Good morning.
Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of sixty-two. Sunrise is 5:43 AM and sunset 7:59 PM, for 14h 16m 24s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 64.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred seventy-seventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1864 the Wilderness Campaign opens in Virginia, with the “2nd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 19th, 36th and 38th Wisconsin Infantry regiments and the 4th Wisconsin Light Artillery participated in this series of bloody battles.” On this day in 1873, Wisconsin politician (holding office as governor and later U.S. senator) John James Blaine is born.
Whitewater’s Fire Department has a scheduled business meeting at 5:45 PM, and her Landmarks Commission is scheduled to meet at 6 PM.
Recommended for reading in full —
Jane Chong, Quinta Jurecic, Benjamin Wittes explore Seven Theories of the Case: What Do We Really Know about L’Affaire Russe and What Could it All Mean?: “In this post, we start with an overview of the facts known today, and we then put forth seven different theories of the Russia Connection case that might account for those facts. We present these in ascending order of potential menace, from the most innocent to the most alarming. In doing so, we attempt to narrow the field of discussion—or at least provide a disciplined framework for assessing the possibilities—and give readers guidance as to what to watch for as investigations on both the legislative and executive sides move forward. We’ve confined our overview of the facts to those most directly related to Russia’s interference in the election and the possible links between Trump associates and the Russian government. There are plenty of details we’ve left out—notably statements by Trump associates and the President himself that have had the effect of kicking up dust and confusing the public conversation about L’Affaire Russe….”
Michael J. de la Merced and Nicholas Fandos report on Fox’s Unfamiliar but Powerful Television Rival: Sinclair: “Sinclair, which has little name recognition but beams local television stations into a quarter of American homes, covers plenty of standard local news, including fires, shootings and traffic. But it has also used its 173 television stations to advance a mostly right-leaning agenda since the presidency of George W. Bush. Fox, the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his sons, has long dominated conservative political discussion with its Fox News cable channel. But Fox News is in disarray after several scandals. In the last weeks alone, Fox News lost its biggest star, Bill O’Reilly, and one of its most senior executives, Bill Shine. With Fox News on the ropes, Sinclair, already the largest owner of local television stations, is looking to expand. Until last week it appeared to be closing in on acquiring Tribune Media, the second-largest owner of such stations. If completed, the deal would expand Sinclair’s footprint from mostly smaller markets to some of the country’s largest cities, including Chicago and New York.”
George Will contends that Trump has a dangerous disability: “It is urgent for Americans to think and speak clearly about President Trump’s inability to do either. This seems to be not a mere disinclination but a disability. It is not merely the result of intellectual sloth but of an untrained mind bereft of information and married to stratospheric self-confidence….As this column has said before, the problem isn’t that he does not know this or that, or that he does not know that he does not know this or that. Rather, the dangerous thing is that he does not know what it is to know something.”
Rick Romell reports that Dollar stores grow as other retailers shrink: “there’s one type of retailer for whom the bell isn’t tolling: Dollar stores – those downscale outlets filled with everything from underwear and laundry detergent to frozen pizza – are thriving. And Wisconsin appears to be targeted for accelerating growth. Dollar General, by far the largest of the three major chains in the sector, recently opened a 1 million-square-foot distribution center in Janesville. The development comes as the company plans 1,000 new stores this year alone, pushing its nationwide count to more than 14,000. That probably will give Dollar General more U.S. locations than McDonald’s. It already has about as many as Starbucks.”
For Star Wars fans, #MayThe4thBeWithYou:
#MayThe4thBeWithYou! We’re celebrating 40 years of droids, lightsabers and nerf herders https://t.co/XJVuxmWdja pic.twitter.com/UJ6qKlTY3p
— CNET (@CNET) May 4, 2017