Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:14 AM and sunset 7:37 PM, for 13h 23m 13s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 58.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM.

 On this day in 1883, the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa begins its final stage.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Ian Millhiser explains The RNC’s big Covid-19 lie, refuted in one chart (‘The United States has had one of the world’s worst responses to Covid-19. Trump wants you to believe the opposite’):

If you spent the last five months living in a cave, then learned about the outside world solely through a livestream of the 2020 Republican National Convention, you would think Donald Trump was a visionary leader who saw what no one else saw — and who has led his nation to triumph against a deadly plague as a result.

“From the very beginning,” starts an RNC video misrepresenting Trump’s record on Covid-19, “Democrats, the media, and the World Health Organization got coronavirus wrong.” As heroic music plays over an image of Trump surrounded by American flags, the video claims, “one leader took decisive action to save lives: President Donald Trump.“

The video even features a clip ridiculing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) for saying — way back in early March — that he didn’t think that the coronavirus pandemic was “going to be as bad as it was in other countries.”

The reality is that, under President Trump’s leadership, the United States has one of the highest rates of coronavirus in the world — far higher than our peer nations. Indeed, Trump’s entire argument can be refuted in a single chart. This one:

The data in this chart represents the number of cases per one million people in the United States and several other nations — and, as you can see, the number of cases in the United States vastly outstrips the prevalence of coronavirus in these other nations.

Jon Meacham writes Restore the Voting Rights Act. It’s long past time to ‘make it plain’:

The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020, meanwhile, languishes in Congress. Among other things, the bill would restore the provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that requires states and localities with demonstrable records of discrimination to seek “preclearance” from the Justice Department or the U.S. District Court in Washington before any changes in election laws or policies.

The House has passed the bill, but — sadly and predictably — Mitch McConnell’s Senate has refused to act.

 Kyle Hopkins reports Alaska attorney general resigns following report that he sent hundreds of texts to state employee:

Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson resigned Tuesday following the publication of an Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica investigation that found he sent hundreds of “uncomfortable” messages full of flattery, kiss emoji and invitations to a state employee.

Prior to his resignation, Clarkson had quietly been placed on unpaid leave for the month of August. Records obtained by the newsrooms show the junior state employee raised concerns about 558 text messages that Clarkson sent to her personal phone in March. Over a 27-day span, the attorney general asked the woman to come to his house at least 18 times, often punctuating the messages with comments about the much-younger woman’s beauty.

Lukashenko: The story of ‘Europe’s Last Dictator’:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-six.  Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:39 PM, for 13h 25m 58s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 47.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1944, the Allies liberate Paris.

Recommended for reading in full — 

David A. Fahrenthold, Jonathan O’Connell and Joshua Partlow report New York attorney general files legal action against Trump Organization, revealing state investigation into the company’s financial dealings:

The New York attorney general is investigating whether President Trump’s company misled lenders and taxing authorities by improperly inflating the value of his assets, according to a court filing on Monday.

The filing from Attorney General Letitia James (D) said that the Trump Organization has declined to hand over some documents that had been subpoenaed, and that the president’s son Eric has refused to be interviewed. James’s inquiry began 18 months ago, but James had not disclosed its focus or scope before Monday.

Eric Trump — now the day-to-day leader of his father’s company — agreed to an interview, and then canceled two days before, according to the filing. He has declined to set another date, citing “rights afforded to every individual under the Constitution” to justify refusing the subpoena for an interview, the attorney general said.

 Cameron Peters reports The difference between the DNC and RNC, in one tweet:

While the DNC roll call showcased the diversity of America and made a point of featuring Indigenous people, Black and Hispanic Americans, activists, and LGBTQ people, the RNC roll call was a procession dominated by older white men, all in front of a white background emblazoned with #RNC2020.

Michael Scherer reports Republican convention videos use stock footage from Thailand:

During a video tribute to Trump early in Monday’s program, convention producers flashed an image of a woman in a window holding a sign that read “Thank You Doctors & Nurses.” Another piece of tape showed a lab worker in mask, gloves and bodysuit next to a sign that says “Danger Covid-19 Biohazard.”

Both pieces of tape are listed for sale as stock video through Getty Images, and in both cases the visuals are described as a product of Thailand.

Why Is Kodak Making Pharmaceuticals?:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of ninety.  Sunrise is 6:12 AM and sunset 7:41 PM, for 13h 28m 41s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 35.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission meets via audio visual conferencing at 4:30 PM, and the Whitewater Unified School District’s board via audio visual conferencing at 7 PM.

 On this day in 1909, workers start pouring concrete for the Panama Canal.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Elsie Viebeck reports More than 500,000 mail ballots were rejected in the primaries. That could make the difference in battleground states this fall:

More than 534,000 mail ballots were rejected during primaries across 23 states this year — nearly a quarter in key battlegrounds for the fall — illustrating how missed delivery deadlines, inadvertent mistakes and uneven enforcement of the rules could disenfranchise voters and affect the outcome of the presidential election.

The rates of rejection, which in some states exceeded those of other recent elections, could make a difference in the fall if the White House contest is decided by a close margin, as it was in 2016, when Donald Trump won Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by roughly 80,000 votes.

This year, according to a tally by The Washington Post, election officials in those three states tossed out more than 60,480 ballots just during primaries, which saw significantly lower voter turnout than what is expected in the general election. The rejection figures include ballots that arrived too late to be counted or were invalidated for another reason, including voter error.

 Amanda Carpenter explains How newsrooms should handle GOP convention disinformation:

Amanda Carpenter says TV networks should expect that the GOP convention will be a “major medical and political disinformation event” and fact-check accordingly.

Tory Newmyer writesTrump’s call for Goodyear boycott joins long history of bullying companies that cross him:

Notwithstanding his vocal criticism of “cancel culture,” Trump has been calling for boycotts of popular American companies since before he took office. The roster of outfits he has urged consumers to stiff-arm now includes Macy’s, Harley-Davidson, the National Football League, AT&T, and Glenfiddich scotch, and a host of media providers and outlets, including Comcast, HBO, Rolling Stone, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, CNBC, Univision, the Dallas Morning News, and the Arizona Republic. CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale has assembled a working list of 30 such names.

Taken together, the president’s appeals for politically motivated boycotts not only undermine his criticism of those on the left who embrace such tactics. More importantly, they represent a frontal assault on the idea that government shouldn’t winners and losers in the marketplace — a notion that has been a first principle for conservatives.

“It’s inappropriate for the president to do this,” Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, tells me. “It’s bad for the economy and for longer-term prosperity if companies are making business decisions on whether they’re going to win favor with or upset the president. They should be making business decisions based on business considerations.”

Belarus protests: Thousands of demonstrators march into independence square in Minsk:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset 7:42 PM, for 13h 31m 24s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 25.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1864, the Union Navy captures Fort Morgan, Alabama, thus breaking Confederate dominance of all ports on the Gulf of Mexico except Galveston, Texas.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Michael Hiltzik writes DeJoy’s appointment as postmaster general looks even more dishonest than you thought:

Thus far, speculation about the appointment of DeJoy, who assumed his job in mid-June, has focused on his role as a major fundraiser for President Trump and the fact that he is the first postmaster general in some two decades to not have any experience with the USPS.

But congressional testimony this week by David Williams, a former USPS inspector general and former vice chairman of the service’s board of governors, put some meat on those bare bones.

Williams told the Congressional Progressive Caucus that he resigned from the USPS board when it became clear it was about to appoint DeJoy.

He says DeJoy’s name came to the board outside the normal route, which went through the headhunting firm Russell Reynolds. Instead it came from board member John M. Barger, a Southern California investment executive who was supervising the postmaster search.

Barger told the board he had had lunch with DeJoy and “wanted to move his name forward,” Williams said. “It wasn’t clear how [Barger] had met Mr. DeJoy to me, and I don’t think anyone was clear on it.”
….
Williams said that DeJoy did not appear to have received the background check normal for appointees to high government positions. That should have included an audit of a contract his former company had held with the USPS.

“It looked like there were concerns about whether his company was billing correctly and performing fully,” Williams said. “That contract file needs to be examined. … We didn’t do that.”

 Robyn Dixon reports Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, comatose in a Berlin with suspected poisoning, was under covert surveillance, Russian media reports:

As Russia’s most prominent opposition politician was fighting for this life in a Berlin hospital Sunday, Russian media reported that he was under constant surveillance by federal security agents during the Siberian trip where he fell ill with suspected poisoning.

Alexei Navalny was evacuated from the Siberian city of Omsk to Berlin Saturday in a medical ambulance funded by the foundation of Russian philanthropist and former telecommunications mogul, Dmitry Zimin, after doctors initially denied permission for him to leave the country.
….
A Russian news report cited sources in Russian security agencies who said Navalny was subject to an intense plainclothes surveillance operation during his entire trip.

The report in Moskovsky Komsomolets published details of the surveillance of his every movement, including what he and his associates ate, who he met, his credit card records, shopping receipts, where he stayed, what vehicles he traveled in, even down to a sushi order and a nighttime swim in the river.

Navalny was extremely cautious when he traveled, keeping a low profile and taking safety precautions, according to the security agents cited in the report. He stayed in safe houses in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and in a hotel in Tomsk. In the hotel, Navalny’s team took more rooms than they required and Navalny did not stay in the room that was registered in his name, according to the report.

How Tokyo’s Massive Lost & Found Works:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 6:10 AM and sunset 7:44 PM, for 13h 34m 06s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 16.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 2007, the Texas Rangers defeat the Baltimore Orioles 30–3, the most runs scored by a team in modern Major League Baseball history.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Nolan D. McCaskill reports ‘It was great’: In leaked audio, Trump hailed low Black turnout in 2016:

In a private meeting inside Trump Tower days before his inauguration, Donald Trump told a group of civil rights leaders something most Republicans wouldn’t dare publicly acknowledge: lower turnout among Black voters did, in fact, benefit him in the 2016 presidential election.

“Many Blacks didn’t go out to vote for Hillary ‘cause they liked me. That was almost as good as getting the vote, you know, and it was great,” the president-elect said, according to an audio recording of the meeting shared with POLITICO.

Brandy Zadrozny and Ben Collins report QAnon looms behind nationwide rallies and viral #SavetheChildren hashtags:

On the second Saturday of August, about 100 protestors gathered at the “Big Red Wagon,” a well-known attraction in downtown Spokane, Washington. Men, women and children marched through the streets chanting, “Save the children.” It was ostensibly an effort “to raise awareness and start a conversation” about child trafficking, according to a local television reporter at the scene.

Many of the marchers held signs that would be expected at such a rally: “Save our kids,” “Your silence is deafening,” and “Wake up 4 our children,” to name a few.

But other signs were less clear, and suggested that something darker was going on during an event that otherwise seemed organic and sympathetic. “Symbolism will be their downfall,” one read. Another featured the hashtag “#Pedowood.” Yet another was a strange acronym: “WWG1WGA,” short for “Where we go one, we go all.”

These signs, similar to those found at many such rallies now taking place around the U.S., are references to QAnon, the conspiracy theory that has surged in popularity in recent months. It turned out that the rally had nothing to do with the century-old humanitarian charitable group Save the Children.

QAnon is a sprawling and baseless conspiracy theory alleging that President Donald Trump is engaged in a secret war against a cabal of Satanist child abusers in government, entertainment and the media. The conspiracy — which has spread to millions of users in Facebook groups during the pandemic — has been linked to several violent crimes and was last year labeled a potential domestic terror threat by the F.B.I.

See also Inside the Completely Nutso Universe of QAnon and Fox’s whitewash of Trump’s QAnon endorsement helps explain how it happened in the first place.

The Truth Is Essential: Life Needs Truth:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 6:09 AM and sunset 7:46 PM, for 13h 36m 47s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 7.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1770, James Cook formally claims eastern Australia for Great Britain, naming it New South Wales.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Justin Baragona, Maxwell Tani, and Andrew Kirell report How Fox News Helped Boost Bannon’s ‘We Build the Wall’ Fiasco:

According to federal prosecutors, Bannon and Kolfage, along with two others, defrauded the hundreds of thousands of donors who gave $25 million to their effort to privately fund a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. The alleged wall scammers used those funds—despite publicly claiming “All money donated to the campaign goes directly to the wall!”—to line their own pockets and purchase luxury items, the indictment claimed.

Since the viral fundraiser launched in late 2018, Bannon and Kolfage separately appeared on Fox News on more than a few occasions to tout their efforts to the network’s audience and its uncritical, often credulously supportive on-air personalities. While the effort garnered some mainstream media attention, few outlets were as openly supportive of Kolfage and Bannon in their endeavor.

“A story of the can-do American spirit in action,” Fox News primetime host Laura Ingraham beamed about the fundraiser before interviewing Kolfage during her Dec. 20, 2018 broadcast.

During their chat, Ingraham repeatedly praised Kolfage and teed him up to bash critics who argued against a border wall or called the fundraiser a publicity stunt. “I’d say they’re full of crap. And this is the United States and we can do anything we want,” Kolfage said. “And if people want to donate to that wall and give their money, they can do it. I mean, what’s 80 bucks for 60 million people? The common person can give that kind of money.”

Toluse Olorunnipa and Isaac Stanley-Becker report Touting conspiracy theories, Trump welcomes fringe views into the political mainstream:

Trump rose to political prominence pitching the racist and false conspiracy theory that former president Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya and therefore ineligible for the presidency. He sought to associate the father of one of his primary opponents, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, with the assassin who shot John F. Kennedy. And once in office, he peddled the debunked idea that millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote.

“These folks — QAnon supporters and other conspiracy-minded people — brought him to the prom,” said Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami and co-author of “American Conspiracy Theories.” “Now he has to dance with them.”

The president’s willingness to embrace fringe conspiracies has only increased as he has spent more time in office, despite his access to top-notch intelligence assessments that debunk many of his views. Trump has increasingly turned to conspiracy theories as his presidency has faced its greatest head winds yet, amid a pandemic, economic downturn and racial unrest.

Robbie Whelan reports Troubled Covid-19 Data System Returning to CDC:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is reversing course on a change to the way hospitals report critical information on the coronavirus pandemic to the government, returning the responsibility for data collection to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Can Chuck E. Cheese Survive Bankruptcy?: