Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty-nine. Sunrise is 5:40 AM and sunset 8:01 PM, for 14h 21m 08s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 93% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}one hundred seventy-ninth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On this day in 1937, the German airship Hindenburg catches fires and is destroyed while attempting to dock in Lakehurst, New Jersey. On this day in 1915, actor and filmmaker Orson Welles is born in Kenosha.
Recommended for reading in full —
David Frum explains How the Obamacare Repeal Could Cost Republicans the House (and, of all things, make single-payer more likely):
Eliot A. Cohen contends that Rex Tillerson Doesn’t Understand America: “Tillerson’s idea that in foreign policy American interests and American values are two separate things, the first mandatory, the second optional, reflects a misunderstanding of our past (not uncommon in this administration) and of the essence of our national character. The United States is surely the Manhattan skyline, the Kansas plains, the redwood forests, the Mississippi river. But it is, far more importantly, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Gettysburg Address. You could cut down the forest or dry up the river and the country would be infinitely the poorer for it, but it would still be the United States of America. If Americans jettison the Bill of Rights and the ideas enshrined in it, they become a different country altogether..”
David Uberti reports that Gannett newspapers are hiding an important local story: “The big news? More reductions in the ranks of journalists at some of the titles owned by the Virginia-based media conglomerate. The scope? Gannett executives refuse to say. Newsroom cuts have long been a fixture among publicly traded newspaper companies, particularly Gannett, which announced in October 2016 that it would trim 2 percent of its total workforce—equivalent to more than 300 employees. But the corporation has foregone such transparency with its latest round of cutbacks, which come a week after a quarterly earnings report in which publishing revenues fell more than 10 percent compared to the same period last year, excluding acquisitions.”
Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Peter Holley, Lindsey Bever and Wesley Lowery report that Texas police officer who killed black teen could spend rest of his life in prison: “Roy Durwood Oliver, a patrol officer in the Dallas suburb of Balch Springs since July 2011, was released on $300,000 bail. While dispatched on complaints about drunk teenagers at a party last weekend, Oliver fired his rifle at a car full of teenagers who were leaving, according to investigators, killing Jordan Edwards….“After reviewing the findings I have made the decision to terminate Roy Oliver’s employment with the Balch Springs Police Department,” Police Chief Jonathan Haber told reporters Tuesday evening. “My department will continue to be responsive, transparent and accountable.”
Ruta Grasyt observes that Neil deGrasse Tyson Tries To Make Fun Of Cats On Twitter, Gets Totally Destroyed By One: “Recently, American astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, Neil deGrasse Tyson just wanted to be funny on Twitter, but things turned the other direction… More specifically, right in his face! Tyson’s supposed-to-be-funny tweet read: “Evidence that Humans are smarter than Cats: We don’t chase Laser dots on the carpet. We’re not afraid of Vacuum Cleaners.” Everything would’ve been all right, but then a cat named Bitches responded to Tyson’s tweet and, we must say, he totally destroyed him! Keep on scrolling to see what Bitches wrote….”
(Bitches the Cat and I follow each other on Twitter, and anyone familiar Bitches could have easily predicted the outcome here: she occupies a deservedly lofty place in the Twitterverse, and was sure to win this exchange.)