Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty-nine. Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset is 4:22 PM, for 9h 02m 18s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 2.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1773, the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts hold the Boston Tea Party. On this day in 1864, Wisconsinites fight in defense of the Union: “the 8th, 14th, 24th, 33rd, 44th, and 45th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 6th Wisconsin Light Artillery were engaged in the Battle of Nashville, Tennessee. By the end of the day, 6,000 Confederate troops were killed, wounded or missing and Union forces had largely destroyed the Confederate ability to wage war in the region.”
Recommended for reading in full ––
Lena H. Sun and Juliet Eilperin report CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity:
The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget.
Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or “evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered….
Fr. James Martin’s observation on this federal prohibition is spot on:
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it,” George Orwell, “1984.” https://t.co/sz8GwsggwF https://t.co/OJDPVhvp7f
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) December 16, 2017
Mieke Eoyang, Ben Freeman, and Benjamin Wittes write The Public Isn’t Buying It: Confidence in the FBI is Very High:
Memo to the President: Your attacks on the FBI aren’t working.
President Trump has apparently decided that attacking federal law enforcement is a good defense strategy in L’Affaire Russe. Conservative media outlets have picked up the cry, devoting hours of air time to the absurd proposition that the FBI is corrupt and biased in favor of Hillary Clinton—and against the President.
The other day, curious about the impact of such attacks on public opinion, we put a very simple poll in the field using Google Surveys. It asked one question, polled between December 5-7: “How Much Confidence Do You Have in the FBI?”
The answer was striking:
The average confidence rating for the FBI in this poll measured in at 3.34. That compares favorably to any other institution we poll on, save the military, which had an average confidence score of 3.78. The question polled here is subtly different from our other polls, which measure confidence in institutions as protectors of national security. This one asks about confidence in general—on the theory that the President’s attacks on the Bureau have been general attacks, not limited to the national security function. That said, the FBI’s rating was notably higher than the next highest institution, the intelligence community more broadly, which had an average confidence measure of 3.04. Forty-seven percent of respondents give the FBI higher confidence ratings, either 4 or 5. And fully 74 percent repose at least some confidence in the Bureau—that is, give it at least a rating of 3. By contrast, only 26 percent give the FBI lower confidence ratings, that is a rating of only 1 or 2.
(It’s important, however, that Trump only needs the support of politicians and Fox News to create a feedback loop in which the FBI is demonized to precipitate action against the bureau or Special Counsel Mueller. Afterward, an American majority will be left to respond to Trump’s actions. )
William Booth writes of The new U.S. embassy in London: A crystalline ‘sugar cube’ worth a billion dollars:
LONDON — At $1 billion, it is the most expensive embassy ever constructed. But its designers say the new American chancery on the Thames River marks a paradigm shift: The U.S. Embassy here will exude openness while hiding all the clever ways it defends itself from attack.
After decades of building American embassies that look brutalist or bland, like obvious fortresses, the soon-to-be-opened chancery in London is a crystalline cube, plopped down in the middle of a public park, without visible walls.
The building does not shout, “Spies work here!” or “Stand back!” even though this city has been subjected to terrorist attacks. Instead, the vibe is modernist museum, which also happens to issue visas and might have a few hidden bunkers somewhere.
Instead of blast walls, there is a perimeter pond, with recycled-water waterfalls and deep trenches — and on the roof, arrays of solar panels that will produce enough juice to run the building and give extra watts back to the grid….
(A billion is a vast sum, but if it should be a billion, then at least an open design, to match the character of our people. Long after everything of Trump has been swept away, we will yet be a free and welcoming society.)
Matthew DeFour reports Fiscal bureau: Foxconn roads could draw $134 million from other state highway projects:
….The fiscal bureau memo to Assembly Minority Leader Gordon Hintz, D-Oshkosh, now reveals the previously unknown cost of local road improvements on top of the $252.4 million in state bonding that was authorized to pay for the nearby expansion of Interstate 94.
“It’s really concerning that we’re going to be taking $134 million from rehab projects around the state of Wisconsin and we’re going to be paying for local road projects around the Foxconn project,” Hintz said. “A memo like this today highlights the absolute absence of transparency, accountability and credibility on this project.”
It’s unclear which statewide road projects would be affected if money is used instead to improve roads in Racine County.
But fiscal bureau analyst John Wilson-Tepeli explained in the memo that because the roads in Racine County were local roads when the 2017-19 budget was adopted it is “unlikely” that the work was accounted for in the state highway rehabilitation fund during the budget debate.
“Therefore, the use of state highway rehabilitation funding to complete this work near the Foxconn site would likely result in the delay of other, previously planned rehabilitation projects on state highways,” Wilson-Tepeli wrote….
Meet the Dog Protecting Planes From Bird Strikes:
Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, cooler than a cucumber in a bowl of hot sauce, it’s Piper the Aviation Bird Dog, ready for duty. Alongside his handler Brian Edwards, the dynamic duo protects the planes at Cherry Capital Airport from bird strikes. Birds can pose a huge threat to flight safety, but when they see Piper on his way, geese, ducks and gulls flee the runways. It’s an important job, but not one without its share of fun.