Good morning.
Memorial Day in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of ninety-four. Sunrise is 5:20 AM and sunset 8:23 PM, for 15h 03m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
As is traditional, Whitewater’s Memorial Day parade will begin at 10:30 AM in the center of town, near Fremont & Main Streets, with a route leading to the local posts for the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion at 292 S. Wisconsin Avenue. Memorial Day ceremonies will begin at the thereafter at 11 AM.
On this day in 1837, the first steamer, the James Madison, visits Milwaukee.
Recommended for reading in full —
Robert J. Samuelson describes Getting schooled on trade:Seung Min Kim writes Trump is blaming Democrats for separating migrant families at the border. Here’s why this isn’t a surprise:President Trump’s education in global trade continues. Not long ago, he declared that trade wars “are good and easy to win.” He knows better now. The administration’s performance in its latest trade talks with China has been ineffectual, instructive and (yes) humiliating.
Let’s be clear. China is the one major country where an aggressive American trade policy is warranted — unlike Trump’s decisions to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) or to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). These were exercises in grandstanding, intended to impress his supporters.
In reality, these moves damaged American interests. They alienated our allies and trading partners, from Canada and Mexico (NAFTA) to Japan, Australia and Chile (TPP). Trump’s obsession with trade deficits further muddies the debate.
In one of several misleading tweets during the holiday weekend, Trump pushed Democrats to change a “horrible law” that the president said mandated separating children from parents who enter the country illegally. But there is no law specifically requiring the government to take such action, and it’s also the policies of his own administration that have caused the family separation that advocacy groups and Democrats say is a crisis.
In April, more than 50,000 migrants were apprehended or otherwise deemed “inadmissible,” and administration officials have made clear that children will be separated from parents who enter the country illegally and are detained. The surge in illegal border crossings is expected to continue as the economy improves and warmer weather arrives.
(Trump blames others, habitually, for his own reprehensible acts. He is what he accuses others of being.)
Natasha Bertrand writes A Timeline of Trump Associates Asking for Dirt on Clinton (“A new report that Roger Stone sought damaging information on Clinton from Julian Assange is the latest in an increasingly complicated chronology”):Joan Biskupic describes Trump’s sustained attacks on American rights:On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported that longtime Donald Trump adviser Roger Stone tried to solicit information about Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in September 2016. At the time, the Journalreported, Stone wrote to Randy Credico, a New York radio host who had interviewed Assange, and asked Credico to ask Assange for “any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30, 2011.”
Like Stone, Trump seemed to believe that damaging information about Clinton could be found in the emails that she sent using her private email server, and later deleted. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said during a press conference in July 2016.
Stone and Trump were not alone in seeking help from WikiLeaks and Russia during the election. One of Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., asked WikiLeaks via a private Twitter message in October whether a “leak” was coming and what it was about. Trump Jr. also attended a meeting at Trump Tower, along with Trump’s campaign chairman and son-in-law, after a suggestion that he’d be able to see incriminating information on Clinton from Russia’s “crown prosecutor.” [Detailed timeline follows in full article.]
You’ve Been Pouring Guinness All Wrong?:Over the past 24 months, Trump has scorned judges, derided the American court system, and trampled on all manner of constitutional principles. Trump has especially ridiculed due process of law, the bedrock against government’s arbitrary denial of a person’s life, liberty or property.
Critics warn that denunciations that once seemed so aberrational may be seeping into the American psyche and influencing how government operates.
This week, Trump suggested immigrants at the border could be summarily deported without any hearing to determine if they deserved asylum or were US citizens wrongly apprehended. In a Fox News interview that aired on Thursday, Trump flatly deemed the system of immigration judges “corrupt” and said, “Whoever heard of a system where you put people through trials? Where do these judges come from?”
The administrative system, in fact, is part of Trump’s executive branch, run by the Justice Department; the attorney general appoints immigration judges.
In the same interview, Trump responded to the NFL policy prohibiting kneeling during the “Star-Spangled Banner,” with a message for players who refuse to stand for the anthem: “Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”
Such an attitude inflames controversy over league rules for players protesting racial injustice to intimations of government rejection of its citizens – for speaking out.
Due Process. Citizenship. Racial Equality. Trump’s targets seem to merit none of these. It is not lost on Trump’s detractors that he routinely takes aim at immigrants and racial minorities.
At the same time, the President expresses outrage over what happens to the men of his world.
(The science is interesting, but I’ll stick with the tulip glass, thanks very much.)