Good morning.
Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty. Sunrise is 5:45 AM and sunset 7:57 PM, for 14h 11m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 43.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred seventy-fifth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
Whitewater’s Fire Department has a scheduled business meeting at 6:30 AM, and Common Council will be in session tonight at 6:30 PM.
Common Council is scheduled to hear an update on a waste receiving station (item C-5), and to consider (on a first reading with a second reading to be waived) a proposed ordinance to end term limits for appointees to city commissions and boards, so that members might be appointed perpetually.
There was a brief discussion of an end to term limits, as Councilmember Allen proposed it, at the last session of Common Council, although it was not reported along with other events that evening. (The Daily Union‘s Welch predictably reported on everything except this discussion.) One can find Allen’s remarks from the 4.18.17 session at approximately 47:47 on this video link.
Both topics, in their own way, are reflections not of where Whitewater’s going, as much as where she has been (and where she is): these dies have already been cast. The considerations on a change in term limits (most likely to affect long-time members of the CDA and PFC) are, however, interesting, and I’ll write more after the meeting.
Recommended for reading in full —
Erik Wemple describes the results of an interview in ‘I don’t stand by anything’: Trump withers under heat from CBS News’s John Dickerson:
JOHN DICKERSON: Did President Obama give you any advice that was helpful? That you think, wow, he really was–
DONALD TRUMP: — Well, he was very nice to me. But after that, we’ve had some difficulties. So it doesn’t matter. You know, words are less important to me than deeds. And you– you saw what happened with surveillance. And everybody saw what happened with surveillance–
JOHN DICKERSON: Difficulties how?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: — and I thought that — well, you saw what happened with surveillance. And I think that was inappropriate, but that’s the way–
JOHN DICKERSON: What does that mean, sir?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You can figure that out yourself.
JOHN DICKERSON: Well, I– the reason I ask is you said he was– you called him “sick and bad”.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Look, you can figure it out yourself. He was very nice to me with words, but– and when I was with him — but after that, there has been no relationship.
JOHN DICKERSON: But you stand by that claim about him?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t stand by anything. I just– you can take it the way you want. I think our side’s been proven very strongly. And everybody’s talking about it. And frankly it should be discussed. I think that is a very big surveillance of our citizens. I think it’s a very big topic. And it’s a topic that should be number one. And we should find out what the hell is going on.
JOHN DICKERSON: I just wanted to find out, though. You’re– you’re the president of the United States. You said he was “sick and bad” because he had tapped you– I’m just–
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You can take– any way. You can take it any way you want.
JOHN DICKERSON: But I’m asking you. Because you don’t want it to be–
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You don’t–
JOHN DICKERSON: –fake news. I want to hear it from–
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You don’t have to–
JOHN DICKERSON: –President Trump.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: –ask me. You don’t have to ask me.
JOHN DICKERSON: Why not?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Because I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions.
JOHN DICKERSON: But I want to know your opinions. You’re the president of the United States.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Okay, it’s enough. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Will Bunch contends that The problem with NY Times and climate change isn’t what you think: “Simply put, the Times decision to hire and promote Stephens trashed its own brand, the brand that it’s spent years and millions of dollars building up. From a business standpoint — and yes, the New York Times is very much a business, now struggling to find new strategies to save itself — the move almost makes the 1985 debut of New Coke look good. And that the people who run the New York Times didn’t see this — and still don’t seem to understand the problem — should make people very afraid about the future of American journalism, especially at the moment when the media is also under assault from a wannabe strongman at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Times’ editors who hired Stephens were following a tired playbook that’s over a century old — even as the nature of both journalism and how readers relate to the news has changed radically in the last decade. Simply put, mainstream news orgs have an almost mystical, quasi-religious faith in the notion that to be moral and ethical they must have some approximate balance between liberal and conservative opinion writers. But it wasn’t always that way, and there’s no logical reason for this in 2017.”
Laura Reston explains Where Trump Gets His Fuzzy Border Math: “Trump repeatedly cited CIS [Center for Immigration Studies] studies in his TV ads and speeches, tweeted links to the group’s research, and used its data to argue that immigrants are “bringing drugs” and “bringing crime” into the United States. After he implemented his controversial Muslim ban, CIS provided Trump with much-needed political cover: Media outlets from NPR to The Washington Post quoted the center’s experts defending the policy. Most, in fact, portrayed CIS as a respectable research institute—after all, the group boasts that its board of directors includes a mix of “active and retired university professors” and “civil rights leaders.” CIS, however, is far from a reputable scholarly organization. It’s a far-right fringe group that was founded on disturbing and discredited ideas about racial inferiority. Today, CIS churns out doctored “studies” that portray an America under siege from immigrants pouring over our borders, destroying our environment, and draining our coffers.”
Amanda Diaz describes the views of a federal former budget director in David Stockman: Trump’s tax plan is ‘dead on arrival’ and Wall St. is ‘delusional’ for believing it: “David Stockman has a stern message for investors: They’re living in a fantasy land about Trump. In a recent interview on CNBC’s “Futures Now,” the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan said that “Wall Street is totally misreading Washington,” and President Trump’s promises of tax reform will be “dead before arrival.” The president is “essentially a 70-year old kid in a candy store who wants one of everything: More for defense, veterans, border walls, law enforcement, infrastructure and ‘phenomenal’ tax cuts, too—without the inconvenience of paying for any of it,” said Stockman. Of the proposed tax bill announced this week, he said, “It’s a wonderful fantasy…but there’s no way to pay for the $7.5 trillion cost of the main features.”
SpaceX successfully landed its 10th rocket (this time to place an intelligence satellite in orbit):