Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of seventy-eight. Sunrise is 5:32 AM and sunset 8:09 PM, for 14h 36m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 94% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eighty-sixth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Quick note: the next post in my Janesville series will be Sunday, May 14th (post 12 in the series).

On this day in 1918, the Lusk murder trial begins: “On this day Grace Lusk, a Waukesha high school teacher, began her trial for the murder of Mary Roberts. Prosecutors alleged a tragic love triangle had resulted in the murder after Lusk’s pleas for Roberts to give up her husband were rebuffed. The trial, a national sensation in the early days of mass media, resulted in a guilty verdict on May 29, 1918. Lusk was sentenced to 19 years in prison but served only five before being pardoned by the Governor. After her release she jealously guarded her privacy; the identity of her husband, known only as “Mr. Brown,” was never determined. [Source: Capital Times 5/13/1918, p.1]”

Recommended for reading in full —

Benjamin Mullins reports that Mother Jones is raising $500,000 to go after the Trump-Russia story:

To raise money for the project, which Mother Jones is calling “Trumpocracy: The Russia Connection,” the bimonthly magazine is trying to sign up at least 1,000 new sustaining donors at $15 per month. They’ve already lined up a $200,000 grant from The Glaser Progress Foundation, and the foundation is set to kick in an additional $50,000 once they reach their goal.

Mother Jones will use the money to hire fact-checkers, editors, researchers and staffers who will conduct legal reviews, said Monika Bauerlein, Mother Jones’ CEO. They’ve already lined up one investigative reporting heavy hitter for the team: Bill Buzenberg, the former executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, who will be writing a weekly newsletter on the story.

Mother Jones has been on this story since before the election. In October, Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn reported that a veteran spy had given the FBI information alleging a Russian operation to compromise Donald Trump. That story has since been matched by CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and other outlets, Bauerlein said, and ballooned into a storyline that touches nearly every corner of D.C. politics.

(A description of their project is available online @ Now It’s About Much More Than Trump and Russia. Disclosure: I’m a donor to the project. One can make a one-time contribution or monthly contributions. Private investigative efforts will assure that significant questions are explored. Mother Jones, by the way, is named for Mary Harris “Mother” Jones.)

David A. Graham observes that If There Are White House Recordings, They Could Be Subpoenaed:

Maybe there are recordings from the Trump White House; maybe there aren’t. On the one hand, President Trump seemed to threaten the former FBI director in a tweet Friday morning, writing, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Later on Friday, Press Secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly refused to comment on the tweet and whether or not tapes exist….

The first important fact about recordings is that if they did exist, post-Nixon, an administration would be required to preserve them as a public record, in accordance with the 1978 Presidential Records Act. The recordings would theoretically become subject to Freedom of Information requests five years after a president left office, though that can be staved off to as much as 12 years. The entire recordings wouldn’t necessarily become available, because there are carve-outs for personal information about the president’s life, as well as “political” activities. If recordings did exist, it would be a crime to destroy them.

(It’s worth noting, relatedly, that Trump has a long history of secretly recording calls, according to former associates.)

Peter Whoriskey writes that The labels said ‘organic.’ But these massive imports of corn and soybeans weren’t:

A shipment of 36 million pounds of soybeans sailed late last year from Ukraine to Turkey to California. Along the way, it underwent a remarkable transformation.

The cargo began as ordinary soybeans, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. Like ordinary soybeans, they were fumigated with a pesticide. They were priced like ordinary soybeans, too.

But by the time the 600-foot cargo ship carrying them to Stockton, Calif., arrived in December, the soybeans had been labeled “organic,” according to receipts, invoices and other shipping records. That switch — the addition of the “USDA Organic” designation — boosted their value by approximately $4 million, creating a windfall for at least one company in the supply chain.

Jim Robbins reports that a Rare White Wolf Killed in Yellowstone Park Was Shot Illegally:

A rare white female wolf that hikers found as she lay dying last month on the north side of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming was shot illegally, officials have determined.

The wolf had to be euthanized by park officials because of the severity of her wound.

She was the only white wolf living in the park, though there had been two others before her. She was 12 years old when she was killed, twice the average age of wolves in Yellowstone.

Great Big Story tells of Barn Owls: The Secret Saviors of Napa Valley’s Vineyards:

Barn Owls: The Secret Saviors of Napa Valley’s Vineyards from Great Big Story on Vimeo.

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy, with a high of sixty-nine. Sunrise is 5:33 AM and sunset 8:08 PM, for 14h 34m 38s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eighty-fifth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Florence Nightingale, English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing, is born this day in 1820. On this day in 1864, the 2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments fight during the  Spotsylvania Campaign (May 8-21,1864); the 36th Infantry fights at Spotsylvania from May 18-21,1864 (“The fiercest fighting in the Battle of Spotsylvania occurred in pouring rain on May 12, 1864. For 23 hours the two sides fought hand-to-hand along lines known as the Bloody Angle. When the battle ended, the trenches were filled with bodies. Colonel Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsin Infantry left a vivid memoir of this day’s fighting.”)

Recommended for reading in full —

Rick Rommel reports that Retail just keeps getting tougher, as Kohl’s, Macy’s show:

The department store blues continued Thursday, with investors punishing Kohl’s, Macy’s and their competitors amid yet another round of downbeat financial results.

Even with a nearly four-fold increase in first-quarter profit that easily bested Wall Street expectations, Kohl’s stock shares fell 7.8%.

Compared with some, that was a good day. Macy’s stock plunged 17%. The stock of Dillard’s, a 293-store chain based in Little Rock, Ark., dropped 17.5%.

One reason: Ongoing erosion in sales at existing stores, a key measure of retailer health.

Same-store sales fell 2.7% at Kohl’s, 5.2% at Macy’s and 4% at Dillard’s.

It was further evidence of the continuing troubles of mainline department store retailers, which have suffered as discounters and internet giant Amazon thrive.

Rebecca Ruiz reports that the Attorney General Orders Tougher Sentences, Rolling Back Obama Policy:

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered federal prosecutors late Thursday to pursue the toughest possible charges and sentences against crime suspects, reversing Obama administration efforts to ease penalties for some nonviolent drug violations.

The dramatic shift in criminal justice policy, foreshadowed during recent weeks, is Mr. Sessions’s first major stamp on the Justice Department, and it telegraphs his priorities to target drug dealing, gun crime and gang violence. The Justice Department released the new directives on Friday.

In an eight-paragraph memo to the nation’s prosecutors, Mr. Sessions returned to the guidance of President George W. Bush’s administration by calling for more uniform punishments — including mandatory minimum sentences — and directing prosecutors to pursue the strictest possible charges. Mr. Sessions’s policy, however, is broader than that of the Bush administration, and will be more reliant on the judgments of United States attorneys and assistant attorneys general.

(No drug warrior like an old drug warrior.)

Matt Zapotosky and Karoun Demirjian write that the Acting FBI director contradicts Trump White House on Comey, Russia probe:

Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe on Thursday rejected the Trump White House’s characterization of the Russian meddling probe as a low priority and delivered a passionate defense of former director James B. Comey — putting himself squarely at odds with the president while the bureau’s future hangs in the balance.

McCabe, who had been the No. 2 official in the FBI until President Trump fired Comey this week, said that the bureau considered the probe of possible coordination between the Kremlin and the Trump team during the 2016 election campaign a “highly significant investigation” and that it would not be derailed because of a change in leadership.

“You cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution,” McCabe said.

(One will have to wait – and it may not be a long wait – to see if McCabe keeps his job.)

Michael Schmidt reports that In a Private Dinner, Trump Demanded Loyalty. Comey Demurred:

As they ate, the president and Mr. Comey made small talk about the election and the crowd sizes at Mr. Trump’s rallies. The president then turned the conversation to whether Mr. Comey would pledge his loyalty to him.

Mr. Comey declined to make that pledge. Instead, Mr. Comey has recounted to others, he told Mr. Trump that he would always be honest with him, but that he was not “reliable” in the conventional political sense….

Mr. Comey described details of his refusal to pledge his loyalty to Mr. Trump to several people close to him on the condition that they not discuss it publicly while he was F.B.I. director. But now that Mr. Comey has been fired, they felt free to discuss it on the condition of anonymity.

(Trump’s expectation of loyalty, seen in this account but in others, too, is more like that of a third-world autocrat or mafia boss.)

In Orange County, the sheriff’s department found itself with the task of telling swimmers that there were about fifteen great white sharks nearby. The announcement comes at about 3:50 on the video:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-eight. Sunrise is 5:34 AM and sunset 8:07 PM, for 14h 32m 27s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eighty-fourth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1888, composer and lyricist Irving Berlin is born. On this day in 1955, the NBA approves the transfer of the Milwaukee Hawks to St. Louis.

Recommended for reading in full —

Jeremy Venook reminds readers that Trump’s Been Talking About His Business Interests in Russia for 30 Years: “Trump’s desire to move on from the Russia investigation, which has plagued his administration in its early days, is understandable. Unfortunately for the president, one big obstacle to doing so will likely be his own words: He has spent decades pursuing—and publicly discussing—business ties in Russia, meaning that his claims to currently have “no connections to” the country strain credulity.

Trump’s references to Russia go back at least as far as his 1987 book The Art of the Deal, in which he wrote that he was in talks with the Soviet ambassador Yuri Dubinin “about building a large luxury hotel across the street from the Kremlin in partnership with the Soviet government.” He attempted, ultimately unsuccessfully, to seal the deal with a visit to Moscow, during which, according to The Washington Post, Trump “met with a lot of economic and financial advisers in the Politburo,” the Soviet Union’s chief political body….”

Julian Sanchez runs through Some Obvious Thoughts about the Comey Firing: “We are asked to believe that the decision to fire the FBI director — so abruptly he learned about it from a cable news chyron while out of D.C. — was based on a dashed off memo, and a response from the Attorney General, both issued the same day. We are asked to believe that it was motivated by Comey’s breaches of FBI protocol: First, in publicly criticizing Hillary Clinton, rather than letting Attorney General Loretta Lynch announce the decision that the former Secretary would not be indicted, and then in informing Congress that he had (fruitlessly, as it turned out) reopened the investigation into her e-mails. These are breaches both Trump and Sessions praised effusively at the time, with Sessions even declaring that Comey had an “absolute duty” to act as he did. All of them, of course, were well known long before Trump took office and chose to retain Comey.

The most charitable thing one can say about this narrative is that it is not even intended as a serious attempt to advance a genuine rationale. It is an attempt to be cute. Having been directed to concoct a reason to eliminate Comey, the Attorney General ran with a slapdash pastiche of Democrats’ complaints. Anyone who’s been on a long car trip with a sibling knows this gag: “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!” The only people even pretending to take this explanation seriously are those paid for the indignity.”

Meg Jones writes that a Critically ill bonobo needed life-saving care from Children’s Hospital staff: “When [respiratory therapist Khris] O’Brien arrived at the zoo last November she learned Noelle, a 3-year-old bonobo was listless and appeared blue, which meant she was not getting enough oxygen. While it may seem odd to call Children’s Hospital staff to help with an ill primate, it actually made a lot of sense.

Because bonobos are very similar to humans, and treating a sick 3-year-old bonobo is not much different from treating a sick 3-year-old child. They’re just hairier.

“I have treated children for 35 years so it wasn’t that big of a stretch,” said O’Brien, respiratory clinical program coordinator at Children’s. “Honestly, when I saw this poor, sick, basically, child lying on the gurney, I went into ‘I’ve got to help her’ mode. That was my only thought.”

Bonobos share close to 98% of their genomes with humans. They’re extremely sensitive to human illnesses such as whooping cough, chicken pox, colds and influenza, which is why the zoo’s troop of 23 bonobos get flu shots every year. In fact, they get the exact same flu shot as humans.”

Lee Bergquist reports that Disease takes ‘catastrophic’ toll on Wisconsin bats: “White-nose syndrome was first discovered at a single site in Grant County in southwestern Wisconsin in 2014 and has now spread to 14 counties, according to the DNR.

Wisconsin has one of the largest hibernating bat populations in the Midwest. Two years ago, DNR officials estimated the population at 350,000 to 500,000 bats. In the spring, many migrate to neighboring states.

The disease has major repercussions for agriculture because bats pollinate, disperse seeds and consume massive volumes of insects.

According to the DNR, researchers have estimated that Wisconsin farmers save $600 million to $1.5 billion on pesticides annually because of bats.”

Now one can explore the ocean in this personal submarine:

Good morning.

Midweek in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of seventy-three. Sunrise is 5:36 AM and sunset 8:06 PM, for 14h 30m 16s of daytime. The moon is full today, with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eighty-third day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1933, Nazi-inspired students and others in Berlin burned 25,000 supposedly ‘un-German’ books (with other book burings take place thereafter). On this day in 1865, the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry was sent to search for Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Along with a Michigan unit, they captured the Confederate president in Irwinville, Georgia.

Recommended for reading (or re-reading) in full —

Jennifer Rubin asks key questions around The one thing we know for sure about Comey’s firing:

“If Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, how and why did he make the recommendation to fire Comey?

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein laid out a convincing case as to why Comey acted improperly and unfairly to Clinton last July. However, Trump thought Comey should have prosecuted her, so why would Trump now object that Comey had been unfair to his nemesis?

How is Trump to select the person who will be investigating whether his campaign colluded with Russia during the campaign without invalidating the entire process?

When was the decision to fire Comey made: before or after this week’s testimony?

Will Comey be able to preserve evidence he collected so as to defuse suspicion this is a giant coverup?

Will Comey testify about the status of his investigation as of Tuesday?

….The only thing we can say with any confidence is that this will never be a “normal” presidency without controversy, scandal and a fair amount of mayhem.”

Sarah Kendzior, via sarahkendzior.com and @sarahkendzior, for her work on authoritarianism, both for a general audience (sarahkendzior.com/opinion) and for her academic publications (sarahkendzior.com/scholarly_publications).

Brendan Nyhan, via brendan-nyhan.com, dartmouth.edu/~nyhan, and @BrendanNyhan, for his work for a general audience (brendan-nyhan.com) and for his academic publications (dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/).

David Frum, How to Build an Autocracy.

Sometimes courage makes the difference, as when a Dog Chases a Large Bear:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-eight. Sunrise is 5:37 AM and sunset 8:05 PM, for 14h 28m 02s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98% of its visible disk illuminated.. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eighty-second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1950, the first sporting event is held at the Milwaukee Arena: “Rocky Graziano scored a fourth-round TKO over Vinnie Cidone in a middleweight fight that drew 12,813 fans. The new Milwaukee Arena actually opened on April 9, 1950, but with a civic celebration rather than a sports event.”

Recommended for reading in full —

Yamiche Alcindor and Charlie Savage write that Trump Walks Back Threat to Defund Black Colleges: “WASHINGTON — When President Trump signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill on Friday, he zeroed in on a tiny sliver of it, suggesting that he might disregard $20 million in funding for loan subsidies and other aid to historically black universities. Two nights later, after a storm of criticism, the White House walked back the threat in a statement that declared the president’s “unwavering support” for such schools. But the two days in between left some African-American educators feeling used, many black politicians enraged and some demanding that Mr. Trump back his “unwavering support” with a show of budgetary support. It also, once again, revealed a White House where one team does not necessarily know what another team is up to.”

(One might as easily say it reveals that Trump likes to threaten minorities.)

Eric Lipton and Jesse Drucker report that the Kushner Family Stands to Gain From Visa Rules in Trump’s First Major Law: “WASHINGTON — It was the first major piece of legislation that President Trump signed into law, and buried on Page 734 was one sentence that brought a potential benefit to the president’s extended family: renewal of a program offering permanent residence in the United States to affluent foreigners investing money in real estate projects here. Just hours after the appropriations measure was signed on Friday, the company run until January by Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, was urging wealthy Chinese in Beijing to consider investing $500,000 each in a pair of Jersey City luxury apartment towers the family-owned Kushner Companies plans to build. Mr. Kushner was even cited at a marketing presentation by his sister Nicole Meyer, who was on her way to China even before the bill was signed. The project “means a lot to me and my entire family,” she told the prospective investors.”

Peter Elkind reports that Comey’s Testimony on Huma Abedin Forwarding Emails Was Inaccurate: “Perhaps Comey’s most surprising revelation was that Huma Abedin — Weiner’s wife and a top Clinton deputy — had made “a regular practice” of forwarding “hundreds and thousands” of Clinton messages to her husband, “some of which contain classified information.” Comey testified that Abedin had done this so that the disgraced former congressman could print them out for her boss. (Weiner’s laptop was seized after he came under criminal investigation for sex crimes, following a media report about his online relationship with a teenager.)….The problem: Much of what Comey said about this was inaccurate. Now the FBI is trying to figure out what to do about it. FBI officials have privately acknowledged that Comey misstated what Abedin did and what the FBI investigators found. On Monday, the FBI was said to be preparing to correct the record by sending a letter to Congress later this week. But that plan now appears on hold, with the bureau undecided about what to do.”

Greg Bluestein reports on A U.S. House record: Georgia’s 6th race costs $30M and counting: “There are so many ads in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District race that they are creating the news. Literally. The tidal wave of spending led a local television broadcaster, WXIA, to temporarily add a 7 p.m. newscast on its sister station. Fans of “The Andy Griffith Show” repeats will have to look elsewhere for the next few weeks. It’s only the latest way the barrage of outside cash and national attention has transformed the race to represent the suburban Atlanta district. Once thought to be a sleepy special election, it is now poised to be the most expensive U.S. House contest in the nation’s history.”

A mountain biker in Slovakia recently had an especially memorable ride after a bear showed up:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of sixty-two. Sunrise is 5:38 AM and sunset 8:04 PM, for 14h 25m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 95.1% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred eighty-first day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6:30 PM.

Harry S. Truman is born on this day in 1884. On this day in 1864, the 1st, 15th, 21st, 22nd, 24th and 26th Wisconsin Infantry regiments along with the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry take part in Battle of Rocky Face Ridge, Georgia.

Recommended for reading in full —

Cynthia Littleton reports that Sinclair Sets $3.9 Billion Deal to Acquire Tribune Media: “For Sinclair, the expansion with Tribune will increase its market clout in TV but it will also extend its geographic footprint in a way that is vital to the company’s vision of using the broadcast TV bandwidth of its stations to provide data services and interactivity on a scale designed to compete with wireless and digital media heavyweights. Sinclair chairman David Smith, son of company founder Julian Sinclair Smith, is known for his engineering acumen. He’s long had a vision of revamping the technical architecture of broadcast TV to make local stations more competitive. “Television broadcasting is even more relevant today, especially when it comes to serving our local communities,” Smith said. “Tribune’s stations allow Sinclair to strengthen our commitment to serving local communities and to advance the Next Generation Broadcast Platform.  This acquisition will be a turning point for Sinclair, allowing us to better serve our viewers and advertisers while creating value for our shareholders.”

Carolyn Y. Johnson reports that Free-standing ERs offer care without the wait. But patients can still pay $6,800 to treat a cut: “Across 32 states, more than 400 free-standing ERs provide quick and easy access to care. But they also are prompting complaints from a growing number of people who feel burned by ­hospital-size bills, like $6,856 for a cut that didn’t require a stitch or $4,025 for an antibiotic for a sinus infection. Emergency care requires costly imaging and laboratory equipment and facilities that are open 24 hours a day and staffed round the clock by a physician — and the costs reflect that. Prices for an average free-standing ER visit have grown and are now similar to hospital ERs, but patients with the same diagnosis rack up bills 10 times higher than at an urgent care, according to an analysis of one insurer’s Texas data by Rice University economist Vivian Ho. She found use of the facilities in Texas more than tripled between 2012 and 2015.”

Matt Apuzzo and Emmarie Huetteman report that today a Hearing May Shed Light on What White House Knew About Flynn: “WASHINGTON — Sally Q. Yates, the former acting attorney general, is scheduled to testify at 2:30 p.m. Monday before a Senate subcommittee. Here’s what to watch for:

Krishnadev Calamur explains What Macron’s Victory in France Means for the European Union: “Three elections across Europe in the past week have given the European Union reasons for joy, optimism, schadenfreude—and also plenty of cause for worry. The joy came from Emmanuel Macron’s victory in Sunday’s second round presidential election in France. Although the independent centrist’s win was never really in doubt, the margin of victory—65 percent versus 35 percent for Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the far right—will buoy an EU that has been buffeted by waves of populism since the 2008 economic crisis, culminating last summer with Brexit, the U.K.’s stunning decision to leave the bloc. The EU establishment had all but publicly endorsed Macron over his rival, who had vowed a Brexit-style referendum should she win; nor did a hack late Friday of documents purportedly from Macron’s campaign—some genuine, others not—derail his campaign….”

Great Big Story looks at Spying on Wildlife With Animal Robots:

Spying on Wildlife With Animal Robots from Great Big Story on Vimeo.

How do you record the most intimate moments in the animal kingdom? If you’re a clever English bloke, you build lookalike “spy creatures.” Filmmaker John Downer has spent much of his life capturing footage of wildlife, but it wasn’t until he and his team created robotic animals with built-in spy cameras that he was able to record rare footage of animal behavior in the wild, essentially from the perspective of the animal. Step inside his workshop to see how his mechanical menagerie spies on nature’s actors.