Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be rainy in the morning with a daytime high of sixty-five. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 20m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1945, after a 62-day battle, the Allies are victorious at the Battle of Okinawa:
The battle has been referred to as the “typhoon of steel” in English, and tetsu no ame (“rain of steel”) or tetsu no bofo (“violent wind of steel”) in Japanese.[23][24][25] The nicknames refer to the ferocity of the fighting, the intensity of Japanese kamikaze attacks, and the sheer numbers of Allied ships and armored vehicles that assaulted the island. The battle was one of the bloodiest in the Pacific, with approximately 160,000 casualties on both sides: at least 75,000 Allied and 84,166–117,000 Japanese,[26] including drafted Okinawans wearing Japanese uniforms.[16] 149,425 Okinawans were killed, committed suicide or went missing, a significant proportion of the estimated pre-war 300,000 local population.[26]
In the naval operations surrounding the battle, both sides lost considerable numbers of ships and aircraft, including the Japanese battleship Yamato. After the battle, Okinawa provided a fleet anchorage, troop staging areas, and airfields in proximity to Japan in preparation for the planned invasion.
Recommended for reading in full —
Adam Serwer writes Trumpism, Realized (“To preserve the political and cultural preeminence of white Americans against a tide of demographic change, the administration has settled on a policy of systemic child abuse”):Jennifer Rubin contends It’s this simple: Report the abuse:Few of the Trump administration’s policies better exemplify the Trump campaign’s commitment to restoring America’s traditional hierarchies of race, religion, and gender, than family separation. That commitment—and Republicans’ muted opposition to or vigorous support of the administration’s actions —has plunged the United States into a profound moral crisis that will define the nation’s character for decades to come. To harden oneself against the cries of children is no simple task. It requires a coldness to suffering that will not be easily thawed. The scars it inflicts on American civic culture will not heal quickly, and they will never completely fade.
Americans should have fathomed the depth of the crisis Trump would cause in 2016, but many chose denial, ridiculing those who spoke the plain meaning of Trumpism as oversensitive. Since then, Trump has failed the people of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria; deliberately revoked the immigration status of hundreds of thousands of black and Latino immigrants; retreated from civil-rights enforcement; applied an immigration ban to a set of predominantly Muslim countries; attempted to turn black athletes into pariahs for protesting the unjust killings of their countrymen by the state; and defended the white nationalists who terrorized Charlottesville, Virginia. The separation of children from their families at the border in order to punish children for their parents’ decision to seek a better life America, as the forebears of millions of Americans once did, has now clarified for many what should have been obvious before.
People who would do this to children would do anything to anyone. Before this is over, they will be called to do worse.
A reader who has spent five decades as a clinical child psychologist has made a brilliant suggestion to mitigate the harm being done to innocent, defenseless children under President Trump’s inhumane child separation policy.
The Children’s Bureau, an office of the Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services, has a handy website to explain the rules regarding the reporting of suspected mistreatment or abuse of children:
All States, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have statutes identifying persons who are required to report suspected child maltreatment to an appropriate agency, such as child protective services, a law enforcement agency, or a State’s toll-free child abuse reporting hotline.
In fact, all the doctors and other professionals inside these facilities have a legal obligation to report abuse and mistreatment. (“Approximately 48 States, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands designate professions whose members are mandated by law to report child maltreatment.”) The people who must report abuse or mistreatment include teachers, counselors, law enforcement and child-care providers. When must they report?
The circumstances under which a mandatory reporter must make a report vary from State to State. Typically, a report must be made when the reporter, in his or her official capacity, suspects or has reason to believe that a child has been abused or neglected. Another standard frequently used is in situations in which the reporter has knowledge of, or observes a child being subjected to, conditions that would reasonably result in harm to the child.
Rosie Gray cautions Don’t Blame Trump’s Advisers for Trump (“The tendency to look for a puppet master behind Trump’s actions is misguided.”):
Gina Barton and Ashley Luthern report A killer left DNA evidence behind. But Milwaukee police destroyed it:And Trump is also charting his own course on his Twitter feed, where he can sway the outcome of events without consulting anyone beforehand. House Republican leaders delayed a vote on an immigration bill that would give a pathway to citizenship for the so-called “Dreamers,” or undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, while also funding Trump’s border wall, after a more conservative bill failed to pass. The move to delay the vote came after Trump, who backs the legislation, undermined it in a tweet on Thursday morning. “What is the purpose of the House doing good immigration bills when you need 9 votes by Democrats in the Senate, and the Dems are only looking to Obstruct (which they feel is good for them in the Mid-Terms). Republicans must get rid of the stupid Filibuster Rule-it is killing you!” Trump tweeted.
“I think the president is a little all over the place when it comes the legislative process,” Nunberg said. “And partly that’s the failure of his White House staff. They tell him one thing and then it’s another thing.”
If the White House sometimes seems at odds with itself, well, that’s partly the president’s doing too, the former White House official said. “He loves watching people fight.”
A Tiger Slowly Creeps Up Behind Visitors:The body of Deborah Lynn Oberg was found under the Hoan Bridge on July 11, 1983.
The 28-year-old single mother struggled with the man who assaulted and stabbed her outside the Summerfest grounds.
At autopsy, the medical examiner discovered the assailant had left pubic hairs behind.
But even with continuing advances in DNA technology, Oberg’s killer likely will never be caught.
That’s because the Milwaukee Police Department destroyed the evidence in her case — along with at least 50 other homicides. Police trashed the evidence in the 1990s, well after authorities became aware of DNA’s value in solving crimes. While most of the homicide cases were closed, some remained open and unsolved, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found.
The department’s reason for the destruction? Making more room in a storage facility.
Oberg isn’t the only victim deprived of justice because of the purge. In another case, a man who killed a 34-year-oldmother on a playground is still free. In a third, four children were molested after a pedophile avoided conviction for murdering a 9-year-old girl.