Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-seven. Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 02m 01s of daytime. The moon is new, with .03% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred third day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1903, the Wright Brothers successfully achieve controlled, human-powered flight:

the Wrights finally took to the air on December 17, 1903, making two flights each from level ground into a freezing headwind gusting to 27 miles per hour (43 km/h). The first flight, by Orville at 10:35 am, of 120 feet (37 m) in 12 seconds, at a speed of only 6.8 miles per hour (10.9 km/h) over the ground, was recorded in a famous photograph.^[41] The next two flights covered approximately 175 and 200 feet (53 and 61 m), by Wilbur and Orville respectively. Their altitude was about 10 feet (3.0 m) above the ground.^[76] The following is Orville Wright’s account of the final flight of the day:

Wilbur started the fourth and last flight at just about 12 o’clock. The first few hundred feet were up and down, as before, but by the time three hundred ft had been covered, the machine was under much better control. The course for the next four or five hundred feet had but little undulation. However, when out about eight hundred feet the machine began pitching again, and, in one of its darts downward, struck the ground. The distance over the ground was measured to be 852 feet; the time of the flight was 59 seconds. The frame supporting the front rudder was badly broken, but the main part of the machine was not injured at all. We estimated that the machine could be put in condition for flight again in about a day or two.^[77]

European doubts about their achievement turned into effusive praise after their 1908 public exhibition:

The brothers’ contracts with the U.S. Army and a French syndicate depended on successful public flight demonstrations that met certain conditions. The brothers had to divide their efforts. Wilbur sailed for Europe; Orville would fly near Washington, D.C.

Facing much skepticism in the French aeronautical community and outright scorn by some newspapers that called him a “bluffeur”, Wilbur began official public demonstrations on August 8, 1908 at the Hunaudières horse racing track near the town of Le Mans, France. His first flight lasted only one minute 45 seconds, but his ability to effortlessly make banking turns and fly a circle amazed and stunned onlookers, including several pioneer French aviators, among them Louis Blériot. In the following days, Wilbur made a series of technically challenging flights, including figure-eights, demonstrating his skills as a pilot and the capability of his flying machine, which far surpassed those of all other pioneering aircraft and pilots of the day.^[103][104]

The French public was thrilled by Wilbur’s feats and flocked to the field by the thousands, and the Wright brothers instantly became world-famous. Former doubters issued apologies and effusive praise. L’Aérophile editor Georges Besançon wrote that the flights “have completely dissipated all doubts. Not one of the former detractors of the Wrights dare question, today, the previous experiments of the men who were truly the first to fly …”^[105] Leading French aviation promoter Ernest Archdeacon wrote, “For a long time, the Wright brothers have been accused in Europe of bluff … They are today hallowed in France, and I feel an intense pleasure … to make amends.”^[106]

Recommended for reading in full — 

Chris Geidner reports Key Officials Push Back Against Trump Campaign’s Claim That A Federal Office Illegally Turned Over Emails To Special Counsel:

A lawyer for the Trump transition team on Saturday accused a federal agency of illegally and unconstitutionally turning over thousands of emails to the Special Counsel’s Office.

Specifically, the General Services Administration (GSA) turned over emails written during the transition — the period between Election Day 2016 and Inauguration Day 2017 — and the Trump campaign is claiming in a letter that the decision to do so violated the law.

Officials with both the Special Counsel’s Office and GSA, however, pushed back against the Trump campaign lawyer’s claims in the hours after the letter was issued….

Loewentritt read to BuzzFeed News a series of agreements that anyone had to agree to when using GSA materials during the transition, including that there could be monitoring and auditing of devices and that, “Therefore, no expectation of privacy can be assumed.”

[GSA Deputy Counsel Lenny] Loewentritt told BuzzFeed News that the GSA initially “suggested a warrant or subpoena” for the materials, but that the Special Counsel’s Office determined the letter route was sufficient.

As to whether the Trump campaign should have been informed of the request, Loewentritt said, “That’s between the Special Counsel and the transition team.”

Asked about Langhofer’s letter and Loewentritt’s statements — and after publication of this story — a spokesperson for the Special Counsel’s Office, Peter Carr, told BuzzFeed News, “When we have obtained emails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner’s consent or appropriate criminal process.”

Renato Mariotti nicely sumarizes this issue:

If Mueller didn’t follow the law, a court would suppress the evidence so it couldn’t be used. The reason Trump’s lawyers are writing letters to Congress instead of Mueller or a court is because their legal arguments have no merit. https://t.co/6Vy7jwKcY4

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) December 17, 2017

(Trump doesn’t have a valid legal position: he has a rabid ideological one.)

Brian Stelter describes How Fox News and President Trump create an anti-Mueller ‘feedback loop’:

The right-wing commentary and President Trump’s criticism of the FBI are part of a vicious circle. The TV hosts encourage Trump, then Trump supplies sound bites for their shows, and then the hosts are even more emboldened.

With Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election reaching closer to Trump’s inner circle, Fox hosts like Sean Hannity continue to demand Mueller’s firing. Every night, Hannity tells millions of viewers that Mueller’s probe is a corrupt plot to take down Trump and reverse the outcome of the election. Trump is a big fan of Hannity’s show, and the two men speak on a regular basis.

“The anti-Mueller rhetoric in conservative media right now is part of a feedback loop,” Nicole Hemmer, the author of a book about conservative media, “Messengers of the Right,” told CNNMoney.

“Conservative media personalities know Trump hates the investigation and wants it shut down,” she said in an email. “They bash the investigation and Mueller, and when Trump sees that happening (say, on ‘Fox & Friends’) it reinforces his belief that the investigation is illegitimate and that he should do something to end it. The likely consequence is that this increases the odds of Trump attempting to fire Mueller.”

Hemmer added: “We’ll have to wait and see whether internal restraints within the White House — lawyers and advisers — are enough to stop him from doing that.”

(One’s best, reasoned guess is that Trump will not exercise restraint, but will plunge America into a constitutional crisis. The question afteward: Which side was one on?)

Carrie Johnson lists 3 Ways Trump Or His Allies Might Try To Disrupt The Mueller Russia Probe [her article lists each in detail]:

From the airwaves of conservative media to the hearing rooms of the House of Representatives, Republican allies of the White House are attacking the Department of Justice investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

GOP voices are accusing the team assembled by special counsel Robert Mueller of bias against President Trump — and they’re appearing to set the stage for some action. Senior Justice Department officials are defending the investigation, which has already secured indictments or guilty pleas against four people with ties to the Trump campaign.

Here, we consider a few ways the White House or its allies could disrupt the special counsel probe.

1. Find a way to replace the attorney general….

2. Fire Justice Department officials who refuse to dismiss the special counsel, until you find one who will….

3. Pressure the Justice Department to investigate the investigators….

(Each method would be an onstruction of justice.)

The Washington Post‘s editorial board writes of The unchecked threat from Russia:

THE CACOPHONOUS and frequently confusing debates over the Russia investigations by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and several committees of Congress tend to obscure some big and virtually uncontested truths: that the regime of Vladi­mir Putin intervened in the 2016 election with the intention of harming U.S. democracy; that it will almost certainly seek to do so again; and that there has been no concerted effort to defend the country from this national security threat.

We say “virtually uncontested” because the principal dissenter from this consensus, which unites U.S. intelligence agencies and a large bipartisan majority in Congress, is President Trump — who continues to shove away the conclusive proof about Russia’s actions compiled by American intelligence professionals and to obstruct efforts by his Cabinet and staff to respond to them.

A comprehensive report by Post reporters Greg Miller, Greg Jaffe and Philip Rucker contains dismaying evidence of the resulting dysfunction. Mr. Trump has never held a Cabinet-level meeting on the Russian intervention or on how to prevent its recurrence. At the National Security Council, it is understood that to bring up the Russian threat is to risk enraging the president. The same goes for the CIA officials who conduct Mr. Trump’s daily intelligence briefing; they sometimes leave material on Russia out of the oral session, so as not to send the session “off the rails,” in the words of a former senior official.

Watch Blue Origin Rocket Launch of Crew Capsule 2.0:

On December 12, Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin launched a rocket test out of its base in West Texas. The launch included its Crew Capsule 2.0, which Blue Origin has adorned with giant windows for viewing. Following is a transcript of the video.

This is Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket. Blue Origin launched the rocket out of West Texas. This is the first time the company has launched this capsule.

On top of the rocket is Crew Capsule 2.0 with giant windows. There was a crash test dummy in this flight. The rocket touched down on a landing site. The capsule used parachutes to land in the desert.

The flight peaked 61 miles above Earth. Blue Origin plans to launch tourists to space in a similar capsule by 2019.

  more >>

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty-nine. Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset is 4:22 PM, for 9h 02m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1773, the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts hold the Boston Tea Party. On this day in 1864, Wisconsinites fight in defense of the Union: “the 8th, 14th, 24th, 33rd, 44th, and 45th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 6th Wisconsin Light Artillery were engaged in the Battle of Nashville, Tennessee. By the end of the day, 6,000 Confederate troops were killed, wounded or missing and Union forces had largely destroyed the Confederate ability to wage war in the region.”

Recommended for reading in full ––

Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin report CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity:

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered….

Fr. James Martin’s observation on this federal prohibition is spot on:

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it,” George Orwell, “1984.” https://t.co/sz8GwsggwF https://t.co/OJDPVhvp7f

— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) December 16, 2017

Mieke Eoyang, Ben Freeman, and Benjamin Wittes write The Public Isn’t Buying It: Confidence in the FBI is Very High:

Memo to the President: Your attacks on the FBI aren’t working.

President Trump has apparently decided that attacking federal law enforcement is a good defense strategy in L’Affaire Russe. Conservative media outlets have picked up the cry, devoting hours of air time to the absurd proposition that the FBI is corrupt and biased in favor of Hillary Clinton—and against the President.

The other day, curious about the impact of such attacks on public opinion, we put a very simple poll in the field using Google Surveys. It asked one question, polled between December 5-7: “How Much Confidence Do You Have in the FBI?”

The answer was striking:

The average confidence rating for the FBI in this poll measured in at 3.34. That compares favorably to any other institution we poll on, save the military, which had an average confidence score of 3.78. The question polled here is subtly different from our other polls, which measure confidence in institutions as protectors of national security. This one asks about confidence in general—on the theory that the President’s attacks on the Bureau have been general attacks, not limited to the national security function. That said, the FBI’s rating was notably higher than the next highest institution, the intelligence community more broadly, which had an average confidence measure of 3.04. Forty-seven percent of respondents give the FBI higher confidence ratings, either 4 or 5. And fully 74 percent repose at least some confidence in the Bureau—that is, give it at least a rating of 3. By contrast, only 26 percent give the FBI lower confidence ratings, that is a rating of only 1 or 2.

(It’s important, however, that Trump only needs the support of politicians and Fox News to create a feedback loop in which the FBI is demonized to precipitate action against the bureau or Special Counsel Mueller. Afterward, an American majority will be left to respond to Trump’s actions. )

William Booth writes of The new U.S. embassy in London: A crystalline ‘sugar cube’ worth a billion dollars:

LONDON — At $1 billion, it is the most expensive embassy ever constructed. But its designers say the new American chancery on the Thames River marks a paradigm shift: The U.S. Embassy here will exude openness while hiding all the clever ways it defends itself from attack.

After decades of building American embassies that look brutalist or bland, like obvious fortresses, the soon-to-be-opened chancery in London is a crystalline cube, plopped down in the middle of a public park, without visible walls.

The building does not shout, “Spies work here!” or “Stand back!” even though this city has been subjected to terrorist attacks. Instead, the vibe is modernist museum, which also happens to issue visas and might have a few hidden bunkers somewhere.

Instead of blast walls, there is a perimeter pond, with recycled-water waterfalls and deep trenches — and on the roof, arrays of solar panels that will produce enough juice to run the building and give extra watts back to the grid….

(A billion is a vast sum, but if it should be a billion, then at least an open design, to match the character of our people. Long after everything of Trump has been swept away, we will yet be a free and welcoming society.)

Matthew DeFour reports Fiscal bureau: Foxconn roads could draw $134 million from other state highway projects:

….The fiscal bureau memo to Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, now reveals the previously unknown cost of local road improvements on top of the $252.4 million in state bonding that was authorized to pay for the nearby expansion of Interstate 94.

“It’s really concerning that we’re going to be taking $134 million from rehab projects around the state of Wisconsin and we’re going to be paying for local road projects around the Foxconn project,” Hintz said. “A memo like this today highlights the absolute absence of transparency, accountability and credibility on this project.”

It’s unclear which statewide road projects would be affected if money is used instead to improve roads in Racine County.

But fiscal bureau analyst John Wilson-Tepeli explained in the memo that because the roads in Racine County were local roads when the 2017-19 budget was adopted it is “unlikely” that the work was accounted for in the state highway rehabilitation fund during the budget debate.

“Therefore, the use of state highway rehabilitation funding to complete this work near the Foxconn site would likely result in the delay of other, previously planned rehabilitation projects on state highways,” Wilson-Tepeli wrote….

Meet the Dog Protecting Planes From Bird Strikes:

Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, cooler than a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce, it’s Piper the Aviation Bird Dog, ready for duty. Alongside his handler Brian Edwards, the dynamic duo protects the planes at Cherry Capital Airport from bird strikes. Birds can pose a huge threat to flight safety, but when they see Piper on his way, geese, ducks and gulls flee the runways. It’s an important job, but not one without its share of fun.

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 02m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 6.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred first day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1791, following Virginia’s ratification, the Bill of Rights (those ratified from among proposed amendments) receives the required number of ratifications to take effect. On this day in 1847, Wisconsin’s Second Constitutional Convention convenes in Madison: “On this date the first draft of the Wisconsin Constitution was rejected in 1846. As a result, Wisconsin representatives met again to draft a new constitution in 1847. New delegates were invited, and only five delegates attended both conventions. The second convention used the failed 1846 constitution as a springboard for their own, but left out controversial issues such as banking and property rights for women that the first constitution attempted to address. The second constitution included a proposal to let the people of Wisconsin vote on a referendum designed to approve black suffrage.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Greg Miller, Greg Jaffe and Philip Rucker report Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked:

In the final days before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, members of his inner circle pleaded with him to acknowledge publicly what U.S. intelligence agencies had already concluded — that Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was real.

Holding impromptu interventions in Trump’s 26th-floor corner office at Trump Tower, advisers — including Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and designated chief of staff, Reince Priebus — prodded the president-elect to accept the findings that the nation’s spy chiefs had personally presented to him on Jan. 6.

They sought to convince Trump that he could affirm the validity of the intelligence without diminishing his electoral win, according to three officials involved in the sessions. More important, they said that doing so was the only way to put the matter behind him politically and free him to pursue his goal of closer ties with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin.

“This was part of the normalization process,” one participant said. “There was a big effort to get him to be a standard president.”

But as aides persisted, Trump became agitated. He railed that the intelligence couldn’t be trusted and scoffed at the suggestion that his candidacy had been propelled by forces other than his own strategy, message and charisma….

(Every day Trump holds power he threatens America from within and invites threats from without.)

McKay Coppins writes The Republican Nightmare Is Just Beginning:

Washington Republicans have put the fiasco of Alabama’s special election behind them, but their electoral nightmare may just be beginning.

Roy Moore’s stunning defeat Tuesday night was met with quiet sighs of relief throughout the GOP establishment, where the culture-warring ex-judge and accused child abuser was widely regarded as radioactive. Yet even as Moore’s political obituaries were being written, party strategists were bracing for the army of Moore-like insurgents they expect to flood next year’s Republican primaries.

Indeed, Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon has already pledged to field challengers for every incumbent Republican senator up for reelection next year (with the exception of Ted Cruz). And even if Bannon fails to deliver on his threat, many in the GOP worry that experienced, fully-vetted candidates are going to struggle to beat back a wave of rough-edged Trump imitators who lean into the white identity politics that the president ran on in 2016….

(What Trump touches he ruins.)

Ashley Feinberg reports This Is The Daily Stormer’s Playbook  – “A leaked style guide reveals they’re Nazis about grammar (and about Jews)”:

Back in September, Vox Day, a Gamergate holdover who has assumed the position of racist alt-right figurehead, published a handful of brief excerpts from what he described as the “Andrew Anglin” style guide. For the blissfully unaware, Anglin is a neo-Nazi troll and propagandist who runs The Daily Stormer, one of the more prominent sites of the white supremacist web. The passages selected by Vox Day in his blog post suggested that Anglin is persnickety about detail and presentation ? except on the subject of the Jews, who are to be blamed “for everything.”

HuffPost has acquired the 17-page document in its entirety, as well as transcripts from an IRC channel where the document was shared in an effort to recruit new writers. It’s more than a style guide for writing internet-friendly neo-Nazi prose; it’s a playbook for the alt-right….

The guide is particularly interested in ways to lend the site’s hyperbolic racial invective a facade of credibility and good faith. Or at the very least, in how to confuse its readers to the point where they can’t tell the difference. The Daily Stormer, for instance, uses block quotes for much the same reason Richard Spencer stuffs himself into vests. In explaining why a writer should heavily block-quote mainstream news articles, the guide notes that it allows writers to borrow some of mainstream media’s air of scrupulousness and good hygiene.

The Daily Stormer also takes steps to mimic what’s already familiar, couching its caustic ideology in something comfortable and easy to digest….

(These malevolent racists are more extreme than the average Trumpist, but they are also the direction in which Trumpism is moving.)

Julie Zauzmer and Sarah Pulliam Bailey report After Trump and Moore, some evangelicals are finding their own label too toxic to use:

….Such debates intensified last year when President Trump was elected with the overwhelming support of white evangelical voters after a vitriolic campaign that alienated many Americans. Most recently, after Senate candidate Roy Moore drew strong majorities of white evangelicals in Alabama despite reports of his pursuit of teenage girls when he was in his 30s, some Christians across the country said they weren’t sure they wanted to be associated with the word anymore.

Even two of the grandchildren of Billy Graham, the famed evangelist who helped popularize the term, are abandoning the word. “The term has come to represent white Republicans and .?.?. sometimes close-mindedness and superiority,” said granddaughter Jerushah Armfield, a writer and pastor’s wife in South Carolina.

Jen Hatmaker, a Texas-based author with a large evangelical following, sees “a mass exodus” from the label in her community. “The term feels irreversibly tainted, and those of us who don’t align with the currently understood description are distancing ourselves to preserve our consciences,” she said….

(A genuine faith will last long after Trump and all he represents is ruined; for now, his presence confuses and befouls.)

How Do the Ghosts in Pac-Man Decide Where to Go?

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of twenty-seven. Sunrise is 7:18 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 03m 04s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 11.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundredth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Police & Fire Commission meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team become the first people to reach the South Pole. On this day in 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner delivers his address on the “Significance of the Frontier in American History” at the forty-first annual meeting of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.

Recommended for reading in full —

Trump’s started a trend for the autocratic – Meet the Strongmen Who’ve Started Blaming ‘Fake News’ Too:

Sarah Kendzior contends With Trump, The GOP Is Playing A Game Of Diminishing Returns:

In December 2016, South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham emerged as one of the strongest Republican critics of Donald Trump, and particularly, of his ties with Russia. Graham called for a bipartisan investigation, warning that while the Kremlin had targeted the Democrats this time, it could be the Republicans next. He noted that Russians had hacked his email, and proclaimed: “Russian hacking during the U.S. presidential election is not a Republican or Democrat issue. It’s an American issue. We must stand together.”

One year later, Lindsey Graham is taking a different stand–alongside Donald Trump at his golf course, which Graham deemed “spectacular” in his latest bout of gushing sycophancy toward the POTUS he once rejected. On November 30, Graham slammed the press for characterizing Trump as “some kind of kook not fit to be president,” directly contradicting his own words from 2016, when he said: “I think he’s a kook. I think he’s crazy. I think he’s unfit for office”….

Given that some of Graham’s worst fears about Trump’s Kremlin ties and mental state have been legitimized, what accounts for the senator’s changed attitude toward the president? There are a variety of possible rationales available for conjecture, many of which apply to the GOP at large. Opportunism may play a role, as Graham complies with Trump in order to pursue right-wing extremist economic policies and war. Blackmail may also be an issue, given that Graham has admitted his email was hacked, as was the RNC’s, by Russia. Trump has derided and threatened members of Congress and private citizens, and it’s not a stretch to imagine him unleashing his fire– publicly or privately–on Graham.

Graham’s radical change in rhetoric is reminiscent of the behavior one sees in autocratic regimes when potential political opponents are mollified or threatened into compliance. But the truly troubling question is not what is driving his changed behavior, but what it means for the rest of the GOP, especially as speculation mounts that the Trump administration could end Mueller’s investigation and propagandists recast Republicans like James Comey and Mueller as enemies of the state. In 2016, Graham initiated the call for an investigation into Trump’s Kremlin ties. In 2018, judging by his recent actions, Graham may lead the way in ensuring there are no consequences for what investigators have discovered….

Kelly Weill reports Alt-Right Hyped Anti-Schumer Forgery That Plagiarized Conyers Complaint:

A forged document accusing the top Democrat in the Senate of sexual harassment copied language verbatim from a real sexual-harassment complaint filed against Rep. John Conyers.

On Tuesday afternoon, right-wing social media personalities Charles Johnson and Mike Cernovich boasted of obtaining a document that would put a senator out of a job….

The senator was Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, Axios first reported.

But the document was fake. A copy of the document obtained by The Daily Beast purports to be draft lawsuit complaint against Schumer by a former staffer, accusing him of sexual harassment. Schumer’s office told The Daily Beast the document and her signature are forgeries. Schumer’s office said the senator was not in Washington, D.C. or the United States during several dates in the document when he is said to have harassed the staffer.

“The document is a forged document and every allegation is false,” Schumer spokesperson Matt House told The Daily Beast. “We have turned it over to the Capitol Police and asked them to investigate and pursue criminal charges because it is clear the law has been broken. We believe the individual responsible for forging the document should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law to prevent other malicious actors from doing the same”….

The Conyers complaint references “House Rule 23” and a “mediation” process between Conyers and his accuser. The fake Schumer complaint also describes allegations as falling under “House Rule 23,” which of course does not exist in the Senate. The “mediation” process in the Schumer document was never mentioned again.

(White nationalists – and that’s the alt-right most simply defined – are perverse, but imitatively so. Copying another document must have seemed clever to them, even when using a term for a House procedure that would be inapplicable in the Senate.)

Sarah Pulliam Bailey describes ‘A spiritual battle:’ How Roy Moore tested white evangelical allegiance to the Republican Party:

Roy Moore’s failed run for Alabama’s Senate seat tested white evangelicals’ allegiance to the Republican Party. Would they vote for a candidate who shares their conservative views on social issues even though he was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women?

Exit polls suggest they did just that, with 80 percent of white evangelicals who voted selecting Moore in Tuesday’s special election, which was narrowly won by Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate.

Part of Moore’s campaign strategy was to appeal to Christian nationalism — the belief that God has a uniquely Christian purpose for the United States. It has long made him a polarizing figure nationwide but has also kept him popular in his own state.

Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at Clemson University in South Carolina who studies Christian nationalism, said evangelicals are the religious group most likely to identify with Christian nationalism. Alabama has one of the highest percentages of white evangelicals, and, he said, more than half of Southerners identify with a Christian nationalist narrative.

“The view is that God can use anybody as long as they’re promoting Christian nationalist or ideals or values,” Whitehead said. “It’s all about a quest for power and what serves the purpose in the political moment”….

(Trumpist evangelicals push this false – and indeed heretical – ideology, and dare other religious people to challenge it. So be it – act utilitarianism is not a Christian tenet, and never was, never will be.)

Ross Douthat contends As Goes Moore, So Goes Trumpism:

Good morning.

Midweek in Whitewater will see afternoon snow showers with a high of thirty-four. Sunrise is 7:17 AM and 4:21 PM, for 9h 03m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 18.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred ninety-ninth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s University Tech Park Board meets at 8 A.M.

On this day in 1864, the 3rd Wisconsin Light Artillery reaches the front lines of Savannah, Georgia.

Recommended for reading in full —

McKay Coppins writes The Alabama Election Is a Referendum on the GOP’s Future:

For all the national attention that’s been paid to the grisly particulars of Alabama’s special election over the past few weeks—the lurid details of the sexual-abuse accusations against Roy Moore; the performative shrieks of “Fake News!” from the candidate and his defenders—the true political consequences of the race will likely reach well beyond a single Senate race in 2017.

In fact, many Republicans in Washington believe the voters who are heading to the polls on Tuesday could end up playing a pivotal role in the fight for the soul of the GOP.

Republican leaders have been keeping an especially wary eye on Alabama ever since former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon announced his intention to recruit primary challengers for (virtually) every Republican senator up for reelection in 2018.

“There’s a time and season for everything,” Bannon said in a speech at the Values Voters Summit in October, “and right now it’s a season of war against the GOP establishment.”

(I’m neither a Republic nor a Democrat, and remain convinced that if there’s a metaphorical war to be fought it’s one against Trumpism, and those politicians and operatives who advance that autocratic, bigoted view. Still, better that a defective candidate like Moore lost, in an of itself: he was unfit.)

Aaron Blake assesses Winners and losers from the Alabama special election [full list in original article):

The race to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions in the Senate featured votes spanning nearly four full months, with one bizarre turn after another, and ended Tuesday night with Democrat Doug Jones pulling off the upset over Republican Roy Moore, who faced allegations that he had sexually harassed and assaulted teenage girls while he was in his 30s.

Let’s break down the whole thing via winners and losers.

WINNERS
Democrats’ Senate majority hopes

At the start of the cycle, the math for Democrats winning the Senate majority in 2018 — even in a very good environment — appeared prohibitive. They had only two bona fide pickup opportunities, they needed three pickups, and they had to defend 10 swing and red states that President Trump won. The map was just brutal.

But since then, they’ve gotten the news they need to at least put the Senate in play. Potential takeovers in Arizona and Nevada look increasingly promising. An open seat has popped up in Tennessee, where last week Democrats landed popular former governor Phil Bredesen as a candidate, and now they’ve nabbed one of the three pickups they needed a year early in Alabama. The math is still tough, but it’s clearly within the realm of possibility now. And with Democrats claiming a double-digit lead on the generic ballot, things are very much looking up….

(I expected Moore to win; his defeat is a welcome surprise. As for the rest, one has no reason to relent, locally or elsewhere, until every last part of Trumpism meets its political ruin.)

Sara Hsu reports IMF Warnings Of China’s Financial Fragility Come As No Surprise:

The IMF warned, in its recent Financial Sector Assessment Report, of China’s financial fragility, pointing to high levels of corporate debt and funding through wealth management products. The report found growing risks within the banking system, particularly outside of the Big Four state-owned banks. Although China’s central bank brushed aside the warning tone of the report, these cautions should ring true with analysts who have been closely monitoring the debt pileup across multiple sectors.

The report and China’s response

The IMF report states, “the near-term prioritization of social stability appears to rely on credit expansion to continue financing firms even when they are not viable, and on stabilizing asset markets to prevent losses for households. Microprudential regulation and supervision will struggle to mitigate risks and deliver financial sector stability if the macroeconomic context—notably, monetary, fiscal, and development policies—is not supportive.” In other words, China’s attempt to stabilize the economy through the use of credit has created risks that cannot be resolved by imposing regulation alone; wider government policies must be supportive.

In response to the report, China’s central bank has stated that the IMF description did not entirely reflect the results of the stress tests, and that the banking system is well capitalized. This contradicts the IMF account that covered stress tests on 33 banks with RMB 171 trillion in total assets and RMB 20 trillion in off-balance sheet WMPs. The results of these tests found potentially vast under capitalization of joint stock and city commercial banks, given an economic shock. These banks have been responsible for much of the growth in the banking sector since 2011, the report states….

(State capitalism is failed capitalism.)

Jack Jenkins writes Nobody is laughing at the Religious Left in 2017:

There’s a well-worn joke that has circulated among religion writers for at least the past decade: every year, someone publishes a piece prophesying the “rise” of the Religious Left. And every year, the prediction turns out to be laughably overblown.

And then 2017 happened. These days, nobody’s laughing at the Religious Left.

Granted, the core catalyst for this shift was something few expected: the election of Donald Trump. His rise caught many by surprise, and sparked innumerable signal fires within activist spheres—a metaphorical call to arms against an enemy who threatens virtually every progressive cause at once….

To be fair, the Religious Left was never exactly napping. Aspects of the movement—which constitutes an amorphous group of interfaith activists that goes by many names and takes many forms—have operated since America’s founding, marching and praying in support of abolition, labor reform, and civil rights. Recent years have seen their public influence eclipsed by the rising influence of the Religious Right, however, even as they continued to fight for immigrants, gun violence prevention, and LGBTQ rights—often as a crucial component of larger progressive campaigns.

But Trump’s rise gave progressive people of faith a powerful reason to coalesce, forging unusual alliances while offering a moral counterweight to the president’s rhetoric and policies. The presence of religion among the “resistance,” broadly defined, was almost immediate: when a Republican member of the Electoral College in Texas declared in late 2016 he would not cast his ballot for Donald Trump, he cited his Catholic faith as a core driver of his decision….

In Captivity, Orangutans Unlock Greater Curiosity and Intelligence:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of twenty-two. Sunrise is 7:17 AM and sunset is 4:21 PM, for 9h 04m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred ninety-eighth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1925, the first motel in the world, the Motel Inn (originally known as the Milestone Mo-Tel) opens in San Luis Obispo, California.

Recommended for reading in full —

Karen Yourish asks Confused by all the news about Russia and the 2016 presidential election? We are here to help [illustrations include additional detail in text]:

Jennifer Rubin writes Even without Roy Moore, the GOP is in a downward spiral:

The GOP has a bunch of problems, including these: Its signature bill is a dud, it is shedding voters and it is led by someone who, in the midst of a cultural revolution regarding sexual assault, is widely believed to be a serial sexual predator.

USA Today reports:

“A new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds just 32% support the GOP tax plan; 48% oppose it. That’s the lowest level of public support for any major piece of legislation enacted in the past three decades, including the Affordable Care Act …

Americans are skeptical of the fundamental arguments Republicans have made in selling the bill: A 53% majority of those surveyed predict their own families won’t pay lower taxes as a result of the measure, and an equal 53% say it won’t help the economy in a major way. … Overall, only 35% believe that the bill will boost the economy, and 31% that their own families’ tax bills will be lowered as a result. Nearly two-thirds, 64%, say the wealthy will get the most benefits; just 17% say the middle-class will.

Republicans, however, remain enthusiastic about the bill, supporting it by a wide margin, 71 percent to 12 percent.”

The poll also shows that while sentiment about the economy is very positive (56 percent), voters’ opinion of President Trump continues to deteriorate. (“Trump now has a favorable-unfavorable rating of 34%-58%, a net negative of 24 percentage points. His standing has worsened through the year, from a net negative of just 2 points in March and 15 points in June.”) The Republican Party as a whole has a dreadful favorable-unfavorable rating of 24 percent/61 percent; almost as bad as Congress overall (17 percent favorable to 64 percent unfavorable). Democrats do somewhat better (36 percent to 47 percent)….

Lena H. Sun and Alice Crites report New CDC head faces questions about financial conflicts of interest:

ATLANTA — After five months in office, President Trump’s new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been unable to divest financial holdings that pose potential conflicts of interest, hindering her ability to fully perform her job.

Brenda Fitzgerald, 71, who served as the Georgia public health commissioner until her appointment to the CDC post in July, said she has divested from many stock holdings. But she and her husband are legally obligated to maintain other investments in cancer detection and health information technology, according to her ethics agreement, requiring Fitzgerald to pledge to avoid government business that might affect those interests. Fitzgerald provided The Post with a copy of her agreement.

Last week, Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the senior Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees CDC, wrote that Fitzgerald is raising questions about her ability to function effectively.

“I am concerned that you cannot perform the role of CDC director while being largely recused from matters pertaining to cancer and opioids, two of the most pervasive and urgent health challenges we face as a country,” Murray wrote….

Michael Gerson writes It’s America’s turn to ‘fight on the beaches’:

….From Churchill, we learn to resist pessimistic extrapolation. May 1940 was terrible, but not permanent. We learn the power of unreasonable optimism — the value of planning for revival in the midst of defeat. We see the possibility of leadership that can not only ride the tide but summon it.

