Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of thirty-three.  Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 5:23 PM, for 10h 28m 09s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 45.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Involvement and Cable TV Commission lists a 5:00 PM meeting. (Update: canceled due to weather.)

Abraham Lincoln is born on this day in 1809.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Eli Rosenberg reports ‘No crisis exists’: El Paso officials tell Trump to stop the falsehoods about their border city:

At a news conference Monday afternoon, Rep. Veronica Escobar (D), who represents the city in Congress, El Paso County Judge Ricardo Samaniego, District Attorney Jaime Esparza, and Commissioner Carlos Leon said Trump’s statements threatened to damage the town’s reputation.

“We’ve worked so hard to have the image of a solid community,” said Samaniego, who noted that his family emigrated to the country in 1911. “Every one of us is touched with the falsehoods that are taking place.”

Trump had made the city a centerpiece of his push for a border wall during the State of the Union address last week, saying that its fence, which was constructed between 2008 and 2010, had reduced violent crime and made El Paso one of the “safest cities in our country.” He repeated the claims during his campaign rally in the city on Monday night.

But Trump’s claims were false. The city’s violent crime peaked in 1993 before declining sharply throughout the 1990s, in line with national trends, and long before the city’s fence was approved by Congress in 2006.

….

“Donald Trump has continuously made inaccurate claims about the United States’ southern border, including El Paso,” the [municipal] resolution said, noting that data from Customs and Border Protection showed that “no crisis exists” on the border, despite Trump’s claims. “The County of El Paso is disillusioned by President Trump’s lies regarding the border and our community, and though it is difficult to welcome him to El Paso while he continues to proliferate such untruths, we do welcome him to meet with local officials to become properly informed about our great and safe region.”

Philip Bump writes Trump’s days of hard work generally begin at 11 a.m. — even in a busy week:

It’s hard to gauge how much work Trump does during his executive time, because it is unscheduled and mostly unrecorded, even within the broader White House.

….

All of this is by design, allowing Trump to make claims about how much he works by masking his leisure time under the rubric of “executive time.” We can’t say with certainty that Trump isn’t having important phone calls with foreign leaders for hours on end before heading down to the Oval Office each day, so we’re asked to assume that he is.

  Do Scientists Ever Name Creatures After People They Dislike?

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-one.  Sunrise is 6:56 AM and sunset 5:21 PM, for 10h 25m 29s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 35.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Planning Board meets at 6:00 PM.

This day in 1846 sees a shooting in the Territorial Legislature:

The legislature was debating the appointment of Enos S. Baker for sheriff of Grant County when Charles Arndt made a sarcastic remark about Baker’s colleague, James Vineyard. After an uproar, adjournment was declared and when Arndt approached Vineyard’s desk, a fight broke out during which Vineyard drew his revolver and shot Arndt.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Richard Parker explains Why the Wall Will Never Rise:

If President Donald Trump ever gets the funding for his long-promised wall, he will have to plot a course through Texas. But he will never make it all the way through here, the 800-mile stretch from Laredo to nearly El Paso. There will be no “concrete structure from sea to sea,” as the president once pledged. Taking this land would constitute an assault on private property and require a veritable army of lawyers, who, I can assure you, are no match for the state’s powerful border barons.

….

Although many big ranchers and landowners backed Trump, they are conservative in the most traditional senses. They actually believe in small government, free enterprise, free trade, and private property. And nobody puts a wall through their brush. These men and women are a pretty private bunch, too. You won’t find their names in the newspaper screaming bloody murder.

But they know how to make their presence felt. Last year, a couple of dozen border barons from the Laredo region summoned local politicians, cops, and representatives from the Customs and Border Patrol. It was a private, even secret event—no cameras, no press. According to Steve LaMantia, who led the group, the landowners delivered a warning to the feds not to build a wall through their land. To underscore their point, they held another meeting. And just in case it wasn’t crystal clear, they’re going to have another one.

“The general sentiment—to a person—is that everybody is in favor of additional border security,” said LaMantia. But seizing land through eminent domain? “That is diametrically opposed by everybody, from Zapata to Del Rio.”

….

If the border barons lose in court, that still won’t mean victory for Trump. They could simply chew up the wall by chewing up the clock on Trump’s time as president. They could demand an injunction blocking the government from taking the land before arriving at a settlement. And their lawyers could wrap the government up in years of haggling over dollars.

  One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Cyborg:

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will bring snow with a high of twenty-seven.  Sunrise is 6:57 AM and sunset 5:20 PM, for 10h 22m 50s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 26.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1763, the Treaty of Paris cedes formerly French-controlled land, including the Wisconsin region, to England.

Recommended for reading in full:

Joshua Partlow, Nick Miroff, and David A. Fahrenthold report ‘My whole town practically lived there’: From Costa Rica to New Jersey, a pipeline of illegal workers for Trump goes back years:

Angulo learned to drive backhoes and bulldozers, carving water hazards and tee boxes out of former horse pastures in Bedminster, N.J., where a famous New Yorker was building a world-class course. Angulo earned $8 an hour, a fraction of what a state-licensed heavy equipment operator would make, with no benefits or overtime pay. But he stayed seven years on the grounds crew, saving enough for a small piece of land and some cattle back home.

….

It’s a common story in this small town.

Other former employees of President Trump’s company live nearby: men who once raked the sand traps and pushed mowers through thick heat on Trump’s prized golf property — the “Summer White House,” as aides have called it — where his daughter Ivanka got married and where he wants to build a family cemetery.

“Many of us helped him get what he has today,” Angulo said. “This golf course was built by illegals.”

Soo Rin Kim, Katherine Faulders, and Matthew Mosk report Trump campaign paid legal fees to firm representing Jared Kushner:

President Donald Trump‘s campaign has spent nearly $100,000 of donor money to pay legal bills to the firm representing Jared Kushner, the latest campaign finance records show.

The president’s re-election campaign made two payments to the firm, Winston & Strawn LLP – $55,330 and $42,574. The expenditures were payments to Kushner’s attorney Abbe Lowell for Kushner’s legal fees, sources with knowledge of the payments told to ABC News. Lowell joined the firm in May 2018.

“Low dollar” contributions – $200 or less – made up 98.5 percent of the total funds raised by the Trump campaign in the last quarter of 2018, a consistent trend throughout the year, according to a press release by the campaign, along with the latest campaign finance filings.

 Patrick Marley reports Wisconsin GOP billing taxpayers almost twice as much as Democratic governor for lawyers in lame-duck lawsuits:

Republican lawmakers are charging taxpayers nearly twice as much an hour as Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the legal fight over Wisconsin’s lame-duck laws.

Taxpayers will pay the lead attorney for lawmakers $500 an hour, according to contracts released Friday under the state’s open records law. The law firm Evers has hired is charging taxpayers $275 an hour.

The deals Evers cut are capped at $100,000, though that limit could be raised if the litigation is extensive. There are no caps on how much attorneys for the Republicans can charge.

  Five of the Best Street Food Finds in Paris:

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of nineteen.  Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 5:19 PM, for 10h 17m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 18.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1870, Pres. Grant signs a joint resolution authorizing a national weather service, long a dream of Milwaukee scientist Increase Lapham:

Lapham, 19th-century Wisconsin’s premier natural scientist, proposed a national weather service after he mapped data contributed over telegraph lines in the Upper Midwest and realized that weather might be predicted in advance.

Recommended for reading in full:

David Glovin and Andrew Martin report Manafort Prosecutors Have Questions About $1 Million Condo Loan:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller wants to know more about a $1 million loan made to Paul Manafort’s family in the days after the FBI raided his home.

Mueller’s prosecutors on Thursday told a court they needed to know more about the August 2017 loan, from a Nevada company called Woodlawn LLC. Manafort, the onetime chairman of President Donald Trump’s campaign, guaranteed the loan, which was secured by the family’s interest in a Manhattan condominium, according to court papers.

As Manafort’s legal problems escalated, Woodlawn installed a Hollywood bit player named Joey Rappa as its “managing member” in public filings. The investor or investors funding the loan wanted to remain anonymous given the potential for embarrassment, according to a lawyer for the lender.

Now that prosecutors are seeking to seize the condo after Manafort’s conviction on tax- and bank-fraud charges, Woodlawn is staking a claim to it in order to collect on the debt.

But one riddle remains: Who actually funded the $1 million loan?

 Aaron Blake assesses What we learned from the Matthew G. Whitaker hearing:

Whitaker might not have revealed anything disastrous, but he was an unsteady witness. At the start of the hearing, he decided to tell the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), that Nadler had exceeded his allotted five minutes for questions, earning gasps and laughter from those assembled. He repeatedly told members that this was an oversight hearing and not a confirmation hearing, even though they were generally asking him about the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III (over which he has oversight). He repeatedly and obviously stalled by avoiding easy yes-or-no questions or not answering at all. He often referred to how little fun he was having during the hearing and how little time he had left in his job, given Barr has a confirmation vote next week.

None of it inspired much confidence from the nation’s active leading law enforcement official. There are ways to deftly maneuver these things without giving away too much (as Barr showed us in his confirmation hearing). But Whitaker seemed to be holding on for dear life, intent to run out the clock — both during questioning and on his time as acting attorney general.

  How Planes Land Sideways In High Winds:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny & breezy with a high of ten.  Sunrise is 7:00 AM and sunset 5:17 PM, for 10h 17m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 11.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1958, a Wisconsin representative starts a fight in Congress:

Just before the Civil War, the issue of slavery tore apart the U.S. Congress. On February 8, 1858, Wisconsin Rep. John Potter (considered a backwoods hooligan by Southern aristocrats) leaped into a fight on the House floor. When Potter embarrassed a pro-slavery brawler by pulling off his wig, the gallery shouted that he’d taken a Southern scalp. Potter emerged from the melee covered in blood and marked by slave owners as an enemy. Two years later, on April 5, 1860, he accused Virginia Rep. Roger Pryor of falsifying the Congressional record. Pryor, feeling his character impugned, challenged Potter to a duel. According to Southern custom, a person challenged had the right to choose weapons. Potter replied that he would only fight with “Bowie knives in a closed room,” and his Southern challenger beat a hasty retreat. Republican supporters around the nation sent Potter Bowie knives as a tribute, including this six-foot-long one.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Molly Beck reports Scott Walker gets a new gig charging up to $25,000 per speech:

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker has a new gig charging five figures to give speeches about politics and his time in public office in Wisconsin.

Walker announced Thursday he would be joining Worldwide Speakers Group, which coordinates speaking engagements for former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.

Walker’s speaking fee ranges between $15,000 and $25,000 per engagement. According to the group’s website, Walker’s speech topics include:

• Leadership Lessons: How big, bold reforms work.
• Insights on the current political (and future) landscape in America
• Crisis Management: How to turn a serious challenge into a major opportunity
• Power to the People: Sending resources and responsibilities to the states.
• The Power of Faith in Times of Crisis

(Oh brother: there just aren’t many organizations willing to pay $25,000 for the excitement of watching paint dry.)

 Ron Brownstein observes Trump Is Walling Off the GOP:

The strength of his appeal to the white voters most hostile to economic and social change remains a powerful asset, particularly because the Electoral College and two-senator-per-state rule amplify the influence of interior states where those voters are most prevalent. But the magnitude of the GOP’s defeat in House elections last fall suggests the size of the coalition that Trump is potentially solidifying against his party, particularly as the unprecedentedly diverse Millennial and post-Millennial generations grow as a share of the electorate. As [Peter] Wehner noted, “the real problem” Trump is creating for the GOP is that “the very thing that alienates the Republican Party from most of the public is the very thing that energizes most of the base, which is cultural identity and ethnic nationalism.”

   So, Are All Galaxies the Same?

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will ee freezing rain with a high of thirty-six.  Sunrise is 7:01 AM and sunset 5:16 PM, for 10h 15m 02s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing crescent with 6% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1867, Laura Ingalls Wilder is born near Pepin, Wisconsin.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Rick Romell reports For third straight year, Wisconsin ranks last in business startup activity:

Another year, another last-place ranking for Wisconsin on the business startup front.

For the third year running, Wisconsin has placed 50th among the 50 states in startup activity as measured by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, one of the country’s leading entrepreneurship advocacy and research organizations.

Not only was Wisconsin last; the gap between Wisconsin and the next-lowest states widened significantly from 2016 and 2015. While other states are clustered with relatively small differences from one state to the next, Wisconsin stands as an outlier – on the low end.

(How very surprising, as by using a public-subsidies approach Gov. Walker insisted for each of his eight years that Wisconsin was open for business…)

 Dan Friedman reports Investigators Are Zeroing in on Top NRA Leaders’ Russia Ties—and Challenging the Gun Group’s Story:

After remaining all but mum for the past two years about news reports detailing its ties to Russia, the National Rifle Association finally spoke up this week. The gun group tried to distance itself from a 2015 trip to Moscow by top NRA officials that was arranged by Maria Butina, who pleaded guilty last year to acting as a Russian agent and participating in a conspiracy against the United States. But congressional investigators are challenging the NRA on what they think is a bogus cover story and stepping up investigations of the group.

The 2015 Moscow trip has drawn attention in particular because it appears to have been a key development in an influence campaign orchestrated by Butina and her handler, Russian official Alexander Torshin, to try to cultivate ties with American conservatives and Republicans—eventually including Donald Trump—and nudge them toward pro-Russia policies. Amid the mounting pressure, NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre finally broke his silence on the matter, asserting through attorneys this week that he had opposed the trip and acted to distance the gun group from it.

But Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, who is investigating the NRA as the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, has information contradicting the gun group’s claims that it had no “official” connection to the 2015 Moscow trip, sources told Mother Jones. Wyden is preparing a detailed report on the trip. And congressional investigators are homing in on David Keene, a former NRA president who was the trip’s primary organizer on the NRA side, according to people familiar with the matter.

….

Keene, a longtime conservative Republican figurehead and former opinion editor for the Washington Times, also sought an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the trip, according to reports this week, though one did not take place.

  Tiny meteorites are everywhere. Here’s how to find them: