Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy-three.  Sunrise is 5:22 AM and sunset 8:21 PM, for 14h 59m 54s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 51.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1864, the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry participates in a skirmish at Lanes Prairie, Missouri.

Recommended for reading in full:

Sam Dean and Suhauna Hussain report A doctored video of Nancy Pelosi shows social media giants ill-prepared for 2020:

Facebook and others are still not well equipped to manage complex targeted manipulation campaigns,  [researcher at UC Irvine Kat] Lo said, citing Russian efforts to spread disinformation ahead of the 2016 election and the way that members of Myanmar’s military used Facebook as a tool to instigate genocide, spreading propaganda that vilified the country’s mostly Muslim Rohingya minority group.

UC Berkeley computer science professor and digital forensics expert Hany Farid, who studies methods for detecting “deep fakes” — more advanced false videos that use sophisticated software to create realistic clips fabricated from whole cloth — noted that social media’s broad reach aids the spread of disinformation, no matter the format.

“The threat of manipulated video of any form remains significant because of the declining level of discourse, particularly on social media, the public’s seemingly inability or lack of interest in distinguishing between real and fake news, and our willingness — in fact eagerness — to believe the worst in people that we disagree with,” Farid said in an email.

While it’s always a challenge to correct the record when false information is widely distributed, the task has only become more difficult when prominent figures use their position of “extraordinary power” to amplify false information, Farid added.

Pema Levy writes Trump Has a Big Head Start on Facebook Messaging, and Democrats Are Worried:

Democrats have watched with alarm as the Trump campaign puts millions of dollars into digital advertising campaigns. In the past year, the campaign has spent more than $12 million on Facebook ads alone, compared to $9.4 million for the 16 top-spending Democratic candidates combined. Many of those ads are directed at building the campaign’s direct voter contacts—asking users to sign birthday cards for the president or fill out a survey in order to get their email addresses and phone numbers. Other ads are targeted at firing up the campaign’s base with red meat about border security, although a growing number are aimed at swing voters. As of last month, nearly a third of the campaign’s Facebook spending was going to five 2020 battleground states: Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Texas, and Ohio.

….

Democrats have taken note of the importance of digital ads since 2016, when the Trump campaign’s digital strategist, Brad Parscale—since elevated to 2020 campaign manager—attributed Trump’s win to his online operation, particularly on Facebook. Democratic digital experts say that narrative is likely overblown but that it was nonetheless a wake-up call that their party had lost its digital edge.

A Mad Inventor’s Surreal Fortress:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighty-two.  Sunrise is 5:22 AM and sunset 8:20 PM, for 14h 58m 18s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 61.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1977, Star Wars opens in theaters.

Recommended for reading in full:

  Drew Harwell reports Facebook acknowledges Pelosi video is faked but declines to delete it:

When an edited video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) began spreading across the Web this week, researchers quickly identified it as a distortion, with sound and playback speed that had been manipulated to make her speech appear stilted and slurred.

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YouTube offered a definitive response Thursday afternoon, saying the company had removed the videos because they violated “clear policies that outline what content is not acceptable to post.”

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But Facebook, where the video appeared to gain much of its audience, declined Friday to remove the video, even after Facebook’s independent fact-checking groups, Lead Stories and PolitiFact, deemed the video “false.”

“We don’t have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true,” Facebook said in a statement to The Washington Post.

(Trump is a dominant political advertiser on Facebook, with Facebook users who share fakes skew older and conservative, so one can expect more of Trump’s dishonesty and Facebook’s leniency.)

Conservative evangelical Michael Gerson observes These are the golden days of sleaze:

That President Trump and members of his circle are corrupt has been established beyond doubt. There is the financial corruption of using the presidency as a marketing tool for Trump businesses; of foreign governments seeking influence by spending at Trump properties; of close associates being paid for influence by foreign entities; of industry advocates and lobbyists being appointed as industry regulators; of the Trump Organization expanding overseas operations with the help of foreign governments; of possible money laundering through Trump properties. And all of this in the context of a president fighting tooth and nail to shield his financial records from public scrutiny.

There is a political corruption of inviting a foreign government to interfere in a presidential election; of seeking politically motivated investigations against opponents; of attempting to block and discredit legitimate investigations of Trump’s own questionable activities; of directing secret payments to women with potentially damaging information; of attempting to influence ongoing federal investigations.

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If you are a sexual harasser who wants to escape consequences, or a businessperson who habitually plays close to ethical lines, your hour has come. If you dream of having a porn-star mistress, or hope to game the tax system for your benefit, you have found your man and your moment. For all that is bent and sleazy, for all that is dishonest and dodgy, these are the golden days.

Here’s a video showing the sixty satellites that SpaceX recently placed in orbit:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will see thunderstorms with a high of sixty-eight.  Sunrise is 5:23 AM and sunset 8:20 PM, for 14h 56m 40s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 69.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge opens:

Thousands of people attended the opening ceremony, and many ships were present in the East Bay for the occasion. President Chester A. Arthur and Mayor Franklin Edson crossed the bridge to celebratory cannon fire and were greeted by Brooklyn Mayor Seth Low when they reached the Brooklyn-side tower.

Recommended for reading in full:

Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey report ‘He always brings them up’: Trump tries to steer border wall deal to North Dakota firm:

In phone calls, White House meetings and conversations aboard Air Force One during the past several months, Trump has aggressively pushed Dickinson, N.D.-based Fisher Industries to Department of Homeland Security leaders and Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the Army Corps, according to the administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal discussions. The push for a specific company has alarmed military commanders and DHS officials.

Semonite was summoned to the White House again Thursday, after the president’s aides told Pentagon officials — including Gen. Mark Milley, the Army’s chief of staff — that the president wanted to discuss the border barrier. According to an administration official with knowledge of the Oval Office meeting, Trump immediately brought up Fisher, a company that sued the U.S. government last month after the Army Corps did not accept its bid to install barriers along the southern border, a contract potentially worth billions of dollars.

Jack Shafer observes Trump’s Walkout Hits a Wall:

Emotional terror of the Trump variety works on underlings or his fellow Republican officeholders who fear they’ll lose their positions if they defy the angry king. It also works on the preternaturally polite, who will happily fold if by folding they can cool tempers. But the more Trump puts on the fright wig, the less scary he becomes. The sight of Trump baring his teeth like a wild macaquedoesn’t seem to faze Pelosi and Schumer. Decades in Congress have inured them to this kind of political gnarling.

Tantrums don’t work very well in government as opposed to business, because there are so many more moving parts—separation of powers, political parties, scores of agencies, 50 states and 245 million eligible voters—than in Manhattan real estate. Even when Trump’s party controlled both legislative houses, his tactics couldn’t achieve his complete agenda. What makes him think he can bulldoze the Democrats now that they’re in firm hold of the House, where they’re weakening him with the power of investigation?< Like his Niagara of lies, Trump’s hysterics are just another way of forcing people to live in his factually stunted, theatrical universe. As Pelosi and Schumer have shown, the spell is easily broken.

SpaceX Launches 60 Starlink Satellites on Thrice-Flown Rocket, Sticks Landing:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of seventy-three.  Sunrise is 5:24 AM and sunset 8:19 PM, for 14h 55m 00s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 78.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1934, notorious murders and bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow meet their end:

At approximately 9:15 a.m. on May 23, the posse were still concealed in the bushes and almost ready to concede defeat when they heard Barrow’s stolen Ford V8 approaching at a high speed. Their official report had Barrow stopping to speak with Methvin’s father, who had been planted there with his truck that morning to distract Barrow and force him into the lane closer to the posse. The lawmen opened fire, killing Barrow and Parker while shooting about 130 rounds. Oakley fired first, probably before any order to do so.[101][103][104] Barrow was killed instantly by Oakley’s head shot, but Hinton reported hearing Parker scream as she realized that Barrow was dead before the shooting began in her direction.[101] The officers emptied all their weapons at the car.[105] Nearly any of their wounds would have been fatal, yet the two had survived many bullets over the years in their confrontations with the law.[106] 

Recommended for reading in full:

S.V. Date reports Trump’s Golf Costs: $102 Million And Counting, With Taxpayers Picking Up The Tab:

Donald Trump’s golf habit has already cost taxpayers at least $102 million in extra travel and security expenses, and next month will achieve a new milestone: a seven-figure presidential visit to another country so he can play at his own course.

U.S. taxpayers have spent $81 million for the president’s two dozen trips to Florida, according to a HuffPost analysis. They spent $17 million for his 15 trips to New Jersey, another $1 million so he could visit his resort in Los Angeles and at least $3 million for his two days in Scotland last summer, $1.3 million of which went just for rental cars for the massive entourage that accompanies a president abroad.

Edvard Pettersson reports So Far, $1.57 Billion for Wall Yields 1.7 Miles of Fence:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has put up just 1.7 miles of fencing with the $1.57 billion that Congress appropriated last year for President Donald Trump’s wall along the Mexican border, a federal judge was told.

A lawyer for the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives provided the information Tuesday to the judge in Oakland, California, who is weighing requests from 20 state attorneys general and the the Sierra Club to block Trump from using funds not authorized by Congress to build the wall.

“The administration recently provided updated information to Congress on the status of its efforts as of April 30, 2019,” the attorney, Douglas Letter, said in a court filing. “Based on that updated information, it appears that CBP has now constructed 1.7 miles of fencing with its fiscal year 2018 funding.”

Who Makes Money From Professional Poker?:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of seventy-nine.  Sunrise is 5:24 AM and sunset 8:18 PM, for 14h 53m 16s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 86.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1968, the Milwaukee Bucks get their name: “Milwaukee Bucks” was selected as the franchise name after 14,000 fans participated in a team-naming contest. 45 people suggested the name, one of whom, R.D. Trebilcox, won a car for his efforts.”

Recommended for reading in full:

Alex Ward reports Secret documents show Russian plot to stoke racial violence in America:

The Russians who interfered in the 2016 US presidential election are still at it — and this time, they’re trying to ignite racial violence in America and a partial collapse of the United States.

According to secret documents obtained by a Russian opposition group, hackers have discussed plans to stir up racial resentment in the United States in hopes of tearing American society apart. The operatives are apparently associates of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man who set up a troll farm and was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for his role in 2016 meddling.

Those documents, shared with but not verified by NBC News on Monday night, are extremely troubling.

Prigozhin and his team of Russian trolls tried to inflame racial tensions during the 2016 cycle by operating several social media accounts that tried to discourage African Americans from voting, mainly by repeating messages of police violence and voter fraud.

But the apparent new plot, discussed as recently as 2018 ahead of the 2020 presidential election, goes much further. The documents reportedly contain shocking proposals such as sending black Americans to Africa “for combat prep and training in sabotage,” as well as targeting people who have previously been incarcerated and people “who have experience in organized crime groups … for participation in civil disobedience actions.”

The goal, it seems, was to encourage the newly trained African Americans to create their own pan-African state in America’s South. That would “undermine the country’s territorial integrity and military and economic potential,” according to one document, by “destabiliz[ing] the internal situation in the US.”

It’s possible Prigozhin’s associates felt they had an opening to do this because President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory “deepened conflicts in American society,” per one of the documents.

Jeff Stein and Josh Dawsey report Confidential draft IRS memo says tax returns must be given to Congress unless president invokes executive privilege:

The memo contradicts the Trump administration’s justification for denying lawmakers’ request for President Trump’s tax returns, exposing fissures in the executive branch.

Trump has refused to turn over his tax returns but has not invoked executive privilege. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has instead denied the returns by arguing there is no legislative purpose for demanding them.

But according to the IRS memo, which has not been previously reported, the disclosure of tax returns to the committee “is mandatory, requiring the Secretary to disclose returns, and return information, requested by the tax-writing Chairs.”

How GameStop Lost $673 Million:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will see morning rain with a high of fifty.  Sunrise is 5:25 AM and sunset 8:17 PM, for 14h 51m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1673, Fr. Jacques Marquette, fur-trader Louis Joliet, and five French voyageurs pulled into a Menominee community near modern Marinette, Mich. 

Recommended for reading in full:

Devlin Barrett, Spencer S. Hsu, Rachael Bade, and Josh Dawsey report Judge rules against Trump in fight over president’s financial records:

“It is simply not fathomable,” the judge wrote, “that a Constitution that grants Congress the power to remove a President for reasons including criminal behavior would deny Congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct — past or present — even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry.”

Trump has argued those congressional inquiries are politically motivated attacks on the authority of the presidency, while Democrats insist the subpoenas are essential to ensuring no president is above the law.

help visa holders find work and assimilate. The cap on green cards should be increased. Visa holders would have to find and maintain a job or start a business within a reasonable period of time.

Kevin Poulsen reports The Hell of Working at Trump’s New Favorite Network (“Conspiracy theories, racist outbursts, and a whole lot of Putin love. Working for the far-right One America News Network was a deeply weird experience, former employees say”):

If you don’t live in a world where Donald Trump’s inauguration drew record crowds, Roy Moore won the Alabama special election in a landslide, and Hillary Clinton has her political enemies assassinated, viewing OANN for a couple of hours is a surreal experience that inspires the same vague, uneasy dread you get from a David Lynch movie.

Working there is a million times worse.

“It was a really bad chapter in my life,” a former OANN anchor told the Daily Beast in an interview granted on condition of anonymity. “There were lots of afternoons where I would just sit in the car and cry. I didn’t understand why they were doing what they were doing.”

The Daily Beast spoke with four former OANN employees—three anchors and a writer, all of whom were experienced journalists when they started at the network’s headquarters on the northern edge of San Diego, California. Some of them were at OANN long enough to remember a time when they found much to admire in the network’s news coverage, particularly its focus on the kind of international stories neglected by CNN and Fox News.

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If OANN is all about getting Donald Trump’s attention, it’s finally working. After snubbing the network for two years in his frequent media-focused tweet storms, Trump is now mentioning the channel regularly.

 In rural Pennsylvania, Trump jokes about serving a 5th term: