Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of thirty. Sunrise is 6:41 AM and sunset 4:36 PM, for 9h 54m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the seven hundred thirty-first day.
On this day in 1969, Sesame Street premieres.
Recommended for reading in full — Whitaker is unfit to serve as acting attorney general, Whitaker play a key role in a fraudulent company, Republicans really did get clobbered in the midterms, Trump’s trade war may have won Democrats the House, and video of people trying to toss pizza dough —
The Washington Post editorial board writes There is no way this man should be running the Justice Department:
IS MATTHEW G. WHITAKER the legitimate acting attorney general? From approximately the second President Trump ousted Attorney General Jeff Sessions and tapped Mr. Whitaker to temporarily exercise the office’s vast authority, legal experts have sparred over whether Mr. Trump can unilaterally elevate someone from a role that does not require Senate confirmation to one that does. But regardless of whether the promotion is legal, it is very clear that it is unwise. Mr. Whitaker is unfit for the job.
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First, there are Mr. Whitaker’s statements criticizing the Russia probe of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. At the least, they require him to consult Justice Department ethics counsel about whether he can oversee the inquiry with a plausible appearance of evenhandedness. He will do immediate and lasting harm to the Justice Department’s reputation, and to the nation, if he assumes the role of president’s personal henchman and impedes the Mueller probe.
Then there is Mr. Whitaker’s connection to a defunct patent promotion company the Federal Trade Commission called “an invention-promotion scam that has bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars.” Mr. Whitaker served on its board and once threatened a complaining customer, lending the weight of his former position as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa to the company’s scheme.
Finally, and fundamentally most damning, is Mr. Whitaker’s expressed hostility to Marbury v. Madison, a central case — the central case — in the American constitutional system. It established an indispensable principle: The courts decide what is and is not constitutional. Without Marbury, there would be no effective judicial check on the political branches, no matter how egregious their actions.
(Trumpism is a true kakistocracy, a rule by the worst: ignorant, dim-witted, or corrupt men & women otherwise rejected in a well-functioning society find themselves at the center of power by appointment from an ignorant, dim-witted, and corrupt autocrat.)
Carol D. Leonnig and Rosalind S. Helderman report Federal investigators scrutinized Whitaker’s role in patent company accused of fraud, according to people with knowledge of case:
Federal investigators last year looked into whether Matthew G. Whitaker, as an advisory board member of a Miami patent company accused of fraud by customers, played a role in trying to help the company silence critics by threatening legal action, according to two people with knowledge of the inquiry.
Whitaker, named this week by President Trump as acting attorney general, occasionally served as an outside legal adviser to the company, World Patent Marketing, writing a series of letters on its behalf, according to people familiar with his role.
But he rebuffed an October 2017 subpoena from the Federal Trade Commission seeking his records related to the company, according to two people with knowledge of the case.
The FTC alleged in a 2017 complaint that the company bilked customers with fraudulent promises that it would help them market their invention. The FBI has also investigated World Patent Marketing, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
(There’s America’s ‘Acting Attorney General’: a man who rebuffed a federal subpoena over a fraud investigation.)
Jennifer Rubin observes Three days later: Hey, Republicans really did get clobbered:
n the House, as of this writing, the Democratic gains are up to 30 with about five more races still to be called — in which Democrats are leading. A gain of 35 seats would be the largest House pickup for Democrats since the first post-Watergate midterm election in 1974.
The Democrats picked up seven governorships, with Stacey Abrams, as of now, still fighting to make it to a runoff in Georgia, and Andrew Gillum trailing by 0.4 percentage points, enough to trigger a recount in Florida.
In the Senate, Democrats may not quite have pulled off an inside straight, but they had two aces — in Nevada and Arizona. With 26 seats to defend, many in red states, it now looks as if their losses will be small. Democrats won in Nevada and are now poised to pick up a seat in Arizona. In the latter, Rep. Kyrsten Sinemasurged into the lead as additional Maricopa County ballots were counted.)
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If you then turn to exit polls, voters said by big margins: they disapprove of Trump (54 percent to 45 percent ); regard the GOP unfavorably (52 percent to 44 percent); think the country is on the wrong track (54 percent to 42 percent), thought Trump’s immigration policies were too harsh (46 percent, with 33 percent saying they were about right and 17 saying not tough enough); favor tougher gun laws (59 percent to 37 percent); think his foreign policy makes the country less safe (46 percent to 38 percent); disapprove of Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh (47 percent to 44 percent); want to uphold Roe v. Wade (66 percent to 25 percent); think it is somewhat or very important to elect more minorities (72 percent to 24 percent) and somewhat or very important to elect more women (78 percent to 20 percent); think sexual harassment is a big problem (84 percent to 14 percent); and are more concerned about people being denied the right to vote than voter fraud (53 percent to 36 percent).
It drives Trump’s critics to distraction to watch him dominate every news cycle and repeat lies that have long since been debunked. They should be upset ; the president’s lies, racism, meanness and ignorance debase the presidency. However, Trump’s not helping himself or his party. To the contrary, Democrats just had an extremely successful election and are winning most major policy debates. They should send him a nice fruit basket or something for the holidays.
Jeff Stein writes Trump’s trade war may have helped Democrats win the House:
“It’s very clear, based on how they lost seats in the Upper Midwest, that declining agricultural markets likely led to the overturning of the GOP majority in the House,” said Joe Brusuelas, an economist with RSM, an international accounting firm. “It’s hard to imagine that these seats would have flipped anyway.”
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Two of Democrats’ House pickups came in Iowa, where Abby Finkenauer beat incumbent Rep. Rod Blum (R) and Cindy Axne beat incumbent Rep. David Young (R). J.D. Scholten, a Democrat running against Rep. Steve King (R), lost but came closer than Democrats had in the last several cycles against King, a 15-year incumbent.
Farmers in Iowa districts who have voted Republican and supported Trump before were this year “discouraged and not as motivated to go out and vote” because of the tariffs, said Aaron H. Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union.