Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-five. Sunrise is 7:21 AM and sunset 4:49 PM, for 9h 28m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 81.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the seven hundred ninety-ninth day.
Whitewater’s Community Development Authority is scheduled to meet at 5:30 PM. (For a category at FREE WHITEWATER with posts describing the years-long failure of the Whitewater CDA’s approach, see CDA.)
On this day in 1864, the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry fights in the Battle of Dandridge, Tennessee.
Recommended for reading in full:
Patrick Marley reports Wisconsin GOP lawmakers seek to hire attorneys at taxpayer expense to defend lame-duck laws:
Republican legislators have taken the first step to hiring private attorneys at taxpayer expense to fight a lawsuit challenging lame-duck laws that limit the power of Democratic officials and curtail early voting.
Top lawmakers were asked Wednesday to sign off on hiring lawyers without knowing what it would cost. If approved, two GOP leaders — Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester and Senate President Roger Roth of Appleton — would be given the power to determine whom to hire and how much to pay them.
The effort comes at a time when Vos has refused to release a legal contract in another case that is expected to cost taxpayers at least $850,000.
Allyson Chiu reports Rudy Giuliani: ‘I never said there was no collusion’ between Trump campaign and Russia:
Rudolph W. Giuliani claimed Wednesday night that he “never said there was no collusion” between President Trump’s campaign and Russia leading up to the 2016 presidential election.
In a remarkable, at times contentious, interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, the president’s lawyer was accused of contradicting his own past statements about collusion as well as what Trump and his supporters have repeatedly asserted. On Twitter, Trump has used the phrase “no collusion” dozens of times, and a number of those instances were direct denials that his campaign was involved with the Russian government.
Giuliani’s shocking declarations — several of which Cuomo called out as being false — quickly sent the Internet into a tailspin as many wondered what could have prompted the former New York mayor to suddenly change course.
….
As recently as July, Giuliani was asked by Fox News contributor Guy Benson, “Regardless of whether collusion would be a crime, is it still the position of you and your client that there was no collusion with the Russians whatsoever on behalf of the Trump campaign?”
“Correct,” Giuliani responded at the time.
But on Wednesday, Giuliani appeared to amend his previous comments on the subject.
Spencer S. Hsu reports New court filing indicates prosecutors have extensive details on Manafort actions not yet made public:
Prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III have intensively scrutinized Paul Manafort’s activities after President Trump’s election — including after Manafort was criminally charged — and indicated they have extensive details not yet made public about Manafort’s interactions with former Russian aide Konstantin Kilimnik and others, a Tuesday court filing showed.
That Time a Heineken Distributor Convinced the Masses That Corona Contained Human Urine:
It is becoming increasingly clear that the Republican party is wholly owned subsidiary of the Russian oligarchy. The vote by the Senate yesterday to excuse Daripaska from sanctions, right in the middle of a scandal involving Deripaska influencing our election, is just the latest example. Yertle and the R-team just rolled over to let Putin rub their fuzzy little bellies on command. It is simply breathtaking that Putin threw this move at this time. You would think that he would lay low until the heat dissipates, but instead he threw this power move, just to demonstrate how much power he has over the Republican party.
Yertle leaves the impression of being completely compromised, and has since before the 2016 election. Recall that Yertle refused to join a joint statement about Russian influence before the election. Recall also that Yertle happily accepted $3.5M from a pro-Putin Ukranian for his PAC. Scott Walker got $1M from the same guy. Yertle continues to insist that no independent investigation by the Senate of the R-Team/Putin ties is necessary. Cruz, McCain, Huck Graham, Kasich, and Rubio also got sugared in the 2016 campaign. Ryan embarrassingly let Nunes run wild.
The NRA spent $70M on the Republicans during the 2016 cycle, $30M on Trump alone. They appear to be a substantial laundromat for Russian funds. Isn’t it coincidental that they had to find a new president, notorious “patriot” and convicted international money launderer, Ollie North, shortly after the 2016 election? Have you noticed how low the NRA laid in the 2018 election?
The NRCC got hacked during the midterm elections. Ryan, Scalise, and McCarthy claim that nobody told them, after Politico asked them about it. Is that even remotely plausible? Nothing resulting from those hacks has been made public. Why do you suppose that Ryan suddenly decided to abdicate the third highest job in the country to spend more time with his family? Why do you suppose all of those Republican house membe5rs decided to retire? The coincidences pile up like cord-wood.
What is becoming more than obvious is that the entire Republican party is either bought by or compromised by the Russians. They have taken over the GOP, and by extension, most of the political power in this country. There is going to be a reckoning soon, when Mueller’s shit-nado tears thru the Republican Party.
I’ve spent the last half-century listening to Republicans smugly insist, at every opportunity, that they are the true patriots, all the while waving every American (and the occasional confederate) flag they can get their hands on. Trump has been known to show up on a stage and actually hug an American flag. We are now seeing the real colors of their patriotism.
It ain’t purty.
When, really, have we faced so many domestic politicians committed against the interests of their own people? Tories, Copperheads, and Confederates, one supposes. (In smaller numbers, the pro-Nazi Bund.)
We have no modern-day equivalent of a party like the contemporary GOP: not merely tolerant, but supportive, of a foreign dictator and his oligarchs. America suffered many losses (some self-inflicted) during the long Cold War. And yet, and yet, at no time did a Soviet dictator ever find so many obliging American politicians as Russian dictator Putin does today.
Putin would be a murderer and a militarist on his own; the GOP makes him more powerful than he otherwise would be by appeasing him at every turn.
Nothing Putin has on his own is as useful to him in his day-to-day rivalry with the United States as is the Republican Party.
I read in a recent interview that the ailing Harry Reed described Trump as amoral – yes, very true. The same should be said of McConnell – there’s nothing one can discern of beliefs in McConnell, unless maintaining power should be considered a belief all its own.
Of the GOP’s appeasement of dictatorship one has neither reason to forgive nor forget.