Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of eighty-five.  Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:34 PM, for 13h 17m 43s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. gives his I Have a Dream speech.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Elie Mystal writes We Need to Talk About the GOP’s ‘Black Friends’:

You can tell that the Republicans are engaging in tokenism at their convention if you listen to the content of the speeches given by Black speakers instead of being preoccupied (as I suspect many Republicans are) with the fact that they are talking while Black. Close your eyes, and you will hear their silence on issues of racial and social justice. The Black speakers, like the rest of the Republican Party, offer no agenda to extend economic or social opportunities to people of color. They offer no policy prescriptions to address police brutality or violence against Black people. They offer no rebuttals to the assaults on voting rights or immigrant rights the Trump administration engages in. And they’ve been as silent about the disproportionate toll Covid-19 has taken on communities of color as Herman Cain.

The Black people who were allowed to speak at this convention were there to transmit one message to white listeners: “It’s OK.” Trump’s racism is OK, because here’s one of Trump’s Black golfing buddies. Cops and vigilantes’ shooting black people is OK, because here’s a Black ex-con who complied with the police and is still alive. Caring only about your own pocketbook and 401(k) is OK, because here’s a Black guy who started his own business and made a lot of money. All of them wanted to talk about their individual experiences with Trump. None of them wanted to talk about systemic issues facing Black people who don’t have the benefit of knowing a Trump (or a Kardashian) personally.

Jane Lytvynenko reports RNC Video Showing Rioters In “Biden’s America” Is Actually Spain:

On the first night of the Republican National Convention, the party aired a segment featuring Catalina and Madeline Lauf warning of dire consequences if Democratic candidate Joe Biden is elected president.

“This is a taste of Biden’s America,” one sister says in a voiceover as images of protests play onscreen. “The rioting, the crime. Freedom is at stake now and this is going to be the most important election of our lifetime.”

The problem is that one of the images in the segment doesn’t show the US at all — it shows Spain.

As first reported by Catalonian public broadcaster CCMA and independently verified by BuzzFeed News, one of the four images of protests was filmed in October 2019 in Barcelona. Protests broke out in the city after Spanish courts sentenced Catalan separatist activists to prison. The image used during the RNC video showed fires burning in the streets. One of those same streets can be seen as being in Barcelona by using Google Street View.

Sarah Shevenock reports With Schools Closed, PBS Doubles Down on Offering Digital Content:

While subscription streaming services have proven beneficial for legacy media companies during the COVID-19 pandemic, PBS has sought to emphasize its free educational material by expanding its digital offerings.

Jonathan Barzilay, PBS’ chief operating officer, said the company worked quickly to pivot to meet the educational needs of children, both over the air and online, after schools across the country were shut down in March.

March of the microscopic robots:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-nine.  Sunrise is 6:15 AM and sunset 7:36 PM, for 13h 20m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 68.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets via audiovisual conferencing at 5:30 PM.

 On this day in 1832, Black Hawk surrenders to U.S. authorities, ending the Black Hawk War.

Recommended for reading in full — 

 Jonathan Chait writes Reports: Trump Sabotaged Coronavirus Testing to Keep Numbers Low:

Public-health officials believe that widespread testing is a key element of any response to the coronavirus. President Trump does not believe this. And now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has officially adopted Trump’s view. It has modified its official guidelines, and no longer recommends that those who have been exposed to the virus but currently lack symptoms get a test.

The first reports of this change were filled with comments from incredulous experts, whose assessments included “bizarre,” “very strange,” “this is going to make things worse,” and so on. Now we have an explanation for this bizarre policy: High-level officials ordered it. CNN reports the change “came this week as a result of pressure from the upper ranks of the Trump administration.” The New York Times adds, “One official said the directive came from the top down. Another said the guidelines were not written by the C.D.C. but were forced down.”

Evidence that Trump has sought to slow down testing has been available for a long time. In March, Trump told reporters he kept infected passengers offshore on a cruise ship in order to hold down the official numbers of infections: “I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship.”

 Russell Brandom reports Facebook chose not to act on militia complaints before Kenosha shooting:

In the wake of an apparent double murder Tuesday night in Kenosha, Facebook has faced a wave of scrutiny over posts by a self-proclaimed militia group called Kenosha Guard, which issued a “call to arms” to in advance of the protest.

Facebook took down Kenosha Guard’s Facebook page Wednesday morning, identifying the posts as violating community standards. But while the accounts were ultimately removed, new evidence suggests the platform had ample warning about the account before the shooting brought the group to prominence.

At least two separate Facebook users reported the account for inciting violence prior to the shooting, The Verge has learned. In each case, the group and its counter-protest event were examined by Facebook moderators and found not to be in violation of the platform’s policies.

One user, who asked not to be identified by name, said she had reported the Kenosha Guards event in advance of the protest. Facebook moderators responded that the event itself was not in violation of platform policy, but specific comments could be reported for inciting violence. She reported a specific comment threatening to put nails in the tires of protestors’ cars, but it too was found to be within the bounds of Facebook policy.

“There were lots of comments like that in the event,” she says. “People talking about being ‘locked and loaded.’ People asking what types of weapons and people responding to ‘bring everything.’”

Bella the Beluga Whale Gives Birth:

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’: