Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a likelihood of snow this evening, and a high of thirty-seven. Sunrise is 6:06 AM and sunset 7:41 PM, for 13h 34m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 8% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1938, eighty years ago today, Superman makes his debut in Action Comics #1:

(During the Depression, with Europe and Asia facing encroaching tyranny, Americans still had optimism, hope in the face of adversity (with far worse to come). These present times are difficult for us, of course, but as they were resilient then, we are resilient now.)

More about Action Comics #1 is available at Wikipedia:

Published on April 18, 1938 (cover-dated June),[4] by National Allied Publications,[5] a corporate predecessor of DC Comics, it is considered the first true superhero comic; and though today Action Comics is a monthly title devoted to Superman, it began, like many early comics, as an anthology.[6]

Action Comics was started by publisher Jack Liebowitz. The first issue had a print run of 200,000 copies, which promptly sold out, although it took some time for National to realize that the “Superman” strip was responsible[7] for sales of the series that would soon approach 1,000,000 a month.[8] Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were paid $10 per page, for a total of $130 for their work on this issue. Liebowitz would later say that selecting Superman to run in Action Comics #1 was “pure accident” based on deadline pressure and that he selected a “thrilling” cover, depicting Superman lifting a car over his head.[9]

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Robert Costa, Sarah Ellison and Josh Dawsey report Hannity’s rising role in Trump’s world: ‘He basically has a desk in the place’:

The phone calls between President Trump and Sean Hannity come early in the morning or late at night, after the Fox News host goes off the air. They discuss ideas for Hannity’s show, Trump’s frustration with the ongoing special counsel probe and even, at times, what the president should tweet, according to people familiar with the conversations. When he’s off the phone, Trump is known to cite Hannity when he talks with White House advisers.

The revelation this week that the two men share an attorney is just the latest sign of how Hannity is intertwined with Trump’s world — an increasingly powerful confidant who offers the ­media-driven president a sympathetic ear and shared grievances. The conservative commentator is so close to Trump that some White House aides have dubbed him the unofficial chief of staff.

This portrait of the interactions between the president and the talk-show host is based on interviews with more than a dozen friends, advisers and associates of the two men, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

➤ Nicholas Confessore and David Gelles report Facebook Fallout Deals Blow to Mercers’ Political Clout:

Last month, a friend of the wealthy conservative donor Rebekah Mercer arrived at Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters. His task: Find out what — if anything — could repair relations between Facebook, the world’s biggest social media company, and Cambridge Analytica, the voter-profiling firm co-founded by her father and used by the Trump campaign.

The revelation last month that Cambridge Analytica improperly acquired the private Facebook data of millions of users has set off government inquiries in Washington and London, plunging Facebook into crisis. But it has also battered the nascent political network overseen by Ms. Mercer, 44, and financed by her father, Robert Mercer, 71, a hard-line conservative billionaire.

Ms. Mercer’s standing in Mr. Trump’s circle had already declined following the departure last year of Stephen K. Bannon, her family’s former adviser and President Trump’s former chief strategist, according to Republicans with close ties to the president’s political operation. A pro-Trump advocacy group controlled by Ms. Mercer has gone silent following strategic disputes between her and other top donors. Plans to wage a civil war against the Republican establishment in the 2018 midterms have been derailed.

➤ Ken White considers Why the F.B.I. Raid Is Perilous for Michael Cohen — and Trump:

What does this tell us? First, it reflects that numerous officials — not just Mr. Mueller — concluded that there was probable cause to believe that Mr. Cohen’s law office, home and hotel room contained evidence of a federal crime. A search warrant for a lawyer’s office implicates the attorney-client privilege and core constitutional rights, so the Department of Justice requires unusual levels of approval to seek one. Prosecutors must seek the approval of the United States attorney of the district — in this case the office of Geoffrey Berman, the interim United States attorney appointed by President Trump.

Prosecutors must also consult with the criminal division of the Justice Department in Washington. Finally, prosecutors must convince a United States magistrate judge that there’s probable cause to support the search. Faced with a warrant application destined for immediate worldwide publicity, the judge surely took unusual pains to examine it. This search was not the result of Mr. Mueller or his staff “going rogue.”

Second, the search demonstrates that federal prosecutors and supervisors in the Justice Department concluded that Mr. Cohen could not be trusted to preserve and turn over documents voluntarily. The same regulations that require prosecutors to seek high-level approval for a warrant to search a law office also instruct them to use the least intrusive means to obtain evidence from a lawyer, and to consider requesting voluntary cooperation or serving a subpoena. Mr. Cohen’s lawyer has loudly protested that he had been cooperating. This search warrant means that prosecutors — including the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the criminal division at the Justice Department — believed that Mr. Cohen could not be trusted to respond fully to a subpoena or might destroy documents.

Third, the search suggests that prosecutors most likely believe that Mr. Cohen’s clients used his legal services for the purpose of engaging in crime or fraud. Attorney-client communications are privileged, which is why it’s so unusual and difficult for prosecutors to get approval to search a law office. Justice Department regulations require federal prosecutors to set up a system to have a separate group — a so-called dirty team — review the files and separate out attorney-client communications so that the investigators and prosecutors won’t see anything protected by the privilege.

➤ Zach Epstein has 10 hidden tricks that’ll make life with your iPhone X so much easier:

Apple’s iPhone X represents a massive departure from the company’s earlier smartphone models. The tenth-anniversary iPhone is a reimagining of Apple’s smartphone in so many ways, from the look and feel of the hardware to the new gesture-based navigation users must learn in order to use an iPhone with no home button. It takes a bit of getting used to, but most Apple fans seem to enjoy the new user experience a great deal. Of course, there’s more to the iPhone X then just a few new gestures, and most users seem to be unaware of all the nifty hidden tricks that make using the iPhone X so much easier.

In this post, we’ve collected 10 lesser-known tricks that are going to be big eye-openers for many iPhone X users out there. iPhone newcomers are going to be wowed, but even advanced users are going to learn something in this post. [List of tips follows in article.]

➤ This is Taking Birdwatching to the Extreme:

In 2016, Arjan Dwarshuis took his love for birdwatching to extreme lengths. He boarded over 140 flights to 40 different countries, journeying through jungles and forests in search of the birds of the world. During his 366-day trip, he smashed the world record, observing 6,856 species of birds—that’s 65% of the global bird population. Now, he’s using his epic adventure as a way to raise awareness for conservation efforts via http://arjandwarshuis.com/donate/..

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty. Sunrise is 6:08 AM and sunset 7:40 PM, for 13h 31m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM, and her Common Council at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1937, Daffy Duck first appears, as a character in the animated short Porky’s Duck Hunt.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Olga Khazan reports How France Cut Heroin Overdoses by 79 Percent in 4 Years (“And the United States could, too”):

In the 1980s, France went through a heroin epidemic in which hundreds of thousands became addicted. Mohamed Mechmache, a community activist, described the scene in the poor banlieues back then: “To begin with, they would disappear to shoot up. But after a bit we’d see them all over the place, in the stairwells and halls, the bike shed, up on the roof with the washing lines. We used to collect the syringes on the football pitch before starting to play,” he told The Guardian in 2014.

The rate of overdose deaths was rising 10 percent a year, yet treatment was mostly limited to counseling at special substance-abuse clinics.

In 1995, France made it so any doctor could prescribe buprenorphine without any special licensing or training. Buprenorphine, a first-line treatment for opioid addiction, is a medication that reduces cravings for opioids without becoming addictive itself.

With the change in policy, the majority of buprenorphine prescribers in France became primary-care doctors, rather than addiction specialists or psychiatrists. Suddenly, about 10 times as many addicted patients began receiving medication-assisted treatment, and half the country’s heroin users were being treated. Within four years, overdose deaths had declined by 79 percent.

➤ Zane Anthony, Kathryn Sanders and David A. Fahrenthold report Whatever happened to Trump neckties? They’re over. So is most of Trump’s merchandising empire:

Before he ran for office, Donald Trump made millions by selling his name to adorn other people’s products. There was Trump deodorant. Trump ties . Trump steaks. Trump underwear. Trump furniture. At one time, there was even a Trump-branded urine test.

Now, almost all of them are gone.

In 2015, Trump listed 19 com­panies that were paying him to produce or distribute Trump-branded consumer goods.

In recent weeks, only two said that they are still selling Trump-branded goods. One is a Panamanian company selling Trump bed linens and home goods. The other is a Turkish company selling Trump furniture.

Of the rest, some Trump partners quit in reaction to campaign-trail rhetoric on immigrants and Muslims. Others said their licensing agreements had expired. Others said nothing beyond confirming that they’d stopped working with Trump. Their last Trump goods are being sold off, often at a discount: One cologne is marked down to $9.99 from $42 for a one-ounce bottle.

➤ Lisa Friedman and Kenneth P. Vogel report Scott Pruitt’s Idea to Update an E.P.A. Keepsake: Less E.P.A., More Pruitt:

When Scott Pruitt wanted to refashion the Environmental Protection Agency’s “challenge coin” — a type of souvenir medallion with military origins that has become a status symbol among civilians — he proposed an unusual design: Make it bigger, and delete the E.P.A. logo.

Mr. Pruitt instead wanted the coin to feature some combination of symbols more reflective of himself and the Trump administration. Among the possibilities: a buffalo, to evoke Mr. Pruitt’s home state, Oklahoma, and aBible verse to reflect his faith.

Other ideas included using the Great Seal of the United States — a design similar to the presidential seal — and putting Mr. Pruitt’s name around the rim in large letters, according to Ronald Slotkin, a career E.P.A. employee who retired this year, and two people familiar with the proposals who asked to remain anonymous because they said they feared retribution.

➤ Stephen Colbert of The Late Show has a bit of fun with Sean Hannity’s embarrassing conflicts of interest:

Sneak peek of ‘Hannity’ tonight… pic.twitter.com/qud8et2cba

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) April 16, 2018

➤ Here’s How NASA’s TESS Spacecraft Will Hunt Exoplanets:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see flurries with a high of thirty-six. Sunrise is 6:09 AM and sunset 7:38 PM, for 13h 28m 59s of daytime.

Whitewater’s Library Board is scheduled to meet at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1944, the USS Wisconsin is commissioned.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ The New York Times editorial board writes The President Is Not Above The Law:

Mr. Mueller’s investigation has already yielded great benefit to the country, including the indictments of 13 Russians and three companies for trying to undermine the presidential election. None of us can know if prosecutors will eventually point the finger at the president himself. But should Mr. Trump move to hobble or kill the investigation, he would darken rather than dispel the cloud of suspicion around him. Far worse, he would free future presidents to politicize American justice. That would be a danger to every American, of whatever political leaning.

The president is not a king but a citizen, deserving of the presumption of innocence and other protections, yet also vulnerable to lawful scrutiny. We hope Mr. Trump recognizes this. If he doesn’t, how Republican lawmakers respond will shape the future not only of this presidency and of one of the country’s great political parties, but of the American experiment itself.

➤ Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Anu Narayanswamy report Trump’s reelection committee has spent more than $1 out of every $5 on legal fees this year:

President Trump’s reelection campaign spent more than $1 out of every $5 on attorney fees this year as the president contended with the ongoing special counsel investigation and a new legal challenge from an adult-film star.

Of the $3.9 million that Trump’s committee spent in the first quarter of 2018, more than $834,000 went to eight law firms and the Trump Corp. for legal fees, according to new Federal Election Commission records filed Sunday.

The latest figures bring the Trump campaign’s total spending on legal fees to nearly $4 million since the president took office, records show. In the last quarter of 2017, Trump’s campaign committee spent $1.1 million in legal fees.

➤ Nicole Cobler reports Trump nominee for federal judgeship had rejected Texas lawsuit against Trump University:

An Austin lawyer who dropped the state of Texas’ investigation of Trump University in 2010 may get a lifetime post as a federal judge.

President Donald Trump named former Texas Deputy Attorney General David Morales on Tuesday to a trial bench in Corpus Christi. Morales had been recommended to the White House by Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

Morales made headlines during the presidential campaign when news outlets learned that in May 2010 the state’s consumer protection division had sought permission to pursue what it believed was a strong case against Trump and Trump University. Investigators asserted that Texas taxpayers had been bilked out of more than $2.6 million, and sought to file a $5.4 million lawsuit.

Morales rejected the recommendation. Texas dropped its investigation. Trump University voluntarily ceased operations in Texas.

➤ Adam Davidson sees Michael Cohen and the End Stage of the Trump Presidency:

There are lots of details and surprises to come, but the endgame of this Presidency seems as clear now as those of Iraq and the financial crisis did months before they unfolded. Last week, federal investigators raided the offices of Michael Cohen, the man who has been closer than anybody to Trump’s most problematic business and personal relationships. This week, we learned that Cohen has been under criminal investigation for months—his e-mails have been read, presumably his phones have been tapped, and his meetings have been monitored. Trump has long declared a red line: Robert Mueller must not investigate his businesses, and must only look at any possible collusion with Russia. That red line is now crossed and, for Trump, in the most troubling of ways. Even if he were to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and then had Mueller and his investigation put on ice, and even if—as is disturbingly possible—Congress did nothing, the Cohen prosecution would continue. Even if Trump pardons Cohen, the information the feds have on him can become the basis for charges against others in the Trump Organization.

This is the week we know, with increasing certainty, that we are entering the last phase of the Trump Presidency. This doesn’t feel like a prophecy; it feels like a simple statement of the apparent truth. I know dozens of reporters and other investigators who have studied Donald Trump and his business and political ties. Some have been skeptical of the idea that President Trump himself knowingly colluded with Russian officials. It seems not at all Trumpian to participate in a complex plan with a long-term, uncertain payoff. Collusion is an imprecise word, but it does seem close to certain that his son Donald, Jr., and several people who worked for him colluded with people close to the Kremlin; it is up to prosecutors and then the courts to figure out if this was illegal or merely deceitful. We may have a hard time finding out what President Trump himself knew and approved.

However, I am unaware of anybody who has taken a serious look at Trump’s business who doesn’t believe that there is a high likelihood of rampant criminality. In Azerbaijan, he did business with a likely money launderer for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. In the Republic of Georgia, he partnered with a group that was being investigated for a possible role in the largest known bank-fraud and money-laundering case in history. In Indonesia, his development partner is “knee-deep in dirty politics”; there are criminal investigations of his deals in Brazil; the F.B.I. is reportedly looking into his daughter Ivanka’s role in the Trump hotel in Vancouver, for which she worked with a Malaysian family that has admitted to financial fraud. Back home, Donald, Jr., and Ivanka were investigated for financial crimes associated with the Trump hotel in SoHo—an investigation that was halted suspiciously. His Taj Mahal casino received what was then the largest fine in history for money-laundering violations.

➤ Watch as a Hungry, Cranky Croc Destroys Watermelon With Powerful Jaw:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see sleet and snow with a high of thirty-five. Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset 7:37 PM, for 13h 26m 14s of daytime. The moon is new with .3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1861, Wisconsin receives the call: “On this date Governor Alexander W. Randall received a telegram from Washington requesting one regiment of 780 men to serve the Union for three months in the Civil War. Within a week ten companies, from Kenosha, Beloit, Horicon, Fond du Lac, Madison, and Milwaukee were ready. [Source: The History of Wisconsin, Vol. II by Richard N. Current]”

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Peter Stone and Greg Gordon report Sources: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier:

The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Confirmation of the trip would lend credence to a retired British spy’s report that Cohen strategized there with a powerful Kremlin figure about Russian meddling in the U.S. election.

It would also be one of the most significant developments thus far in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of whether the Trump campaign and the Kremlin worked together to help Trump win the White House. Undercutting Trump’s repeated pronouncements that “there is no evidence of collusion,” it also could ratchet up the stakes if the president tries, as he has intimated he might for months, to order Mueller’s firing.

➤ Norman Eisen and Richard Painter contend Donald Trump’s 5 reasons to fire Rod Rosenstein reveal true aim: Obstructing Robert Mueller:

President Trump reportedly is considering firing Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller and supervises his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. To prepare the way, Trump has by our count floated five rationales internally and externally for doing so. The briefest scrutiny of these purported justifications shows that they are baseless, and makes apparent the president’s true motivation: to obstruct the investigation that Rosenstein oversees.

Trump has reportedly complained about Rosenstein being a Democrat and coming from heavily Democratic Baltimore. In fact, Rosenstein is a decades-long registered Republican who worked as a federal prosecutor in Baltimore. That was part of a long career at the Justice Department devoted to the rule of law under both Republican and Democratic presidents. He was selected from a pool of Republican lawyers and nominated by Trump for his position as deputy attorney general. [Attys. Eisen and Painter then consider remaining five of Trump’s thin bases.]

➤ Nicole Lewis and Maurice Chammah write Seven Years Behind Bars for Two Joints — And Now He’s Free (“Bernard Noble, whose case became a symbol of harsh drug laws, walks out of a Louisiana prison”):

Bernard Noble, who became a national symbol of harsh drug laws after he was sentenced to 13 years of hard labor for carrying about two joints worth of marijuana, was released from prison early Thursday morning.

Noble, 51, was freed on parole after his lawyer and a team of advocates — including billionaire New York hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb — spent years pressing courts, governors and lawmakers to reverse the long sentence. He ultimately served seven years in prison.

“I really felt special, seeing my family and everyone waiting for me,” Noble told The Marshall Project by phone after he walked out of Bossier Parish Medium Security Prison, where his mother, sister, and other family members awaited his release.

“I cried a lot of times in prison silently because you can’t do it out loud in a treacherous place like that. But I always said, ‘one day it’s gonna get better,’ ” he said.

His freedom marked the end of a convoluted and high-profile legal journey that began in 2010, when he was arrested while biking in New Orleans, where he was visiting family. Police said they found about three grams of marijuana in his possession.

(One shouldn’t have to smoke anything – I don’t – to grasp that these sentences are disgracefully high. Yet for it all, there’s a lumpen lobby that screams for sentences like this, as long as they are visited on a different demographic.)

➤ Judy Newman reports State of Wisconsin Investment Board employees to take home $11.6 million in bonuses:

Employees of the State of Wisconsin Investment Board — the agency that manages retirement funds for more than 600,000 current and former public workers — will share in bonuses totaling $11.6 million, the agency said Friday.

It is the fourth-highest bonus pot in the past five years.

The incentive payments, approved by the SWIB board of trustees, are based on the five-year investment earnings that exceed general market returns. That amounted to $759 million for the past five years ending in December.

…

Of this year’s $11.6 million pot, two of SWIB’s high-level employees will each get bonuses topping $500,000.

(These bonuses aren’t high for private work of a similar kind – the obvious concern is that this isn’t private work of a similar kind; these funds could be managed well by those no longer seeking career earnings, as a true public service.)

➤ Take a Tour of the Moon in 4K (courtesy of NASA):

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will see a mix of rain and sleet with a high of thirty-eight. Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:36 PM, for 13h 23m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.74% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, President Lincoln is shot and mortally wounded by John Wilkes Booth during a performance of “Our American Cousin” at Ford’s Theater in Washington.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Scott Clement and Emily Guskin report Post-ABC poll: Majority of Americans support Mueller’s probe of Russia, Trump campaign:

A clear majority of Americans support special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and alleged collusion with President Trump’s campaign, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds.

The results show backing for inquiries into Trump’s orbit on several fronts.

Nearly 7 in 10 adults say they support Mueller’s focus on possible collusion with Russia. Sixty-four percent say they want the special counsel investigating Trump’s business activities. And a 58 percent majority supports investigating alleged payments by Trump associates to silence women who say they had affairs with him.

➤ Prof. of Law Randall D. Eliason writes Mueller doesn’t need to talk to Trump:

So how could Mueller make his obstruction case, whether in an indictment or — as appears more likely — in a report? The key to obstruction of justice is proving corrupt intent, and Mueller would prove it the same way prosecutors typically do: through circumstantial evidence. This could include the suspicious timing of events; evidence of the president’s actions and their likely consequences; lies and conflicting explanations for the president’s behavior; testimony of those who had conversations with the president, witnessed his behavior, or who were otherwise involved; the president’s own contemporaneous statements about such things as his decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey; and any notes, emails, or other contemporaneous records that might shed light on the president’s state of mind.

No single piece of evidence makes the case, but prosecutors would string them together until there was no longer any reasonable doubt about the corrupt intent behind the president’s actions.

There is no doubt Mueller would like to interview the president. In addition to the questions about obstruction, prosecutors would love to hear what the president has to say about possible conspiracy with Russians to influence the election, as well as about other allegations swirling around his campaign and administration. But if Mueller thinks he has an argument for obstruction, he doesn’t need an interview with Trump to make that case.

➤ Ashley Parker, Carol D. Leonnig, Josh Dawsey and Tom Hamburger report Trump’s allies worry that federal investigators may have seized recordings made by his attorney:

President Trump’s personal attorney Michael D. Cohen sometimes taped conversations with associates, according to three people familiar with his practice, and allies of the president are worried that the recordings were seized by federal investigators in a raid of Cohen’s office and residences this week.

Cohen, who served for a decade as a lawyer at the Trump Organization and is a close confidant of Trump’s, was known to store the conversations using digital files and then replay them for colleagues, according to people who have interacted with him.

“We heard he had some proclivity to make tapes,” said one Trump adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. “Now we are wondering, who did he tape? Did he store those someplace where they were actually seized? … Did they find his recordings?”

Cohen did not respond to requests for comment. Stephen Ryan, an attorney for Cohen, declined to comment. A White House spokeswoman referred a request for comment to Cohen and his attorney.

(It’s hard to overstate how recklessly aberrant Cohen’s conduct would be to tape conversations with clients or others in his orbit.)

➤ Krishnadvev Calamur contends The Syrian War Is Actually Many Wars:

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad seems to have won the civil war in his country—but that doesn’t mean peace is coming. In fact, the conflict seems to be escalating—fueled by the many outside powers who have joined the Syrian battlefield with interests of their own.

“If you look at the literature on civil wars, it tends to suggest that the more foreign powers involved, the more difficult it is for a civil war to end—because most of those powers aren’t willing to quit until either they are exhausted or their claims and desires have been met,” said Christopher Phillips, author of the book The Battle for Syria: International Rivalryin the New Middle East. “And because a lot of them are backing proxies, the cost isn’t necessarily that high.”

Over the seven years of Syria’s war, it has sucked in numerous other countries, who have attempted to shape the conflict with every tool from bombing to mercenaries to special operators to weapons shipments to money. The war has grown ever more complicated and more deadly over time, and Syria’s future is now largely being determined outside of its borders. Who is fighting in Syria now, and why? [Calamur then lists roles of major fireign powers in the conflict.]

(The complexity of this conflict doesn’t excuse Assad – he merits charges as a murder and war criminal, and belongs at The Hague for trial on those charges. The question for America is how to respond effectively, and whether Trump has the needed grasp that would underlie a genuinely effective response.)

➤ See Farol de Leça da Palmeira with a Mavic Air

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of forty-eight. Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 7:35 PM, for 13h 20m 41s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 7.4% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}five hundred nineteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Thomas Jefferson is born on this day in 1743.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Molly Beck reports State employee discipline for sexual harassment ranged from reprimands to termination:

State employees in the last five years have been disciplined for asking a co-worker for her underwear and naked photos, for giving a gift to a co-worker, for slapping a co-worker’s buttocks at a convention and for sending a sexually explicit text message, among other alleged behavior.

The discipline leveled for the alleged sexual harassment and misconduct included requiring letters of apology, reprimands, a suspension and, in one case, termination, according to records released recently by the state Department of Administration.

In another case, records indicate an assistant district attorney who was accused of grabbing a co-worker’s breasts and placing the co-worker’s hand on his crotch resigned amid an investigation into the allegations.

The records were released to the Wisconsin State Journal in response to a request by the newspaper in November under the state’s open records law amid increased scrutiny on how government institutions address complaints of sexual harassment.

The cases involve employees of the state Capitol Police Department, the Department of Financial Institutions, two district attorneys offices, DOA Facilities Management and the Department of Tourism.

➤ William G. Gale writes The fiscal picture is worse than it looks—and it looks bad:

On the surface, CBO’s new projections of the federal debt and deficits over the next 10 years paint a troubling picture. But, dig deeper and the story gets … more dire. The Federal government is not only running enormous deficits, but we are doing so at a time of full-employment. When the inevitable recession comes, we will be in deep trouble.

Here’s the bad part:  Under current law, CBO projects that the debt—currently 77 percent as large as annual GDP—will rise to 96 percent of GDP by 2028. And that’s if Congress does nothing. If instead, Congress votes to extend expiring tax provisions—such as the many temporary tax cuts in the 2017 tax overhaul—and maintain spending levels enacted in the budget deal (which is called the “current policy” baseline), debt is projected to rise to 105 percent of GDP by 2028, the highest level ever except for one year during World War II (when it was 106 percent).

…

Here’s the worse part: The conventional comparison is misleading. The projected budget deficits in the coming decade are essentially “full-employment” deficits. This is significant because, while budget deficits can be helpful in recessions by providing an economic stimulus, there are good reasons we should be retrenching during good economic times, including the one we are in now. In fact, CBO projects that, over the 2018-2028 period, actual and potential GDP will be equal. As President Kennedy once said “the time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”  Instead, we are punching more holes in the fiscal roof.

➤ Susan Hennessey, Matthew Kahn, Benjamin Wittes offer Seven Takeaways From Trump’s Threats Against Rod Rosenstein:

In short, it is not only unclear whether Rosenstein will be fired, it is also unclear what precisely the consequences would be—at least in immediate legal terms—if he is fired.

With those caveats, here are seven observations about the possible firing of Rosenstein:

First, firing Rosenstein is not the same as firing Mueller, but it would be borne of the same corrupt purpose.

…

Second, there is no non-corrupt reason to fire Rosenstein. Rosenstein is, to be sure, a complicated figure. His tenure as deputy attorney general has been marked by some ugly incidents, most significantly when he authored the memo designed to provide the president with a pretext for firing Comey as FBI director. But whatever criticisms of Rosenstein may be valid, none of them is related to the reason Trump wants to fire him.

…

Third, it would be no better for Trump to force Rosenstein’s recusal than to remove him from office entirely. Trump tweeted Wednesday encouraging people to watch Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News that evening. The program was largely dedicated to advocating that Rosenstein be fired. Alan Dershowitz, who has become something of an adviser to the president, argued that rather than directly fire Rosenstein, he would “do it differently”—perhaps sidelining him from the investigation by insisting on his recusal. CNN has reported that the White House is drafting talking points in line with Dershowitz’s message, arguing that Rosenstein’s involvement in Comey’s firing makes him too conflicted to continue overseeing the investigation. [Additional observations in full article.]

➤ Noted book critic Michiko Kakutani writes James Comey Has a Story to Tell. It’s Very Persuasive:

In his absorbing new book, “A Higher Loyalty,” the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey calls the Trump presidency a “forest fire” that is doing serious damage to the country’s norms and traditions.

“This president is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values,” Comey writes. “His leadership is transactional, ego driven and about personal loyalty.”

Decades before he led the F.B.I.’s investigation into whether members of Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election, Comey was a career prosecutor who helped dismantle the Gambino crime family; and he doesn’t hesitate in these pages to draw a direct analogy between the Mafia bosses he helped pack off to prison years ago and the current occupant of the Oval Office.

…

The central themes that Comey returns to throughout this impassioned book are the toxic consequences of lying; and the corrosive effects of choosing loyalty to an individual over truth and the rule of law. Dishonesty, he writes, was central “to the entire enterprise of organized crime on both sides of the Atlantic,” and so, too, were bullying, peer pressure and groupthink — repellent traits shared by Trump and company, he suggests, and now infecting our culture.

➤ There’s a Microscale Robot on This Penny That Can Travel Through Your Body:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be variably cloudy, with a high of sixty-three. Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:34 PM, for 13h 17m 53s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 13.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}five hundred eighteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1961, the Civil War begins with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter.

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Conservative Erick Erickson describes an Epic rant from a GOP member of Congress:

Erick Erickson caught up with a friend in Congress recently while he was visiting Washington DC. This guy supports Donald Trump in public, but in private he’s—oh, what’s the right word? Disillusioned? Despondent? Boiling over with rage?

Anyway, he told Erickson he needed to vent about Trump, so they strolled down the aisles of a local Safeway and Erickson turned on his recorder:

He may be an idiot, but he’s still the President and leader of my party and he is capable of doing some things right. But dammit he’s taking us all down with him. We are well and truly f**ked in November….It’s like Forrest Gump won the presidency, but an evil, really f*cking stupid Forrest Gump. He can’t help himself. He’s just a f**king idiot who thinks he’s winning when people are b*tching about him.

….If we get to summer and most of the primaries are over, they just might pull the trigger if the President fires Mueller. The sh*t will hit the fan if that happens and I’d vote to impeach him myself. Most of us would, I think. Hell, all the Democrats would and you only need a majority in the House. If we’re going to lose because of him, we might as well impeach the motherf**ker.

….I say a lot of shit on TV defending him, even over this. But honestly, I wish the motherf*cker would just go away. We’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and lose a bunch of states because of him. All his supporters will blame us for what we have or have not done, but he hasn’t led. He wakes up in the morning, sh*ts all over Twitter, sh*ts all over us, sh*ts all over his staff, then hits golf balls. F*ck him. Of course, I can’t say that in public or I’d get run out of town.

(There’s little on which Erickson and I would agree, but I’ve never known him to be dishonest – the conversation is almost certainly genuine.)

➤ Patrick Marley and Jason Stein report Wisconsin Rep. Dale Kooyenga says he will cover $30,000 settlement for taking protester’s sign as video is released:

Rep. Dale Kooyenga said Wednesday he would reimburse taxpayers $30,000 to settle a lawsuit, just as the state released video footage showing Kooyenga removing a protest sign critical of Republicans from a public area of the Capitol.

Kooyenga, a Brookfield Republican running for the state Senate, has given various explanations at different times for taking the sign last year, saying that he did so as a joke, that he thought the sign was inappropriate and that he believed it created a safety hazard because it could have hidden something dangerous.

…

In May, Donald Johnson of Madison placed a sign in the Capitol that criticized Republican President Donald Trump, without naming him, as “corrupt” and “a serial groper.” It said Republicans backed the president, “we the people be damned.”

Johnson had a state permit to display the sign in the Capitol, and he said he taped a copy of it to the back of the sign.

That month, Kooyenga removed the sign and put it in his office as a joke and because he thought it was inappropriate, according to what he told Capitol Police at the time. After Johnson complained about the missing sign, the Capitol Police saw on security video that Kooyenga had taken the sign and recovered it from him.

Gov. Scott Walker’s administration initially declined to release a copy of the video of Kooyenga taking the sign to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other media outlets. But the administration released it Wednesday after the Journal Sentinel and others requested it for a second time, saying that the settlement made the video a record of interest to the public.

 

Kooyenga has also said he took the sign because his military training had taught him that signs against curved walls create “clear risks” to the public because they could conceal something dangerous. The video shows the sign is on an easel and it appears it would be difficult to hide something behind it.

His critics have called Kooyenga’s claims about safety laughable.

“How does he even get through an intersection? Because there are a lot of signs at intersections,” Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) said.

➤ Brian Chen writes that I Downloaded the Information That Facebook Has on Me. Yikes:

When I downloaded a copy of my Facebook data last week, I didn’t expect to see much. My profile is sparse, I rarely post anything on the site, and I seldom click on ads. (I’m what some call a Facebook “lurker.”)

But when I opened my file, it was like opening Pandora’s box.

With a few clicks, I learned that about 500 advertisers — many that I had never heard of, like Bad Dad, a motorcycle parts store, and Space Jesus, an electronica band — had my contact information, which could include my email address, phone number and full name. Facebook also had my entire phone book, including the number to ring my apartment buzzer. The social network had even kept a permanent record of the roughly 100 people I had deleted from my friends list over the last 14 years, including my exes.

There was so much that Facebook knew about me — more than I wanted to know. But after looking at the totality of what the Silicon Valley company had obtained about yours truly, I decided to try to better understand how and why my data was collected and stored. I also sought to find out how much of my data could be removed.

➤ Matt Velazquez writes 76ers 130, Bucks 95: With plenty on the line, the Bucks flop into the postseason:

PHILADELPHIA – The Milwaukee Bucks saved their worst for last.

With playoff seeding and a first-round draft pick hanging in the balance, the Bucks put forth an atrocious display at the Wells Fargo Center on Wednesday night, falling 130-95, to the Philadelphia 76ers. The 35-point margin represents Milwaukee’s biggest blowout loss of the season.

“We didn’t finish strong and we didn’t play well and that’s very disappointing,” Bucks coach Joe Prunty said. “Hopefully it’s a learning lesson for us.”

The 76ers played without all-star Joel Embiid (fractured orbital bone) and sharpshooter J.J. Redick, who was scratched from the starting lineup due to back tightness moments before the game.

➤ Bonsai!!!:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy, with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 6:18 AM and sunset 7:33 PM, for 13h 15m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 20.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}five hundred seventeenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

The Birge Fountain Committee is scheduled to meet at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1945, American soliders liberate the Nazi death camp at Buchenwald:

A detachment of troops of the US 9th Armored Infantry Battalion, from the 6th Armored Division, part of the US Third Army, and under the command of Captain Frederic Keffer, arrived at Buchenwald on April 11, 1945 at 3:15 p.m. (now the permanent time of the clock at the entrance gate). The soldiers were given a hero’s welcome, with the emaciated survivors finding the strength to toss some liberators into the air in celebration.[41]

Later in the day, elements of the US 83rd Infantry Division overran Langenstein, one of a number of smaller camps comprising the Buchenwald complex. There, the division liberated over 21,000 prisoners,[41] ordered the mayor of Langenstein to send food and water to the camp, and hurried medical supplies forward from the 20th Field Hospital.[37]

Third Army Headquarters sent elements of the 80th Infantry Division to take control of the camp on the morning of Thursday, April 12, 1945. Several journalists arrived on the same day, perhaps with the 80th, including Edward R. Murrow, whose radio report of his arrival and reception was broadcast on CBS and became one of his most famous:

I asked to see one of the barracks. It happened to be occupied by Czechoslovaks. When I entered, men crowded around, tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building had once stabled 80 horses. There were 1,200 men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description.

They called the doctor. We inspected his records. There were only names in the little black book, nothing more. Nothing about who these men were, what they had done, or hoped. Behind the names of those who had died, there was a cross. I counted them. They totaled 242. 242 out of 1,200, in one month.

As we walked out into the courtyard, a man fell dead. Two others, they must have been over 60, were crawling toward the latrine. I saw it, but will not describe it.

—Extract from Edward R. Murrow‘s Buchenwald Report – April 15, 1945.[42]

Recommended for reading in full —

➤ Robert Costa, Seung Min Kim and John Wagner report House Speaker Paul Ryan will not seek reelection:

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) announced Wednesday that he will not seek reelection this year, ending a nearly 20-year tenure in Congress and adding further uncertainty about whether embattled Republicans can maintain control of the House.

Ryan said at a news conference that he sees a “very bright future” for his party and said his decision was driven by a desire to spend more time with his family.

“I have accomplished much of what I came here to do, and my kids aren’t getting any younger,” Ryan said. “What I realized is if I serve for one more term my kids will only have known me as a weekend dad.”

Ryan, who plans to serve out his term and retire in January, said the possibility of Democrats taking over the House factored into his decision “none whatsoever.” He emphasized that he had taken the job reluctantly.

The decision comes ahead of mid-term elections that were already looking treacherous for Republicans, who risk losing control of the House.

(The price of Trumpism is political ruin.)

➤ Ben Kamisar reports GOP Rep. Ross won’t seek reelection:

Republican Rep. Dennis Ross (Fla.) is retiring from Congress at the end of the year and will not run for reelection.

Ross made the announcement Wednesday morning, shortly after Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) shared his decision not to run again in the fall.

After thoughtful prayer and consideration, my wife Cindy and I decided that I will not seek re-election for a fifth-term in office,” Ross said in a statement.

“I am grateful for this incredible opportunity to serve and I look forward to the next chapter of my life which will include, in some way, continued public service.”

(Ross will now have time to scour the classifieds until a rat-catcher position opens up.)

➤ The New York Times editorial board writes The Law Is Coming, Mr. Trump:

This is your president, ladies and gentlemen. This is how Donald Trump does business, and these are the kinds of people he surrounds himself with.

Mr. Trump has spent his career in the company of developers and celebrities, and also of grifters, cons, sharks, goons and crooks. He cuts corners, he lies, he cheats, he brags about it, and for the most part, he’s gotten away with it, protected by threats of litigation, hush money and his own bravado. Those methods may be proving to have their limits when they are applied from the Oval Office. Though Republican leaders in Congress still keep a cowardly silence, Mr. Trump now has real reason to be afraid. A raid on a lawyer’s office doesn’t happen every day; it means that multiple government officials, and a federal judge, had reason to believe they’d find evidence of a crime there and that they didn’t trust the lawyer not to destroy that evidence.

➤ Paul Rosenzweig writes of Michael Cohen, the Attorney-Client Privilege, and the Crime-Fraud Exception:

What then could be the basis for the SDNY search and review of these materials? Materials that, at least facially, would be protected.

That question brings us to something known as the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. It is, if you will, an exception to an exception that allows the government to read, review, compel production of and compel testimony of an attorney and his or her records. It arises if, and only if, the client uses the attorney’s services to commit a crime. (So, to be clear, it does not apply retrospectively, as when I tell you about a crime I have already committed.) An example of this—an easy one—would be if I use an attorney to help me draft an affidavit that I am going to submit to a court, and the affidavit is false. I have used the attorney’s help to commit a crime. The lawyer may not (indeed usually does not—since, notwithstanding the public derision, most attorneys would not knowingly assist a client in committing a crime) know that the crime is afoot—he may be completely ignorant. But if the government can show a court that there is a basis for thinking that the crime has occurred (here, in my example, that the affidavit is a lie) then the attorney can be and will be required to testify as to the nature of his interaction with the client. “What did the client tell you?” is a completely impermissible question generally—but it is a lawful question when there is reason to think that the answer is “X happenend,” and the lawyer took that answer and put it in an affidavit that was submitted to a court and it turns out that the statement that “X happened” is a bald-faced lie.

You can readily imagine other examples of when and how a lawyer’s services might be used to commit a crime. The lawyer helps set up a shell corporation (perfectly legal generally) and the corporation is used to foster a Ponzi scheme. The lawyer is asked about how to secure insurance, but the insurance is then used to collect on an insurance fraud. And so on. In other words, the crime-fraud exception applies when an attorney’s advice is used to further the crime. Or, as the Supreme Court put it in Clark v. United States, 289 U.S. 1 (1933), “A client who consults an attorney for advice that will serve him in the commission of a fraud will have no help from the law. He must let the truth be told.”

And that, one suspects, is where the rubber meets the road. It may well be that President Trump sought Cohen’s legal advice regarding the Daniels affair for an illegal purpose (e.g. to avoid federal campaign-finance laws or to conceal the true source of the funds with which she was paid or to threaten her). In that circumstance, it seems clear that the crime-fraud exception might apply—and it appears highly likely that the FBI and the lawyers in New York have made that showing to a federal magistrate. Or, as one observer put it: “Michael Cohen is in serious legal trouble.” President Trump may be as well.

➤ Perhaps This Drone Could Help Firefighters By Putting Out Fires: