Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with an occasional thundershower and a high of eighty-one. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM, for 15h 20m 23s of daytime.  The moon is new with 0.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1944, the United States is victorious at the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Ryan Goodman writes Bolton Book Confirms Most Serious Allegations in Trump Impeachment on Ukraine Quid Pro Quo:

Bolton’s account, across several pages of his book, squarely addresses these parts of the record. A few examples.

1. Only “circumstantial evidence” of what Trump said or did? Bolton provides direct evidence.

“I took Trump’s temperature on the Ukraine security assistance, and he said he wasn’t in favor of sending them anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over.”

John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened

2. Trump’s actions were to pursue anti-corruption, not to help his campaign? Bolton confirms it was the latter, unequivocally.

“When, in 1992, Bush 41 supporters suggested he ask foreign governments to help out in his failing campaign against Bill Clinton, Bush and Jim Baker completely rejected the idea. Trump did the precise opposite.”

John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened

3. No evidence of a quid pro quo for military assistance? That’s what Bolton’s direct evidence establishes (see #1).

4. The White House suspended aid to Ukraine as part of a general review of foreign economic assistance? Bolton writes that this was a false cover.

“Mulvaney and others later argued that the dispute over Ukraine’s security assistance was related to rescinding the economic assistance, but this was entirely an ex post facto rationalization.”

John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened

As for the infamous phone call with Ukraine’s president, Bolton thought it simply fit into the ongoing scheme. “Nor, at the time, did I think Trump’s comments in the call reflected any major change in direction; the linkage of the military assistance with the Giuliani fantasies was already baked in. The call was not the keystone for me, but simply another brick in the wall,” the former national security advisor writes.

Devlin Barrett reports U.S. attorney investigating Trump associates resists attempt to push him out:

The Trump administration announced late Friday that Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, who has overseen a number of investigations involving the president and his political campaign, will be leaving that job, though Berman fired back that he had not resigned and intends to stay in the job to ensure the cases continue unimpeded.

The surreal Friday night standoff marks the latest battle over the Trump administration’s management of the Justice Department. Democrats have decried what they charge has been the politicization of the department under President Trump and his attorney general, William P. Barr.
Barr announced the personnel change in a statement, saying the president plans to nominate the current chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, for the job.

Berman’s office has been conducting a criminal investigation of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, in a campaign finance case that has already led to charges against two of Giuliani’s associates.

The iPhone shortcut which records when you say ‘I’m getting pulled over’:

See also ‘Siri, I’m getting pulled over’: A shortcut for iPhones can automatically record the police. more >>

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see an afternoon thundershower with a high of ninety. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM, for 15h 20m 24s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 3.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger issues an order that would inspire the Juneteenth holiday.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Olivia Messer reports The strange story of Utah tech companies, a Hollywood cheerleader with Midwest roots, and lawmakers dubious of a no-bid coronavirus testing contract:

One morning two weeks ago, Megan Hunt woke up fearing the worst.

The novel coronavirus pandemic was surging in Nebraska, and the 34-year-old midtown Omaha resident was winded, short of breath, sore, and had digestive issues, she told The Daily Beast. She continued to self-isolate, let her 10-year-old daughter help with the cooking, and tried to get a COVID-19 test from her state’s brand new, seemingly high-tech mass testing initiative: TestNebraska.com.

But when she completed the online survey of symptoms, the site told her she didn’t qualify.

“I have spoken to many people who have had the same experience,” said Hunt. “I reported my symptoms honestly, and I was not selected for testing.”

The episode might be unremarkable in a country where COVID-19 testing has been a global laughingstock if not for two things: Hunt is a Nebraska state senator, and she wanted to verify that the state’s choice for a testing program was effective.

Hunt still doesn’t know if she ever had COVID-19. But she does feel confident that her state’s test regime, the bizarre brainchild of Utah “tech bros” with a surreal assist from Iowa native Ashton Kutcher, is “the Fyre Fest of coronavirus testing,” as she told The Daily Beast.

Lily Hay Newman reports The Russian Disinfo Operation You Never Heard About:

THE INTERNET RESEARCH Agency is infamous for flooding mainstream social media platforms with compelling disinformation campaigns. The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, deploys strategic data leaks and destabilizing cyberattacks. But in the recent history of Russia’s online meddling, a third, distinct entity may have been at work on many of the same objectives—indicating that Russia’s disinformation operations went deeper than was publicly known until now.

Dubbed Secondary Infektion, the campaign came on the radar of researchers last year. Today, the social media analysis firm Graphika is publishing the first comprehensive review of the group’s activity, which seems to have begun all the way back in January 2014. The analysis reveals an entity that prioritizes covering its tracks; virtually all Secondary Infektion campaigns incorporate robust operational security, including a hallmark use of burner accounts that only stay live long enough to publish one post or comment. That’s a sharp contrast to the IRA and GRU disinformation operations, which often rely on cultivating online personas or digital accounts over time and building influence by broadening their reach.

Secondary Infektion also ran disinformation campaigns on a notably large array of digital platforms. While the IRA in particular achieved virality by focusing its energy on major mainstream social networks like Facebook and Twitter, Secondary Infektion took more than 300 platforms in all, including regional forums and smaller blogging sites.

Worried about a second wave of coronavirus? We’re still in the first:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-eight. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:36 PM, for 15h 20m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 7.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater Unified District’s Employee Handbook Committee Committee meets at via Zoom Online at 3:30 PM.

On this day in 1873, Susan B. Anthony is fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Julian Borger writes Bolton’s bombshell book shows it’s still possible to be shocked by Trump’s presidency:

By his own account, Bolton remained at Trump’s side even long after he witnessed the president soliciting the Chinese communist leadership to help him win reelection. The “turning point” only came when Trump changed his mind about bombing Iran, a longstanding Bolton objective.

So there are lots of bullets with which to shoot the messenger, and yet still some reason to believe that the message may survive to inflict its own slow-bleeding wound.

Even with all the inequities of the US electoral system, Trump’s 40% core voters will not be enough to get him reelected. He needs some independents and that’s where Bolton’s book may well deepen and accelerate the process of corrosion.

“For independents and more moderate Republicans who voted for him in 2016 in key swing states, like Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona, the Bolton revelations may further increase “Trump fatigue”, Schiller said. “Given that the US 2020 presidential election will be decided by razor thin margins in these states, if these voters stay home, or worse defect to Biden, Trump loses.”

The Bolton memoir also blunts the central attack line the Trump campaign is using against his Democratic opponent.

On the day the news of the book broke, it was running Facebook ads portraying Biden as Xi’s ventriloquist’s doll, and hugging a map of China with the tagline “Sleepy Joe loves China”. All of that becomes more awkward when the incumbent has told Xi he was “the greatest Chinese leader in 300 years!”, and quickly amending that to “the greatest leader in Chinese history.”

 Jeff Timmer writes Michigan May be a Nightmare for the GOP:

Polling through mid-2020 has shown Trump consistently trailing Joe Biden in the mitten state, including a survey released last week showing Trump trailing Biden by a 15-point margin (50 to 35 percent).

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has only increased her popularity. Her approval numbers during the COVID-19 crisis, which has hit Michigan disproportionately hard, have remained in the mid-60s, while Trump’s have been mired in the low 40s. Whitmer gave her support to Biden at a pivotal moment in advance of his win over Bernie Sanders in Michigan and she is included in the speculation about Biden’s choice of a running mate. While Whitmer won’t be on the ballot in Michigan this year (unless Biden picks her), she’s in much better position to sway swing voters up and down the ballot than Trump or any Republican is.

These Workers Are Risking Their Lives to Feed America:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty-six. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:36 PM, for 15h 20m 12s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 13.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater Unified District’s Policy Review Committee meets at via Zoom Online at 9:30 AM.

On this day in 1673, Marquette and Jolliet reach the Mississippi.

Recommended for reading in full —

 John Cassidy writes Taxpayers Have a Right to Know Who Is Getting Their Stimulus Money:

As of June 12th, the S.B.A., which is administrating the P.P.P., had approved about 4.6 million loans. The average size of the loans was about a hundred and twelve thousand dollars. The total amount committed was $512.3 billion, equivalent to about 2.4 per cent of G.D.P.

That’s a large sum to spend on what are effectively grants. (As long as a business participating in the P.P.P. maintains its payroll, most or all of its loan will be eligible to be forgiven.) And yet, with a few exceptions, taxpayers don’t know who has received all this money. Despite pressure from Congress and the filing of a Freedom of Information lawsuit by a number of media companies, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has refused to publish a list of P.P.P.-loan recipients and the sizes of their loans. The Trump Administration has not yet provided such data to the Government Accountability Office.

Appearing before the Senate Small Business Committee last week, Mnuchin said the secrecy was necessary to protect the “proprietary information” of loan recipients. The Administration’s argument is that if it publishes how much a certain business has received its competitors will be able to figure out its revenues, because the size of a P.P.P. loan is linked to a firm’s total outlays on payroll. But this argument flies in the face of at least two realities. In April, the S.B.A., which has routinely published the names of the businesses it has lent to, indicated that it would do the same for loans issued under the P.P.P. Moreover, the application form that borrowers have to fill out for a P.P.P. loan says that, under the Freedom of Information Act, “subject to certain exceptions,” the S.B.A. is obliged to supply information including “the names of the borrowers (and their officers, directors, stockholders or partners), the collateral pledged to secure the loan, the amount of the loan, its purpose in general terms and the maturity.” It’s all there in black and white.

 Clayton Sandell and Jeffrey Cook report George Floyd’s death awakens activism in rural, white America:

Well attended protests have occurred in small American towns like Alpine, TX, Lodi, CA, Hagerstown, MD and Taylorville, IL. The name George Floyd is echoing through the consciousness of white America, putting uncomfortable conversations front-and-center.

The subject of racism and anti-racism has shown little sign of slowing down. Even weeks after Floyd’s death, a small protest popped up in Parachute, a Colorado town of 1,100 people on the Western Slope of the Rocky Mountains. Twenty people, mostly, if not all, white, gathered outside the police station with signs, candles and words of support for Black Lives Matter. Nearly all five of the town’s police officers observed, offering water to the protesters.

 Riding a roller coaster in Wisconsin:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of eighty-four. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:35 PM, for 15h 20m 00s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 21.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM via audiovisual conferencing.

On this day in 1858, Lincoln delivers his House Divided speech in Springfield, Illinois.

Recommended for reading in full —

Paul Farhi and Elahe Izadi report Top Voice of America editors resign amid strife with White House, arrival of new Trump-appointed director:

The top two editors at Voice of America resigned Monday amid White House criticism of the government-funded but editorially independent news agency and as a new overseer loyal to President Trump was about to take office.

It wasn’t immediately clear why VOA Director Amanda Bennett and Deputy Director Sandy Sugawara submitted their resignations. In a memo to staff on Monday, they jointly wrote, “It is time for us to leave,” but cited no specific reason other than the arrival of Michael Pack, a Trump appointee who will head the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA. Pack is an ally of Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist.

They added, “As the Senate-confirmed C.E.O., he has the right to replace us with his own VOA leadership.”

Their departure comes amid concerns within the agency that the Trump administration is seeking to exert greater control over what and how VOA reports.

 Michael O’Hanlon writes Why cutting American forces in Germany will harm this alliance:

The 35,000 American troops in Germany would be reduced by 10,000, as some would come home and some would possibly head to Poland. While there is nothing wrong with increasing the modest United States military presence in Poland, this must not be at the expense of a strong foothold in Germany, where American forces stood in the hundreds of thousands amid the Cold War and have been reduced in the last few decades.

American forces in Germany are mostly Army and Air Force units. They include an armored brigade and a fighter wing, then logistics, supports, and headquarters capabilities that facilitate any massive reinforcements that could be needed to defend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in war. If there were a crisis in the Baltic region, the United States would be unlikely to send most of its forces directly to Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. These small exposed countries have only a few major ports and airfields between them, and are all dangerously close to Russian firepower.

 Sarah Owermohle reports FDA ends emergency use of hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus:

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday withdrew emergency use authorizations for two coronavirus treatments that President Donald Trump promoted despite concerns about their safety and effectiveness.

The agency revoked the authorizations for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine after a request from Gary Disbrow, acting director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

After reviewing new information from large clinical trials the agency now believes that the suggested dosing regimens “are unlikely to produce an antiviral effect,” FDA chief scientist Denise Hinton said in a letter announcing the decision.

Critics have accused the agency of caving to political pressure when it authorized use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine in hospitalized Covid-19 patients in late March despite thin evidence.

Kathy Sullivan, the First Person to Walk in Space and Reach Ocean’s Deepest Point: