Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will see occasional showers with a high of forty-four. Sunrise is 6:30 AM and sunset 7:24 PM, for 12h 54m 29s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the eight hundred seventy-sixth day.
Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 5:45 PM, the Whitewater Common Council at 6:30 PM, and the Whitewater Fire Department Board of Directors Meeting also at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1968, Dr. King is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
Recommended for reading in full:
Kimberly Kindy, Felicia Sonmez, and Lisa Rein report Acosta confronted by lawmakers over plea deal in Jeffrey Epstein sexual misconduct case:
Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta was confronted by Democratic lawmakers Wednesday over his decision as a federal prosecutor to sign off on a plea deal in a sex trafficking case involving multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
The exchange at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing marked the first time Acosta has been questioned publicly about the case since a judge ruled in February that the 2008 arrangement he oversaw as a U.S. attorney in South Florida had broken the law because his office failed to properly notify victims.
“You chose wealthy and well-connected people, child rapists, over the victims in this case,” said Rep. Katherine M. Clark (D-Mass.), who noted that “the hideous truth has come out” about Acosta’s role in the case.
Clark cited the Epstein case as she questioned Acosta on his department’s decision to propose cutting the budget for one of its divisions tasked with combating human trafficking from $68 million to $18.5 million.
….
The 2008 plea deal stemmed from a federal investigation of Epstein focused on alleged sex trafficking and molestation of dozens of underage girls. Before the deal, prosecutors drafted a 53-page federal indictment that included sex trafficking charges, which could have placed Epstein in prison for life.
Epstein’s plea agreement allowed him to instead plead guilty to two state felony solicitation charges, casting the victims as prostitutes. The deal led to a 13-month stay in county jail during which Epstein was allowed to leave custody six days a week, 12 hours a day, for work.
Acosta, 50, has received support from his boss, President Trump, who in February called him a “fantastic labor secretary.”
(Emphasis added.)
Jennifer Rubin writes Trump is unraveling before our eyes. He isn’t fit for reelection:
In the past 24 hours, Trump — who will be 74 in November 2020 and is “tired,” according to aides — has:
- Falsely declared multiple times that his father was born in Germany. (Fred Trump was born in New York.)
- Declared that wind turbines cause cancer.
- Confused “origins” and “oranges” in asking reporters to look into the “oranges of the Mueller report.”
- Told Republicans to be more “paranoid” about vote-counting.