Many of us view this example, not only with appreciation, but with longing. The problem of our time is not only arrogance without accomplishment or swagger without success. These are common enough in politics. Rather, it is the arrival of leadership that survives by feeding resentment, hatred and disorienting flux. Leadership urging us — at angry rallies, in ethnic stereotyping, through religious bigotry — to forget who we really are as a people. Leadership that has ceased to believe in the miracle at our country’s heart — the inclusive, unifying power of American ideals.

One needs a map when Searching for Copenhagen’s Hidden Giants:

Good morning.

Monday brings snow showers to Whitewater, with a high of thirty-five. Sunrise is 7:16 AM and sunset 4:20 PM, for 9h 04m 44s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 36.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred ninety-seventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Updated: The Whitewater Unified School Board is scheduled to meet at 6 P.M. Whitewater’s Planning Commission is scheduled to meet today at 6:30 P.M.

On this day in 1946, the United Nations establishes UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. On this day in 1901, the Morris Pratt Institute is incorporated: ” Morris Pratt gained incorporation for his school of spiritualism located in Whitewater, Wisconsin. Many people of this time embraced spiritualism to try to reach friends and family who had died in the Civil War. As a result, Whitewater became known as the “mecca of modern spiritualism.” Pratt built his institute in 1888, which was initially used as a meeting place for public seances. Pratt decided to turn his institution into an educational school for spiritualists, focusing on science, literature, morality, and communication, as well as spiritualistic instruction. The institute was closed for a few years during the Depression, and then in 1977 relocated to Waukesha…”

Recommended for reading in full —

Andrew Kaczynski reports on statements from Roy Moore in 2011: Getting rid of amendments after 10th would ‘eliminate many problems’:

Alabama Republican Senate nominee Roy Moore appeared on a conspiracy-driven radio show twice in 2011, where he told the hosts in an interview that getting rid of constitutional amendments after the Tenth Amendment would ‘eliminate many problems’ in the way the US government is structured….

In Moore’s June appearance, one of the hosts says he would like to see an amendment that would void all the amendments after the Tenth.

“That would eliminate many problems,” Moore replied. “You know people don’t understand how some of these amendments have completely tried to wreck the form of government that our forefathers intended.”

Moore cited the 17th Amendment, which calls for the direct election of senators by voters rather than state legislatures, as one he particularly found troublesome.

The host agreed with Moore, before turning his attention to the 14th Amendment, which was passed during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War and guaranteed citizenship and equal rights and protection to former slaves and has been used in landmark Supreme Court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education and Obergefell v. Hodges.

“People also don’t understand, and being from the South I bet you get it, the 14th Amendment was only approved at the point of the gun,” the host said.

“Yeah, it had very serious problems with its approval by the states,” Moore replied. “The danger in the 14th Amendment, which was to restrict, it has been a restriction on the states using the first Ten Amendments by and through the 14th Amendment. To restrict the states from doing something that the federal government was restricted from doing and allowing the federal government to do something which the first Ten Amendments prevented them from doing. If you understand the incorporation doctrine used by the courts and what it meant. You’d understand what I’m talking about.”

…Besides the 14th and 17th Amendments, amendments adopted after the Bill of Rights include the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, the 15th Amendment which prohibited the federal and state governments from denying citizens the right to vote based on that person’s “race, color, or previous condition of servitude,” and the 19th Amendment, which extended the right to vote to women….

Bella DePaulo writes I study liars. I’ve never seen one like President Trump:

I spent the first two decades of my career as a social scientist studying liars and their lies. I thought I had developed a sense of what to expect from them. Then along came President Trump. His lies are both more frequent and more malicious than ordinary people’s.

In research beginning in the mid-1990s, when I was a professor at the University of Virginia, my colleagues and I asked 77 college students and 70 people from the nearby community to keep diaries of all the lies they told every day for a week. They handed them in to us with no names attached. We calculated participants’ rates of lying and categorized each lie as either self-serving (told to advantage the liar or protect the liar from embarrassment, blame or other undesired outcomes) or kind (told to advantage, flatter or protect someone else)….

The sheer frequency of Trump’s lies appears to be having an effect, and it may not be the one he is going for. A Politico/Morning Consult poll from late October showed that only 35 percent of voters believed that Trump was honest, while 51 percent said he was not honest. (The others said they didn’t know or had no opinion.) Results of a Quinnipiac University poll from November were similar: Thirty-seven percent of voters thought Trump was honest, compared with 58 percent who thought he was not.

For fewer than 40 percent of American voters to see the president as honest is truly remarkable. Most humans, most of the time, believe other people. That’s our default setting. Usually, we need a reason to disbelieve….

Rebecca Ruiz explains Why Russia Tried to Cheat Its Way to Glory:

Russia’s two subversions, of global sports and American democracy, have more in common than you may think. Both involve intelligence agents, Russia’s will to win and the same cyberespionage team. Both have prompted millions of dollars of investigations and challenged public confidence — in the purity of sport and in the strength of democracy.

The two breaches are at the heart of how President Vladimir Putin has suggested he wants to reclaim Russia’s past: by weakening Western democracy and dominating world sports….

(See also Report Shows Vast Reach of Russian Doping: 1,000 Athletes, 30 Sports.)

Matthew DeFour reports Foxconn won $3 billion tax credit battle, but the public relations campaign continues:

….Foxconn’s public relations effort is being overseen by Platform Communications, a company owned by Walker campaign political adviser Keith Gilkes. A Platform spokeswoman declined to discuss the group’s communications strategy.

Foxconn provided a statement saying over the coming weeks and months, it will continue to engage with business leaders and the public as the company builds its campus in Racine County and grows an “extensive Wisconsin-based supply chain that will support this facility.”

Polls from Marquette Law School and Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling suggested the deal isn’t wildly popular. The Marquette Poll was limited to southeastern Wisconsin but found 38 percent saying it was worth the $3 billion state investment and 48 percent saying it wasn’t. The PPP poll found statewide 41 percent opposed the Foxconn deal, 34 percent supported it and 26 percent weren’t sure….

These Robots Could Be Coming To An Airport Near You:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty-four. Sunrise is 7:15 AM and sunset 4:20 PM, for 9h 05m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 47% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred ninety-sixth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1864, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. accepts the Nobel Peace Prize is Oslo, Norway.  On this day in 1864, the 3rd Wisconsin Infantry reaches Savannah, Georgia: “The Wisconsin 3rd Infantry arrived at the front lines for the Battle of Savannah, Georgia. After marching from Atlanta under General William T. Sherman, Wisconsin troops assembled outside the coastal city of Savannah and laid siege to it.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Conservative Christian Peter Wehner writes Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican:

Just the other day I received a note from a friend of mine, a pastor, who told me he no longer uses the label “evangelical” to describe himself, even though he meets every element of its historical definition, “because the term is now so stained as to ruin my ability to be what evangelicalism was supposed to be.”

Another pastor who is a lifelong friend told me, “Evangelical is no longer a word we can use.” The reason, he explained, is that it’s become not a religious identification so much as a political one. A third person, who heads a Christian organization, told me the term evangelical “is now a tribal rather than a creedal description.” In October, the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship, a campus ministry for more than 80 years, changed its name to the Princeton Christian Fellowship. “We’re interested in being people who are defined by our faith and by our faith commitments and not by any sort of political agenda,” according to Bill Boyce, who has led the campus group for decades.

There are of course a great many honorable individuals in the Republican Party and the evangelical movement. Those who hold different views than I do lead exemplary lives. Yet I cannot help believing that the events of the past few years — and the past few weeks — have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures….

In the latest example of this, a rising number of Republicans are attempting to delegitimize the special counsel’s investigation into whether there were links between Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and Mr. Putin’s Russia because they quake at what he may find. Prominent evangelical leaders, rather than challenging the president to become a man of integrity, have become courtiers. What’s happening with Mr. Moore in Alabama — with the president, the Republican National Committee, the state party and many white evangelicals rallying around him — is a bridge too far for many of us. Where exactly is the bottom? And at what point do you pull back from associating yourself with a political party and a religious term you once took pride in but that are now doing harm to the things you treasure?

Institutional renewal and regeneration are possible, and I’m going to continue to push for them. But for now a solid majority of Republicans and self-described evangelicals are firmly aboard the Trump train, which is doing its utmost to give a seat of privilege to Mr. Moore. So for those of us who still think of ourselves as conservative and Christian, it’s enough already.

(Better for Wehner to preserve his fundamental religious and political principles than debase himself within Trumpism’s autocratic and perverse ideology.)

Rebecca Ruiz writes Report Shows Vast Reach of Russian Doping: 1,000 Athletes, 30 Sports:

LONDON — International sports’ antidoping watchdog on Friday laid out mountainous evidence that for years Russian officials orchestrated a doping program at the Olympics and other competitions that involved or benefited 1,000 athletes in 30 sports. The findings intensified pressure on the International Olympic Committee to reassess Russia’s medals from the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and penalize the nation ahead of the 2018 Winter Games.

The evidence, published by the World Anti-Doping Agency, was the coda to a set of investigations led by the Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, who issued a damning report in July that prompted more than 100 Russian athletes to be barred from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The follow-up report outlined competitions that had been tainted by years of extraordinary preparations, ensuring Russia’s dominance at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, the 2013 track and field world championships in Moscow and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi — the “apex” of Russia’s cheating, the report said, because as the host of the event it controlled drug testing.

The subterfuge included using table salt and Nescafé instant–coffee granules to help conceal tainted urine and bypass controls, according to the inquiry. Some samples were clearly fraudulent: Urine provided by two female hockey players at the Sochi Games contained male DNA.

Yet Mr. McLaren suggested that the full extent of the cheating might never be known.

“It is impossible to know just how deep and how far back this conspiracy goes,” he said on Friday, calling the “immutable facts” of his report clear but far from comprehensive. “For years, international sports competitions have unknowingly been hijacked by the Russians”….

(Putin’s Russia, like the former Soviet Union, is a state of lies and corruption.)

Agence France-Press reports on Putin’s cult of personality:

“He is a super president and a super leader” – New “SuperPutin” exhibition opens in Moscow with the Russian leader portrayed in various heroic roles; from riding a bear to firing missiles in the colours of the Russian flag pic.twitter.com/LxQ9WZOxfD

— AFP news agency (@AFP) December 10, 2017

(Even – and especially – in the face of international censure, the Russian state – and these displays would not happen without the approval of the Russian state – bolsters its dictator. To critics of Putin, of course, this will all seem like parody, both inside and outside Russia.)

The New York Times reports from Inside Trump’s Hour-By-Hour Battle for Self-Preservation:

Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals. People close to him estimate that Mr. Trump spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted, marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of cable news and eager to fire back….

Mr. Kelly is trying, quietly and respectfully, to reduce the amount of free time the president has for fiery tweets by accelerating the start of his workday. Mr. Priebus also tried, with only modest success, to encourage Mr. Trump to arrive by 9 or 9:30 a.m….

(He may be the most powerful – but at least there is the advantage – that Trump is the laziest nativist in all America. Our situation would be far worse if he put in a full day’s work.)

NASA believes that the 2017 Geminids Will Be Dazzling: