Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of forty. Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset 4:51 PM, for 9h 32m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 5.7% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred thirty-fifth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1939, Ernest Hausen (1877 – 1955) of Ft. Atkinson sets the world’s record for chicken plucking. On this date in 1976, Federal District Judge John Reynolds ruled that the Milwaukee Public Schools were illegally segregated in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment rights of the students, and ordered the Milwaukee Board of School Directors to take immediate steps to desegregate the public schools.
Recommended for reading in full —
➤ Peter Stone and Greg Gordon report FBI investigating whether Russian money went to NRA to help Trump:
WASHINGTON — The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy.
FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.
It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections.
It’s unclear how long the Torshin inquiry has been ongoing, but the news comes as Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sweeping investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including whether the Kremlin colluded with Trump’s campaign, has been heating up.
All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because Mueller’s investigation is confidential and mostly involves classified information.
A spokesman for Mueller’s office declined comment.
➤ Sarah Kendzior contends Trump’s racism is more than rhetoric – it forms policy and ruins lives:
Having failed to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his bigotry, Americans are now stuck with him as President – and the priority should not be policing his profanity, but protecting the rights of non-white and non-Christian Americans. Some callously call his racist remarks a “distraction,” ignoring that his racism underlies actual policy such as the DACA repeal and the Muslim travel ban. Mr. Trump’s racism is not mere rhetoric; backed by a GOP that abides it, his racism ruins lives.
His racism is dangerous not only for immigrants and foreigners but for any American who is not white. For decades, he has described U.S. cities with substantial black and Latino populations – in particular, Chicago – in the same derogatory language he used on Thursday. Mr. Trump sees not only non-white immigrants but also non-white, native-born U.S. citizens as people who do not belong in his America. In his mind, being American is synonymous with being white. This view came through most clearly in his years-long crusade against president Barack Obama, whom Mr. Trump insisted must be a foreigner – admitting only in 2016 that Mr. Obama was an American. But one can also witness it in his attacks on other non-white citizens he deemed either illegitimate, such as Mexican-American Judge Gonzalo Curiel, or unpatriotic, such as the numerous black celebrities he berates.
After his comments spurred an outcry on Thursday [1.11.18], CNN reported that White House staffers were pleased, as the xenophobic attacks would resonate with Mr. Trump’s base. While this is likely true and is disturbing in its own right, the broader implications are also concerning. Mr. Trump is the most unpopular president in U.S. history, with a 67-per-cent disapproval rating, and his base is small and shrinking. Only 26 per cent of Americans voted for him, and the number who remain hard-core supporters is likely much lower than that.
Mr. Trump’s base may be overwhelmingly white, but by 2020 non-whites will be the majority of America’s children. Given this shifting demographic, one would normally expect a president and his party to tone down racist rhetoric in a midterm election year and instead try to expand the voter base. That Mr. Trump remains blatantly racist shows not only personal mendacity but a lack of concern for the will of the public – a nonchalance best explained by the numerous suppression mechanisms the GOP has designed to disenfranchise voters.
Mr. Trump and his backers have abandoned the idea that America is for everyone – a fundamental precept of the United States. Though this ideal has never been fully upheld in practice, it has never been so vigorously opposed, both in rhetoric and policy, by a president. Mr. Trump’s racism is not new, but this anti-American presidency is.
➤ Frank Bruni observes Donald Trump Will Soil You. Ask Lindsey Graham:
That’s the story of Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Its moral couldn’t be clearer. There’s no honor or wisdom in cozying up to Donald Trump — just a heap of manure.
Maybe more than any other figure on Capitol Hill, Graham personifies his party’s spastic, incoherent response to Trump across time and its humiliating, fatally misguided surrender.
He denounced Trump before he befriended and defended him. He graduated from the unpleasant experience of being Trump’s punching bag to the unprincipled one of being his enabler. Like the majority of his Republican colleagues in Congress, he reckoned that he could somehow get more than he was giving up, which included his dignity. He reckoned wrong.
Right now, we’re supposed to … what? Thank Graham for his candor, because he effectively confirmed that in a meeting about immigration in the Oval Office on Thursday, Trump made those vulgar comments, and because Graham stood up to the president at the time, telling him that America was an idea, not a race?
Or should we instead note how far Graham had previously traveled to prop this same president up? It was Graham who recently joined Senator Charles Grassley, the Iowa Republican, in undercutting the credibility of federal inquiries into Trump’s ties with Russia by recommending that the Justice Department investigate Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote that famous dossier.
➤ David Frum writes of An Exit From Trumpocracy:
Where technologies were invented and where styles were set, where diseases cured and innovations launched, where songs were composed and patents registered—there the GOP was weakest. Donald Trump won vast swathes of the nation’s landmass. Hillary Clinton won the counties that produced 64 percent of the nation’s wealth. Even in Trump states, Clinton won the knowledge centers, places like the Research Triangle of North Carolina.
The Trump presidency only accelerated the divorce of political power from cultural power. Business leaders quit Trump’s advisory boards lest his racist outbursts sully their brands. Companies like Facebook and Microsoft denounced his immigration policies. Popular singers refused invitations to his White House; great athletes boycotted his events. By the summer of 2017, Trump’s approval among those under thirty had dipped to 20 percent.
And this was before Trump’s corruption and collusion scandals begin to bite.
Whatever Trump’s personal fate, his Republican Party seems headed for electoral trouble—or worse. Yet it will require much more than Republican congressional defeats in 2018 to halt Trumpocracy. Indeed, such defeats may well perversely strengthen President Trump. Congressional defeats will weaken alternative power centers within the Republican Party. If they lose the House or the Senate or many governorships—or some combination of those defeats—then Republicans may feel all the more compelled to defend their president. The party faithful may interpret any internal criticism of Trump as a treasonable surrender to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. As the next presidential race nears, it will become ever more imperative to rally around Trump. The more isolated Trump becomes within the American political system as a whole, the more he will dominate whatever remains of the conservative portion of that system. He will devour his party from within.
➤ One can look Behind the Scenes at the Natural History Museum: