Good morning.
Monday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thunderstorms and a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 5:26 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 06m 58s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.1% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred forty-third day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets tonight at 6:30 PM.
On this day in 1940, the Battle of Britain begins. On this day in 1832, construction of Fort Koshkonong during the Black Hawk War begins.
Recommended for reading in full —
The New York Times editorial board considers Combating a Real Threat to Election Integrity:
The question is this: Can the system be strengthened against cyberattacks in time for the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential race? The answer, encouragingly, is that there are concrete steps state and local governments can take right now to improve the security and integrity of their elections. A new study by the Brennan Center for Justice identifies two critical pieces of election infrastructure — aging voting machines and voter registration databases relying on outdated software — that present appealing targets for hackers and yet can be shored up at a reasonable cost.
Last year, Russian hackers tried to break into voter databases in at least 39 states, aiming to alter or delete voter data, and also attempted to take over the computers of more than 100 local election officials before Election Day. There is no evidence that they infiltrated voting machines, but they have succeeded in doing so in other countries, and it’s only a matter of time before they figure it out here. R. James Woolsey, the former C.I.A. director, wrote in an introduction to the Brennan Center report, “I am confident the Russians will be back, and that they will take what they have learned last year to attempt to inflict even more damage in future elections.”
The report identifies three immediate steps states and localities can take to counter the threat [lists of three steps follows]….
The White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, Richard Painter, describes the conduct of Trump operatives’ meeting with a Russian apparatchik as conduct that borders on treason:
Bush 43 WH ethics lawyer on NYT story/Donald Trump Jr. and Kushner meeting with Russian lawyer: “This borders on treason” via @MSNBC pic.twitter.com/Ceu5xLYgnB
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 9, 2017
Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian politician committed to democracy, testified to Congress in June on How the West should deal with the Putin regime:
Pema Levy writes that These Three Lawyers Are Quietly Purging Voter Rolls Across the Country:
Republican-backed laws requiring a photo ID to cast a ballot have attracted attention in recent years for impedingthe ability of minority, poor, and elderly people to vote. But increasingly, the focus of the voting rights battle is over who gets to be on the list of registered voters. Democrats have successfully pushed for automatic voter registration in eight states and the District of Columbia, while Republicans have begun putting up roadblocks to registration. In Kansas, Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican with a national reputation for crafting anti-immigrant laws and pushing the myth of widespread voter fraud, is locked in a legal battle with the ACLU over his decision to require Kansans to show a birth certificate or passport in order to register to vote. (Kobach and Adams are working together on a case to determine whether states can require people to show proof of citizenship in order to register.) Kobach was recently appointed vice chair of President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission, a perch from which he may recommend more stringent registration requirements nationwide.
Adrenaline Rush asks Have you ever wanted to fly like an eagle?:
Have you ever wanted to fly like an eagle? ?? pic.twitter.com/8Gi06eIjlv
— Adrenaline Rush (@Amazing_Iife) May 22, 2017