Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-seven.  Sunrise is 5:30 AM and sunset 8:31 PM, for 15h 00m 37s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 98.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Library Board meets at 6:30 PM.  Whitewater’s School Board meets at 7 PM.  (See also Changes at Whitewater Middle School from FREE WHITEWATER on 7.11.19.)

On this day in 2006, Twitter launches.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Craig Gilbert reports Former Gov. Scott Walker to take the helm of conservative group, says he won’t run for office in 2022:

Former Gov. Scott Walker has accepted a full-time position running a national conservative youth organization based in northern Virginia.

Walker said the move rules out a run for his old job or any other political office in the next few years.

“This would preclude me from running for governor in this next cycle or running for the U.S. Senate if Ron Johnson’s seat is open,” Walker said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel.

He said he is “absolutely thrilled” with his coming role as president of the Young America’s Foundation, a group that works to promote and popularize conservative ideas among young people.

Walker said he will not assume his full-time position until the beginning of 2021, when the group’s current president steps down after more than 40 years. He said his agreement with the organization is to serve at least four years.

The former governor said he will look for a residence in northern Virginia or Washington, D.C., but will also maintain one in Wisconsin.

Walker said he is announcing the move now in part to let potential candidates interested in Wisconsin’s governor or Senate seats know he won’t be competing for either of those two offices. One of those two posts is currently held by a member of Walker’s party, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, but Johnson hasn’t announced his plans, saying he might seek a third Senate term, run for governor or return to private life in 2022.

“Starting January 2021, this will be full-time,” Walker said of his new job. “I won’t be engaged in anything else. This will be my sole occupation.”

(Goodbye & good riddance to the creator of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, likely the least effective and most corrupt development agency of any state in the country.

All the while, the WEDC became the model for dozens of small-town copies of the same, littered with schemers, third-tier public relations men, and others of that unworthy ilk.  See also Three Fundamental Failures: Employment, Income, and Poverty and Reported Family Poverty in Whitewater Increased Over the Last Decade.)

 Thomas Jefferson: The First Foodie of America: 

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see scattered afternoon thundershowers with a high of eighty-seven.  Sunrise is 5:29 AM and sunset 8:31 PM, for 15h 02m 07s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 94.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

It’s Bastille Day.

Recommended for reading in full:

Journalist Justin King concludes outrage over a black actress in a remake of The Little Mermaid is absurd:

See also from Paquette Danielle, Africa celebrated black mermaids long before Disney and #NotMyAriel.

Isabela Zaluska reports Blacks arrested for pot possession at four times the rate of whites in Wisconsin (‘Gov. Tony Evers’ decriminalization proposal focuses on decreasing racial disparities in arrests; experts point to policing practices as the main issue’):

In fact, in 2018, blacks were four times as likely to be arrested as whites for marijuana possession in Wisconsin, a Wisconsin Watch review shows. Experts point to policing practices and the racial history behind marijuana prohibition as leading to arrest disparities.

….

In April, Rep. Melissa Sargent, D-Madison, unveiled a bill to fully legalize marijuana in Wisconsin. This is her fourth time introducing the bill. In this version, Sargent hopes to address racial disparities in the enforcement of Wisconsin’s marijuana laws by broadening the availability of expungement and releasing people incarcerated for low-level nonviolent marijuana offenses.

Milwaukee is the most segregated city in the United States, according to the Brookings Institution, which found that nearly 80% of blacks would have to move to another neighborhood in the city to achieve full integration.

In Milwaukee, blacks made up 72% of “small-scale” marijuana possession arrests but 39% of the population between 2012 and 2015, according to research by the Public Policy Forum, a nonprofit, independent research organization. The Milwaukee-based group defined “small scale” as possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana.

The same research found whites made up 12% of the arrests but 37% of the city’s population.

“The impact of being a person of color in our communities just makes it harder to live,” Sargent said.

(I’m a white non-smoker. Arresting Wisconsinites for marijuana possession is a wasteful policy for taxpayers but an entrenched employment and spending program for law enforcement.)

 Behold (and Beware) the Largest Lizards on Earth:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-six.  Sunrise is 5:28 AM and sunset 8:32 PM, for 15h 03m 34s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1787, Congress under the Articles of Confederation passes the Northwest Ordinance, creating “the Northwest Territory, the first organized territory of the United States, from lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains, between British North America and the Great Lakes to the north and the Ohio River to the south. The upper Mississippi River formed the territory’s western boundary.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Molly Beck and Mary Spicuzza report President Trump in Milwaukee says farmers are ‘over the hump’ as dairy farms continue to close in Wisconsin:

President Donald Trump raised $3 million in Wisconsin cash on Friday touring Milwaukee to promote a new trade deal he says will help rebuild the country’s wounded manufacturing and agriculture industry.

But in doing so, the president downplayed the suffocation felt by Wisconsin dairy farmers because of Trump’s own tariffs.

“These are great American patriots … the farmers (said) no, it’s not like things are perfect but we’re with our president,” Trump told a crowd at Derco Aerospace on Milwaukee’s northwest side. “Some of the farmers are doing well … We’re over the hump. We’re doing really well.”

Trump said the new trade agreement would help Wisconsin dairy farmers by providing access to Canada’s market, painting an optimistic picture of the Wisconsin industry’s future — which is losing almost two dairy farms a day.

Nearly 700 Wisconsin farms were shut down last year by owners used to enduring a brutal workload and hard times, calling it quits in a downturn now headed into its fifth year. In 2018, for the third straight year, Wisconsin led the nation in farm bankruptcies.

Peter Jamison and Juliet Eilperin report Trump’s Fourth of July event and weekend protests bankrupted D.C. security fund, mayor say:

President Trump’s overhauled Fourth of July celebration cost the D.C. government about $1.7 million, an amount that — combined with police expenses for demonstrations through the weekend — has bankrupted a special fund used to protect the nation’s capital from terrorist threats and provide security at events such as rallies and state funerals.

In a letter to the president Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) warned that the fund has been depleted and is estimated to be running a $6 million deficit when the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The mayor also noted that the account was never reimbursed for $7.3 million in expenses from Trump’s 2017 inauguration.

[Read the mayor’s letter to the president here]

Bowser requested that the White House fully reimburse the fund. Without that money, city officials say, Washingtonians will be put in the unprecedented position of funding federal security needs with local tax dollars.

 Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? We Found Them:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 5:28 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 04m 58s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 80.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1862, Pres. Lincoln signs legislation to create the Medal of Honor.

Recommended for reading in full:

Julie K. Brown and David Smiley report New victims come forward as Epstein asks to be released from jail to his Manhattan mansion:

At least a dozen new victims have come forward to claim they were sexually abused by Jeffrey Epstein even as the multimillionaire money manager tries to convince a federal judge to allow him to await a sex trafficking trial from the comfort of the same $77 million Manhattan mansion where he’s accused of luring teenage girls into unwanted sex acts.

Following Epstein’s arrest Saturday in New Jersey, four women have reached out to New York lawyer David Boies, and at least 10 other women have approached other lawyers who have represented dozens of Epstein’s alleged victims in the past.

Jack Scarola, a Palm Beach attorney, said at least five women, all of whom were minors at the time of their alleged encounters with Epstein, have reached out to either him or Fort Lauderdale lawyer Brad Edwards.

Alison Dirr and Bruce Vielmetti report Settlement calls for Milwaukee to pay $7.5 million to man convicted based on bogus bite mark evidence:

The City of Milwaukee would pay $7.5 million to a man wrongfully incarcerated for 24 years based on bogus bite mark evidence, under a resolution before the Common Council.

Robert Lee Stinson, 54, agreed to settle his claims against the city and one of its former police detectives for an initial payment of $3.5 million in August and $4 million in January, the resolution states.

The settlement was reached after about eight days in a jury trial over his claims that detectives and dentists conspired to frame him in his neighbor’s homicide using the bite mark evidence.

“Mr. Stinson waited a very long time for this trial — 34 years since his arrest and nearly 10 years since filing his civil rights lawsuit seeking redress for his wrongful conviction,” said Heather Lewis Donnell, one of his attorneys with the Chicago law firm Loevy & Loevy.

“Over the course of the week-and-half trial, the jury heard very powerful and moving testimony that convinced all sides that substantial compensation was in order. This is certainly the largest wrongful conviction settlement that Milwaukee has ever seen and one of the largest civil rights settlements as well.”

The city’s largest prior payout for wrongful conviction was $6.5 million to Chante Ott, who spent 13 years in prison for a homicide actually committed by serial killer Walter Ellis.

(Twenty-four years lost from official use of junk science.  The most developed society in the world and yet these men relied on little more than voodoo.)

NASA’s Search For Life On Titan, Explained:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty.  Sunrise is 5:27 AM and sunset 8:33 PM, for 15h 06m 18s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 71.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1839, the first patent is issued to a Wisconsin resident (patent #1232 for his improved plow).

Recommended for reading in full:

Devi Sashtra reports Bill by Alberta Darling breathes life into UWM professor’s fight for $1 million payout:

Weeks after the state’s financial claims board denied a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee business professor’s $1 million-plus compensation complaint, a senator has proposed a bill to pay him in full with money from the UW System.

That is if the bill passes. If it fails, which is likely, the legislation would enable UWM professor Timothy Smunt to sue the state — essentially taxpayers — for money he says he should have earned through his employee contract.

Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, introduced a bill Friday that would appropriate $1,039,134 in general program operations from the University of Wisconsin System to compensate the former Lubar School of Business dean.

….

Darling’s spokesman, Bob Delaporte, said the senator proposed the bill because Smunt is one of her constituents.

Delaporte said Tuesday such bills to help constituents are “just a part of being a legislator.”

Oliver Darcy reports Trump invites right-wing extremists to White House ‘social media summit’:

Some of the right-wing media universe’s biggest stars are set to descend on the White House Thursday for what has been billed as a “social media summit” and will likely become a forum for airing claims of anti-conservative social media bias.

In addition to inviting leaders from traditional conservative think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute, the White House has requested the presence of far-right internet personalities and trolls, some of whom have pushed conspiracy theories, lies and misinformation.

It’s perhaps the clearest example yet of President Trump legitimizing fringe political allies.

The White House has repeatedly declined to release a list people it expects to attend, but some of the recipients have turned to social media to boast about being invited.

Among them are Bill Mitchell, a radio host who has promoted the extremist QAnon conspiracy theory on Twitter; Carpe Donktum, an anonymous troll who won a contest put on by the fringe media organization InfoWars for an anti-media meme; and Ali Alexander, an activist who attempted to smear Sen. Kamala Harris by saying she is not an “American black” following the first Democratic presidential debates.

Other eyebrow raising attendees include James O’Keefe, the guerrilla journalist whose group Project Veritas tried to trick reporters at the Washington Post by planting a source who told the paper that she had been impregnated as a teenager by failed Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore; Charlie Kirk, the founder of the right-wing student group Turning Point USA who sometimes posts misleading information on social media; and Benny Johnson, the journalist-turned-activist who was fired for plagiarism by BuzzFeed and demoted at the Independent Journal Review for violating company standards.

 How Do We Solve the Problem of Predators?

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will see an afternoon thundershower with a high of eighty-eight.  Sunrise is 5:26 AM and sunset 8:34 PM, for 15h 07m 35s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1832, construction of Fort Koshkonong begins.

Recommended for reading in full:

Kathleen Parker writes One thing is clear from the Jeffrey Epstein revelations: Acosta must step down:

In a 2011 letter trying to defend himself after the cushy plea deal, Acosta wrote that he faced “a year-long assault on the prosecution and the prosecutors” by “an army of legal superstars.” He also asserted that defense lawyers “investigated individual prosecutors and their families, looking for personal peccadilloes that may provide a basis for disqualification.”

Go on, grab a hankie. Acosta also has said he feared the young accusers might not be their own best witnesses. Perhaps not. Then again, seeing girls interrogated and cross-examined by high-profile lawyers might have worked in their favor. Instead, the alleged victims were kept in the dark about the non-prosecution agreement and the records were sealed, in contravention of the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

….

On Monday, a new 14-page federal indictment was unsealed in New York accusing Epstein of sex trafficking and abuse of underage girls at his homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Fla., between 2002 and 2005. The details are as disgusting as they are creepy. In short, Epstein allegedly had young girls brought to his homes to perform massages and sex acts in exchange for money. After girls had been brought in, they were sometimes enticed to recruit other girls — and so it went on for years, according to the indictment.

No one has ever overestimated the power of money, and its power to corrupt is absolute. The hubris that passeth all understanding belongs to Epstein.

Pending further revelations, one thing is clear: Acosta should step down from his Cabinet position for dereliction of duty in his prior role — and because he has the spine of a mollusk. In deciding not to fully prosecute Epstein in 2007 — and then agreeing to bury the proceedings without advising the victims — he violated the law, betrayed the victims’ trust and displayed rare cowardice before justice.

Suzanne Spaulding, Devi Nair, and Arthur Nelson describe Russia’s Attacks on Democratic Justice Systems:

Russia is engaged in a determined assault on Western democracies and their institutions. At its core, this is an attack on public trust and confidence. While policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have made important strides to combat Russian disinformation operations as they pertain to election security, little has been done to acknowledge and adequately address the threats against justice systems.

Traditionally a democracy’s judiciary is among the most trusted institution in the government. Because of this, it might seem like an unlikely target for disinformation campaigns by a foreign power. However, the judiciary is also, like elections, entirely dependent upon public acceptance of the legitimacy of its outcomes. The idea of a system built on the rule of law and justice delivered by a fair and impartial judiciary is a critical pillar of democracy and one of its greatest strengths. Erode the public’s belief in that idea, and the pillar begins to crumble.

Institutions must continue to work to live up to our ideals. But proactive steps must also be taken to safeguard justice systems in democracies like the United States and elsewhere. These systems must be actively protected from outside interference designed to undermine them. Perhaps more importantly, targeted countries need to ensure that their institutions and public are resilient in the face of adversary information operations that threaten to erode trust in democratic institutions.

The adversary most actively using disinformation to weaken democracies today is Russia. To better appreciate the threat landscape and the policies that might be considered to protect justice systems, we need to first understand how exactly Moscow uses disinformation to undermine these institutions.

The Business of Amazon’s Shipping Boxes:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of eighty-four.  Sunrise is 5:25 AM and sunset 8:34 PM, for 15h 08m 49s of daytime.  The moon is in its first quarter with 50.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School District’s Policy Review Committee meets at 8 AM.

On this day in 1863, the Siege of Jackson, Mississippi continues with several Wisconsin units participating.

Recommended for reading in full:

Michael Gerson writes American greatness needs to include humane treatment of migrants:

President Trump’s Fourth of July remarks did make reference to the abstract promises of the Declaration of Independence, but he mainly praised his nation as a place and a power.

….

Contrast this with the national story told by Ronald Reagan or Franklin D. Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy or George W. Bush. American ideals — while growing out of a specific culture — are transcendent and universal. Though military power is essential, the nation advances on the strength of democratic hopes. It wins a global competition of ideals because it accords most closely with the durable dreams of humanity for liberty and justice.

This differing emphasis has dramatic implications. If the United States is primarily a normal nation, united by a common culture, then it is diluted by outsiders and weakened by diversity. In this circumstance, cultural differences lead inexorably to conflict and disunity. A nation defined primarily by culture or ethnicity is a fortress to be defended.

But if the United States somehow embodies the best and highest of human aspirations — separate from culture and ethnicity — then there is hope of mutual progress. “America has never been united by blood or birth or soil,” said George W. Bush in his first inaugural address. “We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.”

Lisa Rein, Michael Kranish, and Josh Dawsey report Epstein indictment renews questions about earlier case handled by Trump Cabinet official:

The indictment Monday of Jeffrey Epstein on sex trafficking charges has reignited questions about the way Alexander Acosta — now President Trump’s labor secretary — handled an earlier case against Epstein that resulted in a minimal sentence.

As U.S. attorney in Florida in 2007, Acosta negotiated a plea deal that led to two felony solicitation charges and 13 months in county jail for Epstein, with the billionaire financier allowed to work from his office six days a week. Epstein had been facing the possibility of life in prison. His alleged victims were not told about the deal.

On Monday, in the indictment issued in federal court in New York, Epstein faced charges resulting from allegations like those in the Florida case. The indictment says that “in both New York and Florida,” Epstein “perpetuated this abuse in similar ways.”

What’s Next For Boeing?: