Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of forty-nine. Sunrise is 7:17 AM and sunset 4:55 PM, for 9h 38m 14s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 25.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred thirty-eighth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
The Whitewater School Board meets tonight in closed session beginning at 6:15 PM, and then open session at 7 PM.
On this day in 1964, the World’s Largest Block of Cheese [at the time] is made in Wisconsin: “The block of cheddar was produced from 170,000 quarts of milk by the Wisconsin Cheese Foundation specifically for the 1964 New York World’s Fair. It weighed 34,665 pounds (17.4 tons). The cheese was consumed in 1965 at the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Cheesemakers Association at Eau Claire. A replica is displayed in Neilsville in the specially designed “Cheesemobile“, a semi-tractor trailer in which the original cheese toured. [Source: American Profile, December 16, 2001]”
Recommended for reading in full —
➤ Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey write of Stephen Miller: Immigration agitator and White House survivor:
Miller’s driving obsession is immigration, an area where he has long pushed hard-line positions going back to his days as a combative conservative activist at Duke University. In Washington, as an aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), he was instrumental in helping to kill a bipartisan effort in 2013 for a broad immigration deal. He and Sessions helped galvanize House conservatives to block the bill passed by the Senate, including distributing a handbook of talking points aimed at undercutting the compromise.
Now working in the White House, Miller — who is known for his natty attire, long-winded conversations and distinctive heavy-lidded appearance on television — has told colleagues that his “consuming focus is to make what I know the president wants in an immigration deal a legislative reality,” a senior White House official said. He has few hobbies outside of work, and his spacious second-floor West Wing office is sparsely decorated, with a stack of “Make America Great Again” hats and invitations to inauguration events framed on the wall.
The official said Miller chats frequently with the president about immigration, both formally and informally, during scheduled meetings, on board Air Force One, after bill signings in the Oval Office and during rides in the presidential motorcade. He prizes loyalty to Trump above all else and speaks often of the president with reverence, a stark contrast with some eye-rolling aides.
➤ Jill Filipovic ponders Donald Trump and His Work Wives:
There are so many bombshells in Michael Wolff’s new book, “Fire and Fury,” that smaller anecdotes are going largely unremarked upon, even if they offer disturbing insight into the presidential psyche. One of them is Mr. Trump’s penchant for hiring women into often vaguely defined but closely held roles.
“Women, according to Trump, were simply more loyal and trustworthy than men,” Mr. Wolff writes. “Men might be more forceful and competent, but they were also more likely to have their own agendas. Women, by their nature, or Trump’s version of their nature, were more likely to focus their purpose on a man. A man like Trump.” Mr. Trump, the author continued, “needed special — extra-special — handling. Women, he explained to one friend with something like self-awareness, generally got this more precisely than men. In particular, women who self-selected themselves as tolerant of or oblivious to or amused by or steeled against his casual misogyny and constant sexual subtext — which was somehow, incongruously and often jarringly, matched with paternal regard — got this.”
The term “emotional labor” gets vastly overused, but this is a textbook example. The women who work for Mr. Trump aren’t just required to perform their professional tasks; they also have to coddle and care for a volatile patriarch.
➤ Zoya Teirstein cautions Don’t Let Anyone Fool You: There ARE Environmental Conservatives:
Todd Tanner has a pretty sweet offer for his fellow Montanans: a new shotgun in exchange for science-based evidence that he’s wrong about climate change.
The conservationist uses the challenge in an attempt to raise awareness about our warming planet. A lot of people where Tanner lives in Bigfork, Montana, would probably like to take him up on his offer: The state has one of the highest rates of outdoor recreationists in the country, and Tanner is no exception. He was planning on going hunting after we finished our interview. “You wouldn’t know it,” he said over the phone, “but I’m literally walking around in a pair of wool pants.”
Tanner is sure he’ll never have to hand over that new shotgun, though he says he would love to find out that anthropogenic climate change isn’t real. “If someone shows me the error of my ways they can have their choice,” he said. “They can have any rifle, shotgun, pistol, or rod I own, and I’ll walk away feeling like I got the better end of the bargain.”
Since 2011, Tanner has harnessed his prominent position in Montana’s hunting and fishing communities to get people engaged. After wildfires incinerated forests and droughts desiccated rivers in Big Sky Country this year, agitated sportsmen and women have become easier to find. Tanner’s nonprofit, Conservation Hawks, is part of a coalition of grassroots organizations trying to pull conservatives into the conversation about rising temperatures.
➤ Sen. Ben Cardin writes Never before has a president ignored such a clear national security threat:
For the better part of 20 years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has engaged in a relentless assault against democratic institutions abroad, universal values and the rule of law. He has carried out these attacks with an asymmetric arsenal: cyberattacks; disinformation; support for fringe political groups; the weaponization of energy resources, organized crime and corruption; and even military aggression.
Putin has used such techniques because he has operated from a position of weakness, hobbled by a faltering economy, a substandard military and few followers on the world stage. And his attacks have grown in intensity and complexity over the past few years, driven by a desire to also repress democratic aspirations among his own citizens. While our European partners have taken steps to better defend themselves, the United States has done little to protect its institutions.
Despite the efforts of some in national security leadership, as well as dedicated career public servants across the executive branch, one person is preventing a strong, government-wide response that holds Russia accountable for its destabilizing activities: the president of the United States. Never before has the White House so clearly ignored a national security threat.
…
The Russian president’s rap sheet of meddling in Europe is long and sordid. Some of the most egregious examples include:
– A coup attempt in Montenegro to storm the nation’s parliament and capture or kill the prime minister ahead of that nation’s attempt to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
– Russian media propaganda, especially Internet trolls and bots, which were discovered in the public debate ahead of recent major referendums such as “Brexit” in Britain and the Catalonia independence movement in Spain, as well as national elections in France and Germany. Indications are that Italy may well be next.
– The murder of a number of Russian opposition figures and critics across Europe.
– The violation of international law by invading Russia’s neighbors, such as Georgia and Ukraine.
(See also Putin’s Asymmetric Assault on Democracy in Russia and Europe: Implications for U.S. National Security.)
➤ So, here’s How Lucid Dreaming Works: