Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see scattered showers with a high of eighty-one. Sunrise is 5:15 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 17m 25s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 76% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1898, during the Battle of Guantánamo Bay, U.S. Marines begin the American invasion of Spanish-held Cuba

Recommended for reading in full —

Anne Helen Petersen reports How The Antifa Fantasy Spread In Small Towns Across The U.S.:

The rumor that shadowy leftists planned to start trouble in Great Falls, Montana, first appeared on the Facebook group of the Montana Liberty Coalition late last Wednesday afternoon.

“Heads up,” a man named Wayne Ebersole, who owns a local cover crop business, wrote. “Rumor has it that Antifa has scheduled a protest in Great Falls Friday evening at 5 p.m. in front of the Civic Center.” He asked the group if anyone had any more information, or if anyone was available to “protect businesses.”

“It has been confirmed through the police department,” one commenter replied. “They have a permit for tomorrow night and are in town now.”

They weren’t. Police later said they had been “working to quell the rumor.” But that didn’t stop it from sweeping across various right-wing groups. Within 24 hours, a screenshot of Ebersole’s post had been posted to the Facebook Group for the Montana Militia, whose members have recently dedicated themselves to tracking the perceived threat of antifa all over the state, including coordinating armed responses to “protect” their towns. (Ebersole did not respond to a request for comment.)

 Isaac Stanley-Becker and Tony Romm report Armed white residents lined Idaho streets amid ‘antifa’ protest fears. The leftist incursion was an online myth:

Protesters had only begun assembling peacefully in Idaho when a Facebook page for retired police officers advised its followers to stay on high alert.

“We will protect our neighborhoods,” it vowed.

So when early reports about potential violence surfaced a day later — claiming “ANTIFA agitators” were storming the state this week — scores of residents took to the streets. Armed with ­military-style assault rifles, they stood guard in places such as Coeur d’Alene, a resort town of 50,000 on a lake in northwest Idaho.

….

As vigils and protest actions unfolded in Idaho this week, local officials across the state confirmed that not a single participant was known to have defiled a home or storefront in the name of “antifa,” a loose label attributed to far-left activists. Many of the rumors about violent protests originated from dubious Facebook posts, often shared widely and rarely debunked, residents there said.

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy, with scattered late afternoon thundershowers, and a high of eighty-six. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:32 PM, for 15h 16m 45s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 84.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 Whitewater’s Public Works Committee meets at 6 PM via GoToMeeting.

On this day in 1973, Secretariat wins the Triple Crown.

Recommended for reading in full —

Nichol Turner Lee asks Where would racial progress in policing be without camera phones?:

In today’s world, virtually anyone can be a videographer and filmmaker. The combination of smart phones, video recording apps, and social media platforms have generated a revolution in public empowerment. Rather than having to take the word of African Americans over the police, people can see the violence for themselves and demand justice.

These factors should explain why recorded observations of police brutality against African Americans trigger protests, even during a global pandemic. Technology is becoming part of the story regarding how marginalized populations in the U.S. and across the world are recording injustice and thereby, gaining personal empowerment. Leveraging the internet, civilian-generated video content can move public opinion toward more critical views of law enforcement and mass incarceration.

  Margaret Sullivan writes What’s a journalist supposed to be now — an activist? A stenographer? You’re asking the wrong question:

The core question is this: In this polarized, dangerous moment, what are journalists supposed to be?

Pose that question to most members of the public, and you might get an answer something like this: “Just tell me the bare facts. Leave your interpretation out of it. And don’t be on anyone’s side.”

Every piece of reporting — written or spoken, told in text or in images — is the product of choices. Every article approaches its subject from somebody’s perspective. Every digital home page, every printed front page, every 30-minute newscast, every one of the news alerts blowing up your phone, every radio talk show is the product of decision-making.

We choose what to focus on, what to amplify, what to investigate and examine.

That’s why the simplistic “just the unadorned facts” can be such a canard. And that’s why the notion to “represent all points of view equally” is absurd and sometimes wrongheaded.

“Journalism is not stenography” is a refrain from an astute editor I know.
….

Let’s take the New York Times example. Plenty of well-respected media people are saying that the much-discussed opinion piece by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) [advocating the use of the active military to suppress civilian protests] absolutely should have been published.

“We need to hear all points of view, especially those we disagree with,” is their reasoning. And some even argue that those who object to the piece on the grounds that it is incendiary and factually flawed are a mob of coddled activists masquerading as objective journalists.

That argument can be dismantled in a nanosecond. Should the denialist views of, say, Alex Jones of Infowars on the Sandy Hook massacre be given a prestigious platform, too? But Cotton is a prominent political figure, you say? By that logic, the lies of White House adviser Kellyanne Conway should be welcomed on news-discussion shows daily because she’s close to the president.

 Why NASA Waited 9 Years To Send Astronauts Into Space From the US:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty-nine. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:32 PM, for 15h 16m 01s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 91.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater Unified School District Board meets via audiovisual conferencing at 6 PM, and the Whitewater Planning Commission meets via audiovisual conferencing this evening.

On this day in 1984, the Barneveld tornado outbreak destroys most of Barneveld, Wisconsin and kills at least 13 people across three states including 9 in Barneveld alone.

Recommended for reading in full —

Megan Flynn reports Armed driver barrels toward Seattle protesters, shooting one before surrendering to police:

A chaotic scene unfolded Sunday night in Seattle when an armed driver barreled toward a crowd of protesters, shooting one person who apparently tried to stop him, before ultimately surrendering to police, according to authorities and video footage of the incident.

The violence interrupted a peaceful protest in the name of George Floyd near the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct just before 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Videos showed protesters appearing to chase after a black Honda Civic as it sped down the street toward a larger crowd, slowing just as it crashed into a metal barrier near an intersection. One protester caught up to the vehicle, video by the Seattle Times shows. The man appeared to try to reach inside the driver’s side window, when a shot rang out.

The protester jolted backward, falling onto the pavement. Bystanders and medics rushed to his aid. The suspect, who has not been identified by police, then exited the vehicle, as the people who had just surrounded his car fled in all directions.

“He’s got a gun!” people screamed in video taken by a Seattle Times reporter.

The suspect then headed toward the heart of the protest where hundreds were gathered in the street. With nowhere to go, some raised their hands in the air. Some lay on the ground.

The man ran through the crowd toward the police line on the other side of the protesters.

Once he emerged from the crowd, he walked toward police with his hands in the air. He walked nearly all the way up to the police line before officers took him away, video of the arrest shows.

  Dan O’Brien of ProPublica writes We Reported on Corporate Tax Breaks in the Rust Belt. Now Officials Want Tougher Enforcement:

State and local elected officials in Ohio are reassessing one of the state’s marquee economic development programs and calling for tougher regulation of corporate tax breaks after a Business Journal and ProPublica investigation raised questions about the effectiveness of so-called enterprise zones.

Under the program, struggling communities like Youngstown are empowered to award property tax breaks to companies that agree to invest a certain amount of money and create a targeted number of new jobs.

But in a report published last month, the news organizations found that half of the 94 projects that have received millions of dollars in tax abatements from the city since 1991 have failed to deliver on their job promises. One in four didn’t create a single position. All of the tax breaks, however, remained intact.

Peaceful Protests You May Have Missed:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:31 PM, for 15h 15m 14s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 96.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1776, Richard Henry Lee presents a Resolution for Independence to the Continental Congress.

Recommended for reading in full —

Bill Glauber, Elliot Hughes, and Ben Steele report ‘If it’s not making you uncomfortable, it’s not working’: Wisconsin protests show no sign of slowing on ninth day:

For the ninth day in a row in Milwaukee, calls for change echoed in the streets following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer.

Day by day, protests have become more organized, more widespread and more impassioned.

Six Milwaukee Bucks players, including star Giannis Antetokounmpo, joined marchers on the city’s near west side. The players, wearing T-shirts that said, “I can’t breathe,” pulled up in two trucks with several U-Haul vans that contained drinks and snacks for protesters.

“This is our city, man,” Antetokounmpo told the marchers, adding, “We want change. We want justice.”

Antetokounmpo was joined by Bucks teammates Sterling Brown, Donte DiVincenzo, Brook Lopez, two-way player Frank Mason II and Thanasis Antetokounmpo, Giannis’ brother.

Michael Gerson writes Every crisis America faces has been made worse by Trump:

The country is sick and getting sicker. America has somehow managed to experience the severe economic and social consequences of a national lockdown while remaining the hottest spot of a global covid-19 pandemic. All pretense of social distancing seems to be breaking down, and a further, cruel culling of our elderly population seems to be an acceptable outcome for many politicians.

The economy is experiencing a swift-onset great depression. Massive unemployment is feeding a sense of social desperation. And the United States will be at a lasting disadvantage against economic competitors who responded to covid-19 more promptly and effectively.

….

Every crisis the United States now faces has been made worse by Trump’s limits as a leader and a man. We needed a president who could imagine what the American experiment looks like from the perspective of those who find its promises fraudulent. We got someone incapable of empathy. We needed a president who would be data driven in matters of public health policy. We got someone driven by irrational enthusiasms and the advice of cronies. We needed a president who could calm destructive passions. We got someone who now urges the militarization of his fight against the left. We needed a president capable of speaking across differences. We got someone whose only authentic public communications are expressions of rancor.

….

A man of Trump’s character, background and talents is the answer to precisely none of the great challenges of our time. His election in 2016 was an act of irrationality and folly by a powerful, noble and indispensable nation. It has made us more pitiable, more degraded and more replaceable than before. And this likelihood was obvious to anyone with a single grain of foresight.

The True Story Behind the Iconic Kit Kat Jingle:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:30 PM, for 15h 14m 23s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 99.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1944, the Allied invasion of Normandy—codenamed Operation Overlord—begins with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France.

Recommended for reading in full —

Eric Lipton, Abby Goodnough, Michael D. Shear, Megan Twohey, Apoorva Mandavilli, Sheri Fink, and Mark Walker report The C.D.C. Waited ‘Its Entire Existence for This Moment.’ What Went Wrong?:

The C.D.C., long considered the world’s premier health agency, made early testing mistakes that contributed to a cascade of problems that persist today as the country tries to reopen. It failed to provide timely counts of infections and deaths, hindered by aging technology and a fractured public health reporting system. And it hesitated in absorbing the lessons of other countries, including the perils of silent carriers spreading the infection.

The agency struggled to calibrate its own imperative to be cautious and the need to move fast as the coronavirus ravaged the country, according to a review of thousands of emails and interviews with more than 100 state and federal officials, public health experts, C.D.C. employees and medical workers. In communicating to the public, its leadership was barely visible, its stream of guidance was often slow and its messages were sometimes confusing,sowing mistrust.

“They let us down,” said Dr. Stephane Otmezguine, an anesthesiologist who treated coronavirus patients in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Richard Whitley, the top health official in Nevada, wrote to the C.D.C. director about a communication “breakdown” between the states and the agency. Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois lashed out at the agency over testing, saying that the government’s response would “go down in history as a profound failure.”

Sean Collins writes Why these protests are different:

We have seen uprisings over racism and police brutality before, the most famous being the civil rights movement of the 1960s. There was sometimes a sense that those uprisings had brought on a great deal of progress in a short period and that the eradication of systemic racism would be a long-term project from then on out, with incremental changes ensuring the arc of the moral universe bent toward justice. The recent protest movement — though nascent — seems to reject that idea. The protesters want change now.

….

There is also a regression in policy that has stemmed from the country’s leadership. Policies instituted to protect black lives have been systematically rolled back in recent years, from the return of mandatory minimum sentences to the Department of Justice refusing to conduct oversight of police departments accused of civil rights violations and President Donald Trump signing an executive order once again allowing police easy access to military equipment.

The realities of illness, unemployment, polluted air and water, unequal access to education, and mass incarceration — compounded with the fear of being killed by one of your fellow Americans or by a mysterious and still unchecked disease — has life feeling particularly fragile and the world particularly dire. Many are fed up. They need to direct their rage. They cannot live and suffer any longer as they once felt they had to.

 How Spider Silk Could Help Regrow Nerves:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with scattered thundershowers and a high of eighty-three.  Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:30 PM, for 15h 13m 28s of daytime.  The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1883, William Horlick patents the first powdered milk in the world.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Dan Friedman reports Democrats Think Officers Policing Protests Need to Identify Themselves. Bill Barr Disagrees:

Over the past few days, Mother Jones and other media outlets have noted the presence of armed personnel with no visible identification confronting the protests in DC that were sparked by the recent police killing of George Floyd. These officers have consistently said that they are “with the Department of Justice” or that they are part of the “federal government.”

The Justice Department has since said these are officers are from Special Operations Control units in the Bureau of Prisons—that is, officers trained primarily to quell prison riots.

In response, Democrats in both chambers said Wednesday they would introduce legislation requiring uniformed federal officers doing domestic security work to identify what agency or military branch they represent. Several shared a photo I took on Tuesday.

In a letter Thursday to President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) requested a list of the agencies involved in responding to protests in DC and an explanation of the roles different troops and law enforcement agencies are fulfilling. Pelosi also blasted the deployment of officers without clear identification. “The practice of officers operating with full anonymity undermines accountability, ignites government distrust and suspicion, and is counter to the principle of procedural justice and legitimacy during this precarious moment in our nation’s history,” she wrote.

She noted that the Justice Department has previously warned local police departments against allowing officers to work anonymously.

Michael Carvajal, the acting BOP director, addressed this criticism in a news conference on Thursday, saying he was not aware of officers being ordered not to identify themselves, and stated the issue was that “within the confines of our institutions and we don’t need to identify ourselves. Most of our identification is institution-specific and probably wouldn’t mean a whole lot to people in DC.”

But, he said: “I probably should have done a better job of marking them nationally as the agency. Point is well taken.”

 Employee backlash rocks Facebook: