Good morning. 
Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty-two. Sunrise is 6:08 AM and sunset 7:47 PM, for 13h 39m 27s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 2.6% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the one thousand three hundred eighty-first day.
On this day in 1968, Warsaw Pact troops invade Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague Spring.
Recommended for reading in full —
David Smith and Julia Carrie Wong report Trump tacitly endorses baseless QAnon conspiracy theory linked to violence:
Followers of the QAnon movement believe without evidence that Trump is fighting a Satanic “deep state” of global elites involved in paedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children.
Yet asked about the theory at Wednesday’s White House press briefing, the US president failed to condemn it. “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,” he said. “I have heard that it is gaining in popularity.”
Supporters of QAnon share Trump’s concerns about rising crime in Democratic-led cities, the president continued. “These are people that don’t like seeing what’s going on in places like Portland and places like Chicago and New York and other cities and states. I’ve heard these are people that love our country and they just don’t like seeing it.”
A reporter followed up, pointing out that QAnon supporters believe Trump is “secretly saving the world from this Satanic cult of pedophiles and cannibals”. The president replied flippantly: “I haven’t heard that but is that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing?
See also FBI Labels Fringe Conspiracy Theories as Domestic Terrorism Threat.
Benjamin Wittes writes Republican Senators Misrepresent Their Own Russia Report:
Here are some of the committee’s own findings about Trump campaign engagement with the Russian electoral interference—findings subscribed to by each and every one of the senators who protests that they did not find “collusion”:
- “The Committee found that Manafort’s presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign. Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services . . . represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”
- “While [Russian military intelligence] and WikiLeaks were releasing hacked documents, the Trump Campaign sought to maximize the impact of those leaks to aid Trump’s electoral prospects. Staff on the Trump Campaign sought advance notice about WikiLeaks releases, created messaging strategies to promote and share the materials in anticipation of and following their release, and encouraged further leaks. The Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort.”
- “Trump and senior Campaign officials sought to obtain advance information about WikiLeaks’s planned releases through Roger Stone.”
- “The Committee further found that Papadopoulos’s efforts introduced him to several individuals that raise counterintelligence concerns, due to their associations with individuals from hostile foreign governments, as well as actions these individuals undertook. The Committee assesses that Papadopoulos was not a witting cooptee of the Russian intelligence services, but nonetheless presented a prime intelligence target and potential vector for malign Russian influence.”
It goes on. And on. And on.
Get a load of cuties Itchy and Scratchy, the latest baby Tasmanian devils born to conservation project Aussie Ark. The org works to replenish the devil population after disease depleted the species by up to 90% pic.twitter.com/bq44xThaX4
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) August 19, 2020