Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of fifty-one.  Sunrise is 6:07 AM and sunset 7:40 PM, for 13h 33m 48s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1906, the 1906 Great San Francisco Earthquake shakes that city, killing thousands and causing significant property damage.

Recommended for reading in full:

Natasha Bertrand and Anna Nemtsova describe The Trump-Putin Relationship, As Dictated by the Kremlin (“Why does the White House cede control of the narrative to the Russians?”):

It would have once been unthinkable to accuse a sitting president of putting the interests of a hostile foreign power above those of the United States. But Trump’s continual praise of Putin on the campaign trail, his pursuit of a multimillion-dollar real-estate deal in Moscow throughout the election—while Russia was waging a massive hacking and disinformation campaign to undermine his opponent, Hillary Clinton—and the secrecy that still surrounds his conversations with Putin gave many, including the FBI, pause.“All this would be unusual enough for any president,” The Atlantic’s David Frum notedin January. “It is more than suspicious for a president being formally investigated by the FBI as a possible Russian-intelligence asset.” ….

Trump took the extraordinary step of confiscating his interpreter’s notes after his first private meeting with Putin in Hamburg, Germany, in 2017, according to the Post, and demanded that the interpreter refrain from discussing the meeting with members of his own administration. (The White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway told reporters earlier this month that Trump was concerned about leaks when he confiscated the notes.) Then–Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters after that meeting that Trump and Putin had discussed Russia’s election interference in 2016. But he wouldn’t say whether Trump accepted Putin’s denial of any such interference at face value—providing Russia with another golden opportunity to shape the narrative.

Bess Levin writes Trump’s Lawyers Prefer His Exceptionally Shady Financial  Documents Not See the Light of Day: 

As we learned from Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony in February, a New York Times exposé last month, and documents obtained from The Washington Post shortly after that, Donald Trump’s long history of lying about his wealth has not been confined to bragging about it on TV, but also allegedly made its way into financial statements sent to banks and insurance companies, in which the ex-real-estate developer inflated his assets to obtain certain loans. For example, in a 2011 document, Trump purported to own 55 home lots ready to sell for at least $3 million apiece at his Southern California golf course; in reality, he’d only been zoned for 31, thus overstating his future revenue by roughly $72 million. A year later, in another “Statement of Financial Condition,” he tacked an extra 800 acres on to the size of his 1,200-odd-acre Virginia vineyard. At one point, he claimed Trump Tower had 68 stories, despite the fact that anyone with eyes could tell you there are 58.

The effects of climate change on the Galápagos Islands:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with thunderstorms and a high of sixty-one.  Sunrise is 6:08 AM and sunset 7:39 PM, for 13h 31m 05s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1970, the crew of Apollo 13 successfully returns to Earth despite an oxygen tank explosion during their mission.

Recommended for reading in full:

Shawn Regan writes 5 Ways The Government Keeps Native Americans In Poverty:

Imagine if the government were responsible for looking after your best interests. All of your assets must be managed by bureaucrats on your behalf. A special bureau is even set up to oversee your affairs. Every important decision you make requires approval, and every approval comes with a mountain of regulations.

How well would this work? Just ask Native Americans.

The federal government is responsible for managing Indian affairs for the benefit of all Indians. But by all accounts the government has failed to live up to this responsibility. As a result, Native American reservations are among the poorest communities in the United States. Here’s how the government keeps Native Americans in poverty.

Indian lands are owned and managed by the federal government.

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Nearly every aspect of economic development is controlled by federal agencies.

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Reservations have a complex legal framework that hinders economic growth.

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Energy regulations make it difficult for tribes to develop their resources.

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The federal government has repeatedly mismanaged Indian assets.

Michael Kranish reports Inside the Russian effort to target Sanders supporters — and help elect Trump:

After Bernie Sanders lost his presidential primary race against Hillary Clinton in 2016, a Twitter account called Red Louisiana News reached out to his supporters to help sway the general election. “Conscious Bernie Sanders supporters already moving towards the best candidate Trump! #Feel the Bern #Vote Trump 2016,” the account tweeted.

The tweet was not actually from Louisiana, according to an analysis by Clemson University researchers. Instead, it was one of thousands of accounts identified as based in Russia, part of a cloaked effort to persuade supporters of the senator from Vermont to elect Trump. “Bernie Sanders says his message resonates with Republicans,” said another Russian tweet.

While much attention has focused on the question of whether the Trump campaign encouraged or conspired with Russia, the effort to target Sanders supporters has been a lesser-noted part of the story. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, in a case filed last year against 13 Russians accused of interfering in the U.S. presidential campaign, said workers at a St. Petersburg facility called the Internet Research Agency were instructed to write social media posts in opposition to Clinton but “to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”

Trump threatened to close the border. Here’s what could happen if he did:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of sixty-four.  Sunrise is 6:10 AM and sunset 7:38 PM, for 13h 28m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 88% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1917, Lenin returns from exile to Petrograd.

Recommended for reading in full:

Conservative Evangelical Michael Gerson writes The real threat to religious freedom is Trump:

So another norm of public decency falls, like a historical building demolished to make way for one of Donald Trump’s tasteless towers.

When the president of the United States goes after an American Muslim — in this case Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who came to the United States as a Somali refugee — using images of the 9/11 attacks, it is cruel, frightening and dangerous in new ways.

It is cruel because Trump essentially delivered his political rant while standing on desecrated graves. The images he employed not only included burning buildings but burning human beings, drafted into a sad and sordid political ploy. Is nothing sacred to Trump? When said aloud, the question sounds like an absurdity. Trump has never given the slightest indication of propriety, respect or reverence. His narcissism leaves no room to honor other people or to honor other gods. Both the living and the dead matter only as servants to the cause of Trump himself.

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Could this have been a slip of the tongue? No, it wasn’t. Trump has a long history of animus — raw animus — against one of the Abrahamic faiths. He has said, “We’re having problems with the Muslims.” And: “There is a Muslim problem in the world.” And: “The United Kingdom is trying hard to disguise their massive Muslim problem.” And: “Islam hates us.”

The Koran, in Trump’s scholarly opinion, “teaches some very negative vibe.” He has claimed: “You have people coming out of mosques with hatred and death in their eyes.” He once called for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” He has variously and publicly considered the closing of mosques, warrantless searches and the creation of a national database to track Muslims. In Trump’s view, “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before.”

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None of this requires us to believe that Omar is a wise or thoughtful public figure. She isn’t. She traffics in the worst anti-Semitic tropes. But Trump’s perception of religious liberty as freedom only for the faiths he prefers is a potential threat to every religious group. What if some future leader views Mormonism as incompatible with American democracy, or evangelical Protestantism? By what principle would Trump supporters be able to criticize discrimination against such groups?

Religious freedom is either rigorously equal, or it becomes an instrument of those in power to favor or disfavor religions of their choice. And those believers who are currently in favor may someday discover what disfavor is like.

How Astronomers Took The First Ever Image Of A Black Hole:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of fifty-two.  Sunrise is 6:11 AM and sunset 7:37 PM, for 13h 25m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1947, Jackie Robinson breaks baseball’s color barrier when he starts at first base with the Brooklyn Dodgers. (The Dodgers won the game, 5–3, over the Boston Braves).

Recommended for reading in full:

Glenn Kessler writes A guide to Democratic talking points not far off the mark:

(There are two keys to policy: to be right about conditions, and to offer effective solutions. Trump fails at both; that these Democratic candidates are mostly right on conditions makes them, by that alone, an order of magnitude superior to Trump’s end-to-end ignorance.)

  Dan Bice writes Ex-Gov. Scott Walker dumped from GOP event after clashing with Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner:

Former Gov. Scott Walker might be regretting his decision to stay so politically active after his November defeat.

Unlike other ex-governors, Walker is keeping a high profile, tweeting regularly, giving speeches and even filling in on conservative talk radio.

But his comments during one of those talk-radio gigs resulted in his being unceremoniously dumped as a speaker at a recent Republican Party function after he hacked off the often-combustible U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner.

Reached at a Sussex town hall last week, Sensenbrenner said the chairwoman of the GOP’s 5th District Congressional Caucus made the call to remove Walker from the list of speakers at its annual meeting on March 31. But Sensenbrenner said he had her back.

“I supported her disinviting him,” said Sensenbrenner, who was first elected to Congress in 1978.

(These two have a disagreement because Sensenbrenner is famously thin-skinned.  They’re both long-time politicians backing Trump, which is a softer way of saying neither man is worth a damn.)

On Twitter, Timothy Snyder, Levin Professor of History at Yale, writes Why we do think that Mr. Trump owes a debt to Mr. Putin? Here are fifty reasons. All of the facts are a matter of public record, and all of the sources can be found in my book The Road to Unfreedom”:

1/50 In 1984, Russian gangsters began to launder money by buying and selling apartment units in Trump Tower (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 220)

2/50 In 1986, Mr. Trump was courted by Soviet diplomats, who suggested that a bright future awaited him in Moscow (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 220).

3/50 In 1987, the Soviet state paid for Mr. Trump to visit Moscow, putting him up in a suite that was certainly bugged (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 220).

4/50 In 2006, Russians and other citizens of the former Soviet Union financed Trump SoHo, granting Mr. Trump 18% of the profits — although he put up no money himself (#RoadToUnfreedom, p. 221).

(See the link for 46 more, and even worse, obligations Trump has to Russian interests.)

Why are Barns Traditionally Painted Red?:

Good morning.

Palm Sunday in Whitewater will see occasional snow showers with a high of thirty-eight.  Sunrise is 6:13 AM and sunset 7:36 PM, for 13h 22m 47s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 68.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1865, Pres. Lincoln is shot while attending a play in Washington.  Lincoln passed away the next day.

Recommended for reading in full:

Michael Brice-Saddler reports Company led by Trump nominee was rife with harassment, including groping and kissing, report says:

A federal workplace investigation found rampant sexual harassment and retaliation at AccuWeather, a federal contractor, including groping, touching and kissing of subordinates without consent. AccuWeather’s chief executive at the time of the allegations and investigation, Barry Myers, was tapped by President Trump to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The detailed results of the investigation, not previously reported, were compiled last year by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and obtained by The Washington Post. It determined that AccuWeather, under Myers, fostered a culture ripe for sexual harassment, turned a blind eye to allegations of egregious conduct and retaliated against those who complained.

According to the report, the investigation was prompted by a complaint filed Sept. 6, 2016, alleging a “hostile work environment and termination based on sexual orientation and sex.” Many other complaints from AccuWeather employees followed.

“Over two dozen witnesses spanning many different departments and in positions ranging from administrative support to senior management described unlawful sexual harassment that occurred at the company,” the report says. “This sexual harassment was so severe and pervasive, that some female employees resigned.”

The investigation, which began in March 2017, also found that AccuWeather was “aware” of the sexual harassment but took no action to correct it, despite the company’s claims that it was not privy to any harassing activity.

Quinta Jurecic writes Trump’s Unpardonable Challenge to the Constitution:

Now both CNN and The New York Timeshave reported that Trump also personally instructed then–Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan to block asylum seekers, saying that if McAleenan faced jail time as a result of those actions, Trump would pardon him. The Times adds that Trump told McAleenan to go around then–Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, who had refused to implement a ban on asylum on the grounds that it was illegal. Two days later, Nielsen was forced out; McAleenan was then appointed acting secretary in her place.

….

He swore an oath to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,” and to the best of his ability, “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” It is hard to see how asking an official to violate the law, and promising a pardon to mitigate the risk of doing so, is consistent with a defense of the Constitution—not to mention the similar obligation the Constitution places on the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Find the Fun in These Five Stories About Games:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of fifty.  Sunrise is 6:15 AM and sunset 7:35 PM, for 13h 20m 00s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 58.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, Wisconsinites fight at the Battle of Blair’s Landing, Louisiana:

This was the second and final day of the Battle of Blair’s Landing, in Red River Parish, Louisiana. During the fight, the 14th, 29th, 33rd Wisconsin Infantry regiments helped repulse Confederate troops who attacked Union transport ships headed upstream on the Red River Expedition.

Recommended for reading in full:

Andrew Kaczynski and Paul LeBlanc report Trump’s Fed pick Stephen Moore is a self-described ‘radical’ who said he’s not a ‘big believer in democracy’:

Stephen Moore, who President Donald Trump announced last month as his nominee for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, has a history of advocating self-described “radical” views on the economy and government.

In speeches and radio interviews reviewed by CNN’s KFile, Moore advocated for eliminating the corporate and federal income taxes entirely, calling the 16th Amendment that created the income tax the “most evil” law passed in the 20th century.

Moore’s economic worldview envisions a slimmed down government and a rolled back social safety net. He has called for eliminating the Departments of Labor, Energy and Commerce, along with the IRS and the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. He has questioned the need for both the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Education. He has said there’s no need for a federal minimum wage, called for privatizing the “Ponzi scheme” of Social Security and said those on government assistance lost their dignity and meaning.

In other interviews and appearances, Moore repeatedly said he believed capitalism was more important than democracy.

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Speaking on the Thom Hartmann Show in 2010, Moore reiterated this belief, saying Hitler was democratically elected and Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be better off as a democracy.

“I think capitalism, without free market capitalism, countries don’t get rich,” Moore said, when asked if capitalism was more important than democracy. “And so I would rather have a country that’s based on, you know, a free enterprise system of property rights and free exchange of free trade of low tax rates, than a country that state, there are a lot of democracies –.”

In a 2010 speech, Moore said he believed democracy meant that Democrats have an “intentional” plan to take voters off the income tax rolls and have them vote for expanding government.

(Moore’s a lightweight, jumping from claim to claim without thinking any of it through.  Serious, voluminous work on free markets emphasizes the importance of democratic rule-of-law conditions as a predicate, or in some cases a rapidly following consequence.  There just aren’t serious free-market thinkers who distinguish free-markets from a representative democratic order as an ongoing, desirable condition. Moore’s nomination is a bad joke. He doesn’t belong on the Federal Reserve; he belongs on the last barstool to the right.)

Star Wars: Episode IX – Teaser:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of forty-five.  Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:34 PM, for 13h 17m 12s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 46.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1861, the Civil War begins as Confederates fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.

Recommended for reading in full:

Colby Itkowitz and Matt Zapotosky report Rosenstein defends Barr’s handling of Mueller report:

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein came to his boss’s defense Thursday, saying it was “bizarre” for anyone to claim Attorney General William P. Barr is “trying to mislead people” by not immediately releasing the special counsel’s report.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, his first since Robert S. Mueller III concluded the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Rosenstein tried to tamp down criticisms of Barr’s handling of the report and the time it is taking him to release it.

“He’s being as forthcoming as he can, and so this notion that he’s trying to mislead people, I think is just completely bizarre,” Rosenstein said in the interview.

Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller to lead the investigation after President Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey, helped Barr review the final report, which did not find that anyone on the Trump campaign conspired with Russians. However, Mueller declined to reach a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice. Barr and Rosenstein then decided they could not make a criminal case that the president obstructed justice.

Daniel Hemel sees The Tragedy of Rod Rosenstein:

But over the past two years—and especially in the past week—this success story has turned into a cautionary tale. Rosenstein’s refusal to recuse himself from the special counsel’s obstruction of justice probe—notwithstanding a conflict of interest so blatant as to be almost blinding—has done irreparable damage to his own reputation and perhaps to the department that until now has been his only professional home.

It is difficult to understand how Rosenstein ended up in such a compromised position. Perhaps he will one day write a reflective memoir—as his two nemeses, Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, already have. Until then, we can reconstruct the timeline easily enough, but we can only speculate as to Rosenstein’s motives at each step of the way.

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The Russia probe was, among other things, a test of whether the department could conduct and conclude an impartial investigation of a sitting president by following its own special counsel rules. While it is too early to reach a final verdict on that question, the serious conflict of interest affecting the man who oversaw that inquiry casts a continuing shadow over the enterprise.

David Frum observes Trump’s ability to lead people like Rosenstein into moral compromises:

While discussing Barr and Rosenstein @davidfrum shares his view with @Lawrence on how Trump takes someone’s “moral weakness” and “grinds them into dust.” #lastword #msnbc

Watch SpaceX Launch And Land the Falcon Heavy rocket: