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Coronavirus, Public Health, Walworth County

The Problems of COVID-19 Aren’t Uniformly Acknowledged (and Likely Never Will Be)

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David Leonhardt accurately writes that Heavily Republican areas of the U.S. have a growing Covid problem:

Cases have begun to rise more rapidly in communities with lower vaccination rates.

Consider this chart, which looks at the number of new cases in counties across the U.S., grouping counties by the share of residents who have been fully vaccinated:

New York Times | Sources: State, county and regional health departments

A month ago, a chart like this would have looked almost random, with little relationship between caseloads and vaccination rates. Now, there is a clear relationship. (A recent Washington Post analysis came to the same conclusion.)

….

There is a political angle to these trends, of course. The places with the lowest vaccination rates tend to be heavily Republican. In an average U.S. county that voted for Donald Trump, only 34 percent of people are fully vaccinated, according to New York Times data. In an average country that voted for Joe Biden, the share is 45 percent (and the share that has received at least one shot is higher).

The New York Times | Sources: State, county and regional health departments; National Election Pool/Edison Research

No wonder, then, that the number of new cases keeps falling in Biden counties, while it has begun to rise in Trump counties.

In previous newsletters, I have pointed out some of the questionable ways that liberal communities have responded to the current phase of the pandemic, such as keeping schools partly closed and insisting on masks for the vaccinated. But conservative communities have their own problems with Covid behavior. Many Republican voters have not taken the disease very seriously and also have irrational fears about the vaccines.

It’s an undertstatement to say that COVID-19 has been a problem, but in Walworth County, for example, there are thousands who would likely carry on the same even if cases regrettably spiked beyond anything yet seen. Persuading them about the dangers of COVID-19 would require huge efforts for only slight gains in acceptance of the pandemic’s risks.

One offers no prediction of a future spike; instead, it’s evident that the reddest of the red simply don’t acknowledge a COVID-19 problem as others do.  See generally Whitewater’s Local Politics 2021 — COVID-19: Skepticism and Rhetoric.)

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.29.21

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see scattered showers and thunderstorms with a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 17m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 73.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee and the Whitewater Common Council will meet jointly at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 2007, Apple Inc. releases its first mobile phone, the iPhone.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Paige Williams writes Kyle Rittenhouse, American Vigilante:

On August 27th, the Kenosha County D.A. charged Rittenhouse with Wisconsin’s most serious crimes, among them first-degree intentional homicide, the mandatory punishment for which is life in prison. Other felony charges included reckless homicide, and he was also charged with a misdemeanor: underage possession of a dangerous weapon. Thomas Binger, the assistant district attorney assigned to the case, has said, “We don’t allow teens to run around with guns. It’s that simple.”

Conservatives denounced the homicide charges as political, noting that both Binger and Graveley, the district attorney, are Democrats. Criminal defendants who cannot afford a lawyer are typically appointed a public defender, but so many conservative and far-right figures rallied around Rittenhouse that private counsel was all but assured.

Among the attorneys who stepped forward was John Pierce, a civil litigator in Los Angeles, who believed that, in the digital age, lawyers needed to “gang tackle, swarm, and crowd-source.” His firm, now known as Pierce Bainbridge, had reportedly received nine million dollars from a hedge fund, Pravati Capital, in what The American Lawyer called possibly “the first public example of a litigation funder investing in a law firm’s portfolio of contingent fee cases.” The firm would bring cases against big targets, and Pravati would receive a cut of any damages. Critics have called forms of this practice “legal loan-sharking.”

Pierce secured a few high-profile clients, including Rudolph Giuliani and Tulsi Gabbard, who sued Hillary Clinton for saying that the Russians were “grooming” Gabbard to run as a third-party Presidential candidate. But, by the spring of 2020, Pierce Bainbridge reportedly owed creditors more than sixty million dollars.

Last August, Pierce launched a charitable nonprofit, the #FightBack Foundation, whose mission involved raising money to fund lawsuits that would “take our country back.” A Trump supporter, he was hostile toward liberals and often expressed his views crudely. One Saturday, during an argument with his ex-wife, he unleashed a stream of increasingly threatening texts, including “Go watch an AOC rally. Fucking libtard”; “I will fuck u and ur kind up”; and “People like u hate the USA. Guess what bitch, we ain’t goin anywhere.” Not for the first time, she obtained a restraining order against him.

Rosalind S. Helderman reports Arizona’s Maricopa County will replace voting equipment, fearful that GOP-backed election review has compromised security:

The process being used to recount ballots and examine voting machines — conducted on the floor of a former basketball arena in Phoenix and live-streamed exclusively using cameras operated by the pro-Trump One America News — has been widely panned by election experts as sloppy, insecure and opaque.

Among the most vocal critics has been the Republican-led leadership of Maricopa County. In May, all seven of the county’s elected officials — including five Republicans — joined in a scathing letter to the state Senate denouncing the audit as a sham.

“Our state has become a laughingstock,” they wrote. “Worse, this ‘audit’ is encouraging our citizens to distrust elections, which weakens our democratic republic.”

Noting the tactics used by organizers of the review, such as hunting for bamboo in ballot paper, they added, “Your ‘audit,’ which you once said was intended to increase voters’ confidence in our electoral process, has devolved into a circus.”

Fish and poultry try a new sustainable diet of larvae and insects:

Business, Insurrection, Politics

The Sedition Caucus Gets Paid

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Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) reports This sedition is brought to you by…

In the wake of the Capitol insurrection on January 6th, nearly two hundred corporations and industry groups said they would pause or altogether stop making political contributions to the 147 members of Congress who voted against certifying the election and continue to propagate the Big Lie that led to the attack. In the months since, corporate and industry interests have had to choose whether to do their part to uphold our democracy by turning off the flow of corporate donations to these members, also known as the Sedition Caucus, or to continue to support them in order to seek political influence.

Many have failed this test, some reneging on a promise to change their giving while others made no commitment and are giving like nothing ever happened. By continuing to fund members of Congress who would undermine American democracy, these corporations and industry groups are sacrificing democratic government for access and influence.

(NOTE: the data on this page [https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/this-sedition-is-brought-to-you-by/] will update daily, so please check back often for new totals)

….

While some of the companies that show up in the data aren’t familiar to most Americans — like CSX Corporation and BWX Technologies — a number of the companies, listed in the chart below, are household names that most Americans will recognize and probably do business with. Several of them initially committed to ceasing contributions to members who voted not to certify the election results, before deciding to start giving again.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.28.21

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see scattered showers and thunderstorms with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 18m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 82.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Updated: Downtown Whitewater’s Board meets at 4 PM, Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM, and the Whitewater Unified School Board in closed session at 6 PM and open session at 7 PM.

On this day in 1832, General Henry Atkinson and the Second Army begin the trip into the Wisconsin wilderness in a major effort against Black Hawk.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Cameron Easley writes U.S. Conservatives Are Uniquely Inclined Toward Right-Wing Authoritarianism Compared to Western Peers (‘Global Morning Consult data reveals a distinctive authoritarian bent in the American right’):

  • A scale measuring propensity toward right-wing authoritarian tendencies found right-leaning Americans scored higher than their counterparts in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.
  • 26% of the U.S. population qualified as highly right-wing authoritarian, Morning Consult research found, twice the share of the No. 2 countries, Canada and Australia.
  • The beliefs that voter fraud decided the 2020 election, that Capitol rioters were doing more to protect than undermine the government and that masks and vaccines are not pivotal to stopping COVID-19 were similarly prevalent among right-leaning Americans and those that scored high for right-wing authoritarianism.

The Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol gave the country a striking wake-up call to the alarming rise in undemocratic behavior on the right side of the political aisle, and new global Morning Consult research underscores the prevalence of authoritarian attitudes among U.S. conservatives.

The research, which used longtime authoritarian researcher Bob Altemeyer’s right-wing authoritarianism test and scale and builds on recent work he conducted with the Monmouth University Polling Institute, found that U.S. conservatives have stronger right-wing authoritarian tendencies than their right-of-center counterparts in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom.

Altemeyer defines authoritarianism as the desire to submit to some authority, aggression that is directed against whomever the authority says should be targeted and a desire to have everybody follow the norms and social conventions that the authority says should be followed. Those characteristics were all on display in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, culminating earlier this year in the attack on the Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump.

The findings come from Morning Consult polling conducted from late April into early May in seven foreign countries, which in addition to the aforementioned trio included France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Responses were gathered among 1,000 adults in each of the seven countries, and were compared with a domestic poll of 1,001 U.S. adults conducted concurrently. (See more about how we conducted the study and produced our findings here.)

 Jennifer Rubin writes Why So Many Republicans Talk About Nonsense:

Republicans have all but given up on the notion of governance. At the national level, they consume themselves with race-baiting (e.g., scaring Americans about immigration and critical race theory), assailing private companies (e.g., corporations that defend voting rights, social media platforms, book publishers) and perpetrating the most ludicrous and dangerous lie in memory — that the 2020 election was stolen.

….

In truth, a great many Republicans simply like to be “important people” with the perks of holding office. It seems the notion of finding other work causes them to break out in a cold sweat, so they adopt insane MAGA positions so as not to offend the mob they helped rile up. Certainly, there are true believers who believe Trumpian rubbish and take right-wing TV hosts’ conspiracies as gospel, but they are a distinct minority. Time and again, we hear from Republican dissenters that most of their colleagues do not really believe the MAGA party lies; what they believe in is the necessity of their own reelection.

 How The Olympics Became So Expensive For Host Cities:

America, Culture, Horde, Politics, Sen. Ron Johnson, US Senate Race 2022, Wisconsin

Johnson Picks His Predictable – and Ironic – Platform

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Jessie Opoien reports At WI convention, Ron Johnson calls for GOP to ‘take back our culture’: 

Johnson called on Republicans to run candidates at every level of public office, arguing that the GOP has spent too much time focused on federal elections while letting seats go at the local levels.

“Take back our school boards, our county boards, our city councils. We will take back our culture. We don’t have to fear this anymore,” Johnson said, advocating the concept of “trickle-up elections.”

Johnson’s call is both predictable and ironic. It’s predictable he’s likely to run for re-election despite a promise not to do so, and predictable his conservative populist supporters have an endless list of grievances.

And yet, and yet — Johnson’s cultural call to his populist supporters is ironic, too. He is speaking to a poorly acculturated horde: proud nativists who claim their rights are violated while understanding little of law or history, who traffic in ludicrous conspiracies, who are less productive than their adversaries (1, 2), and who show a lack of impulse control even in ordinary social settings.

One should not underestimate these populists, as they’re limitlessly animated in grievances and accusations, but no less intelligent than any others. (It is they who erroneously think that some groups by race or ethnicity are more or less intelligent than others; about this, it is they who are more wrong than they are about other subjects.)

Johnson knows the crowd to whom he speaks, he knows they want, and he knows what he must give them for the sake of their support next year.

Predictable and ironic.

Birds, Documentary, Film

Film: Bob of the Park Knows New York City Birds. But He’s Ruffled a Few Feathers

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If you grab binoculars and head to Central Park in New York, you may see a warbler, a robin and Robert DeCandido, also known as “Birding Bob.” If you can’t spot him, you’ll definitely hear him. Among dedicated birders, some consider his use of recorded bird calls a disturbance to birds and bird-watchers alike, while others see him as an eager advocate for the natural world.

In response to his detractors, Dr. DeCandido maintains that he’s doing his best to make bird-watching less daunting to hobbyists — and that no birds are harmed in the process. In the short documentary above, explore the sights, sounds, birds — and bird-watching drama — of the park with some of its most colorful characters.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.27.21

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with high of 78. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 18m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 89.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1994, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult release sarin gas in Matsumoto, Japan. Seven people are killed, 660 injured.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Molly Beck reports Wisconsin GOP leaders say Trump is ‘misinformed’ after the former president claimed they are hiding election corruption:

Trump issued a statement seeking to turn the GOP faithful against Vos and the Legislature’s Republican leaders by accusing them of covering up election corruption because the review was not broad enough in the former president’s view.

“Wisconsin Republican leaders Robin Vos, Chris Kapenga, and Devin LeMahieu, are working hard to cover up election corruption, in Wisconsin,” Trump said in a statement Friday evening.

“Don’t fall for their lies! These REPUBLICAN ‘leaders’ need to step up and support the people who elected them by providing them a full forensic investigation. If they don’t, I have little doubt that they will be primaried and quickly run out of office.”

Shawn Johnson reports Following Warning By Trump, Vos Announces Former Justice Will Lead Assembly GOP Election Probe:

A day after being attacked by former President Donald Trump, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos told Wisconsin Republicans at their annual convention that former conservative state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman would oversee an investigation of the 2020 election.

Gableman, Vos said, would oversee three retired police officers who were hired by the Wisconsin Assembly. Vos said the group is “looking into the shenanigans” that happened in the 2020 election, which Trump has repeatedly falsely claimed that he won.

“We wanted to make sure that you were the first people to know,” Vos told GOP activists. “Because you are the ones who have done everything possible to make sure that our conservative candidates win for the Legislature, from the county clerk all the way up to the presidency.”

Gableman served a single 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court before stepping down in 2018. While he promised that his work on the election probe would not be partisan, Gableman’s Republican ties run deep, and GOP activists greeted him warmly Saturday.

“I’m glad to be here — glad to see so many friends,” Gableman said. “When I fought evil every day at the state Supreme Court for 10 years, I fought for you.”

Gableman, who attended a Nov. 7, 2020 rally supporting Trump, said he knew a lot of people at the convention were disappointed with how the presidential election was run.

“And you didn’t just grumble about it and go back home and let it let bygones be bygones,” Gableman said. “You recognize that this one is where we draw the line.”

Democrats said the announcement of Gableman’s hiring at the state GOP convention underscored the true partisan intent of Vos’ investigation.

“Gabelman says the big problem is people not trusting the election,” tweeted Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler. “Vos & Gabelman are part of Operation Destroy Trust.”

John Torinus pens a correction in State’s Research & Development Funding Surges: 

I reported that research and development dollars had fallen off at our state’s research powerhouse, the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Happily, just the opposite has occurred. A university spokesperson e-mailed me to say, “Research dollars have increased year over year in each of the last three fiscal years, and only twice in the last ten fiscal years (FY13 and FY17) have we brought in less research funding than we did the prior fiscal year.”

Our flagship university has bounced around the $1 billion mark in R&D for a long time. It did $1.1 billion in 2017 and increased that total to $1.48 billion.

 How IndyCar Pit Crews Are Trained:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.26.21

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Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with thunderstorms and a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 19m 04s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1963, President Kennedy gives his “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech, underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after Soviet-supported East Germany erects the Berlin Wall.

Recommended for reading in full — 

The Associated Press reports Senate Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is planning an event to publicize adverse vaccine experiences:

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a vocal critic of COVID-19 vaccine mandates, announced plans Friday to hold a news conference bringing together people who claim to have had adverse reactions to the vaccine, including the wife of a former Green Bay Packer player.

See: Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson to people who have been vaccinated against COVID: ‘What do you care if your neighbor has one or not?’

Also read: If Sen. Ron Johnson is running for re-election in Wisconsin, it appears he’ll do so as a culture warrior.

Johnson, who has also advocated for alternative and unproven treatments for COVID-19, said the Monday event in Milwaukee will allow people from across the country to tell their stories and concerns he said have been “repeatedly ignored” by the medical community.

Johnson, who has no medical training or expertise, hasn’t been vaccinated, saying he doesn’t think he has to because he had the virus last year and formed natural antibodies. He has said he’s “just asking questions” and isn’t against vaccines, but doctors and other critics have blasted him for spreading misinformation.

Chris Hubbuch reports After almost 2 months, Gov. Tony Evers’ appointee still shut out of Natural Resources Board:

The Natural Resources Board will meet for a second time Wednesday with the outgoing chair refusing to surrender his seat to his replacement.

Gov. Tony Evers appointed Sandy Naas and Sharon Adams to the policy board on April 28 to replace Frederick Prehn and Julie Anderson, who were appointed by former Gov. Scott Walker and whose six-year terms expired May 1.

Adams joined the board in May after Anderson stepped down. But Prehn declined to leave, citing a Supreme Court ruling that allows appointees to stay on until a replacement is confirmed by the Senate.

Without Naas, Republican appointees hold four of the board’s seven seats as they take up controversial topics including the regulation of PFAS and the DNR’s wolf management plan.

Prehn did not respond to an interview request Tuesday but previously told Wisconsin Public Radio the board “can use my leadership.”

DNR spokesperson Sarah Hoye said GOP leaders in the Senate have yet to refer either of Evers’ new appointees to a committee for a confirmation hearing.

Senate President Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, declined to comment about confirmation hearings on May 26, saying he didn’t know enough about the matter. Kapenga’s office did not respond Tuesday to questions about when the Senate would schedule a hearing.

Martin Pengelly reports Donald Trump returns to campaign trail with rally targeting Ohio Republican:

“We’re giving tremendous endorsements,” Trump told the conservative Newsmax channel on Friday. “Fake Republicans, anybody that voted for the impeachment doesn’t get it. But there weren’t too many of them. And I think most of them are being … primaried right now, so that’s good. I’ll be helping their opponent.”

Trump’s first impeachment, for abusing his power in approaches to Ukraine, attracted one Republican vote, that of the Utah senator Mitt Romney. In his second, for inciting the deadly US Capitol attack, 10 House Republicans and seven in the Senate voted for Trump’s guilt.

 This Tiny Horse Is No Bigger Than His Puppy Pals:

City, Film

Film: Tuesday, June 29th, 1 PM @ Seniors in the Park, Minari

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This Tuesday, June 29th at 1 PM, there will be a showing of Minari @ Seniors in the Park, in the Starin Community Building:

Drama/Family

Rated PG-13

1 hour, 55 minutes (2020)

A Korean American family attempts to start a farm in 1980’s Arkansas, in search of its own American Dream. Oscar winner for Best Supporting Actress (Yuh-Jung Youn).

If vaccinated, no mask required. Reservations no longer required. Free popcorn and a beverage will be re-instituted!

One can find more information about Minari at the Internet Movie Database.

Cats

Friday Catblogging: White House Cats

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Jeva Lange writes A short history of White House cats:

“Cats,” wrote The Conversation gravely in 2013, “remain under-represented in Washington.”

It’s a problem that the Bidens are set to remedy. Last week, first lady Jill Biden teased that a cat is “waiting in the wings” to join the family and their two dogs at the White House. The newcomer won’t be the first four-legged friend to knock pens off the Resolute Desk, though; here are seven notable White House cats who blazed the trail for First Kitty Biden.

Tabby and Dixie, the O.G.s

When President Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, was asked if her husband had any hobbies, the first lady replied simply: “Cats.” She wasn’t kidding: Reportedly Abe loved his cats so much that he’d even feed them from the dinner table, to Mary Todd’s dismay. Lincoln was also the first president to introduce cats into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in the form of Tabby and Dixie, who were a gift from his secretary of state, William H. Seward. “At one point, [Lincoln] told a friend that Dixie was ‘smarter than his entire cabinet’ and ‘didn’t talk back,’ which was a bonus,'” Andrew Hager, the historian-in-residence at the Presidential Pet Museum, told The New York Times.

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.25.21

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 83. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 19m 27s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 99% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1950, the Korean War begins when North Korea invades South Korea.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Scott Bauer reports GOP-drafted contracts cover probe into potential Wisconsin vote ‘illegalities’:

Retired police officers hired by Wisconsin Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos are being paid $3,200 a month to investigate “potential irregularities and/or illegalities” in the 2020 presidential election, contracts obtained by The Associated Press show.

The investigators will be paid $9,600 each over three months to conduct the probe, according to the documents obtained Thursday. Vos, R-Rochester, signed two contracts in recent days and has said he intends to hire a third investigator and an attorney to oversee the probe.

Vos last month announced plans to have officers investigate the election results as part of the Republican response to former President Donald Trump’s narrow loss in Wisconsin. Republicans have also ordered a review by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau and they have passed several bills tightening rules for absentee voting, measures Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is all but certain to veto.

In Wisconsin, local election officials identified just 27 cases of potential voter fraud out of nearly 3.3 million votes cast in the November election that they forwarded to prosecutors. No charges have been brought in any of the cases.

(Vos wants this, as he signed. And yet, and yet, if he did not want this, he would still sign these contracts – it’s what an insatiable horde wants, and he will either feed them or they will feed on him.)

Lindsey Ellefson reports Tucker Carlson Slams Trump-Appointed Joint Chiefs Chair: ‘Not Just a Pig – He’s Stupid’:

Fox News’ Tucker Carlson attacked the highest-ranking officer of the military Thursday night, calling Gen. Mark Milley “stupid” for saying he reads a variety of authors and wants to understand “white rage.”

Carlson scornfully laughed after playing a clip of Milley speaking before a House Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this week and explaining his interest in studying white rage to better understand the deadly riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6.

“He’s not just a pig,” said Carlson of Milley, who was appointed to his role by then-president Donald Trump. “He’s stupid.”

He told his millions of viewers, “Mark Milley is the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He didn’t get that job because he’s brilliant or because he’s brave or because the people who know him respect him. He is not and they definitely don’t. Milley got the job because he is obsequious. He knows who to suck up to and he’s more than happy to do it. Feed him a script, and he will read it.”

Fred Wellman, a veteran who serves as executive director of conservative group the Lincoln Project, wrote on Twitter, “Remember when he was angry that kneeling during the anthem disrespected the military? Tucker Carlson is a coward who never served anything other than his own bank account.”

(Best guess on Carlson, like the former conservatives who’ve now become the intellectual defenders of the alt-right: he wants this to satisfy his own appetites and cravings. He’s not chasing rightwing opinion, he’s yielding to his own base desires. He’ll not stop, just as the writers at Taki Mag, VDare, and American Greatness did not stop. They were once conservatives, but they found rightwing extremism more satisfying.)

 How to Make ‘Watermelon Pizza’:

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.24.21

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy, with scattered thunderstorms, and a high of 78. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 19m 46s of daytime.  The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM, and the Whitewater Fire Department at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1947, Kenneth Arnold makes the first widely reported UFO sighting near Mount Rainier, Washington.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Reid J. Epstein reports Michigan Republicans Debunk Voter Fraud Claims in Unsparing Report:

A committee led by Michigan Republicans on Wednesday published an extraordinary debunking of voter fraud claims in the state, delivering a comprehensive rebuke to a litany of accusations about improprieties in the 2020 election and its aftermath.

The 55-page report, produced by a Michigan State Senate committee of three Republicans and one Democrat, is a systematic rebuttal to an array of false claims about the election from supporters of former President Donald J. Trump. The authors focus overwhelmingly on Michigan, but they also expose lies perpetuated about the vote-counting process in Georgia.

The report is unsparing in its criticism of those who have promoted false theories about the election. It debunks claims from Trump allies including Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow; Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former president’s lawyer; and Mr. Trump himself.

Yet while the report eviscerates claims about election fraud, its authors also use the allegations to urge their legislative colleagues to change Michigan’s voting laws to make absentee voting harder and limit the availability of drop boxes for absentee ballots, as Republicans have done in other swing states as they try to limit voting.

William G. Gale and Darrell M. West write Make Election Day a national holiday: 

As Congress continues to grapple with voting rights legislation this week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) has used his considerable influence as the Senate’s key swing vote to set the terms of the debate. Last week his office released a list of voting rights provisions he would support. At the top of his list: making Election Day a national holiday. Without this simple step toward turning out as many Americans as possible to vote, any reform will be incomplete.

So far this year, hundreds of bills have been introduced that could have the effect of suppressing people’s right to vote. States such as Georgia and Iowa already have passed restrictive measures and many others appear poised to do the same thing. These efforts challenge fundamental values of American democracy and constitute a serious threat to the “one person, one vote” principle.

Abigail Becker reports Madison nearing launch of mobile crisis response team: 

Madison is preparing to launch the city’s first mobile unit of unarmed first responders and mental health providers who will respond to people in a nonviolent, emergency mental health crisis by bringing interventions to them.

Ald. Arvina Martin, District 11, pushed the city to create the pilot program, called Community Alternative Response for Emergency Services or CARES. She said it could be “life changing.”

“I’m really really excited that we are taking some steps in order to make our treatments and how we address mental health emergencies in the city something that will provide better outcomes for them and hopefully not to involve the criminal justice system,” Martin said at a public input session on the program Tuesday.

The $600,000 pilot program will consist of two teams that each include a Madison Fire Department community paramedic and a mental health worker from Journey Mental Health. Though the long term vision is to operate the program 24/7 throughout Dane County, the teams will initially respond to nonviolent 911 mental health calls Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in downtown Madison.

 How quantum mechanics help birds find their way: 

Daily Bread

Daily Bread for 6.23.21

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see brief morning showers with a high of 77. Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 20m 02s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Tech Park Board meets at 8 AM.

On this day in 1942, Germany’s latest fighter aircraft, a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, is captured intact when it mistakenly lands at RAF Pembrey in Wales: “Oberleutnant Armin Faber was a German Luftwaffe pilot in World War II who mistook the Bristol Channel for the English Channel and landed his Focke-Wulf 190 (Fw 190) intact at RAF Pembrey in South Wales. His plane was the first Fw 190 to be captured by the Allies and was tested to reveal any weaknesses that could be exploited.” 

Recommended for reading in full — 

John Torinus writes New UW Regents Chair [Ed Manydeeds] Faces Challenges: 

The make-up of higher education has changed dramatically in the last decade. The new UW president will not be dealing with just bricks and mortar issues. His or her strategic plan, and those of the 13 campuses, will also have to factor in burgeoning trends and realities:

  • High school graduates will arrive on campus with as much as a quarter of their required baccalaureate credits – already awarded from Advanced Placement courses in high school, online courses and dual enrollment in high school and college while still in high school.
  • They will be debt conscious and will not want to take many courses that are non-essential to their career intentions.
  • They will be accustomed to working online and won’t need to be on a physical campus for parts of some courses.
  • The world of work will be clamoring for their services. They will be eager to get off campus for internships and for good-paying jobs. Students will be less oriented to party time.
  • If Republicans continue to control the Legislature, new funds for the university will be meted out conservatively.
  • Enrollments will continue to decline and tuition revenues will go down accordingly, even with modest tuition increases.
  • Research dollars at UW–Madison have been falling off sharply in recent years.

Jeff Kao, Raymond Zhong, Paul Mozur, Aliza Aufrichtig, Nailah Morgan and Aaron Krolik report ‘We Are Very Free’: How China Spreads Its Propaganda Version of Life in Xinjiang: 

These and thousands of other videos are meant to look like unfiltered glimpses of life in Xinjiang, the western Chinese region where the Communist Party has carried out repressive policies against Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic minorities.

Most of the clips carry no logos or other signs that they are official propaganda.

But taken together, the videos begin to reveal clues of broader coordination — such as the English subtitles in clips posted to YouTube and other Western platforms.

A monthslong analysis of more than 3,000 of the videos by The New York Times and ProPublica found evidence of an influence campaign orchestrated by the Chinese government.

The operation has produced and spread thousands of videos in which Chinese citizens deny abuses against their own communities and scold foreign officials and multinational corporations who dare question the Chinese government’s human rights record in Xinjiang.

It all amounts to one of China’s most elaborate efforts to shape global opinion.

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Western platforms like Twitter and YouTube are banned in China out of fear they might be used to spread political messaging — which is exactly how Chinese officials are using these platforms in the rest of the world.

They are, in essence, high-speed propaganda pipelines for Beijing. In just a few days, videos establishing the Communist Party’s version of reality can be shot, edited and amplified across the global internet.

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