Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-eight. Sunrise is 6:42 AM and sunset 4:35 PM, for 9h 52m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the seven hundred thirty-second day.
In 1918, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, a ceasefire comes into effect following the surrender of Germany ending the First World War:
Contemporaneously described as the “war to end all wars”,[7] it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history.[8][9] An estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilians died as a direct result of the war, while it is also considered a contributory factor in a number of genocides and the 1918 influenza epidemic, which caused between 50 and 100 million deaths worldwide.[10] Military losses were exacerbated by new technological and industrial developments and the tactical stalemate caused by gruelling trench warfare. It was one of the deadliest conflicts in history and precipitated major political changes, including the Revolutions of 1917–1923, in many of the nations involved. Unresolved rivalries at the end of the conflict contributed to the start of the Second World War about twenty years later.[11]
Recommended for reading in full — Trump cancels visit to American veterans’ cemetery in France due to rain, photo shows even a French cyclist could handle the light rain, Trump’s acting attorney general threatened consumers who lost life savings but they filed complaints against company he served anyway, DNR under Walker pressured to build on rare wetlands to suit Kohler, and video about a tiny island that was a big deal for lumberjacks —
Luke Baker reports Trump cancels WW1 memorial at U.S. cemetery in France due to rain:
PARIS (Reuters) – President Donald Trump could not attend a commemoration in France for U.S. soldiers and marines killed during World War One on Saturday because rain made it impossible to arrange transport, the White House said.
The last minute cancellation prompted widespread criticism on social media and from some officials in Britain and the United States that Trump had “dishonored” U.S. servicemen.
….
The decision prompted a rash of criticism on Twitter, with Nicholas Soames, a British member of parliament who is a grandson of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill, saying that Trump was dishonoring U.S. servicemen.
“They died with their face to the foe and that pathetic inadequate @realDonaldTrump couldn’t even defy the weather to pay his respects to the Fallen”, Soames wrote on Twitter.
….
Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser for strategic communications under President Barack Obama, said the excuse about the inclement weather did not stand up.
“I helped plan all of President Obama’s trips for 8 years,” he wrote on Twitter. “There is always a rain option. Always.”
(Emphasis added.)
François Heisbourg writes:
A view of the weather in Paris which is supposed to have deterred
@realDonaldTrump from paying his respects to the brave American soldiers who gave their lives for freedom at the AisneMarne war cemetery this afternoon. Nothing a cyclist can’t handle, let alone a presidential helo
Sarah Whites-Koditschek reports Former DNR employee: Staff pressured to OK Kohler golf course on rare Wisconsin wetlands and state park:
Trochlell said the DNR completed its environmental assessment before seeing detailed plans from Kohler — backwards of the normal process. She assumed Kohler’s request for a wetland permit, required to build the golf course, would never be granted. She was wrong.
Despite their assessment that rare wetlands would be impacted, the agency okayed the wetland permit for the 18-hole course, which would also require removal of up to 120 acres of forest. Trochlell believes the loss of trees, installation of fertilized turf and other changes would negatively affect the area’s dunes and wetlands.
Trochlell: DNR pressured to approve project
Trochlell determined the project did not meet state standards. But she said her bosses told her the permit should be approved no matter what.“I was in a meeting with managers … and I asked the question of what would happen if we wouldn’t sign off on these permits, and I was told that if we didn’t sign off on these permits, we would be … moved to another job or fired, I think that’s how I interpreted it,” Trochlell recalled.
Diana Hembree writes ‘Scam’ Company Advised by Matthew Whitaker Threatened Victims, But Hundreds Filed Complaints Anyway:
The Iowa attorney Trump has named as the acting Attorney General has only been on the job a day or so, but he’s already enveloped in scandal.
Matthew Whitaker, who replaced Jeff Sessions after he was forced out by Trump, served on the advisory board of World Patent Marketing, a Florida-based “scam that has bilked thousands of consumers out of millions of dollars,” according to a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
As part of a settlement with the FTC this May, the company was banned from the invention promotion business. Documents in the FTC’s docket show that Whitaker, who served on the World Patent Marketing board from 2014 to 2017, was not just a paid advisory board member — he threatened at least one victim who complained.
Whitaker and the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
The settlement resolved charges that the agency brought against it in 2017, which alleged that “consumers paid the defendants thousands of dollars to patent and market their inventions based on bogus ‘success stories’ and testimonials,” according to an FTC press release.
“After stringing consumers along for months or even years, the defendants did not deliver what they promised,” the agency charged, “and many people ended up in debt or lost their life savings with nothing to show for it.”