Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:19 AM and sunset 5:51 PM, for 11h 32m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1967, Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defects to the United States.

Recommended for reading in full —

Casey Michel reports It Looks Like a News App in the Apple Store. It’s Really Russian Propaganda:

Over the past few years, Russian-funded propagandists have tried a number of ways to reach American audiences without revealing their links to the Kremlin, from claiming to be “grassroots” start-ups to cycling their funding through cut-outs that obscure their Russian origins.

Now, Russian propagandists have a new trick: Pushing a “news” app that poses as a “free streaming service,” but which is linked directly to the Russian propaganda outlet RT. Of course, the app doesn’t bother to disclose this.

Dubbed “Portable.TV,” the new app went live a few months ago, according to its Apple Store history. Billing itself as a “one-of-a-kind free streaming service & TV library of news programs, talk shows, business updates, professional sports highlights and comedy,” the app claims to allow users to “stay informed & up to date” via Portable.TV’s “uniquely global perspective [that] foregrounds marginalized or dissident viewpoints to give you a clearer picture of the world.” As the app says, “Truth shouldn’t have limits: You can take Portable.TV wherever you go.”

One problem, though: The only shows available on Portable.TV are produced by RT America, including shows like Redacted Tonight with self-proclaimed comedian Lee Camp and The World According to Jesse with former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Garrett Epps writes Trump Is at War With the Whole Idea of an Independent Judiciary:

How will history view Trump’s four most important judicial enablers—Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh? If the Court’s conservatives really do care about their historical legacy, they should take heed that Trump has pushed them and the Court onto very dangerous ground, and shows no sign that he will stop pushing.

As I’ve noted before, the conservative majority—those four justices plus Chief Justice John Roberts—has taken on the role of Trump’s enforcer, ensuring that controversial priorities such as the border wall and the immigration “public charge” rule take effect even before they can be fully considered by lower courts. In a dissent from the decision granting a stay in the immigration case last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “the Court’s recent behavior on stay applications has benefited one litigant [the government] over all others.”

Will anything cause the conservatives to rethink? Will they, for example, become less eager to salivate at the president’s bell if he intensifies his assault on the independence of the courts?

Let’s hope so—because in recent weeks he has done exactly that, opening two new fronts in this sordid war. He is at swords’ points with the federal courts generally, with individual judges who have displeased him, with private citizens who as jurors defy his preferences, and now with the Supreme Court. If the nation were not numb from the shocks of the past three years, this remarkable vendetta would be prompting an uproar.

The Rise Of The Drive-Thru:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-six.  Sunrise is 6:21 AM and sunset 5:50 PM, for 11h 29m 22s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 76.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

  On this day in 1946, Winston Churchill’s Sinews of Peace address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri uses the term “iron curtain” in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.

Recommended for reading in full —

David Welna reports Freedom House Report Finds Freedom On The Wane Worldwide:

Twenty five of the 41 “established democracies” identified by Freedom House saw net losses in democracy since 2006. “The most common areas of decline,” says Repucci, “took place in functioning of government, freedom of expression and belief, and rule of law.”

A decade ago, Freedom House rated freedom in the United States on a par with nations such as Switzerland and the United Kingdom. In its latest report, the U.S. ranking has dropped 8 points, behind Slovakia and Mauritius and just ahead of Argentina and Croatia.

Much of the blame for the slide in the U.S. standing gets placed on President Trump.

“The Trump administration has failed to exhibit consistent commitment to a foreign policy based on the principles of democracy and human rights,” the report states. “[Trump] has also given a pass to tyrannical leaders whom he hopes to woo diplomatically, including Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea.”

“Fierce rhetorical attacks on the press, the rule of law, and other pillars of democracy coming from American leaders, including the president himself,” are also noted by Freedom House, which relies on federal funding for most of its $38 million annual budget.

“An ongoing decline in fair and equal treatment of refugees and asylum seekers,” the report adds, “is also particularly worrisome for a country that takes pride in its traditional role as a beacon for the oppressed.”

See Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy.

Molly Beck reports Wisconsin joins border wall lawsuit, says diversion of defense funds hurts Oshkosh Corp.:

Wisconsin and 18 other states are suing President Donald Trump’s administration over diverting $3.8 billion in public funds to help pay for the construction of a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

The lawsuit comes after Oshkosh Corp. learned in February it was poised to take a $101 million hit from the Defense Department’s plan to divert nearly $4 billion from elsewhere in its budget to build 177 miles of a border wall.

“This diversion by the Trump Administration is a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars and neglects the needs of our state National Guard units,” Gov. Tony Evers said in a statement. “There is simply no justification for the president’s continued desire to create a crisis at the border, and this move negatively impacts not only Wisconsin’s economy but the safety of our communities.”

Evers on Wednesday authorized Attorney General Josh Kaul to join the multi-state lawsuit, which was filed by California’s attorney general.

A first look at the planned cuts related to the border wall shows that $101 million will be moved from the production of vehicles known as Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Trucks that the U.S. Army has relied on to carry munitions and other critical supplies.

Curiosity Mars Rover Snaps 1.8 Billion-Pixel Panorama (narrated video):

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny with a high of forty-one.  Sunrise is 6:22 AM and sunset 5:49 PM, for 11h 26m 28s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 67.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

  On this day in 1933, Frances Perkins becomes United States Secretary of Labor, the first female member of the United States Cabinet.

Recommended for reading in full —

Mary Kate McCoy reports As Wisconsin Lakes Warm, Walleye Are Feeling The Heat:

Estimates say the sharp tooth predator’s production dropped nearly 30 percent between 1990 and 2012 and takes 1.5 times as long to grow to the same size and weight as it did in 1990.

The Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) identified walleye as a moderately to extremely vulnerable species in Wisconsin in its recent vulnerability assessment report.

What’s driving their decline?

Researchers point to climate change as a pervasive culprit, but it’s a complicated story with a lot of question marks.

Lakes are complex ecosystems and Wisconsin is home to a diverse variety — lake size and depth, water clarity and surrounding tree cover all influence how lakes respond to climate change.

And temperature affects every corner of a lake ecosystem.

Researchers know Wisconsin lakes aren’t too warm for walleye, a cool-water fish, to survive. They suspect it’s a recruitment (surviving to maturity) issue that has more to do with food sources and what species has the competitive edge.

Russ Choma reports Taxpayers Are Likely on the Hook for Eric Trump’s Trip to His Dad’s European Resorts:

With the travel industry facing a potentially cataclysmic downturn if the coronavirus continues to spread, the Trump Organization is offering members of its New Jersey golf club a chance to travel to Scotland or Ireland with Eric Trump this summer—likely at great expense to taxpayers who will foot the bill for Secret Service protection for the president’s son.

According to an email sent to members of Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club, Eric Trump will lead at least two three-day golfing outings this summer for club members. The price for each trip—one to Trump’s Doonbeg golf resort in Ireland and one to his Turnberry course in Scotland—will cost members $6,500 apiece, not including airfare. That’s a lot more than people typically pay to play at the Trump courses. Perry Golf, a golf tour operator which organizes golfing trips in Ireland and Scotland, is currently advertising 10-day trips to both Doonbeg and Turnberry, as well as a number of other courses, for $9,895—a price that includes airfare and seven more days of travel.

Of course, an independent tour doesn’t have Eric Trump along for the ride. Whether or not he is worth the premium for club members, it will cost American taxpayers a significant amount. Trump’s two adult sons have gone on a number of promotional trips for their father’s businesses, including leading golf trips to Ireland and Scotland. The administration has not released the exact cost of providing the Trump boys with Secret Service protection while they try to goose their father’s golf business in the British Isles.

The parrots that understand probabilities:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-four.  Sunrise is 6:24 AM and sunset 5:48 PM, for 11h 23m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 57% of its visible disk illuminated.

  The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

  On this day in 1945, American and Filipino troops recapture Manila.

Recommended for reading in full —

Becky Dernbach reports How Caucus Chaos Led Minnesota to Embrace the Primary:

Minnesotans, at least compared to other Americans, love voting. The North Star State regularly leads the country in voter turnout; in fact, the state even clinched an all-time record, when 78 percent of its registered citizens came out to vote in the 2004 election.

But in 2016, it became clear the volunteer party-run caucuses the state had been using for decades weren’t designed for record turnout. As enthusiastic Minnesotans flocked to their precinct caucuses at the appointed time to cast their vote for their party’s presidential nominee, they found the system overwhelmed by sheer numbers. “So many people participated that the system collapsed and it didn’t work,” says state Rep. Pat Garofalo (R-Farmington). “It was a complete shit-show.”

In the Minneapolis elementary school gym where I showed up to caucus that year, so many people came that we ran out of chairs. Some people had to cast votes on Post-It notes because conveners ran out of official supplies. Others never made it into their caucus location at all after searching for parking, navigating the crowds, and waiting in long lines. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, says he heard a lot of complaints from voters “about inaccessibility, about chaos, about fairness.”

So this year, Minnesota ditched the caucus in favor of a presidential primary. Instead of crowding everyone at the polls at once, the primary will allow people to vote throughout the day. The primary will also provide early and absentee voting options, opening up the contest to people who can’t attend at a set time on a Tuesday evening.

Mary Kate McCoy reports Wild Rice Struggles To Survive In A Changing Climate:

While exact numbers are unknown, researchers estimate close to half of the manoomin that was once in Wisconsin has been lost. The waterways it’s found a home on for thousands of years have been turned upside down by habitat loss, water quality and human activity.

Climate change is yet another challenge to manoomin’s future. Tribal members and researchers are fighting to preserve the plant through restoration and educational efforts, but say the sacred plant faces an uphill battle to survive in a changing environment.

To McGeshick, restoring manoomin is about more than just the one plant — it’s restoring an entire ecosystem that people, animals and plants rely on.

“We all gotta live here,” he said. “The benefit of all of it … we get wild rice to eat. To me, what more could you ask for?”

Tonight’s Sky for March 2020:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-one.  Sunrise is 6:26 AM and sunset 5:46 PM, for 11h 20m 40s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 46.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

  The Whitewater School Board meets at 6:30 PM.

  On this day in 1933, King Kong opens at the 6,200-seat Radio City Music Hall in New York City and the 3,700-seat RKO Roxy across the street.

Recommended for reading in full —

Anna Fifield reports China compels Uighurs to work in shoe factory that supplies Nike:

LAIXI, China — The workers in standard-issue blue jackets stitch and glue and press together about 8 million pairs of Nikes each year at Qingdao Taekwang Shoes Co., a Nike supplier for more than 30 years and one of the American brand’s largest factories.

They churn out pair after pair of Shox, with their springy shock absorbers in the heels, and the signature Air Max, plus seven other lines of sports shoes.

But hundreds of these workers did not choose to be here: They are ethnic Uighurs from China’s western Xinjiang region, sent here by local authorities in groups of 50 to toil far from home.

After intense international criticism of the Communist Party’s campaign to forcibly assimilate the mostly Muslim Uighur minority by detaining more than a million people in reeducation camps, party officials said last year that most have “graduated” and been released.

But there is new evidence to show that the Chinese authorities are moving Uighurs into government-directed labor around the country as part of the central government’s “Xinjiang Aid” initiative. For the party, this would help meet its poverty-alleviation goals but also allow it to further control the Uighur population and break familial bonds.

Ronald J. Daniels writes It’s colleges’ job to train citizens. Higher education isn’t rising to the challenge:

As historian and journalist Yoni Appelbaum said recently, impeachment is a constitutional mechanism with the words “break glass in case of emergency” emblazoned on it, raising fundamental questions about the balance of powers and the limits of executive authority.

Yet, according to one poll, fewer than a third of Americans actually know what impeachment is.

That so many members of the public aren’t prepared to make sense of a constitutional emergency should come as no surprise. We’ve been failing at participating in the daily business of our democracy for years. Political tolerance hit a 20-year low in 2014 (a decline that shows no signs of abating), alarming numbers of young people struggle to distinguish reliable information from misinformation online, and the public’s faith in core democratic institutions — and fellow citizens — is eroding more by the day.

….

The responsibility of addressing this crisis must lie with our educational institutions. Too often, K–12 schools are asked to shoulder this burden. But with nearly 70 percent of all high school graduates enrolling in college, higher education cannot skirt its obligation for nurturing democratic citizens.

It is a charge that dates to the origins of the republic. In his first State of the Union address, in 1790, George Washington implored Congress to invest in higher education to teach students the subtle and difficult art of good democratic citizenship, which included the skill of “uniting a speedy, but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to laws.”

These Volunteers Are Fighting Soil Erosion: