Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 6:27 PM, for 11h 29m 15s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 88.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1846, Wisconsin’s first state Constitutional Convention meets in Madison.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Christopher Rugaber and Alexandra Olson report Long-term jobless caught in a squeeze that imperils recovery:

On Friday, the government reported that employers added 661,000 jobs in September, normally a healthy gain. Yet it marked the third straight monthly slowdown in hiring. The nation has regained barely half the 22 million jobs that were lost to the pandemic and the widespread business shutdowns it caused in March and April.

In a worrisome trend, a rising proportion of job losses appear to be permanently gone. When the virus erupted in March and paralyzed the economy, nearly 90% of layoffs were considered temporary, and a quick rebound seemed possible. No longer. In September, the number of Americans classified as permanently laid off rose 12% to 3.8 million. And the number of long-term unemployed rose by 781,000 — the largest increase on record — to 2.4 million.

“We have a real chance of there being massive long-term unemployment,” said Till Von Wachter, an economics professor at UCLA.

The nation now has 7% fewer jobs than in February. Yet the damage is far deeper in some sectors. The performing arts and spectator sports category, which includes Valiente’s industry, has lost 47% of its jobs. It hasn’t added any net jobs since the coronavirus struck.

Hotels are down 35%, restaurants and bars 19%, transportation 18%. Advertising, one of the first expenses that companies cut in a downturn, is down 9%.

Higher education has lost 9% of its jobs. Many classes have been delayed or moved online, reducing the need for janitors, cafeteria workers and other administrators. Normally during recessions, the education sector adds jobs to accommodate people returning to school to seek marketable skills or education. Not this time.

Aaron C. Davis reports How Trump amassed a red-state army in the nation’s capital — and could do so again:

The call that came into state capitals stunned governors and their National Guard commanders: The Pentagon wanted thousands of citizen soldiers airlifted to the nation’s capital immediately to help control crowds outside the White House in the wake of the death of George Floyd.

Presidents have routinely activated Guard troops to fight foreign enemies, and in extraordinary circumstances have federalized them to quell civil unrest, using the vast power of the commander in chief.

But the June 1 appeal to states was different. President Trump was drawing instead on an obscure law, changed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that made it easier for governors to voluntarily send guardsmen across state lines for counterterrorism missions. His action was not an order but a request, essentially inviting states to augment the D.C. National Guard, which he controls, in a potential clash with civilian protesters.

The request had the effect of cleaving state militias along partisan lines, according to interviews and internal Guard documents. While red states jumped to answer the president’s call, governors and Guard commanders in blue states were incredulous. The result was a deployment to the nation’s capital that military historians say appears to have been without precedent: Over 98 percent of the 3,800 troops that arrived in the District came from states with Republican governors.

How Lobbying Became A $3.5 Billion Industry:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty-two.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 6:29 PM, for 11h 32m 06s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 93.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1582, the Gregorian Calendar is introduced by Pope Gregory XIII.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Catherine Rampell writes The U.S. is still ‘missing’ more jobs than it did at the worst point of prior postwar recessions:

Here’s the bad news: The nation’s payrolls are still down 10.7 million jobs, or about 7 percent, since their peak in February, when the recession began. That’s enormous. In fact, a higher net share of jobs is still “missing” today, relative to pre-recession times, than was the case even at the worst period of anyprior postwar downturn.

The chart below shows percentage changes in employment since the recession began, and how recent trends compare with other postwar downturns and recoveries. The black line plots the Great Recession and its aftermath. At the very worst point for the job market in that business cycle, payrolls were down about 6.3 percent. Now, however, the magnitude of those Great Recession job losses looks slightly less “great” when compared with more recent changes in employment, plotted by the red line.

From Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center — Benkler, Yochai, Casey Tilton, Bruce Etling, Hal Roberts, Justin Clark, et al. Mail-In Voter Fraud: Anatomy of a Disinformation Campaign, 2020:

Our findings here suggest that Donald Trump has perfected the art of harnessing mass media to disseminate and at times reinforce his disinformation campaign [on the dangers of mail-in voting] by using three core standard practices of professional journalism. These three are: elite institutional focus (if the President says it, it’s news); headline seeking (if it bleeds, it leads); and balance, neutrality, or the avoidance of the appearance of taking a side. He uses the first two in combination to summon coverage at will, and has used them continuously to set the agenda surrounding mail-in voting through a combination of tweets, press conferences, and television interviews on Fox News. He relies on the latter professional practice to keep audiences that are not politically pre-committed and have relatively low political knowledge confused, because it limits the degree to which professional journalists in mass media organizations are willing or able to directly call the voter fraud frame disinformation. The president is, however, not acting alone. Throughout the first six months of the disinformation campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and staff from the Trump campaign appear repeatedly and consistently on message at the same moments, suggesting an institutionalized rather than individual disinformation campaign. The efforts of the president and the Republican Party are supported by the right-wing media ecosystem, primarily Fox News and talk radio functioning in effect as a party press. These reinforce the message, provide the president a platform, and marginalize or attack those Republican leaders or any conservative media personalities who insist that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud associated with mail-in voting.

(Full study linked above.)

How the pandemic distorted time:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-five.  Sunrise is 6:55 AM and sunset 6:30 PM, for 11h 34m 58s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1919, Cincinnati Reds pitcher Adolfo Luque becomes the first Latino player to appear in a World Series.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Stanley Lupkin reports How Operation Warp Speed’s Big Vaccine Contracts Could Stay Secret:

The Trump administration has compared Operation Warp Speed’s crash program to develop a COVID-19 vaccine to the Manhattan Project. And like the notoriously secretive government project to make the first atomic bomb, the details of Operation Warp Speed’s work may take a long time to unravel.

One reason is that Operation Warp Speed is issuing billions of dollars’ worth of coronavirus vaccine contracts to companies through a nongovernment intermediary, bypassing the regulatory oversight and transparency of traditional federal contracting mechanisms, NPR has learned.

Instead of entering into contracts directly with vaccine makers, more than $6 billion in Operation Warp Speed funding has been routed through a defense contract management firm called Advanced Technologies International, Inc. ATI then awarded contracts to companies working on COVID-19 vaccines.

As a result, the contracts between the pharmaceutical companies and ATI may not be available through public records requests, and additional documents are exempt from public disclosure for five years.

John Cassidy writes How Boeing and the F.A.A. Created the 737 MAX Catastrophe:

The basic outlines of the Boeing 737 max tragedy are already well known—or should be well known. Even so, a detailed new report that the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure released on Wednesday morning is a remarkable document. In two hundred and thirty-eight pages of clearly written prose, it goes a long way toward explaining not only what went so wrong at Boeing but what has gone badly askew with the American corporation in general, and with American governance.

With the connivance of the Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing developed, built, and delivered hundreds of passenger jets that were a potential danger to anyone who stepped onto them. It wasn’t until after there had been two deadly crashes, which killed three hundred and forty-six people, that the U.S. government grounded these planes. Even then, Boeing claimed it had done nothing wrong. In fact, it had rushed an unsafe passenger plane into service, failing to alert its airline customers and their flight crews to the existence of a new piece of safety software that could override the pilots and push down the nose of the plane. This software—known as a Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or mcas—was designed to head off possible stalls, but it also had the potential to cause a catastrophe.

Thanks to the official crash reports and some excellent investigative journalism, this much we already knew. Based on an eighteen-month investigation, the new report adds a wealth of new details—and it points the finger in the right places. It illustrates how Boeing’s management prioritized the company’s profitability and stock price over everything else, including passenger safety. Perhaps even more alarmingly, the report shows how the F.A.A., which once had a sterling reputation for independence and integrity, acted as a virtual agent for the company it was supposed to be overseeing.

Video from Space for the Week of Sept. 27, 2020:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty-three.  Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 6:32 PM, for 11h 37m 51s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1780, John André, a British Army officer, is hanged as a spy by the Continental Army.

Recommended for reading in full — 

David Sanger writes Tuesday’s Debate Made Clear the Gravest Threat to the Election: The President Himself:

Taken together, his attacks on the integrity of the coming election suggested that a country that has successfully run presidential elections since 1788 (a messy first experiment, which stretched just under a month), through civil wars, world wars and natural disasters now faces the gravest challenge in its history to the way it chooses a leader and peacefully transfers power.

“We have never heard a president deliberately cast doubt on an election’s integrity this way a month before it happened,” said Michael Beschloss, a presidential historian and the author of “Presidents of War.” “This is the kind of thing we have preached to other countries that they should not do. It reeks of autocracy, not democracy.”

But what worried American intelligence and homeland security officials, who have been assuring the public for months now that an accurate, secure vote could happen, was that Mr. Trump’s rant about a fraudulent vote may have been intended for more than just a domestic audience.

They have been worried for some time that his warnings are a signal to outside powers — chiefly the Russians — for their disinformation campaigns, which have seized on his baseless theme that the mail-in ballots are ridden with fraud. But what concerns them the most is that over the next 34 days, the country may begin to see disruptive cyberoperations, especially ransomware, intended to create just enough chaos to prove the president’s point.

 Heather Vogell reports The Kushners’ Freddie Mac Loan Wasn’t Just Massive. It Came With Unusually Good Terms, Too: 

After the news broke in May of last year that government-sponsored lending agency Freddie Mac had agreed to back $786 million in loans to the Kushner Companies, political opponents asked whether the family real estate firm formerly led by the president’s son-in-law and top adviser, Jared Kushner, had received special treatment.

….

The loans helped Kushner Companies scoop up thousands of apartments in Maryland and Virginia, the business’s biggest purchase in a decade. The deal, first reported by Bloomberg, also ranked among Freddie Mac’s largest ever. At the time, the details of its terms weren’t disclosed. Freddie Mac officials didn’t comment publicly then. Kushner’s lawyer said Jared was no longer involved in decision-making at the company. (He does continue to receive millions from the family business, according to his financial disclosures, including from some properties with Freddie Mac-backed loans.)

Freddie Mac packaged the 16 loans into bonds in August 2019 and sold them to investors. But Kushner Companies hadn’t finished its buying spree. Within the next two months, records show, Freddie Mac backed another two loans to the Kushners for an additional $63.5 million, allowing the company to add two more apartment complexes to its portfolio.

A new analysis by ProPublica shows Kushner Companies received unusually favorable loan terms for the 18 mortgages it obtained with Freddie Mac’s backing. The loans allowed the Kushner family company to make lower monthly payments and borrow more money than was typical for similar loans, 2019 Freddie Mac data shows. The terms increase the risk to the agency and to investors who buy bonds with the Kushner mortgages in them.

How The U.S. Battles Wildfires:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:53 AM and sunset 6:34 PM, for 11h 40m 43s of daytime.  The moon is full with 99.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets via audiovisual conferencing at 3:30 PM.

 On this day in 1890, Congress establishes Yosemite National Park.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Julia Ainsley reports Internal document shows Trump officials were told to make comments sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse (‘DHS talking points obtained by NBC News show officials were told to speak sympathetically about Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen charged with killing two protesters in Kenosha, Wis.’):

Federal law enforcement officials were directed to make public comments sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with fatally shooting two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, according to internal Department of Homeland Security talking points obtained by NBC News.

In preparing Homeland Security officials for questions about Rittenhouse from the media, the document suggests that they note that he “took his rifle to the scene of the rioting to help defend small business owners.”

Another set of talking points distributed to Homeland Security officials said the media were incorrectly labeling the group Patriot Prayer as racists after clashes erupted between the group and protesters in Portland, Oregon.

It is unclear whether any of the talking points originated at the White House or within Homeland Security’s own press office.

Rittenhouse, 17, supported Trump and police on his social media pages before he traveled from his home in Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha on Aug. 25 with an AR-15-style rifle, authorities say. Rittenhouse was arrested on first-degree murder charges and is fighting extradition to Wisconsin. His attorneys argue that he was acting in self-defense.

Three former Homeland Security officials, two of whom worked for Republican administrations, said it was unusual for law enforcement officials to be instructed to weigh in on a particular group or individual before investigations had concluded.

“It is as unprecedented as it is wrong,” said Peter Boogaard, who was a spokesperson for Homeland Security during under the Obama administration.

 Aaron Blake reports Trump unleashed a torrent of disinformation about voter fraud at the debate:

“When you have 80 million ballots sent in and swamping the system, you know it can’t be done.”

This contradicts what Trump’s own postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has repeatedly said. DeJoy told the Senate last month that the Postal Service would be able to deliver the ballots “securely and on time,” calling it a “sacred duty.” He added just last week that Trump’s claims that it can’t handle the ballots are “incorrect.” (DeJoy, it bears noting, is a Trump loyalist and was a top fundraiser for him.)

….

“They found ballots in a wastepaper basket three days ago, and they all had the name — military ballots, they were military — they all had the name Trump on them.”

Trump’s claim is false. The FBI initially said all nine of the discarded ballots were for Trump, but later amended that to say that seven of the nine were (the other two had been resealed without establishing whom the votes were for). What’s more, there are very logical, non-nefarious explanations for it, as The Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted, with officials citing confusion over precisely what the pieces of mail were and opening them. There was also controversy over the Justice Department issuing a statement that included who the votes on the ballot were for — which invited allegations that DOJ was yet again furthering Trump’s political goals.

 The Night Sky for October: