Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-eight. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:29 PM, for 15h 12m 13s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.1% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred eighth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1940, the Allies complete the evacuation from Dunkirk. On this day in 1861, Dr. Erastus B. Wolcott, a Milwaukee surgeon, performed the first recorded removal of a diseased kidney.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Robert O’Harrow Jr. and Shawn Boburg describe How a ‘shadow’ universe of charities joined with political warriors to fuel Trump’s rise:

Long before Trump promised to build a wall, ban Muslims and abandon the Paris climate accord, Horowitz used his tax-exempt group [David Horowitz Freedom Center] to rail against illegal immigrants, the spread of Islam and global warming. Center officials described Hillary Clinton as evil, President Barack Obama as a secret communist and the Democratic Party as a front for enemies of the United States.

The Freedom Center has declared itself a “School for Political Warfare,” and it is part of a loose nationwide network of like-minded charities linked together by ideology, personalities, conservative funders and websites, including the for-profit Breitbart News.

Horowitz’s story shows how charities have become essential to modern political campaigns, amid lax enforcement of the federal limits on their involvement in politics, while taking advantage of millions of dollars in what amount to taxpayer subsidies….

Horowitz makes a good living as the Freedom Center chief executive, earning $583,000 from a charity that received $5.4 million in donations in 2015, according to the latest available records.

(Anyone even casually acquainted with Horowitz’s work over the last two decades knows how increasingly severe his views have become; his FrontPage is a distillation of bigotry and lies. More on Horowitz’s views is available online from the Southern Poverty Law Center.)

The Reverend William Barber talks with David Remnick, contending that Politics Needs Religion:

Politics and religion go hand in hand for the Reverend William J. Barber II of the Greenleaf Christian Church. As he sees it, progressives made a mistake in walking away from Christianity during the rise of the Moral Majority….He talks with David Remnick about bringing morality back to contemporary politics.

(It’s worth noting that some of the contradictions on policy issues that Rev. Dr. Barber believes he sees in conservative Protestants would not be present, for example, among progressive Catholics.)

MJ Lee recounts in God and the Don that Trump, a self-professed mainline Presbyterian, felt the need to ask two Presbyterian pastors if Presbyterians were, in fact, Christians:

Two days before his presidential inauguration, Donald Trump greeted a pair of visitors at his office in Trump Tower.

As a swarm of reporters waited in the gilded lobby, the Rev. Patrick O’Connor, the senior pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Queens, and the Rev. Scott Black Johnston, the senior pastor of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, arrived to pray with the next president.

“I did very, very well with evangelicals in the polls,” Trump interjected in the middle of the conversation — previously unreported comments that were described to me by both pastors.

They gently reminded Trump that neither of them was an evangelical.

“Well, what are you then?” Trump asked.

They explained they were mainline Protestants, the same Christian tradition in which Trump, a self-described Presbyterian, was raised and claims membership. Like many mainline pastors, they told the President-elect, they lead diverse congregations.

Trump nodded along, then posed another question to the two men: “But you’re all Christians?”

“Yes, we’re all Christians.”

(From Rev. Dr. Barber’s point of view, all Christians whether progressive or conservative are evangelicals, in the broadest sense; for the Presbyterian pastors, there’s a difference between mainline and evangelical Christians; but for Trump, astonishingly, there’s uncertainty even about the nature of his own self-professed, large Christian denomination.)

Susan Rice contends that To Be Great, America Must Be Good:

American corporations and civil society groups can assist by demonstrating that the United States remains committed to its integration into the global economy and to our democratic principles. In the absence of White House leadership, the American people should act as informal ambassadors, via contacts through tourism, study-abroad programs and cultural exchanges.

We can all contribute to showing other nations that we hold dear America’s place at the forefront of moral and political leadership in the world. And we must remain steadfast until, once again, we have a president willing to lead in accordance with American interests, traditions and values.

Brian Beutler writes that Ivanka Trump’s Political Brand Is Dead:

Now that Ivanka’s father has announced he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement, and has taken steps toward allowing all employers to deny contraceptive coverage for their female employees, my unfounded hope is that she will either realize that the jig is up, and stop pretending she ever cared about these issues; or acknowledge that she’s a massive, world historical failure in public life, and stop trying to convince people otherwise.

Either of these outcomes would at least spare people the constant indignity of having their intelligence insulted. But the truth of the matter is clear, and explains why Ivanka’s not going to stop, and why credulous stories about her private struggle will appear every time her father’s administration offends the world: Ivanka isn’t a failure, but a swindler of global proportions who has supplemented her preposterous fortune by pretending—in a not particularly convincing way—to play an inside game she really has no interest in….

It may be Ivanka’s tragic circumstance that she was born to an ethically vacant parent, and that forging a bond with him required making herself in his self-image. But it is our tragic circumstance that the man in question is a moral obscenity, a mental flyspeck, a fraud, and president of the United States. In the context of his presidency, her commitment to their relationship requires her to piss down our backs and tell us it’s raining.

A solar eclipse is coming August — Here’s how to make the most of it:

NASA has online information about the August 21st eclipse:

On Monday, August 21, 2017, all of North America will be treated to an eclipse of the sun. Anyone within the path of totality can see one of nature’s most awe inspiring sights – a total solar eclipse. This path, where the moon will completely cover the sun and the sun’s tenuous atmosphere – the corona – can be seen, will stretch from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. Observers outside this path will still see a partial solar eclipse where the moon covers part of the sun’s disk. NASA created this website to provide a guide to this amazing event. Here you will find activities, events, broadcasts, and resources from NASA and our partners across the nation.

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of eighty-seven and an even chance of afternoon thundershowers. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:28 PM, for 15h 11m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 69.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred seventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1965, Ed White becomes the first American to conduct a spacewalk:

The spacewalk started at 3:45 p.m. EDT on the third orbit when White opened the hatch and used the hand-held maneuvering oxygen-jet gun to push himself out of the capsule.

The EVA started over the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii and lasted 23 minutes, ending over the Gulf of Mexico. Initially, White propelled himself to the end of the 8-meter tether and back to the spacecraft three times using the hand-held gun. After the first three minutes the fuel ran out and White maneuvered by twisting his body and pulling on the tether.

In a photograph taken by Commander James McDivitt taken early in the EVA over a cloud-covered Pacific Ocean, the maneuvering gun is visible in White’s right hand. The visor of his helmet is gold-plated to protect him from the unfiltered rays of the sun.

Recommended for reading in full —

The New York Times editorial board describes The Problem With Jared Kushner:

Stupidity, paranoia, malevolence — it’s hard to distinguish among competing explanations for the behavior of people in this administration. In the case of Mr. Kushner’s meeting with Sergey Kislyak, the ambassador, and his meeting that month with Sergey Gorkov, a Russian banker with close ties to the Kremlin and Russian intelligence, even the most benign of the various working theories suggests that Mr. Kushner, who had no experience in politics or diplomacy before Mr. Trump’s campaign, is in way over his head….

The problem isn’t establishing a back channel; presidential administrations and transitions have used them throughout history as a way to keep a low profile during sensitive negotiations. But communicating through Russian facilities would have exposed Mr. Kushner and others to serious risks of extortion. And there’s the bizarre and repeated secrecy around meetings with the Russian ambassador (see, e.g., Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions) that has already caused a lot of collateral damage to this administration.

Brian Ross and Matthew Mosk report that Lawmakers ask whether looming debt left Jared Kushner vulnerable to Russian influence:

Congressional investigators are seeking to determine whether President Trump’s son-in-law was vulnerable to Russian influence during and after the campaign because of financial stress facing his family firm’s signature real estate holding – a Manhattan skyscraper purchased at the height of the real estate boom.

And they are focused, officials told ABC News, on a December meeting Jared Kushner held with executives from a Russian bank.

“It’s very peculiar that of all the people he could be talking to in a transition period where you’ve got lots of balls in the air, that you end up talking to a Russian banker who is under sanction and who is related to Putin and has a KGB background,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. “I think the question has to be asked, was this about you trying to get financing for your troubled real estate that you have in New York City?”

Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima report that on a case of hypocrisy, in which the Nunes-led House Intelligence Committee asked for ‘unmaskings’ of Americans:

The Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee asked U.S. spy agencies late last year to reveal the names of U.S. individuals or organizations contained in classified intelligence on Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, engaging in the same practice that President Trump has accused the Obama administration of abusing, current and former officials said.

The chairman of the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), has since cast the practice of “unmasking” of U.S. individuals and organizations mentioned in classified reports as an abuse of surveillance powers by the outgoing Obama administration.

Trump has argued that investigators should focus their attention on former officials leaking names from intelligence reports, rather than whether the Kremlin coordinated its activities with the Trump campaign, an allegation he has denied. “The big story is the ‘unmasking and surveillance’ of people that took place during the Obama administration,” Trump tweeted Thursday.

According to a tally by U.S. spy agencies, the House Intelligence Committee requested five to six unmaskings of U.S. organizations or individuals related to Trump or Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton between June 2016 and January 2017.

(Unmasking has never been the vital issue here – it has always been Russian subversion of the American electoral process. Yet if Trump’s defenders find unmasking so offensive, then they should see that the offense also rests with a GOP-controlled committee.)

Joel Kotkin writes of The Great Betrayal of Middle America:

In its incoherence and lack of organization, Trump’s victory less resembled a modern social movement than a peasant’s revolt from the Middle Ages. His campaign lacked a coherent program, although its messenger, a New York narcissist, possessed a sixth sense that people “out there” were angry. Trump’s message was negative largely because he had nothing positive to say, though that had the useful effect of driving his enemies slightly insane.

So while he’s succeeded in stirring the blue hornet’s nest, he’s created no productive movement. Successful social movements—the Jacksonians, the New Dealers, the Reaganites, and the European social democrats—directly appealed to the working class with policies that for better or worse, challenged the existing social and economic hierarchy.

What’s Up for June 2017?

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:28 PM, for 15h 10m 03s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 60.7% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred sixth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1981, Donkey Kong makes its American debut.

Recommended for reading in full —

John Schmid reports that Job creation slowed sharply in Wisconsin in 2016, raising questions and worries:

Wages and employment fell sharply in 2016 in Wisconsin’s manufacturing sector, the biggest piston in the state’s economy, in a year that also saw the state’s weakest overall job performance since the 2008-’09 recession.

The anemic jobs figures surprised economists at a time when the national economy evidently remains in expansion mode, and even have some beginning to wonder if a recession might be on the horizon.

The 2016 decline in manufacturing employment was all the more confounding after Madison lawmakers phased in a deep tax cut that took full effect last year and was designed as “a powerful incentive (that) will encourage manufacturers to expand in Wisconsin,” according to Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s biggest business lobbying group.

Some analysts postulate that Wisconsinites are working fewer hours and less overtime as automation increasingly replaces humans in manufacturing plants. Other workers, meanwhile, appear to be accepting pay cuts, while employers create jobs at lower pay levels.

David Filipov, Amy Brittain, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger write that Explanations for Kushner’s meeting with head of Kremlin-linked bank don’t match up:

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — The White House and a Russian state-owned bank have very different explanations for why the bank’s chief executive and Jared Kushner held a secret meeting during the presidential transition in December.

The bank maintained this week that the session was held as part of a new business strategy and was conducted with Kushner in his role as the head of his family’s real estate business. The White House says the meeting was unrelated to business and was one of many diplomatic encounters the soon-to-be presidential adviser was holding ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The contradiction is deepening confusion over Kushner’s interactions with the Russians as the president’s son-in-law emerges as a key figure in the FBI’s investigation into potential coordination between Moscow and the Trump team.

Josh Barro contends that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris accord is performative isolationism:

The most tangible problem created by our withdrawal from the accord may be a decline in America’s global standing and leadership. But I tend to think that decline is largely a function of Trump’s presidency itself; America would hardly be seen as a leader on climate change under Trump if we had instead stayed in the accord and ignored our emissions targets.

To the extent our withdrawal alienates the world from us, that aligns with Trump’s intent in withdrawing, and does indeed make the US more isolated. But Trump has been reluctant to take more concrete and irrevocable isolating steps, for clear reasons.

(I think Barro’s on solid ground with his observation that “decline is largely a function of Trump’s presidency itself” – Trump’s own ignorance, mendacity, bigotry, and affection for dictators degrades America at home and abroad.)

In contrast to Barro, Uri Friedman, in Trump’s Most Drastic Statement Yet, sees Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement as more than performative:

Brentin Mock explains Why Jails Are Booming:

A new report from the Prison Policy Initiative examines the reasons behind this explosive growth. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s not driven by crime. Crime rates nationwide have dropped over the past few decades, as have conviction rates in court. So then why do jails keep swelling?

It basically comes down to two things, according to PPI: The number of people detained for pretrial purposes has been escalating, and federal and state authorities have been increasingly using local jails to house their inmates as well. These two sets of circumstances cover the bulk of people sitting in jail cells in the majority of states. Only a third of those jailed locally are there because they’ve actually been convicted of a crime, the report reads.

That local jail authorities have been farming out beds to wardens of the state and federal prison systems is particularly troubling, given that this system turns jailing into a side-hustle of sorts. Sheriffs and county jail directors can justify expanding these local detention centers, even if crime is dropping, by accounting for inmate traffic from state and federal partners.

A little magic for the end of the work week:

Good morning.

A new month begins in Whitewater with sunny skies and a high of seventy-six. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:27 PM, for 15h 08m 52s of daytime. The moon is in its first quarter, with 50.4% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred fifth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission is scheduled to meet today at 6 PM, and her Board of Review at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 2009, General Motors sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. On this day in 1864, Wisconsin regiments take park in the Battle of Cold Harbor, Virginia: “the 5th Wisconsin Infantry arrived after a long march, barefoot and exhausted. Nevertheless, they charged enemy lines and captured a number of prisoners. By the afternoon, the 36th Wisconsin Infantry lost 140 of the 142 men who tried to take an enemy position.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

An explosion at the Didion corn mill (near Cambria) has left the mill ruined:

Lachlan Markay reports that Trump Exempts Entire Senior Staff From White House Ethics Rules:

President Donald Trump has exempted his entire senior staff from provisions of his own ethics rules to allow them to work with political and advocacy groups that support the administration.

Staffers given a pass on those rules include White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who has the green light to communicate and meet with “political, advocacy, trade, or non-profit organizations” that formerly employed her consulting firm, despite ethics rules that would otherwise bar work with former clients.

Chief White House strategist Steve Bannon also received a waiver to the rules as part of a blanket exemption for all White House appointees allowing them to communicate with the press. His reported discussions with former colleagues at the pro-Trump site Breitbart News, which Bannon chaired until last year, had raised red flags among ethics watchdogs.

Bannon and Conway will both be free to work with a network of political groups backed by the wealthy Mercer family, which was integral to Trump’s victory last year and continues to support his agenda as president.

Daniel Bush offers The complete Watergate timeline (it took longer than you realize):

Amid the controversy over James Comey’s firing and the Russia investigations, President Donald Trump’s critics — most notably Rep. Al Green, D-Texas — have already begun calling for his impeachment. But it could take months, if not longer, for Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller to finish their investigations into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and connections to Mr. Trump’s campaign. Which means the final outcome could still be a long way off.

Critics have been quick to compare the controversy surrounding the White House and Russia to the Watergate scandal that forced President Richard Nixon to resign. But the Watergate drama took longer to unfold — more than two years — than many people may remember. Here’s a quick refresher of the events that led to Nixon’s resignation, along with a reminder that despite the recent pace of news in Washington, political crises are often slow-burning affairs [timeline follows]….

Clare Landsbaum asks Where Is Ivanka Trump’s Influence Now?

Ivanka has said that her father “always listens” to her opinions, even when they differ from his own – “I express myself with total candor,” she said. “Where I disagree with my father, he knows it.” And time after time, whether he was launching an attack on Syria or preserving Obama-era LGBGQ protections or including paid leave in his budget, the president’s actions suggested his daughter had his ear when it came to policy.

This week, not so much. And although some critics are suggesting Ivanka dropped the ball, it’s also possible that her father is more wary of relying on her and Kushner, his so-called “moderating influences,” in the wake of two damning stories about Kushner: one suggesting he proposed establishing a back-channel line of communication with the Russians, and another reporting that his sister used his in with the president to woo Chinese investors. Weirdly, Trump was more pissed about the latter, which he saw as “profiteering” off his presidency – a cardinal sin. Following both rounds of bad press, the New York Times reported that the president’s relationship to Kushner is showing “unmistakable signs of strain,” and a source told CNN that the president is “emotionally withdrawing…He doesn’t have anybody whom he trusts.”

How is a Hollywood movie camera different from an iPhone 7? Here’s how —

Good morning.

Midweek in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of seventy-two. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:26 PM, for 15h 07m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 39.9% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred fourth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1889, the Johnstown Flood devastates the area near Johnston, Pennsylvania: “The dam broke after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water ^[3] (16 million US tons) from the reservoir known as Lake Conemaugh. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled that of the Mississippi River,^[4] the flood killed 2,209 people^[5] and caused US$17 million of damage (about $450 million in 2015 dollars).” On this day in 1899, John H. Nicholson and Samuel E. Hill found the Gideons International.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Matt Lewis explains Why [Some] Conservatives Won’t Dance to the ‘Dear Leader Donald Trump’ Tune:

In a statement that might have made Kim Jong Un blush, White House spokesperson Hope Hicks extolled the virtues of President Donald Trump in a statement to The Washington Post this week.

“President Trump has a magnetic personality and exudes positive energy, which is infectious to those around him.”

She continued: “He has an unparalleled ability to communicate with people, whether he is speaking to a room of three or an arena of 30,000.”

But wait. There’s more. “He is brilliant with a great sense of humor,” said Hicks, “and an amazing ability to make people feel special and aspire to be more than even they thought possible.”

More than one observer on Twitter noted the resemblance to “Dear Leader” propaganda from North Korea. They have a point. According to biographers, the late Kim Jong Il’s birth was “foretold by a swallow and heralded by a double rainbow. When he was born, a new star appeared in the night sky.”

….Trump supporters, it seems to me, are more disposed to prize authoritarian traits like loyalty and hierarchy. For these Trump apologists, the analogies never end. He is our general. Sometimes he’s our daddy. Sometimes he’s our CEO. Whether it’s paternalistic, militaristic, or capitalistic, there are numerous ways to be subservient to him. Pick your favorite!

Jenna Johnson, in Trump’s aides are starting to rival their boss when it comes to praising him, observes what Lewis does:

….this approach often forces aides to make outlandish claims that simply draw attention to the weak points of Trump’s trip or time in office instead of the highlights, said Mike Murphy, a longtime GOP consultant who ran the political action committee for Jeb Bush’s failed presidential campaign. He compared the exaggerations to North Korean propaganda.

“It’s insecure, over-the-top,” Murphy said. “I call it Great Leader-esque.”

Tommy Vietor, who was a spokesman for President Barack Obama, said former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs once gave him this advice: “The first rule of spin is that it has to be believable.”

The claims coming from Trump’s spokespeople just are not, and saying the words out loud makes Spicer, and others, “look like an idiot,” Vietor said.

“It’s baffling, because it doesn’t convince anyone. It doesn’t serve anyone to insist that black is white, that down is up, or that Donald Trump is this warm and fuzzy guy,” Vietor said, referring to Hicks’s statement. “I mean, his tag ­line is: ‘You’re fired.’ ”

(It’s only a matter of time before his swooning admirers start wearing masks of his face when he marches by.)

Matthew Nussbaum, Josh Dawsey, and Eliana Johnson report that Trump’s obsession over Russia probe deepens:

President Donald Trump has been aggressively working the phones since returning this weekend from his foreign trip, talking to friends and outside lawyers as he obsesses over the deepening investigations into his aides and Russia.

Two White House officials said Trump and some aides including Steve Bannon are becoming increasingly convinced that they are victims of a conspiracy against Trump’s presidency, as evidenced by the number of leaks flowing out of government — that the crusade by the so-called “deep state” is a legitimate threat, not just fodder for right wing defenders.

Hannah Levintova outlines Hacks, Leaks, and Tweets: Everything We Now Know About the Attack on the 2016 Election:

The drumbeat of revelations over the past several weeks has been overwhelming. So we’ve created this timeline—from the hacking of the Democratic National Committee through the aftermath of Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey—to help you follow this scandal threatening the presidency [chronology follows]….

In Washington, Kevin Ambrose offers a challenge to Read if you dare: Cicada horror stories:

The screams were heard by everyone in the Fair Lakes parking lot. A woman, bent over at the waist, was thrashing her torso back and forth while slapping at the back of her head and shoulders, screaming and gasping for air at the same time.

Two men rushed to help. One man quickly noticed what was terrifying the woman — a cicada had become tangled in her hair and was flipping and bouncing against the back of her neck. The bug was making quite a commotion, beating its wings rapidly while emitting a loud, buzzing noise with its tymbals.

The man carefully pulled the large insect out of the woman’s hair and held it out to show her. “Look, it’s only a cicada,” he said. The woman reeled back with horror and exclaimed, “How can you touch that thing?!” Then she quickly walked to her car, muttering, “I’m never going outside again.”

(A bit of heartfelt advice: Go outside, often – the natural world is astonishing in beauty and diversity.)

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with an even chance of scattered afternoon thundershowers, and a high of sixty-six. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:25 PM, for 15h 06m 21s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 29.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred third day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1911, Ray Harroun wins the inaugural race of the Indianapolis 500.  On this day in 1864, the Wisconsin 2nd, 6th, 7th, and 36th Infantry regiments participate in the battle at Bethesda Church, Virginia.

Recommended for reading in full —

France 24 recorded the exchange where French Pres. Macron slams RT, Sputnik news as ‘lying propaganda’ at Putin press conference:

P.R. Lockhart reports that Women Are Now Living With the Fear of Deportation If They Report Domestic Violence:

President Donald Trump’s January executive orders on immigration worried advocates working with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, who argued that their clients and other victims of crime would no longer be willing to seek help or cooperate with law enforcement. Their concerns were further justified when police departments in Los Angeles and Houston announced that Latinos in those cities were reporting sexual assaults at lower rates in the wake of hostile rhetoric and enforcement activity targeting undocumented immigrants. Now, a new survey provides the data that demonstrates a noticeable shift in immigrant survivors’ contacts with victim services providers in recent months.

“The results of this survey are troubling,” Cecilia Friedman Levin, senior policy counsel for ASISTA Immigration Assistance, said in a recent press call discussing the survey results. “It represents that there is uncertainty and distrust around the institutions that are supposed to provide [survivors] with protection and safety.”

Mathew Rosenberg, Mark Mazzetti, and Maggie Haberman write that Investigation Turns to Kushner’s Motives in Meeting With a Putin Ally:

WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, was looking for a direct line to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia — a search that in mid-December found him in a room with a Russian banker whose financial institution was deeply intertwined with Russian intelligence, and remains under sanction by the United States.

Federal and congressional investigators are now examining what exactly Mr. Kushner and the Russian banker, Sergey N. Gorkov, wanted from each other. The banker is a close associate of Mr. Putin, but he has not been known to play a diplomatic role for the Russian leader. That has raised questions about why he was meeting with Mr. Kushner at a crucial moment in the presidential transition, according to current and former officials familiar with the investigations.

Ryan Lizza asks How Worried Should Jared Kushner Be?:

The main takeaway from the Kushner news is similar to the takeaway from Trump and Flynn’s handling of the Russia probes. In each case, we have a series of actions by people who seem to be concealing specific contacts with Russians connected to the Kremlin’s intelligence services and then acting to thwart an investigation. Flynn lied about his contacts with Kislyak. Trump tried to kill the F.B.I. investigation of Flynn and eventually fired his F.B.I. director. Kushner hid his contacts with Russian officials and then pressed his father-in-law to sack Comey, who was looking into the matter. “Anytime someone on the Trump campaign conceals or misleads about a contact they had with Russia at the time of Russia’s interference campaign, that’s a big red flag,” Eric Swalwell, the Democratic congressman, who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said.

Today I Found Out recounts The Great Emu War of 1932:

Good morning.

Memorial Day in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a four-in-ten chance of scattered afternoon thunderstorms. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:24 PM, for 15h 05m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 18.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay successfully reached the summit of Mount Everest. On this day in 1848, Wisconsin enters the Union.

Recommended for reading in full —

Jasmin Mujanovic and Evan McMullin describe these times —

Authoritarians decimate trad pol binaries; regime reduces politics to subservience or treason. To question is to be an enemy of the state. https://t.co/mEIhsMRMYl

— Jasmin Mujanovi? (@JasminMuj) May 28, 2017

In our Trumpian era, is there any longer a traditional right and left? Or are there only those who fight for liberty and those against it.

— Evan McMullin (@Evan_McMullin) May 28, 2017

David Frum contends that Trump’s Trip Was a Catastrophe for U.S.-Europe Relations:

There’s an effort now to spin words to present this trip as something less than an utter catastrophe for U.S. interests in Europe. National-Security Adviser H.R. McMaster has insisted that President Trump did indeed affirm Article 5. Compare Trump’s words to those of his predecessors, and you can see for yourself how untrue that is. The Republican chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, went on record to declare that he could not have been more pleased with the trip. If true, that would reflect poorly on Senator Corker’s judgment. I prefer to think that the statement reflects poorly on his candor.

Here’s what’s really true: Donald Trump is doing damage to the deepest and most broadly agreed foreign-policy interests of the United States. He is doing so while people associated with his campaign are under suspicion of colluding with Vladimir Putin’s spy agencies to bring him to office. The situation is both ugly and dangerous. If it’s to be corrected, all Americans—eminent Republicans like Bob Corker above all—must at least correctly name it for what it is.

Henry Farrell observes and asks Thanks to Trump, Germany says it can’t rely on the United States. What does that mean?:

Merkel’s comment about what she has experienced in the past few days is a clear reference to President Trump’s disastrous European tour. Her belief that the United States is no longer a reliable partner is a direct result of Trump’s words and actions. The keystone of NATO is Article 5, which has typically been read as a commitment that in the event that one member of the alliance is attacked, all other members will come to its aid. When Trump visited NATO, he dedicated a plaque to the one time that Article 5 has been invoked — when all members of NATO promised to come to the United States’ support after the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. However, Trump did not express his commitment to Article 5 in his speech to NATO, instead lambasting other NATO members for not spending enough money on their militaries….

Christopher Dickey recalls The Harlem Hellfighters Who Cut Down Germans and Gave France Jazz:

…there was one National Guard regiment, first known as the 15th New York, then the 369th Infantry attached to the French Army, and ultimately, “The Harlem Hellfighters,” that made its own very special history, and by the end of the Great War was anything but “unknown.”

The men of the 369th had something nobody else could come close to matching, a unit so talented that it was able at times to cut through some of the bigotry that surrounded them, and eventually win the regiment’s soldiers a place in the front lines—win them the chance to fight, to test their mettle against the massed forces of the Germans. And they did so with such distinction that the regiment and many of the soldiers in it were awarded one of the French military’s high honors, the Croix de Guerre.

What the 369th had that set it apart was strong leadership by black officers as well as white— and the best damned band in the American Army. And what it brought to France, in addition to the blood and bravery of its soldiers in the fight against the Germans, was something revolutionary. It brought jazz—a kind of music, just then growing out of ragtime, that was not like anything the French, or most Americans, had ever heard before, but that caused a sensation wherever it was played.

(For more about the Harlem Hellfighters, see a C-SPAN clip where author Max Brooks talks in 2014 about his book on the 369th Infantry Regiment at the Free Library of Philadelphia.)

What would it look like for a German shepherd to play with a reindeer? It would look like this —