Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:04 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 18m 17s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 9.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1961, Enos the chimpanzee orbits the Earth during the Mercury-Atlas 5 space flight.

Recommended for reading in full:

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists describes the China Cables:

NEW: #ChinaCables is a leak of highly classified Chinese documents that expose the inner workings of mass detention camps in Xinjiang and reveal, in the government’s own words, how it manages the day-to-day internment and forced indoctrination of Uighurs. https://t.co/Veoj40IKqB pic.twitter.com/7RL8mEzKur

— ICIJ (@ICIJorg) November 24, 2019

Panos Mourdoukoutas writes China Is Heading For A Long Growth Recession, Not Because Of The Trade War:

Nowadays, China is still trying to build wealth, but it’s doing the wrong way… by pursuing investments that do not raise the country’s productive capacity and growth potential.

Like bridges and roads to nowhere; like factories that no longer produce competitive products. Like apartments where nobody lives.

“If a country spends billions of dollars on infrastructure projects, its GDP will rise,” says Beckley.“But if those projects consist of bridges to nowhere, the country’s stock of wealth will remain unchanged or even decline.”

Simply put, bridges to nowhere have a “multiplier effect.” They create several rounds of jobs and income while the building takes place. But these bridges have no “accelerator effect.” They don’t create any jobs and income once the building is over.  They just waste the country’s precious resources, which could be used elsewhere.

That’s why bridges to nowhere undermine the country’s productivity and economic growth. “To accumulate wealth, a country needs to increase its productivity—a measure that has actually dropped in China over the last decade,” says Beckley. “Practically all of China’s GDP growth has resulted from the government’s pumping capital into the economy. Subtract government stimulus spending, some economists argue, and China’s economy may not be growing at all.”

A Thrilling Look at America’s First Extreme Sport:

Good morning.

Thanksgiving in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:03 AM and sunset 4:22 PM, for 9h 19m 47s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 4.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1901, UW football has its first undefeated season (9-0) with a victory over the University of Chicago, 35-0.

Recommended for reading in full:

Heather Vogell reports Trump Tax Records Reveal New Inconsistencies — This Time for Trump Tower:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-five.  Sunrise is 7:02 AM and sunset 4:23 PM, for 9h 21m 21s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 1.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1924, Macy’s first sponsors its Thanksgiving Parade.

Recommended for reading in full:

Geoffrey S. Corn and Rachel E. VanLandingham write The Gallagher Case: President Trump Corrupts the Profession of Arms:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of forty-four.  Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 4:23 PM, for 9h 22m 57s of daytime.  The moon is new with none of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1838, the territorial legislature assembles in Madison for the first time.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement & Cable TV Commission meets at 5:00 PM, and Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5:30 PM.

Recommended for reading in full:

Catherine Rampell writes There’s no other way to explain Trump’s immigration policy. It’s just bigotry:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 24m 37s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 1.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1863, Gen. Grant is victorious at the Battle of Missionary Ridge.

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

Recommended for reading in full:

Jennifer Rubin writes Time to call out and remove Putin’s propagandists:

Republicans are not “merely” violating their oaths of office for failing to support impeachment of a president who arguably has committed more serious “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” and acts of bribery than all his predecessors combined. None of them [of those predecessors] sacrificed national security to obtain a political advantage. President Trump has been disloyal to the United States, not only in giving Russia a leg up in its war against Ukraine, but also in broadcasting his propaganda. And for that, Republicans are just as guilty

….

If congressional Republicans have evidence our intelligence community is wrong, they need to present it. Otherwise, they need to be called out for deliberately assisting a hostile foreign power. It is up to mainstream media interviewers and every Democrat on the ballot in 2020 to directly challenge Republicans who, yes, engage in un-American activity.

In the case of Trump, he not only picks up the propaganda from domestic sources carrying Russian President Vladimir Putin’s water, which “worked its way into American information ecosystems, sloshing around until parts of it reached Mr. Trump”; he was duped right from the source speaking “with Mr. Putin about allegations of Ukrainian interference.” Whether the president is being blackmailed is unknown; what we do know is that he is a malleable puppet whose strings are pulled in the Kremlin.

Jacob Knutson reports Sen. John Kennedy repeats Ukraine conspiracy theory about DNC server:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-six.  Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 26m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 5.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1959, Interstate 90 opens to traffic between Janesville and Beloit.

Recommended for reading in full:

Carlo Invernizzi-Accetti writes The unholy alliance of the religious right and Trumpism is deeply anti-Christian:

The US attorney general William Barr’s speech at the University of Notre Dame last week has been widely decried by liberal commentators for violating the separation between church and state. In his speech, Barr portrayed “secularists” as enemies of American democracy. Yet few seem to have grasped the deeper political significance of Barr’s remarks.

On their face, none of Barr’s claims appear particularly new. The idea that “militant secularism” undermines the moral fabric of society, leading to all sorts of “social pathologies,” and the idea that “free government” requires the “moral discipline” afforded by religious belief, have been central tenets of official Catholic doctrine for at least a century and a half.

What is more original – and troubling – is the political use the US’s chief law-enforcement officer has made of these traditional religious themes. By subtly reworking some of the core tenets of Catholic social doctrine, he has constructed a new political theology in the service of Trumpism – one which aims to offer conservative Christians a set of principled, not just pragmatic, reasons for supporting the current US administration.

….

A more powerful retort to Barr’s speech would therefore be to point out that it is ultimately in contradiction with itself, since it runs counter to other key themes of Catholic and – more broadly – Christian theology. Most notably, the fact that Christianity was never intended to function as an exclusive identity, marking out the boundaries between those deemed fit for “free government” and those that aren’t. On the contrary, the core of the Christian message is one of universal inclusion.

This is precisely the meaning of the New Testament’s affirmation that: “There is neither Jew nor gentile, neither slave nor free, nor male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). The same point was also recently reiterated by Pope Francis when he reminded believers that “Catholicity” literally means “universality”, inferring from it that: “The church shows her catholicity by … liv[ing] in solidarity with all of humanity, and never closed in on ourselves.”

Bianca Vivion Brooks writes To Take on the Religious Right, We Need a Religious Left:

These values have been the foundation of many previous American progressive social movements. Though the civil rights movement had clear legislative aims, it was a deeply religious movement, sustained by the spiritual empowerment and social organization of Southern black churches. The church served not only as a place to worship, but also as a community support group, regular meeting space and bulletin board; a place to solve disputes and center political organizing.

The motto of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, over which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. presided, was, “To Save the Soul of America.” When their faith in the American government dwindled, black Americans relied on a unified faith in God to deliver them from the sin of racism. This hope was not a passive acceptance that their collective lot would be improved in the next life, but instead a critique of the status quo that moved them to political action in this one.

In the past, religious groups have also led the charge for immigration reform, a cause still championed by modern progressives today. During the 1980s, Presbyterian churches aiming to offer protection to undocumented refugees fleeing Central American wars formed the sanctuary movement. Sanctuary activists defended the movement on various religious grounds, including biblical precedent for providing refuge to those in need. By 1986, there were more than 300 sanctuary congregations in the United States, which also include Lutherans, United Church of Christ members, Roman Catholics and Jews. (As Susan Bibler Coutin notes in her book “The Culture of Protest: Religious Activism and the U.S. Sanctuary Movement,” the concept of “sanctuary cities” would come to supplant churches as municipal governments stepped in.)

The Mystery of the Kansas Gnome Homes: