Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-eight.  Sunrise is 7:07 AM and sunset 5:09 PM, for 10h 02m 31s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 4.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1905, professional baseball arrives for five Wisconsin cities with the formation of the Wisconsin State League.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Natasha Bertrand writes Russia Is Attacking the U.S. System From Within:

Last year, I detailed how Russia has figured out how to use the U.S. immigration courts and so-called “Red Notices” issued by Interpol to harass and even detain its enemies. But it doesn’t end there. Experts say Kremlin proxies have targeted their rivals and other disfavored individuals by exploiting U.S. courts to pursue bogus claims via “superficially legitimate lawsuits,” Anders Aslund, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said in a recent report.

When Mueller indicted Concord Management and Consulting in February 2018, along with two other corporate entities and 13 Russian nationals allegedly connected to the Internet Research Agency, it seemed highly unlikely that the indictment would result in a trial because Russians cannot be extradited to the United States. But Concord unexpectedly hired the well-connected American law firm, Reed Smith, to fight Mueller, arguing that the charges should be dropped because the special counsel was illegally appointed. The judge in the case, Dabney Friedrich, has twice refused to dismiss the case and recently lambasted Concord’s American  lawyers for submitting “unprofessional, inappropriate and ineffective” court filings, and the legal battle has raged on.

Now, according to the Mueller filing this week, unidentified actors working out of Russia appear to have weaponize[d] the U.S. discovery process to Concord’s benefit. Over 1,000 files on the website that hosted the leaked documents “match those produced in discovery,” the special counsel said.  The documents were published from a computer with a Russian IP address, according to Mueller, and whoever released them clearly “had access to at least some of the non-sensitive discovery produced by the government.” But forged documents were mixed in to the trove, too, apparently in an attempt to accuse Mueller of characterizing American websites and Facebook pages like Occupy Democrats as Russian disinformation operations.

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Mueller, for his part, appears to have foreseen how the Russians connected to Concord Management (it is owned by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, often referred to as “Putin’s chef”) might try to exploit the legal process: In June 2018, he asked Judge Friedrich for a protective order that would prevent Concord’s lawyers from sharing any discovery documents with the Russians named in the troll farm indictment, as well as with other foreigners such as lawyers outside the U.S. If the data were to be distributed outside of American law firms, Mueller said, “foreign individuals may try to use that avenue as a way to obtain sensitive materials as part of an intelligence collection effort.” The hoax website aimed at discrediting his investigation largely failed, but seemed to prove Mueller’s prescience, beyond any doubt.

  The Night’s Sky for February 2019:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of eighteen.  Sunrise is 7:08 AM and sunset 5:08 PM, for 10h 00m 05s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 10% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1950, Curly Lambeau resigns as head coach of the Packers.

Recommended for reading in full:

Jackson Diehl writes Bernie Sanders is dead wrong about what’s happening in Venezuela:

Poorly informed leftists are peddling the notion that the political crisis in Venezuela is the product of yet another heavy-handed U.S.?“intervention” in Latin America. Sen.?Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) compares it to the U.S. support for coups in Chile, Guatemala, Brazil and the Dominican Republic.

For the record, those regime changes happened in 1973, 1954, 1964 and 1965 — and what’s happening in Venezuela half a century later bears no resemblance to them. On the contrary, the movement to oust the disastrous populist regime founded by Hugo Chávez is being driven by Venezuela’s own neighbors, who until very recently had more help from Ottawa than from Washington. What we’re seeing, in an era of U.S. retreat and dysfunction, is a 21st-century model for diplomacy in the Western Hemisphere.

….

Then came a humanitarian catastrophe without precedent in the region’s modern history: shortages of food, medicine, power and even water that have driven 10?percent of Venezuelans — more than 3 million?people— to flee the country. Suddenly, chavismo did not look so benign in Bogota and Brasilia. Swamped by refugees, Colombia and Brazil, along with Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Panama, concluded that something had to be done to stem the implosion.

Fortunately, they had a vehicle. In August 2017, 11 Latin American nations and Canada formed the Lima Group to press for the return of democracy in Venezuela. Reflecting the long-standing U.S. approach, the Trump administration encouraged the alliance but did not join it. After Maduro staged a blatantly fraudulent election last May, the group met at the United Nations last September to consider its options. Panama, backed by Canada, pushed the idea that Maduro’s scheduled inauguration to a new term on Jan. 10 should become a rallying point.

  David Brooks writes Kamala Harris, Call-Out Star (“The toughest progressive we’ve seen in a long time”):

The more you learn about Kamala Harris, the more formidable she appears. She is an amazing amalgam of different elements — highly educated elite meritocrat, Oakland street fighter, crusading, rough-elbow prosecutor, canny machine pol and telegenic rhetorical brawler.

She is also probably the toughest and most hard-nosed progressive on the scene right now.

….

To beat Trump, I suspect Democrats will want unity. They won’t want somebody who essentially runs against the Democratic establishment (Bernie Sanders); they’ll want somebody who embodies it (Harris). They’ll want somebody who seems able to pulverize Trump in a debate (Harris).

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But the larger issue may be temperament and toughness. Harris’s fearless, cut-the-crap rhetorical style will probably serve her well in this pugilistic political moment.

  The Ridiculous Way British Sailors Were Ordered to Stop German U-boats During WWI:

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of four below.  Sunrise is 7:09 AM and sunset 5:07 PM, for 9h 57m 42s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 16.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1950, Pres. Truman announces plans to develop a hydrogen bomb.  (Scientists successfully detonated an h-bomb two and a half years later.)

Recommended for reading in full:

 Tom Winter reports Mueller says Russians are using his discovery materials in disinformation effort:

Russians are using materials obtained from special counsel Robert Mueller’s office in a disinformation campaign apparently aimed at discrediting the investigation into Moscow’s election interference, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday.

One or more people associated with the special counsel’s case against Russian hackers made statements last October claiming to have stolen discovery materials that were originally provided by Mueller to Concord Management, Mueller’s team said in court documents filed on Wednesday in the Russian troll farm case.

That discovery — evidence and documents traded between both sides of a lawsuit — appears to have been altered and disseminated as part of a disinformation campaign apparently aimed at discrediting the ongoing investigations in Russian interference in the U.S. political system, according to the documents.

Concord Management, a company owned by a Russian oligarch known as President Vladimir Putin’s “chef,” is one of three Russian entities that were accused by the special counsel last February of helping to mastermind the social media meddling into the 2016 election. Thirteen Russian citizens were also indicted and accused of taking part in the widespread effort.

According to the documents filed Wednesday, a Twitter account called @HackingRedstone tweeted: “We’ve got access to the Special Counsel Mueller’s probe database as we hacked Russian server with info from the Russian troll case Concord LLC v. Mueller. You can view all the files Mueller had about the IRA and Russian collusion. Enjoy the reading!”

The account has since been suspended.

  Pete Madden and Matthew Mosk report NRA says 2015 Moscow trip wasn’t ‘official.’ Emails, photos reveal gun group’s role:

The National Rifle Association made its first public attempt this week to distance itself from any formal involvement in a now infamous trip to Moscow undertaken by a group of its high-ranking members, but internal NRA emails and photos posted on social media reviewed by ABC News appear to show the organization was significantly involved in planning it.

Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who has launched an investigation of the NRA and written a series of letters seeking “information and documentation” about the trip, disputed the NRA’s public attempt to distance itself from the trip.

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Emails sent by NRA officials before the trip, as well as photos taken during the visit, offer greater detail about the organization’s role in arranging the excursion.

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Other emails suggest that the NRA would pay for travel expenses for two delegation members and provide formal NRA “gifts” for the delegation to present to their Russian hosts.

  How Balloons Pop:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of twelve below, and much colder wind chill temperatures.  Sunrise is 7:10 AM and sunset 5:05 PM, for 9h 55m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waning crescent with 24.4% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1948, an assassin kills Gandhi.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Conservative Michael Gerson writes Trump is a fraud:

His reputation as a self-made billionaire lies in ruins. An extensive New York Times article on Trump’s wealth found a bassinet millionaire, consistently bailed out of bad bets, who dodged gift taxes, milked his empire for cash and cultivated a deceptive image of business brilliance. And special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation may reveal serious corruption and perjury in cataloguing Trump’s 30-year panting desire to sell his brand in Russia.

And who can take Trump seriously as a manager? He has a talent for weeding out the talented and responsible. He is a world-class nepotist. He is incapable of delegation or of taking conflicting advice. He is unreliable in dealing with his allies. He is capable of taking several conflicting policy views on the same topic — be it health care, or the “dreamers,” or gun control — in a matter of days or hours. He often has no clear goals. He has no attention span and is consistently ignorant of details. He is prone to vicious and public abuse of rivals and of employees. Try to put that profile up on LinkedIn.

Those 37 percent who approve of Trump’s performance may point to the state of the economy or the composition of the Supreme Court. They may be impressed by his destruction of norms or enthused by his promotion of exclusion. They may want a president who speaks his mind, even when it is hateful gibberish. They may want a president who is an institutional arsonist, even if the result is mere destruction.

….

We have plumbed the shallows of his boasts. They are refuted lies. And whatever else the president may be, he is a fraud.

  Chuck Rosenberg writes Roger Stone’s Arrest Was Appropriate, Not Heavy-Handed:

Read, for instance, page 20 of the indictment, where prosecutors note that Stone emailed one witness and called him a “rat” and a “stoolie” and threatened to take that witness’s dog away from him. In another email that same day to that same witness, according to the indictment, Stone wrote “I am so ready. Let’s get it on. Prepare to die [expletive].”

Law enforcement simply does not hand a summons to someone who threatens to kill a witness and trust that person to act responsibly with it.  No conscientious prosecutor would think a summons appropriate there, or think that a threat to kill a witness is simply what targets of grand jury investigations routinely do.

The witness tampering alleged here is more than just someone asking another, “pretty please,” to lie.  Rather, it includes a death threat against a witness:  “Prepare to die [expletive].”

  Bringing a fossil to life by reverse-engineering locomotion: