Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:52 AM and sunset 6:36 PM, for 11h 43m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1954, the U.S. Navy submarine USS Nautilus is commissioned as the world’s first nuclear-powered vessel.

Recommended for reading in full — 

David Frum nicely describes last night’s debate:

The debate format did not fail to control Trump.

The debate format succeeded in demonstrating that Trump cannot control himself.

— David Frum (@davidfrum) September 30, 2020

David Smith, Lois Beckett, Maanvi Singh, Julia Carrie Wong report Donald Trump refuses to condemn white supremacists at presidential debate:

Donald Trump declined to condemn white supremacists and violent rightwing groups during a contentious first presidential debate, instead urging a far-right group known for street brawling to “stand by” and arguing that “somebody’s got to do something” about the left.

The president was asked repeatedly by the moderator, Chris Wallace, to condemn violence by white supremacists and rightwing groups, such as armed militias, as well as criticizing leftwing protesters.

Instead, Trump addressed the Proud Boys, a far-right group whose members have been sentenced to prison for attacking leftwing protesters in political street fights, and said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left.”

The Proud Boys, whose uniform is a black polo shirt, immediately celebrated the president’s comment in posts on social media platform Telegram. One Proud Boys group added the phrase “Stand Back, Stand By” to their logo. Another post was a message to Trump: “Standing down and standing by sir.”

McKay Coppins reports Trump Secretly Mocks His Christian Supporters:

In [Michael] Cohen’s recent memoir, Disloyal, he recounts Trump returning from his 2011 meeting with the pastors who laid hands on him and sneering, “Can you believe that bullshit?” But if Trump found their rituals ridiculous, he followed their moneymaking ventures closely. “He was completely familiar with the business dealings of the leadership in many prosperity-gospel churches,” the adviser told me.

….

Trump’s public appeals to Jewish voters have been similarly discordant with his private comments. Last week, The Washington Post reported that after calls with Jewish lawmakers, the president has said that Jews “are only in it for themselves.” And while he is quick to tout his daughter Ivanka’s conversion to Judaism when he’s speaking to Jewish audiences, he is sometimes less effusive in private. Cohen told me that once, years ago, he was with Trump when his wife, Melania, informed him that their son was at a playdate with a Jewish girl from his school. “Great,” Trump said to Cohen, who is Jewish. “I’m going to lose another one of my kids to your people.”

Vaccines 101: How new vaccines are developed:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy a high of fifty-six.  Sunrise is 6:51 AM and sunset 6:37 PM, for 11h 46m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1957, the Packers dedicated City Stadium, now known as Lambeau Field, and defeated the Bears, 21-17.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Russ Buettner, Mike McIntire, and Susanne Craig of the New York Times report – in part 2 of their series –  How Reality-TV Fame Handed Trump a $427 Million Lifeline (‘Tax records show that “The Apprentice” rescued Donald J. Trump, bringing him new sources of cash and a myth that would propel him to the White House’):

From the back seat of a stretch limousine heading to meet the first contestants for his new TV show “The Apprentice,” Donald J. Trump bragged that he was a billionaire who had overcome financial hardship.

“I used my brain, I used my negotiating skills and I worked it all out,” he told viewers. “Now, my company is bigger than it ever was and stronger than it ever was.”

It was all a hoax.

Months after that inaugural episode in January 2004, Mr. Trump filed his individual tax return reporting $89.9 million in net losses from his core businesses for the prior year. The red ink spilled from everywhere, even as American television audiences saw him as a savvy business mogul with the Midas touch.

….

Divorced for the second time, and coming off the failure of his Atlantic City casinos, Mr. Trump faced escalating money problems and the prospect of another trip to bankruptcy court. On his income tax returns, he reported annual net losses throughout the 1990s, some of it carried forward year to year, a tide that would swell to $352.8 million at the end of 2002.

Few people knew this, however, because he kept up the relentless self-promotion that had served him well: a half-serious 2000 presidential campaign that lasted four months but got him on Jay Leno; a TV ad touting McDonald’s new $1 “Big N’ Tasty” burger; another ghostwritten book.

But if Mr. Trump was still living off his residual fame, his biggest splashes were behind him. Something had to change. And as fate would have it, Mr. Trump got a boost from an unexpected source, one that would do much to shape his future, if not that of the country itself.

Mark Burnett, a British television producer best known for the hit series “Survivor,” approached him with an idea for a different reality show, this one based in a boardroom. In Mr. Burnett’s vision, a cast of wannabe entrepreneurs would come to New York and compete for the approval of the Donald, with the winner to work on a Trump project. Mr. Trump eagerly agreed to host “The Apprentice” and went on to ham it up as the billionaire kingmaker, yelling “You’re fired” each week until one contestant was left.

Some of Mr. Burnett’s staff members wondered how a wealthy businessman supposedly running a real estate empire could spare the time, but they soon discovered that not everything in Mr. Trump’s world was as it appeared.

(Emphasis added.)

Anna Deavere Smith Performs MLK’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail”:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with scattered showers and a high of fifty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:50 AM and sunset 6:39 PM, for 11h 49m 21s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets at 4:30 PM via audiovisual conferencing, and the Whitewater Unified School District’s board meets via audiovisual conferencing in closed session at 6:30 PM and open session beginning at 7 PM.

 On this day in 1781, American forces backed by a French fleet begin the Battle of Yorktown.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig, and Mike McIntire of the New York Times report Long-Concealed Records Show Trump’s Chronic Losses and Years of Tax Avoidance:

Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.

He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.

As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.

The tax returns that Mr. Trump has long fought to keep private tell a story fundamentally different from the one he has sold to the American public. His reports to the I.R.S. portray a businessman who takes in hundreds of millions of dollars a year yet racks up chronic losses that he aggressively employs to avoid paying taxes. Now, with his financial challenges mounting, the records show that he depends more and more on making money from businesses that put him in potential and often direct conflict of interest with his job as president.

The New York Times has obtained tax-return data extending over more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office. It does not include his personal returns for 2018 or 2019. This article offers an overview of The Times’s findings; additional articles will be published in the coming weeks.

(Emphasis added.)

 Meanwhile, Michael Kranish of the Washington Post reports Donald Trump, facing financial ruin, sought control of his elderly father’s estate. The family fight was epic: 

Donald Trump was facing financial disaster in 1990 when he came up with an audacious plan to exert control of his father’s estate.

His creditors threatened to force him into personal bankruptcy, and his first wife, Ivana, wanted “a billion dollars” in a divorce settlement, Donald Trump said in a deposition. So he sent an accountant and a lawyer to see his father, Fred Trump Sr., who was told he needed to immediately sign a document changing his will per his son’s wishes, according to depositions from family members.

It was a fragile moment for the senior Trump, who was 85 years old and had built a real estate empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He would soon be diagnosed with cognitive problems, such as being unable to recall things he was told 30 minutes earlier or remember his birth date, according to his medical records, which were included in a related court case.

Racoons & Coyotes in San Franciso’s Golden Gate Park: 

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of seventy-three.  Sunrise is 6:49 AM and sunset 6:41 PM, for 11h 52m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1777, Lancaster, Pennsylvania becomes the capital of the United States for one day after Congress evacuates Philadelphia.

Recommended for reading in full — 

David Corn writes Donald Trump Wanted to Keep This Video Deposition Secret. We Got a Copy:

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump was burdened with lawsuits that accused him and his Trump University of defrauding students who had paid thousands of dollars to learn the supposed secrets of Trump’s financial success. Though the Trump U controversy raised questions about Trump’s fitness for office, he managed to score two legal victories in the case as it proceeded. He won a postponement in the trial until after Election Day, and he managed to seal the video of a six-hour deposition he gave in the case. That meant voters would not see news reports of Trump on the stand in a federal civil fraud case or be able to watch this footage of Trump being questioned concerning allegations of fraud. But Mother Jones has now obtained the full video of Trump’s deposition, and though the written transcript of the session was released in June 2016, the video version includes several exchanges that likely would not have played well for Trump had they become public when he was chasing votes.

Trump sat for this deposition in Trump Tower on December 10, 2015. The video shows him parrying with the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jason Forge, over various issues, including false statements made by Trump University employees, and Trump’s own memory. Trump at one point griped, “It’s the most ridiculous lawsuit I’ve ever seen.” He claimed not to remember having boasted that he possessed one of the best memories in the world and repeatedly said he could not recall matters related to the case. He downplayed false and misleading statements presented by Trump University instructors as merely “hyperbole,” refusing to label them “false.” He even disavowed a passage from one of his own books in which he had assailed educational institutions for committing “fraud.” Had the video deposition been released during the campaign, it may have yielded ammo for anti-Trump ads. At the start of the deposition, Trump’s attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, said he and Trump did not want the transcript “getting into the hands of the media.” Regarding the video, they succeeded.

….

Trump did insist that Trump University had “a lot of very good instructors.” Yet he couldn’t identify a single one:

Adam Nagourney and Jeremy W. Peters report Denial and Defiance: Trump and His Base Downplay the Virus Ahead of the Election:

From resistance to face masks and scorn for the science of the coronavirus to predicting the imminent arrival of a vaccine while downplaying the death count, President Trump and a sizable number of his supporters have aligned emphatically behind an alternate reality minimizing a tragedy that has killed an overwhelming number of Americans and gutted the economy.

This mix of denial and defiance runs contrary to the overwhelming evidence about the spread and toll of the virus, and it is at the center of Mr. Trump’s re-election effort as early voting begins in Minnesota, Virginia and other states. It is an outlook shared among his most loyal supporters and pushed by many of his allies in the political and news media establishment.

Why Sweden Loves Food in Tubes:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-seven.  Sunrise is 6:48 AM and sunset 6:43 PM, for 11h 55m 07s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 74.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1950, United Nations troops recapture Seoul from North Korean forces.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Tory Newmyer reports Biden would create stronger economic growth and more jobs, economists find:

A Democratic sweep that puts Joe Biden in the White House and the party back in the Senate majority would produce 7.4 million more jobs and a faster economic recovery than if President Trump retains power.

That’s the conclusion Moody’s Analytics economists Mark Zandi and Bernard Yaros reach in a new analysis sizing up the two presidential candidates’ economic proposals.

And they are not alone in finding a Biden win translating into brisker growth: Economists at Goldman Sachs and Oxford Economics conclude that even a version of Biden’s program that would have to shrink to pass the Senate would mean a faster rally back to prepandemic conditions.

The economic outlook is strongest if Democrats sweep Washington, the Moody’s team finds.

“In this scenario, the economy is expected to create 18.6 million jobs during Biden’s term as president, and the economy returns to full employment, with unemployment of just over 4%, by the second half of 2022,” they write.

Real after-tax income for the average American household would increase by $4,800 by the end of Biden’s first term, the economists project, and house prices and homeownership rates both would nudge upward.

(Emphasis in original.)

Alec Johnson reports Election Administration Challenges and Effects in Wisconsin:

Wisconsin bore the brunt of conducting an election amid the coronavirus pandemic when officials decided not to delay the state’s April 7 presidential primary. Whereas most states with primaries scheduled for late March and April postponed them, Wisconsin went ahead with its elections as planned.

As the state grappled with challenges presented by the coronavirus, Lawfare published an analysis covering the multitude of legal complications and attempted legislative fixes that plagued the run-up to Wisconsin’s 2020 primary. We follow up that post with an analysis of Wisconsin’s April 7 election by the numbers, quantifying participation in the primary, the use of absentee balloting, and the causes and consequences of consolidating polling places in many of Wisconsin’s cities.

We find results that offer room for cautious optimism. Wisconsin voters shifted away from voting in person on Election Day, albeit with a substantial increase in nonreturned mail ballots. Although turnout declined from the 2016 presidential primary, the decrease can be attributed primarily to Wisconsin’s less competitive presidential primaries.

However, reasons for concern remain. Most glaringly, racial disparities occurred in the most visible strains on the system—closed polling places and nonreturned mail ballots. Wisconsin has made a concerted effort to address these issues in the ensuing primaries and upcoming general election. Whether the state’s measures will be sufficient will be evident only as the general election unfolds.

Video from Space – Weekly Highlights for Week of Sept. 20, 2020:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of seventy-five.  Sunrise is 6:47 AM and sunset 6:45 PM, for 11h 58m 00s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 64.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

Recommended for reading in full — 

Alec Johnson reports Some parents have sent their COVID-19 positive children to school, Washington-Ozaukee Public Health Department director says:

The Washington Ozaukee Public Health Department is asking schools in those counties to use attendance software to track students with the coronavirus after some parents have knowingly sent their children to school even after they tested positive for COVID-19.

In one instance, a student was so ill that the student went to the nurse’s office, said health department director Kirsten Johnson. The nurse discovered the student was on the list of those who had tested positive and should not have been in class.

The department has recommended schools use their attendance software to track students who are supposed to quarantine and those who are positive in an effort to keep them from showing up for in-person classes.

Johnson said there have been two other incidents in other districts where this has happened as well.

“We’ve been trying hard to work with school districts on this to help them with their contact tracing and education, and it’s been challenging,” Johnson said. “I think for us, the biggest challenge for us that we’re experiencing right now is people are just being dishonest. They don’t want their children to be quarantined from school. They don’t want to have to miss work. In doing that, they’re jeopardizing the ability to have school in person and other people’s health.”

Johnson also said there have been issues with those in quarantine trying to return to school earlier than their quarantine would allow.

In some cases, parents have refused to test their child for COVID-19 when they’re symptomatic and have sent that child’s siblings to school.

Johnson said future messaging to the community will be straightforward: “Look, your behavior, your dishonesty, is going to result in your children’s schools being shut down. You need to be honest. You need to protect the rest of your community. The end.”

Jason Wilson and Robert Evans report Revealed: pro-Trump activists plotted violence ahead of Portland rallies:

Leaked chat logs show Portland-area pro-Trump activists planning and training for violence, sourcing arms and ammunition and even suggesting political assassinations ahead of a series of contentious rallies in the Oregon city, including one scheduled for this weekend.

….

In advance of the 22 August protest, [Mark] Melchi wrote: “It’s going to be bloody and most likely shooting, they’re definitely armed… so let’s make sure we have an organized direction of movement and direction of clearing or other Patriots will be caught in the possible cross fire. When shit hits the fan.”

He advised other members to ignore weapons statutes, writing, “I saw someone say bats, mace, and stun guns are illegal downtown. If you’re going to play by the books tomorrow night, we already lost. We are here to make a change, laws will be broken, people will get hurt… It’s lawlessness downtown, and people need to be prepared for bad things.”

Following these comments, several rightwing demonstrators were recorded using gas and bats on 22 August, where Melchi and his militia were also present.

In other remarks ahead of the day, Melchi draws on what he claims is his group’s history of traveling to multiple states to engage in violence at protests.

“My Group 1776 2.0. Has been fighting Antifa in Seattle, Portland, for months”, Melchi writes, adding “this won’t be a simple fist fight. People will get shot, stabbed and beat.”

He also claims police cooperation in interstate violence, writing “Yes, going after them at night is the solution… Like we do in other states, tactical ambushes at night while backing up the police are key. You get the leaders and the violent ones and the police are happy to shut their mouths and cameras.”

 Bars and cafes have to shut or close early in France’s biggest cities: