Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of ninety-two.  Sunrise is 5:17 AM and sunset 8:28 PM, for 15h 10m 21s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

 The Whitewater School Board meets at 6 PM via audiovisual conferencing, and the Whitewater Common Council meets via audiovisual conferencing at 6:30 PM.

 On this day in 1924,  Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

Recommended for reading in full —

Michelle Boorstein and Sarah Pulliam Bailey report Episcopal bishop on President Trump: ‘Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence’:

The Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, was seething.

President Trump had just visited St. John’s Episcopal Church, which sits across from the White House. It was a day after a fire was set in the basement of the historic building amid protests over the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

Before heading to the church, where presidents have worshiped since the days of James Madison, Trump gave a speech at the White House emphasizing the importance of law and order. Federal officers then used force to clear a large crowd of peaceful demonstrators from the street between the White House and the church, apparently so Trump could make the visit.

“I am outraged,” Budde said in a telephone interview a short time later, pausing between words to emphasize her anger as her voice slightly trembled.

She said she had not been given any notice that Trump would be visiting the church and did not approve of the manner in which the area was secured for his appearance.

“I am the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and was not given even a courtesy call, that they would be clearing [the area] with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop,” Budde said.

She excoriated the president for standing in front of the church — its windows boarded up with plywood — holding up a Bible, which Budde said “declares that God is love.”

“Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence,” Budde of the president. “We need moral leadership, and he’s done everything to divide us.”

In a written statement, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, head of the Episcopal denomination, accused Trump of using “a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes.”

(The video, above, shows Trump awkwardly posing with a Bible. His awkwardness is unsurprising – the Bible is a series of books, and few things could be more unfamiliar to Trump than a book.)

 Jeff Stein reports Coronavirus fallout will haunt U.S. economy for years, costing it $8 trillion through 2030, CBO says:

Fallout from the coronavirus pandemic will shrink the size of the U.S. economy by roughly $8 trillion over the next decade, according to new projections released by the Congressional Budget Office on Monday.

In a letter to U.S. lawmakers, the CBO said the U.S. economy will grow by $7.9 trillion less from 2020 to 2030 than it had projected in January. That amounts to a 3 percent decline in U.S. gross domestic product compared to its initial estimate.

SpaceX Crew Dragon captured incredible view of International Space Station: 

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with occasional afternoon thundershowers, and a high of seventy-four.  Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:27 PM, for 15h 09m 12s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1918, the Allies, including a brigade of U.S. Marines, are victorious at the Battle of Belleau Wood.

Recommended for reading in full —

Peter Nicholas writes Trump Is Terrified of Protest:

Trump has made known his disdain for protests that target him or his record. He tends to view them through a simple lens: as provocations that must be put down with unyielding force. Less important to Trump, it seems, are the grievances that give rise to the demonstrations in the first place. He’s described himself as a “law and order” president who admires practitioners of a certain rough justice. Yesterday, he tweeted praise for two generals from history: George Patton and Douglas MacArthur (he misspelled MacArthur). Both played a role in the government’s heavy-handed quashing of a protest in 1932 by war veterans who, in the midst of the Great Depression, wanted early payment of a bonus they were due.

Past presidents have sought to play a healing role when the nation is on edge, but Trump’s instinct is to plunge into combustible circumstances in ways that rouse his base. He encourages protests that align with his interests. Eager to see an economic revival, Trump last month egged on demonstrators who pressed Democratic governors to ease stay-at-home orders despite the coronavirus threat. “LIBERATE” Michigan, Virginia, and Minnesota, he tweeted. (Some protesters showed up in the Michigan state Capitol with guns and tactical gear).

 Rick Perlstein writes Will Urban Uprisings Help Trump? Actually, They Could Be His Undoing (‘As a historian, I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the fallout from Watts and other rebellions’):

It’s simply incorrect to argue that mass political violence inevitably spurs a backlash that benefits conservatives. By 1970, Nixon sought to nationalize that year’s congressional elections as a referendum on law and order—even intentionally spurring crowd violence against himself for the cameras to capture. A columnist reported, “Nixon’s advance men this fall have carefully organized with local police to allow enough dissenters into the staging areas so the president will have his theme well illustrated.”

….

Once, in San Jose, disappointed that no one heckled Nixon during a speech, his chief of staff, Bob Haldeman, gave protesters time to mass outside afterward, then had the president leap up on the hood of his limousine in their midst. He was obliged with the expected  hail of rocks while jutting out his chin and making his trademark two-handed V-salute, providing footage that made all the evening newscasts. “That’s what they hate to see!” he exulted.

But Republicans that year underperformed expectations. When disorder is all around them, voters tend to blame the person in charge for the disorder—and, sometimes, punish those who exploit it for political gain.

Tonight’s Sky for June:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-nine.  Sunrise is 5:18 AM and sunset 8:26 PM, for 15h 07m 59s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 65.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1889, the Johnstown Flood claims over 2,200 lives after a dam fails and sends a 60-foot wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Recommended for reading in full —

Jonathan Chait writes New Transcript Shows Trump Adviser Michael Flynn Colluding With Russia in 2016:

Michael Flynn, the former Trump national security adviser, pleaded guilty in federal court to the charge of lying to FBI officials about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador. Flynn’s defenders have insisted his lie was innocent and immaterial.

Late Friday afternoon, the Trump administration released the transcript of that conversation. The timing itself does not indicate much confidence that the transcript would support Flynn’s interpretation (late Friday afternoons not being the customary time to drop favorable news stories). And indeed, the transcript makes Flynn’s call look even less innocent

The transcripts today quote Flynn telling Kislyak, “Do not, do not uh, allow this (Obama) administration to box us in, right now, okay?” If that does not constitute “undermined the outgoing administration’s policy,” what does?

Two days later, the two men held a follow-up call, in which Kislyak made the premise more explicit. “I just wanted to tell you that we found that these actions have targeted not only against Russia, but also against the president elect.” Flynn replied, “Yeah, yeah,” accepting the premise. Kislyak then said he agreed with Flynn’s request not to retaliate. “We have decided not to act now because, it’s because people [presumably the outgoing Obama administration] are dissatisfied with the loss of elections, and it’s very deplorable.”

Flynn’s discussions with Kislyak were not part of a criminal conspiracy. They were, however, part of a secret channel of communications, the premise of which was that the two parties had a secret common interest against the United States government. One word that might describe this relationship would be “collusion.”

 Julia Davis writes Russian State Media Wonder if They Created an Orange-Haired Monster:

The sense of alarm was palpable on Russian state TV this week. Images of nuclear explosions flashed on an oversize screen as Evgeny Popov, host of the popular program 60 Minutes, talked about reports that Donald Trump may reverse a decades-long moratorium on nuclear testing.

….

The initial reaction of the Russian experts was to rejoice at the damage Trump’s nuclear adventurism would inflict upon the United States, but the potential effect on their own country is now starting to sink in.

Having helped Trump’s 2016 candidacy and supported his presidency, the Kremlin seems to have painted itself into a corner. It’s not like they could turn to Joe Biden for reassurance. Russian shills have been promoting smears and conspiracy theories about him in Ukraine, and Russian analysts recoil at the notion of a Biden victory. Russian pundits openly describe Trump as someone “stupid enough to start a war,” but roundly reject Biden’s candidacy as an even less appealing alternative.

 Historic SpaceX Demo-2 mission launches to space station:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of sixty-eight.  Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:25 PM, for 15h 06m 42s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1922, the Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..

Recommended for reading in full —

Laurence H. Tribe and Joshua A. Geltzer write Trump is doubly wrong about Twitter:

On Tuesday, President Trump claimed — on Twitter, no less — that Twitter is “stifling FREE SPEECH,” thus suggesting that Twitter is violating the First Amendment. As usual, Trump is wrong on the law, but this time he’s even more wrong than usual. There is someone violating the First Amendment on Twitter, but it’s not Twitter — it’s Trump. What’s more, his threat on Wednesday to shut down Twitter altogether would mean violating the First Amendment in new ways.

Trump is utterly mistaken in claiming that Twitter is violating the First Amendment — or even that Twitter can violate the First Amendment. Prompting Trump’s outburst was the platform’s first-ever attachment of warnings to two of Trump’s tweets encouraging users to “get the facts about mail-in ballots.” Clicking the warning leads to a news story indicating that “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.” Attaching these warnings, Trump claimed, was Twitter’s First Amendment sin.

But it’s no constitutional violation. To begin with, the First Amendment applies to the government — not to private actors like Twitter. So, when the company adds warnings to tweets or even — going a step further for users other than Trump — removes tweets, it can’t possibly violate the First Amendment, because it simply isn’t a governmental entity. You can love or hate how Twitter is regulating its own private platform — but you can’t call it a First Amendment violation.

Furthermore, when Twitter attaches a warning to a tweet, that constitutes speech of Twitter’s own, which is generally protected under the First Amendment from governmental censorship. Far from violating the First Amendment by speaking on top of Trump’s own speech, Twitter was exercising its First Amendment rights.

 Oliver Darcy reports Trump says right-wing voices are being censored. The data say something else:

President Donald Trump has angrily complained this week about social media companies, repeatedly accusing them of censoring conservative voices and going as far as to sign an executive orderThursday seeking to limit their power.

But data from Facebook, the world’s largest social media company, pours cold water on the assertion that conservative voices are being silenced.

In fact, according to CrowdTangle, a data-analytics firm owned by Facebook, content from conservative news organizations dominates Facebook and often outperforms content from straightforward news organizations.

 Film: How ‘The Vast of Night’ Builds Tension With a Strange Sound:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of sixty-nine.  Sunrise is 5:19 AM and sunset 8:25 PM, for 15h 05m 23s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 42.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

 On this day in 1848, Wisconsin became the 30th state to enter the Union with an area of 56,154 square miles, comprising 1/56 of the United States at the time.

Recommended for reading in full —

 Sara Morrison offers a primer on Section 230, the internet free speech law Trump wants to change:

You may have never heard of it, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the legal backbone of the internet. The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability [under U.S. law] for many of the things third parties say or do on them. And now it’s under threat by one of its biggest beneficiaries: President Trump, who hopes to use it to fight back against the social media platforms he believes are unfairly censoring him and other conservative voices.

Section 230 says that internet platforms that host third-party content — think of tweets on Twitter, posts on Facebook, photos on Instagram, reviews on Yelp, or a news outlet’s reader comments — are not liable for what those third parties post (with a few exceptions). For instance, if a Yelp reviewer were to post something defamatory about a business, the business could sue the reviewer for libel, but it couldn’t sue Yelp. Without Section 230’s protections, the internet as we know it today would not exist. If the law were taken away, many websites driven by user-generated content would likely go dark.

The gravity of the situation might be lost on the president. Trump is using this threat to bully social media platforms like Twitter into letting him post whatever he wants after Twitter put a warning label that links to a fact-checking site on two of his recent tweets. To illustrate why there’s much more at stake than Trump’s tweets, here’s a look at how Section 230 went from an amendment to a law about internet porn to the pillar of internet free speech to Trump’s latest weapon against perceived anti-conservative bias in the media.

 Scott Nover writes Why Trump Can’t Claim Twitter Is Violating His Free Speech:

Critics have long said Trump consistently violates Twitter’s community standards by promoting misinformation and tweeting hateful statements. Naturally, Trump didn’t take the platform’s fact-check well and continued his tirade Wednesday morning, tweeting a threat to “strongly regulate, or close” down social media platforms that “silence conservative voices.” He later boastedthat he will take “big action” against Twitter.

However, Twitter is a private company and can do what it wants with speech on its platform. It can put any label on the president’s tweets or otherwise warn users that his words words may be misleading. It can even delete them.

“If there is a First Amendment issue here at all, it’s the issue of threatening the use of presidential authority to compel a private platform to speak or to refrain from speaking,” said Frank LoMonte, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida. “Nobody has a ‘free speech right’ to insist on using a non-governmental platform to convey his message.”

Twitter can also ban users who may be in violation of its code of conduct, such as conspiracy theorist Alex Jones of Infowars, who was banned in 2018 after he livestreamed himself insulting a CNN reporter on Twitter-owned Periscope, and former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, who got the boot in 2016 for harassing actress Leslie Jones.

What Filmmakers Lost When SXSW Was Cancelled: