trump among white Americans was weakly associated with whether people were worried about losing their jobs but strongly associated with whether people believed that employers were giving jobs to minorities instead of whites. In the general election, the belief that split Trump and Clinton supporters was not whether “average Americans have gotten less than they deserve.” Majorities of both groups agreed. Instead, the dividing line was whether they thought “blacks have gotten less than they deserve”: Fifty-seven percent of Clinton supporters agreed, but only 12 percent of Trump supporters did.

Frank Bruni contends Lindsey Graham Is the Saddest Story in Washington (“His fight for Brett Kavanaugh completed his transformation into Donald Trump’s slobbering manservant”):

That’s Senator Lindsey Graham you see at the head of the pack. That’s Graham you hear talking and talking and talking some more, in committee rooms and on stages and before the television cameras that he rushes to the way a toddler chases soap bubbles. His words are whichever ones guarantee a major role and a powerful patron, which means that these days he sounds like a more articulate echo of his golfing buddy: Donald Trump.

That wouldn’t, by itself, be cause to dwell on him. Washington is lousy with lackeys, and not even the maddest of kings thins their ranks.

But Graham is special. He really is. I can’t think of another Republican whose journey from anti-Trump outrage to pro-Trump obsequiousness was quite so illogical or half as sad, and his conduct during the war over Kavanaugh completed it. For the president he fought overtime, he fought nasty and he fought without nuance.

Jennifer Finney Boylan writes Susan Collins Is the Worst Kind of Maverick (“She votes with the most right-wing members of her party, even while attempting to occupy some imaginary moral high ground”):

There’s another kind of “maverick,” though — the kind of centrist who wants to please everyone. For Ms. Collins, it’s often meant voting with the most right-wing members of her party, even while attempting to occupy some imaginary moral high ground. It’s hard to see what our senator got for her vote supporting the tax cut last fall. It’s just as hard for me to see her vote for Judge Kavanaugh as anything other than a warm embrace of Donald Trump and everything he stands for, her 45-minute speech notwithstanding.

Two years ago, in an op-ed in The Washington Post, she said she would not be voting for him: “I revere the history of my party, most particularly the value it has always placed on the worth and dignity of the individual, and I will continue to work across the country for Republican candidates. It is because of Mr. Trump’s inability and unwillingness to honor that legacy that I am unable to support his candidacy.”

And yet, at some of the most crucial moments of Mr. Trump’s presidency, she has voted to empower him. In giving him a victory on Judge Kavanaugh, she has emboldened Mr. Trump to continue down the very path she claims to detest: denigrating women, bullying opponents, choosing the most combative approach to every disagreement. Based on the judge’s snarling, partisan, bullying demeanor at his hearing, Judge Kavanaugh seems determined to be the kind of justice who is exactly the opposite of that legacy she once spoke of preserving.

In so doing, she has proved herself, in the end, to stand for nothing.

Kashmir Hill reports Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access to Your Shadow Contact Information:

Giridhari Venkatadri, Piotr Sapiezynski, and Alan Mislove of Northeastern University, along with Elena Lucherini of Princeton University, did a series of tests that involved handing contact information over to Facebook for a group of test accounts in different ways and then seeing whether that information could be used by an advertiser. They came up with a novel way to detect whether that information became available to advertisers by looking at the stats provided by Facebook about the size of an audience after contact information is uploaded. They go into this in greater length and technical detail in their paper.

They found that when a user gives Facebook a phone number for two-factor authentication or in order to receive alerts about new log-ins to a user’s account, that phone number became targetable by an advertiser within a couple of weeks. So users who want their accounts to be more secure are forced to make a privacy trade-off and allow advertisers to more easily find them on the social network. When asked about this, a Facebook spokesperson said that “we use the information people provide to offer a more personalized experience, including showing more relevant ads.” She said users bothered by this can set up two-factor authentication without using their phone numbers; Facebook stopped making a phone number mandatory for two-factor authentication four months ago.

The researchers also found that if User A, whom we’ll call Anna, shares her contacts with Facebook, including a previously unknown phone number for User B, whom we’ll call Ben, advertisers will be able to target Ben with an ad using that phone number, which I call “shadow contact information,” about a month later. Ben can’t access his shadow contact information, because that would violate Anna’s privacy, according to Facebook, so he can’t see it or delete it, and he can’t keep advertisers from using it either.

Visit The Valley of 2,000 Temples:

Good morning.

 Saturday in Whitewater will see morning showers with a high of fifty-nine.  Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 6:26 PM, for 11h 27m 52s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 17.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1917, Robert La Follette supports free speech in wartime:

On this date Senator Robert La Follette gave what may have been the most famous speech of his Senate career when he responded to charges of treason with a three hour defense of free speech in wartime. La Follette had voted against a declaration of war as well as several iniatives seen as essential to the war effort by those that supported U.S. involvement in the first World War. His resistance was met with a petition to the Committee on Privileges and Elections that called for La Follette’s expulsion from the Senate. The charges were investigated, but La Follette was cleared of any wrong doing by the committee on January 16, 1919.

Recommended for reading in full — The present-day limits of women’s political influence, Trump smears assault survivors, Grassley implies women are lazy, attacks on Pope Francis, and video on a different kind of fission reactor —

Peter Beinart writes America Is Finally Listening to Women. It’s Sparking a National Crisis. (“Women are now powerful enough to disrupt the male-dominated consensus that in previous eras silenced them. But they are not yet powerful enough to get justice”):

Thursday’s hearings [Ford, Kavanaugh] do not reflect a Senate in decline. They reflect a Senate in crisis. That’s entirely different. The Kavanaugh hearings have thrown the Senate into crisis because women are now powerful enough to disrupt the amicable, male-dominated consensus that in previous eras silenced them altogether. But they are not yet powerful enough to get justice. That’s not just true in the Senate. That’s true in the nation as a whole.

The increase in partisan polarization, likewise, does not reflect a nation in decline. It reflects a nation in crisis because one political party is no longer totally dominated by white men—leading the other political party to more nakedly defend the privileges of white men. When women and people of color were less represented in either party, and white male privileges were thus less threatened, both found it easier to be civil. This isn’t a new story. American politics grew more tranquil after Reconstruction, once both parties agreed that Southern blacks should not be permitted to vote.

Reasonable people can question the way Senate Democrats handled Ford’s allegations when she first came forward. But the notion—which is attractive to people in the respectable center—that there was some calm, polite, collegial way to arbitrate her charges is a myth. They could have been buried calmly and politely. But they could not have been arbitrated calmly and politely, because Ford’s charges are dangerous. They’re dangerous to conservative hopes of achieving a majority on the Supreme Court, and they’re dangerous to the many powerful men whose careers would be ruined were they accountable for their abuse of women. Kavanaugh and the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee know that. And they have learned from President Trump that when women, or people of color, endanger your status, it doesn’t work to play nice.

Inae Oh writes Trump Smears Sexual Assault Survivors as “Elevator Screamers” Paid By George Soros:

After mocking Christine Blasey Ford earlier this week, President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted out a conspiratorial attack on the sexual assault survivors who have confronted Republican senators over Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, calling them “elevator screamers” and “paid professionals” bankrolled by billionaire George Soros.

….

The very rude elevator screamers are paid professionals only looking to make Senators look bad. Don’t fall for it! Also, look at all of the professionally made identical signs. Paid for by Soros and others. These are not signs made in the basement from love! #Troublemakers

Paul Kane reports Grassley suggests absence of women on Judiciary due to committee’s heavy workload:

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told reporters that the Senate Judiciary Committee’s inability to attract Republican women might be caused by its heavy workload, a remark the panel’s chairman tried to retract a few minutes later.

“It’s a lot of work — maybe they don’t want to do it,” Grassley told the Wall Street Journal, NBC News and other outlets, as he headed toward the Senate floor for a speech by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

Barbie Latza Nadeau describes The Plot to Bring Down Pope Francis:

Though Francis’ strategy of silence may have been meant to avoid dignifying Viganò’s claims with a response, it has mostly backfired because it was not a flat-out denial of the content of the letter [accusing Vatican leadership of awareness of particular incidents of sexual assault]. Conservatives have been able to sow seeds of uncertainty about Francis, as Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican puts it in his recent editorial letter. “It does seem clear that the case has ‘parted the veil’ to reveal a profound struggle within the Catholic Church between factions in the Vatican and Church hierarchy, and outside of the Church, for ‘control of the narrative’ about what the Church is and what she believes,” he writes. “Victory in this larger battle requires victory in the smaller battle: control of how all these charges and counter-charges play out. It is clear that the battle ranges across a spectrum of issues and positions that sometimes seem very confused.

Viganò, who is quite possibly incognito somewhere in the United States since penning the poison letter, has been drip-feeding anti-Francis rhetoric through conservative websites and anti-Francis journalists, including new behind-the-scenes revelations about how the meeting between Francis and Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who was held in contempt for not signing same sex marriage licenses, came to be and who lied when about what. Now, even those who are trying to defend Francis have been forced to admit that everyone lied about how that meeting transpired, despite the official statements from the Vatican at the time. Those close to Viganò say there is plenty more to come.

Though Francis may be silent, save a few homilies and public sermons his supportersare trying to channel into hidden messages, the plot continues to thicken. That’s especially true in the American Church, which has not only spawned one of Francis’s most fervent enemies in Cardinal Raymond Burke, who has found great support for his anti-Francis cause in American alt-right strategist Steve Bannon, but which has also given conservatives plenty of ammunition thanks to endemic clerical sex abuse and cover-ups that seemingly lead straight from the United States to Vatican City.

In particular, the damning Pennsylvania grand jury report that named more than 300 predator priests who victimized more than 1,000 children over seven decades in that state alone, produced one significant culprit: Cardinal Donald Wuerl. He is McCarrick’s successor as the archbishop of Washington, D.C. and he is a former ranking prelate in Pennsylvania, linking him to the two biggest scandals facing Francis right now.

How This Rare Natural Fission Reactor Could Solve Our Nuclear Waste Problem:

Good morning.

 Friday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of fifty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 6:28 PM, for 11h 30m 43s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 17.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1846, Wisconsin’s first constitutional convention meets:

On this date Wisconsin’s first state Constitutional Convention met in Madison. The Convention sat until December 16, 1846. The Convention was attended by 103 Democrats and 18 Whigs. The proposed constitution failed when voters refused to accept several controversial issues: an anti-banking article, a homestead exemption (which gave $1000 exemption to any debtor), providing women with property rights, and black suffrage. The following convention, the Second Constitutional Convention of Wisconsin in 1847-48, produced and passed a constitution that Wisconsin still very much follows today.

Recommended for reading in full — Rev. Dr. William Barber receives award, Nobel Peace Prize for work against sexual violence, Salk Lake Tribune blasts Orrin Hatch, states could seek restitution from Trump, and video on the evolution of Mark Hamill —

 Michelle Boorstein reports ‘Closest person we have to Martin Luther King Jr.’: Pastor-activist William J. Barber wins $625,000 ‘genius’ grant:

On Thursday, the day the Rev. William Barber Jr. was awarded a $625,000 “genius grant,” Barber was hard to reach, because he was being arrested. Which is related to why the North Carolina preacher was given one of the rare MacArthur Foundation awards.

Barber, 55, is one of the country’s best-known public advocates fighting racism and poverty, known for successfully organizing tens of thousands of people in marches and other nonviolent acts of civil disobedience around the country. On Thursday, as MacArthur was announcing that Barber was among 25 people “on the precipice of great discovery or a game-changing idea,” Barber’s Poor People’s Campaign was tweeting about his arrest.

“I’ve just been arrested in Chicago, and I’m waiting on their process,” he said in a call to the Raleigh News & Observer. “For minimum wage, in front of McDonald’s headquarters.”

“It doesn’t say rest on your laurels, but to keep on pushing. In this work, sometimes you get heavy criticism. People do say ugly things, ‘You just want money.’ I just want other people to have health care. You know, Jesus healed everybody and never charged a co-pay,” he told the paper.

Rukmini Callimachi, Jeffrey Gettleman, Nicholas Kulish, and Benjamin Mueller report Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for Fighting Sexual Violence:

The 2018 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded on Friday to two campaigners against wartime sexual violence: Dr. Denis Mukwege, 63, a Congolese gynecological surgeon; and Nadia Murad, 25, who became the bold voice of the women who survived sexual violence by the Islamic State.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the two were given the award “for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.”

Dr. Mukwege campaigned relentlessly to shine a spotlight on the plight of Congolese women, even after nearly being assassinated a few years ago. Ms. Murad, who was held captive by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, has told and retold her story of suffering to organizations around the world, helping to persuade the United States State Department to recognize the genocide of her people at the hands of the terrorist group.

[Read about the struggles of Dr. Mukwege and Ms. Murad, in their own words.]

In a year when the “Me Too” movement has turned the world’s attention to survivors of sexual assault and abuse, the Nobel Committee’s decision focused on the continuing global campaign to end the use of mass rape as a weapon in global conflict.

A Salt Lake Tribune editorial contends Hatch attack on alleged witness is despicable:

Apparently, a former TV weatherman from Washington, D.C., provided the committee with a sworn statement revealing, allegedly, some details about [Julie] Swetnick’s personal sexual preferences that are both none of anyone’s damn business and utterly irrelevant to the question of what Kavanaugh might or might not have done all those years ago.

In a sleazy nutshell, the story is that Dennis Ketterer claims that Swetnick approached him at a Washington bar one night and struck up first a conversation and then a brief relationship in which sex was discussed but never performed.

And, Ketterer said, Swetnick never said anything about seeing, knowing or being attacked by Kavanaugh.

Clearly, the only reason for any individual to say any of this, and the only reason for the committee to make it public, is the belief that any women who would approach a self-described fat man in a bar, any women who would choose to discuss sex, is some kind of libertine who, for that reason, cannot be trusted.

Adam Davidson explains How State Officials and Unpaid Taxes Could Force Trump to Liquidate Part of His Family Fortune:

Sean Shaw, the Democratic candidate for state attorney general in Florida, has a message for Donald Trump. If elected, Shaw will investigate the President’s financial activities across the Sunshine State. “We’ll pursue any area that is worthy of pursuit,” Shaw told me in an interview this week. “The charity not being charitable. Trump Mar-a-Lago and emoluments.” Shaw told me he would go “where the law takes me.” He plans to investigate whether “the President of the United States is personally profiting from the Presidency in Florida.”

Trump, of course, has several properties in Florida, including Mar-a-Lago, a private club that doubled its initiation fee after Trump was elected. Since Trump took office, three of its members have exerted sweeping influence on the Department of Veterans Affairs. Another member was named the U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic. Shaw also said that he will investigate reports that a Trump-branded development project in Sunny Isles, Florida, bears hallmarks of possible money laundering. Shaw made clear that his investigations would be broad and open-ended: “They may lead you to tax returns, financial records. I don’t know where they lead. No one is above the law in Florida. No one. We are going to make it such that if I find bad stuff going on, we’re going to go where it takes us, no matter how big.”

One recent poll put Shaw just behind his Republican opponent, Ashley Moody, who has expressed support for President Trump. Even if Shaw loses, Trump may be vulnerable in several other states where he has done business. In New York, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, Letitia James, is all but assured a victory. James is promising Democratic voters that she will aggressively investigate the President. After this week’s stunning Times investigation alleged that the Trump Organization’s wealth was built, in large part, on a variety of complex tax schemes, many of which could be illegal.

The Evolution of Mark Hamill:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:56 AM and sunset 6:30 PM, for 11h 33m 35s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 25.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM,  the Finance Committee also at 6 PM, (canceled), and there is a scheduled Fire Department board meeting at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1957, the Space Age begins as the Soviet Union launches Sputnik 1 into a low Earth orbit.

Recommended for reading in full —  Trump-voting counties most affected by retaliatory tariffs,  American ambassador to  Estonia quits over lack of Trump support for small democracy threatened by Russia, Russian spies & hackers rigging Olympics, Wisconsin lawmakers to vote on corporate welfare after the election, and video of a freediver who reached new depths —

 Joseph Parilla and Max Bouchet ask (and answer) Which US communities are most affected by Chinese, EU, and NAFTA retaliatory tariffs?:

COUNTIES THAT VOTED FOR PRESIDENT TRUMP HAVE HIGHER RELIANCE ON TARIFF-AFFECTED EXPORTS

Trade policy is inextricably linked with politics, and the retaliatory tariffs seem geographically and industrially targeted to mobilize political angst. A county-level analysis reveals that, while a political diversity of places will be implicated, counties that voted for President Trump are more exposed to the tariffs, as measured by the share of exports in tariff-affected industries (8.1 percent) and the share direct and indirect jobs those exports support (8.1 percent). Comparatively, in counties that voted for Hillary Clinton, 4.2 percent of exports are in tariff-affected industries, which support about 3.2 percent of export jobs.

James D. Melville Jr. writes I stepped down as U.S. ambassador to Estonia. Here’s why:

This spring, I reached the point where I could no longer support President Trump’s policies and rhetoric regarding NATO, our European allies and Russia.

What do I believe? I am extremely uncomfortable with the trade policies the United States is pursuing. I also believe it is a historic mistake to cozy up to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

It is in the United States’ fundamental interests to champion a rules-based world order. After the dark years of World War II, we worked in accordance with our values to pursue, nurture and achieve a peaceful and prosperous world. The great global and transatlantic institutions — NATO, the United Nations and, to an extent that would surprise many of my fellow citizens, even the European Union — are the fruits of policies carried out and resources expended by the United States over decades.

The refusal of the United States to give up on Estonia’s independence through the entire Soviet occupation is the cornerstone of Estonians’ deep appreciation for America. But it is the values of our nation and the leadership and role we have played in protecting the democracies in Europe that give them the confidence to stand up to the genuine threats emanating from their eastern neighbor.

Ellen Nakashima, Michael Birnbaum, and William Booth report U.S. indicts Russian spies in hacking campaign linked to Olympics doping scandal:

The Justice Department on Thursday announced the indictment of seven Russian military spies on cyber hacking charges linked to the leaking of Olympic athletes’ drug-test data in an alleged attempt to undermine international efforts to expose Russian doping.

Four of the officers with Russia’ GRU military intelligence agency also were charged with targeting organizations probing Russia’s alleged use of chemical weapons, including the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. Three were indicted in July for allegedly conspiring to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

The indictment further exposes Moscow’s ongoing, widespread campaign to discredit western democracy and international institutions through disinformation and other measures. The aim, officials said, is to muddy or alter perceptions of the truth.

Laurel White reports Lawmakers To Vote After Election On $100M Tax Deal For Kimberly-Clark:

State legislative leaders announced Tuesday they will call lawmakers back to the Capitol in November to take up a proposed $100 million incentives package for consumer products company Kimberly-Clark Corp.

The “extraordinary session” announcement comes after weeks of pushing by Gov. Scott Walker and GOP leaders for lawmakers to approve the deal before a Sept. 30 deadline set by the company.

Kimberly-Clark has agreed to extend that deadline, the company said Tuesday.

Freediver Breaks World Record For Deepest Dive, Reaching Over 350ft:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see an occasional morning shower with a high of eighty-two.  Sunrise is 6:55 AM and sunset 6:31 PM, for 11h 36m 27s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 37.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board will hold a listening session at the high school at 7 PM tonight about an upcoming operational referendum.

On this day in 1862, the Second Battle of Corinth, Mississippi, begins: “The Second Battle of Corinth began when Confederate forces attempted to retake Corinth, Mississippi. The 8th, 14th, 16th, 17th and 18th Wisconsin Infantry regiments, along with the 6th and 12th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries, fought to protect the city from Confederate troops. The brigade commander recalled that, “I had the 8th Wisconsin, big burly fellows, who could march a mule off its feet, and who proved at Corinth… that they could fight as well as march.” At one point, musket fire coming at the 8th Wisconsin Infantry cut the tether holding Old Abe the Eagle on his perch. He soared high above the lines as the battle raged beneath him.”

Recommended for reading in full —  Trump family’s documented tax fraud, Trump mocks Christine Blasey Ford, silence in the face of Russian election interference, conditions for detainees, and video of Earthrise —

David Barstow, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner report Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes
as He Reaped Riches From His Father (“The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s”). The reporting is so detailed – relying on thousands of documents – that it has its own explanatory summary, 11 Takeaways From The Times’s Investigation Into Trump’s Wealth:

Donald J. Trump built a business empire and won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help. “I built what I built myself,” the president has repeatedly said.

But an investigation by The New York Times has revealed that Donald Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire. What’s more, much of this money came to Mr. Trump through dubious tax schemes he participated in during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, The Times found.

In all, the president’s parents transferred well over $1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least $550 million under the 55 percent tax rate on gifts and inheritances that was in place at the time. Helped by a variety of tax dodges, the Trumps paid $52.2 million, or about 5 percent, tax returns show.

….

The Trumps’ tax maneuvers show a pattern of deception, tax experts say

The line between legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion is often murky, and there is no shortage of clever tax-avoidance tricks that have been blessed by either the courts or the Internal Revenue Service itself; the wealthiest Americans rarely pay anything close to full freight. The Trumps’ tax maneuvers met with little resistance from the I.R.S., The Times found.

But tax experts briefed on The Times’s findings said the Trumps appeared to have done more than exploit legal loopholes. They said the conduct described here represented a pattern of deception and obfuscation that repeatedly prevented the I.R.S. from taxing large transfers of wealth to Fred Trump’s children.

….

Father and son set out to create the myth of a self-made billionaire

All told, The Times documented 295 distinct streams of revenue Fred Trump created over five decades to channel wealth to his son.

But the partnership between Donald Trump and his father was about more than the pursuit, and the preservation, of riches. They were also confederates in a more ambitious project: creating the myth of Donald J. Trump, Self-Made Billionaire. If Fred Trump was the silent partner, helping finance the accouterments of wealth, it was Donald Trump who spun them into a seductive narrative.

Emblematic of this dynamic is Trump Tower, the talisman of privilege that established Donald Trump as a player in New York. Fred Trump’s money helped build it. His son recognized and exploited its iconic power as the primary stage for both “The Apprentice” and his presidential campaign.

….

The Trump parents dodged hundreds of millions in gift taxes by grossly undervaluing the assets they would pass on

With the cash flowing out of Fred Trump’s empire, the Trumps began transferring ownership of the lion’s share of the empire itself to Donald Trump and his siblings. The vehicle they created to do that was a special kind of trust called a grantor-retained annuity trust, or GRAT.

The purpose of a GRAT is to pass wealth across generations without paying the 55 percent estate tax. The Trump parents did have to pay gift taxes based on one crucial number: the market value of Fred Trump’s empire. But The Times found evidence that they dodged hundreds of millions of dollars in gift taxes by submitting tax returns that grossly undervalued the assets placed in two GRATs, one for each parent.

Fred Trump’s 1995 gift tax return claimed that the 25 apartment complexes and other properties in the trusts were worth just $41.4 million. The implausibility of this claim would be made plain in 2004, when banks valued that same real estate at nearly $900 million.

Josh Dawsey and Felicia Sonmez report Trump mocks Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford:

SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — President Trump mocked the account of a woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh of assault and told a Mississippi crowd that the #MeToo movement was unfairly hurting men.

Trump, in a riff that has been dreaded by White House and Senate aides, attacked the story of Christine Blasey Ford at length — drawing laughs from the crowd. The remarks were his strongest attacks yet of her testimony.

“ ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ ‘Upstairs? Downstairs? Where was it?’ ‘I don’t know. But I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember,’ ” Trump said of Ford, as he impersonated her on stage.

“I don’t remember,” he said repeatedly, apparently mocking her testimony.

Ford has said the incident happened in an upstairs room and that she is “100 percent” certain it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her, although she has acknowledged that her memories of other details of the evening remain unclear.

WaPo’s @GregPMiller describes a tense moment from 2016 involving a CIA director trying to sound the alarm on Russia and a senior U.S. senator wanting none of it…:

Yikes. WaPo’s @GregPMiller describes a tense moment from 2016 involving a CIA director trying to sound the alarm on Russia and a senior U.S. senator wanting none of it… pic.twitter.com/iuQEiOs5Bh

— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) October 2, 2018

Madison Pauley reports A Surprise Inspection of an ICE Detention Center Reveals Horrific Conditions (“Federal investigators found ‘significant threats’ to detainees’ health and safety”):

Inside an immigration detention center in the desert outside Los Angeles, guards threw detainees into solitary confinement without hearings, routinely forced them into shackles, and cut off visits with family. Doctors signed off on medical assessments that never happened. Detainees were allowed to hang knotted sheets inside their cells, despite the facility’s extensive history of suicide attempts. And an extraction-happy dentist refused to fill cavities while suggesting detainees floss with threads pulled from their socks.

These were just some of the conditions inside the Adelanto Detention Facility when federal inspectors from the Department of Homeland Security arrived for a surprise visit in May, according to a searing report released today by the DHS Office of the Inspector General. Investigators concluded that conditions at the privately run facility amounted to “serious” violations of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s own detention standards, representing “significant threats to the safety, rights, and health of detainees.”

Few of the government’s findings about Adelanto are surprising, given that many of the same complaints about health care and suicide risks have been made for years by concerned advocates and public officials. But the report’s graphic details—from the bed sheets to the dentist’s remarks—powerfully illustrate the severity of the detention center’s long-running violations.

 Earthrise (“The first people to see the Earth from the moon were transformed by the experience. In this film, they tell their story”):

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of sixty-two.  Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 6:33 PM, for 11h 39m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 48.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1780, British Major John André is hanged as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold’s attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York.

Recommended for reading in full —  Manafort meets Mueller’s team, children in detention, Nobel laureates in physics, a playoff guide to the Brewers, and video of what’s up in the sky for October 2018 —

The Committee to Investigate Russia writes Manafort and Mueller Teams Meet:

Politico reports Paul Manafort is meeting with Robert Mueller‘s team, based on seeing Richard Westling and Tom Zehnle, two of Manafort’s lawyers, speaking with lead prosecutor Andrew Weissmann outside the special counsel’s Washington, DC office Monday.

The men parted ways to buy lunch and then were seen returning with their food to the secure building where the special counsel’s team is headquartered.

Manafort pleaded guilty last month to charges of conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice and agreed to cooperate with government and law enforcement officials “fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly.”

Sentencing for the longtime GOP operative is not scheduled to occur until after the November midterms, with a joint written report from the special counsel and Manafort’s lawyers due Nov. 16.

(…)

[Manafort] exchanged emails with other campaign aides about then-foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulous’ efforts to arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian officials. He also attended the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised dirt on Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

Trump, his lawyers and allies have nonetheless downplayed the guilty plea, saying the information Manafort is providing to the special counsel has no bearing on the president.

“I believe that he will tell the truth. And if he tells the truth, no problem,” the president told reporters last month.

Manafort meets with Mueller prosecutors (Politico)

The New York Times editorial board writes Hundreds of Children Rot in the Desert. End Trump’s Draconian Policies (“The administration created this crisis”):

It doesn’t take a psychologist to understand that ripping children from their beds in the middle of the night, tearing them from anyone they’ve forged a connection with, and thrusting them into uncertainty could damage them.

Yet the crisis that has led federal immigration authorities to bus nearly 2,000 unaccompanied children (so far) from shelters around the country to a “tent city” in the desert town of Tornillo, Tex., is almost entirely of the American government’s own making.

The Trump administration has struggled for solutions as the 100 or so shelters that house minors who’ve crossed the border without parents have filled to capacity. More children stuck in immigration limbo for increasing periods of time have strained the system that manages such kids. (As The Times reported, officials feared that the children being taken to Texas — among 13,000 being detained nationwide — would run off if they were told ahead of time, or moved them during waking hours.)

Sarah Kaplan reports Nobel Prize in physics awarded for ‘tools made of light’; first woman in 55 years honored:

The 2018 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded Tuesday to Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland for their pioneering work to turn lasers into powerful tools.

Ashkin, a researcher at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, invented “optical tweezers” — focused beams of light that can be used to grab particles, atoms and even living cells and are now widely used to study the machinery of life.

Mourou, of École Polytechnique in France and the University of Michigan, and Strickland, of the University of Waterloo in Canada, “paved the way” for the most intense laser beams ever created by humans via a technique that stretches and then amplifies the light beam.

“Billions of people make daily use of optical disk drive, laser printers and optical scanners … millions undergo laser surgery,” said Nobel committee member Olga Botner. “The laser is truly one of the many examples of how a so-called blue sky discovery in a fundamental science eventually may transform our daily lives.”

JR Radcliffe writes The beginner’s guide to the Milwaukee Brewers in the playoffs: Who do they play, when do they play and more:

The Milwaukee Brewers won the National League Central with a 3-1 tiebreaker victory over the Chicago Cubs on Monday, meaning they get to skip the win-or-go home wild card game Tuesday and advance directly to Thursday’s NL Division Series.

HAUDRICOURT: Brewers claimed the NL Central crown the hard way, snatching it from the Cubs at Wrigley

So what comes next? If you need the basics, here are the things to know.

When are the Brewers back at Miller Park? 

When the Division Series starts Thursday.

The Brewers clinched the best record in the National League and will have home field advantage as long as they’re alive in the National League playoffs. That means the Brewers will play Games 1 and 2 of the best-of-five NLDS (opponent to be determined Tuesday) at Miller Park, then hit the road for Games 3 and 4 Sunday and Monday. If the decisive Game 5 is necessary, that will be back at Miller Park next Wednesday, Oct. 10.

Who are they playing?

They’ll play the winner of the National League wild-card game Tuesday night between the Cubs and Colorado Rockies. The loser of that game is out of the playoffs, and the winner is ticketed for Milwaukee. Cubs rematch?

Here’s What’s Up for October 2018: