Daily Bread for 12.8.16

Good morning.

Whitewater’s Thursday will be cloudy with a high of twenty-six. Sunrise is 7:13 AM and sunset 4:20 PM, for 9h 06m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 62.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1941, the United States declares war on Japan. On this day in 1864, the Wisconsin 2nd Cavalry receives an assignment for a scouting mission in Memphis, Tennessee.

Worth reading in full —

Trump’s been supportive of Philippine Pres. Duterte (a man who is accused of a murderous campaign in his own country, see ‘They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals’). Duterte, as it turns out, is grateful for Trump’s support, so much so that Philippine President Duterte unveils his Trump impression, complete with profanities:

Deborah Fallows writes A Post-Election Field Report From America’s Refugees and Immigrants: “The sentiments: Worried, confused, concerned, tentative, sad, stunned. On one end of the spectrum, Paul Jericho, the Associate Director for Programs at the Multicultural Community Resource Center in Erie, said the mood is tentative, and “There is no hysteria.” Similarly Dylanna Jackson, who runs the USCRI field office in Erie, reported her clients saying (poignantly to my ear) that they have “confidence in our system; they believe in our democracy.” Their anxieties, she said are less about themselves and more about their families who they hoped might also have a chance to come to the United States. I heard the same story of worries from Burlington….On the other end of the spectrum, Robert Vinton, who runs the broad-reaching Migrant Education Program in Dodge City, reports that many in the vast community he serves are “stunned,” and the reality of what has happened is “slowly beginning to creep in.”

Alex Kotlowitz describes The Limits of Sanctuary Cities: “At a news conference last week, Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago, tried to reassure undocumented immigrants living in the city. “To all those who are, after Tuesday’s election, very nervous and filled with anxiety, you are safe in Chicago,” he said. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump had consistently promised to deport immigrants living in this country illegally, but Emanuel, along with other big-city mayors, including Bill de Blasio, in New York, asserted that their cities—so-called sanctuary cities—would remain safe havens against federal deportation actions. As Emanuel went on to declare, “Chicago has in the past been a sanctuary city. . . . It always will be a sanctuary city.” What these mayors didn’t say, however, was how their municipalities would be able to prevent the federal government from exerting its authority—and what they mean by the term “sanctuary city.”

In Milwaukee, Bruce Vielmeti reports that a Jury awards $1.99 million in [illegal] strip search: “The City of Milwaukee has racked up another significant courtroom loss in the continuing wake of the illegal strip search and cavity search practices of former police officers. Late last month, a federal jury awarded $1,995,000 in actual and punitive damages to Willie Newman after a two-day trial. The jury found that former officer Michael Vagnini had violated Newman’s civil rights during a 2010 arrest and that fellow officers Jeffrey Cline and Paul Martinez failed to intervene, despite knowledge of his improper actions and opportunity to stop Vagnini. The jury awarded Newman, 39, actual damages of $150,000 against Vagnini, and $60,000 each against Cline and Martinez, plus punitive damages of $1,125,000 against Vagnini, $400,000 against Martinez and $200,000 against Cline.”

NASA’s released new (and impressive) photos of Saturn from the Cassini probe: