Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 6:06 AM and sunset 7:49 PM, for 13h 43m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.8% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1812, the USS Constitution defeats HMS Guerriere:
A frigate was sighted on 19 August and subsequently determined to be HMS Guerriere (38) with the words “Not The Little Belt” painted on her foretopsail.[93][Note 3] Guerriere opened fire upon entering range of Constitution, doing little damage. After a few exchanges of cannon fire between the ships, Captain Hull maneuvered Constitution into an advantageous position within 25 yards (23 m) of Guerriere. He then ordered a full double-loaded broadside of grape and round shot which took out Guerriere’s mizzenmast.[94][95] Guerriere’s maneuverability decreased with her mizzenmast dragging in the water, and she collided with Constitution, entangling her bowsprit in Constitution’s mizzen rigging. This left only Guerriere’s bow guns capable of effective fire. Hull’s cabin caught fire from the shots, but it was quickly extinguished. With the ships locked together, both captains ordered boarding parties into action, but the sea was heavy and neither party was able to board the opposing ship.[96]
At one point, the two ships rotated together counter-clockwise, with Constitution continuing to fire broadsides. When the two ships pulled apart, the force of the bowsprit’s extraction sent shock waves through Guerriere’s rigging. Her foremast collapsed, and that brought the mainmast down shortly afterward.[97] Guerriere was now a dismasted, unmanageable hulk with close to a third of her crew wounded or killed, while Constitution remained largely intact. The British surrendered.[98]
Hull had surprised the British with his heavier broadsides and his ship’s sailing ability. Adding to their astonishment, many of the British shots had rebounded harmlessly off Constitution’s hull. An American sailor reportedly exclaimed “Huzzah! her sides are made of iron!” and Constitution acquired the nickname “Old Ironsides”.[99]
The battle left Guerriere so badly damaged that she was not worth towing to port, and Hull ordered her to be burned the next morning, after transferring the British prisoners onto Constitution.[100] Constitution arrived back in Boston on 30 August, where Hull and his crew found that news of their victory had spread fast, and they were hailed as heroes.[101]
Recommended for reading in full —
Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman report McGahn, White House Counsel, Has Cooperated Extensively in Mueller Inquiry:Carol D. Leonnig, Devlin Barrett, Ellen Nakashima, and Josh Dawsey report GOP fundraiser Broidy under investigation for alleged effort to sell government influence, people familiar with probe:The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation, sharing detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether President Trump obstructed justice, including some that investigators would not have learned of otherwise, according to a dozen current and former White House officials and others briefed on the matter.
In at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, Mr. McGahn described the president’s fury toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged Mr. McGahn to respond to it. He provided the investigators examining whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the president’s most intimate moments with his lawyer.
Among them were Mr. Trump’s comments and actions during the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and Mr. Trump’s obsession with putting a loyalist in charge of the inquiry, including his repeated urging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to claim oversight of it. Mr. McGahn was also centrally involved in Mr. Trump’s attempts to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which investigators might not have discovered without him.
The Justice Department is investigating whether longtime Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy sought to sell his influence with the Trump administration by offering to deliver U.S. government actions for foreign officials in exchange for tens of millions of dollars, according to three people familiar with the probe.
As part of the investigation, prosecutors are scrutinizing a plan that Broidy allegedly developed to try to persuade the Trump government to extradite a Chinese dissident back to his home country, a move sought by Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to two of the people.
They also are investigating claims that Broidy sought $75 million from a Malaysian business official if the Justice Department ended its investigation of a development fund run by the Malaysian government. The Malaysian probe has examined the role of the former prime minister in the embezzlement of billions of dollars from the fund.
(Emphasis added. It should – but apparently does not universally – go without saying that no worthy man or woman would participate in a plan, as alleged here, to send a dissident back to a dictatorship.)
Susan Ferriss reports In horrifying detail, women accuse U.S. customs officers of invasive body searches:From May, Alexia Fernández Campbell explains Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in federal taxes each year:The women who’ve brought these lawsuits, including two minor girls, say CBP officers subjected them to indignities — such as strip searches while menstruating and prohibited genital probing — despite finding no contraband. Four women further allege they were handcuffed and transported to hospitals where, against their will, one underwent a pelvic exam and X-rays. In one of the cases, the woman’s lawsuit asserts she was intravenously drugged at the hospital, according to lawsuits.
Such invasive medical procedures require a detainee’s consent or a warrant. In two cases, the plaintiffs say they were billed.
A lawsuit filed in San Diego federal court on behalf of a Hispanic 16-year-old identified as C.R. alleges CBP strip-searched her last September as she and her adult sisters returned from a family visit to Mexico through the San Ysidro pedestrian port. The sisters were flagged after a false drug-sniffing dog alert, the lawsuit asserts. Female officers took C.R. aside and allegedly told the tearful girl to disrobe, hand over a sanitary pad, and squat and cough “while officers probed and shined a flashlight at her vaginal and anal areas,” the lawsuit says.
Justice Department attorneys representing officers have filed to dismiss C.R.’s suit, arguing that it was not filed properly.
Sixteen-year-old C.R.’s lawsuit details an alleged strip-search by CBP last September at the San Diego-Mexico border. Since September, two other Hispanic minors also reported to rights activists that they were detained and forced to strip upon entry. (Center for Public Integrity/Washington Post Illustration)
One of the biggest misconceptions about undocumented immigrants is that they don’t pay any taxes. In his first address to Congress, President Trump set the tone for his coming immigration agenda when he said immigration costs US taxpayers “billions of dollars a year.”
A 2017 Gallup poll that asked survey respondents “whether immigrants to the United States are making the [tax] situation in the country better or worse” found that 41 percent said “worse,” while only 23 percent said “better” (33 percent said they had “no effect”).
The reality is far different. Immigrants who are authorized to work in the United States pay the same taxes as US citizens. And, contrary to the persistent myth, undocumented immigrants do in fact pay taxes too. Millions of undocumented immigrants file tax returns each year, and they are paying taxes for benefits they can’t even use.
The best estimates come from research by the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, a Washington, DC, think tank, which suggests that about half of undocumented workers in the United States file income tax returns. The most recent IRS data, from 2015, shows that the agency received 4.4 million income tax returns from workers who don’t have Social Security numbers, which includes a large number of undocumented immigrants. That year, they paid $23.6 billion in income taxes.
Those undocumented workers paid taxes for benefits they can’t even use, like Social Security and Medicare. They also aren’t eligible for benefits like the earned income tax credit.
(See also The biggest beneficiaries of the government safety net: working-class whites.)
In France, This Chapel Rises From a Volcano: