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 —

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 5:20 AM and sunset 8:24 PM, for 15h 03m 36s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred first day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1940, the Belgian army surrenders to Nazi Germany (“The surrender of 28 May was ordered by King Leopold III without the consultation of his government and sparked a political crisis after the war. Despite the capitulation, many Belgians managed to escape to the United Kingdom where they formed a government and army-in-exile on the Allied side.”) On this day in 1864,  the 2nd, 6th, 7th, and 36th Wisconsin Infantry regiments fight at Battle of Bethesda Church during the Wilderness Campaign.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Patrick Marley reports that Wisconsin shuts down unit that found Lincoln Hills abuses:

MADISON – Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is getting rid of the internal affairs unit that exposed abuses at the state’s juvenile prison complex and paved the way for a years-long criminal investigation of the facility.

The Department of Corrections’ unit will be eliminated on June 25, and its investigators will be folded into a bureau focused on reducing sexual assaults behind bars. The change means the state’s prison system will no longer have a dedicated office for investigating employee misconduct.

“I don’t understand the wisdom behind the change,” said Rep. Evan Goyke (D-Milwaukee). “Why would we return to a setup that could allow future abuse? If it’s shown value, why would we end it?”

Department of Corrections officials said closing the internal affairs division will allow the state agency to concentrate on sexual assaults while still maintaining its ability to thoroughly investigate employee misconduct.

Ulrich Boser writes that Betsy DeVos has invested millions in this ‘brain training’ company. So I checked it out:

I was checking out the Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., branch of Neurocore, a “brain performance” company owned by the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. DeVos resigned her Neurocore board seat when she joined the Trump Cabinet, but she and her husband maintain a financial stake of between $5 million and $25 million, according to a financial disclosure statement filed with the Office of Government Ethics. The DeVoses’ private-equity firm, Windquest, identifies Neurocore as part of its “corporate family.” The Windquest website posts Neurocore news and includes links for job seekers to apply to Neurocore openings…

When the DeVos-Neurocore connection made headlines during her confirmation hearings, I was skeptical of the company’s claims. I had come across brain training while working on a book, “Learn Better,” about the science of learning. The field is rife with vague and overblown promises. Last year, the creators of Lumosity paid a $2 million fine to the Federal Trade Commission to settle a complaintthat they deceptively advertised that their memory exercises could improve everyday performance and stave off memory loss….

Adam Serwer asks Why Would Jared Kushner Trust Russian Officials So Much?:

But what is also peculiar is the level of trust Kushner would have been placing in Russian officials in asking for such a communications channel. Foreign affairs is often complex, yet Kushner didn’t want the U.S. government’s help—or supervision.

“What is unusual and borderline disturbing about this is less that it cut out the State Department or cut out the intelligence community; I think there is a precedent for both of those things in back-channels,” said Jon Finer, former State Department chief of staff under John Kerry. “It shows a level of trust in Russian intelligence, and Russian diplomatic personnel beyond the level of trust afforded to American intelligence and American personnel.”

Jennifer Rubin lists The Trump team’s five major shams:

First, the Trump administration refuses to acknowledge that it has reneged on its vow not to touch entitlements….

Second, the Trump administration will not admit it is engaged in a massive giveaway to the rich….

Third, the Trump administration has no plausible explanation for why its policies won’t lead to a mammoth increase in the debt….

Fourth, the Trump administration won’t own up to the anti-growth aspect of its immigration stance….

Fifth, the Trump administration won’t present a budget that has a ghost of a chance of passing….

(Rubin details each point.)

Tina Nguyen observes that As Trump’s Problems Mount, Breitbart’s Numbers Are Cratering:

Measuring web traffic is an inexact art, but other web-analytics companies reflect a similar, unusually steep decline in Breitbart’s traffic. ComScore estimated that Breitbart had nearly 23 million unique visitors during the month of November 2016, but only drew 10.7 million in April 2017, a 53 percent drop. Last month, the site had fewer visitors than it did in April 2016, when 12.3 million people visited the site. In contrast, the four sites that Breitbart benchmarked itself against saw nowhere near that drop—and, in the case of both Fox News and Buzzfeed, saw small increases in traffic since the November election….

Other conservative media sites have also experienced declines in traffic in recent months, but none as pronounced as Breitbart’s. According to Alexa data, National Review Online, Infowars.com, The Daily Caller, and Drudge Report all saw slumps in their rankings. Over the last week, as Trump was engulfed in the Comey scandal, Fox News’s viewership dropped to third place behind CNN and MSNBC for the first time in 17 years.

Why would this be? Nguyen quotes a conservative editor who admits how hard defending Trump has become:

At the most basic level, Trump’s struggles are producing a passion gap among news consumers. “If you’re anti-Trump, there’s never been a better time to read news. It’s like Christmas every morning,” an editor at another conservative media outlet told me. “So every time you open the newspaper or open Twitter or turn on Facebook, you get to enjoy the fact that there are a lot of other people who don’t like Trump and there’s a lot of news stories that show Trump in a negative light. Whereas if you’re Breitbart, you’re scrambling to explain or defend or continue to back the guy that you backed throughout the election. And eventually, if your posture continues to just simply be reactive and trying to explain away things that are happening to or by the president, I think people slowly become sort of disheartened by politics.”

(To express this more accurately, those who have opposed Trump from the beginning, as I have, will have an experience like Christmas morning when Trump and his ilk no longer hold federal power. Until then, reading and writing as his many lies, destructive policies, and authoritarianism are exposed is merely the work of defending a free society.)

Great Big Story explains How Falconry Shaped the English Language:

How Falconry Shaped the English Language from Great Big Story on Vimeo.

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 5:21 AM and sunset 8:23 PM, for 15h 02m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.5% of its visible disk illuminated.Today is the {tooltip}two hundredth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1963, Bob Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is released. Around this time in 1673, Marquette & Joliet reach Green Bay.

Recommended for reading in full —

From March, Caleb Melby and David Kocieniewski describe life Inside the Troubled Kushner Tower: Empty Offices and Mounting Debt:

The Manhattan tower co-owned by the family of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has been losing money for three years and faces increasing loan fees in 2017, which may explain why the family has been negotiating with Chinese insurance behemoth Anbang on new financing.

The fees, at 666 Fifth Avenue, kicked in last month and escalate with each payment until the loan is repaid, a 2011 refinancing agreement shows. December brings another hurdle: Interest paid on the bulk of about $1.1 billion of loans jumps to 6.35 percent, more than double what it was after the debt was refinanced in 2011.

(The Chinese deal fell through about a week after this story, but the financial plight was present, of course, many months earlier, and explains the pressure Kushner would have been under to make a deal with Chinese, or Russian, financial interests.)

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu spoke to his city on the removal of the Confederate monuments. Here is his full, worthy address:

Mariana Zuñiga and Nick Miroff report that Venezuela’s paradox: People are hungry, but farmers can’t feed them:

YUMA, Venezuela — With cash running low and debts piling up, Venezuela’s socialist government has cut back sharply on food imports. And for farmers in most countries, that would present an opportunity.

But this is Venezuela, whose economy operates on its own special plane of dysfunction. At a time of empty supermarkets and spreading hunger, the country’s farms are producing less and less, not more, making the caloric deficit even worse.

Drive around the countryside outside the capital, Caracas, and there’s everything a farmer needs: fertile land, water, sunshine and gasoline at 4 cents a gallon, cheapest in the world. Yet somehow families here are just as scrawny-looking as the city-dwelling Venezuelans waiting in bread lines or picking through garbage for scraps.

Having attempted for years to defy conventional economics, the country now faces a painful reckoning with basic arithmetic.

“Last year I had 200,000 hens,” said Saulo Escobar, who runs a poultry and hog farm here in the state of Aragua, an hour outside Caracas. “Now I have 70,000.”

Gina Barton reports that a Man who died in Milwaukee police custody could have lived with treatment, expert says:

Even if Milwaukee police officers thought Derek Williams was faking an inability to breathe in the moments before he died, they violated his civil rights by failing to get him medical help, according to documents filed Thursday in his family’s lawsuit against the city.

Had Williams received emergency treatment before he lost consciousness in the back of a squad car in 2011 “it is highly likely that he would not have died,” according to Trevonne Thompson, a physician who reviewed the case at the request of Williams’ family.

“Additionally, had Williams arrived at the emergency department alive, he would have most likely survived the emergency department visit,” according to Thompson’s report.

Here’s Blowin’ in the Wind, a single that was also part of Dylan’s 1963 album: