Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of thirty-four. Sunrise is 6:46 AM and sunset 4:32 PM, for 9h 45m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 40.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the seven hundred thirty-fifth day.
Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission is scheduled to meet at 5 PM.
On this day in 1851, the American edition of Moby-Dick is “published and the same day reviewed in both the Albany Argus and the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer.”
Recommended for reading in full — Whitaker’s shabby past, Maryland sues over Whitaker appointment, hate crime data up for 2017, Trump pouts over election losses, and video on growing crops in the desert with sea water —
Ryan Foley and David Pitt report Whitaker abandoned taxpayer-funded project in Iowa in 2016:
While in private business, acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker walked away from a taxpayer-subsidized apartment-rehabilitation project in Iowa after years of cost overruns, delays and other problems, public records show.
The city of Des Moines ultimately yanked an affordable housing loan that Whitaker’s company had been awarded, and another lender began foreclosure proceedings after Whitaker defaulted on a separate loan for nearly $700,000. Several contractors complained they were not paid, and a process server for one could not even find Whitaker or his company to serve him with a lawsuit.
Beginning in February 2015, city officials said they repeatedly communicated the urgency of finishing the project to Whitaker during meetings, letters and phone calls. But by March 2016, an inspection showed “there had been minimal, if any, additional rehabilitation work completed since the previous inspection” several months earlier, city planner Mary Neiderbach wrote to Whitaker on April 1, 2016.
“In addition, more damage had occurred to the building’s interior because of what appears to be a roof leak and missing downspouts on the back of the building,” she wrote, adding that Whitaker’s company “appears to have abandoned the property.”
The letter informed Whitaker that the city was terminating the loan agreement and gave him 30 days to pay back $151,620 that he had been advanced. It noted that the city had to complete the work by the end of 2016 or repay HUD, and that it did not have confidence Whitaker’s company was up to that task.
(Kakistocracy: confidence men, liars, and frauds otherwise properly rejected have found a home in Trumpism.)
The Committee to Investigate Russia writes Maryland Sues Over Whitaker Appointment:
The State of Maryland filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in federal court Tuesday asking that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein replace Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general, arguing Whitaker’s appointment is unconstitutional.
NYT:
Maryland is asking a judge — Ellen L. Hollander of the Federal District Court for the District of Maryland, a 2010 Obama appointee — to rule on who is the real acting attorney general as part of a lawsuit in which it sued [former Attorney General Jeff] Sessions in his official capacity. Because Mr. Sessions is no longer the attorney general, the judge must substitute his successor as a defendant in the litigation, so she has to decide who that successor legally is.
Devlin Barrett reports Hate crimes rose 17 percent last year, according to new FBI data:
Reported hate crimes in America rose 17 percent last year, the third consecutive year that such crimes increased, according to newly released FBI data that showed an even larger increase in anti-Semitic attacks.
Law enforcement agencies reported that 7,175 hate crimes occurred in 2017, up from 6,121 in 2016. That increase was fueled in part by more police departments reporting hate crime data to the FBI, but overall there is still a large number of departments that report no hate crimes to the federal database.
The sharp increase in hate crimes in 2017 came even as overall violent crime in America fell slightly, by 0.2 percent, after increases in 2015 and 2016.
(See also Hate crimes are soaring but many jurisdictions still don’t report any.)
Eli Stokols reports Trump, stung by midterms and nervous about Mueller, retreats from traditional presidential duties:
For weeks this fall, an ebullient President Trump traveled relentlessly to hold raise-the-rafters campaign rallies — sometimes three a day — in states where his presence was likely to help Republicans on the ballot.
But his mood apparently has changed as he has taken measure of the electoral backlash that voters delivered Nov. 6. With the certainty that the incoming Democratic House majority will go after his tax returns and investigate his actions, and the likelihood of additional indictments by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, Trump has retreated into a cocoon of bitterness and resentment, according to multiple administration sources.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, painted a picture of a brooding president “trying to decide who to blame” for Republicans’ election losses, even as he publicly and implausibly continues to claim victory.
(For all his braggadocio, Trump is a pouty, petulant man.)