Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with morning flurries and a high of thirty-five. Sunrise is 7:16 AM and sunset 4:21 PM, for 9h 04m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 24.1% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the seven hundred sixty-third day.
Whitewater’s Tech Park Board meets at 8 AM, the CDA Board at 5:30 PM, and there is a scheduled Community Meeting for the Lakes Drawdown Project at 6 PM.
On this day in 1913, the Mona Lisa is recovered after it was stolen over two years earlier:
Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia had stolen the Mona Lisa by entering the building during regular hours, hiding in a broom closet, and walking out with it hidden under his coat after the museum had closed.
Recommended for reading in full:
Lisa Rein and Josh Dawsey report Trump loyalist at VA forced out after collecting pay but doing little work:
Peter O’Rourke’s departure marks an unceremonious fall for a Trump loyalist once seen as a rising star at VA, where he nonetheless had a rocky tenure, first leading a high-profile office handling whistleblower complaints, next as chief of staff and then, for two months, as the agency’s acting secretary.
Since August he has held the nebulous role of senior adviser, with an uncertain portfolio and a senior executive salary as high as $161,000. VA Secretary Robert Wilkie asked for his resignation Friday, O’Rourke said.
….
Asked why he was getting paid not to work, O’Rourke said he was “available for anything the secretary asked me to do” and acknowledged that “there were times I didn’t have a lot to do.”
Jennifer Rubin writes For Trump, it’s all downhill from here:
The intensity of his [Trump’s] disapproval (44 strongly disapprove, while only 30 percent strongly approve) remains a consistent problem for him and those who will appear on the ballot with him in 2020.
Republicans who have thrown their lot in with Trump, by smearing the FBI and attacking Mueller, may please the hardcore base but, overall, they are on the wrong side of public opinion — even before the public knows more than a fraction of what Mueller does.
LZ Granderson observes Michigan, Wisconsin GOP power grabs are like ‘Breaking Bad’:
“Breaking Bad,” season four, episode six:
Skyler White, in an argument with her husband, Walter, tells him he’s in over his head and expresses concern for his safety. Walter turns and responds with one of the most chilling lines in television history:
“I am not in danger Skyler, I am the danger.”
That scene, that quote, is what I thought about when I learned Republican state leaders in Wisconsin and Michigan called emergency sessions in an attempt to pass a number of measures that will limit the executive power of the newly elected incoming Democratic governors (who unseated Republicans) and attorneys general while increasing their own.
How High-Speed Photography Unlocked the Mechanics of Motion: