Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of sixty-six. Sunrise is 6:03 AM and sunset 7:43 PM, for 13h 39m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.4 of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the eight hundred ninety-second day.
On this day in 1836, the oldest library in Wisconsin is founded.
Recommended for reading in full:
Conservative David French writes Donald Trump Is Weak and Afraid. The Mueller Report Proves It:
It’s difficult to overestimate the extent to which Trump’s appeal to his core supporters is built around the notion that — regardless of his other flaws — he possesses a core strength, a willingness to “fight” and an ability to strike a degree of fear in the hearts of his opponents. I live in the heart of Trump country in Tennessee, and I have consistently heard the same refrain from his most loyal supporters. Trump, as they say, “kicks ass.” He was the ultimate alpha male, a political version of Tony Soprano, a formidable boss who commands an army of loyal consiglieri. Cross him at your peril.
But now, thanks to the Mueller report, his “fights” look more like temper tantrums, and those closest to him — including low men like Lewandowski and far-more-noble men like former White House counsel Donald McGahn — understand that his fury is passing and his directives are unreliable, seemingly transitory and easily forgotten or disregarded.
Moreover, his vaunted personal judgment — an image cultivated through years of careful television production on The Apprentice — has been exposed as well. When one reads Robert Mueller’s account of Trump’s own campaign chair’s extraordinary efforts to maintain an encrypted connection to Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs, it’s plain that Trump was played. Paul Manafort used Trump’s gullibility as a business opportunity.
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As the Mueller report stated, Trump’s attempts to influence the investigation “were mostly unsuccessful,” but it’s “largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.” He’s not strong. He’s not wise. He’s not honorable. And sometimes, when his subordinates disregard is orders, he’s not even truly the president. Regardless of his potential criminality, there is nothing revealed in the report that is admirable — or alpha — about Donald Trump.
David A. Fahrenthold reports ‘I have no recollection’: Trump turned to familiar refrain in response to Mueller questions:
President Trump has bragged that he has “one of the great memories of all time.”
But — when faced with questions from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III about the 2016 campaign — Trump said his memory failed him.
When did Trump learn that his aides had met with a Russian lawyer offering dirt on rival Hillary Clinton?
“I have no recollection,” Trump wrote in written responses to Mueller’s team.
Did anyone tell Trump during the campaign that Russian President Vladimir Putin supported Trump’s candidacy?
“I have no recollection of being told,” Trump wrote back.
In at least 37 instances, Trump responded to Mueller’s questions — about his campaign’s contacts with Russians and about Russian interference in the 2016 election — by saying he couldn’t recall.