Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with blowing snow, and a high of twenty-three.  Sunrise is 7:19 AM and sunset 4:51 PM, for 9h 31m 49s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe is born.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Robert O’Harrow Jr. reports A $450 dinner, $45 whiskey: Political appointee, aide ring up the expenses:

They are federal financial regulators who filed for expenses like corporate CEOs, seeking reimbursement for limos, deluxe air travel and meals in posh restaurants.

There was an UberBlack ride from the District to neighboring Alexandria, Va., for $250, according to internal records obtained by The Washington Post. Two airline tickets to a meeting in Vienna came in at more than $11,000 each, even as a staffer found a way to the same event for a fraction of the price. A meal for three at Joe’s Seafood near the White House cost $450 — including $45 for a dish of Dover sole and $43 for halibut, according to receipts for the meal.

J. Mark McWatters, head of the National Credit Union Administration, and his chief of staff, Sarah Vega, and their guests also showed a fondness for wine and top-shelf liquor, including, in one instance, a $45 glass of 18-year-old single-malt whiskey, records show. In 2016 and 2017, they expensed more than $2,500 worth of alcoholic beverages — most of it under Vega’s account — despite a written policy prohibiting reimbursement for the purchase of alcohol.

(The transgression isn’t the meal’s cost; the transgression is expecting taxpayers to pay for it. McWatters and Vega may do as they wish, on their own time, with their own money.)

 Patrick Marley reports Judge finds Republicans violated free speech rights by blocking liberal group on Twitter:

MADISON – A federal judge ruled Friday that three Wisconsin Republicans violated the First Amendment rights of a liberal group by blocking it on Twitter.

U.S. District Judge William Conley found in a 30-page ruling that Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester and two others had acted unconstitutionally by blocking One Wisconsin Now on Twitter “because of its prior speech or identity.”

One Wisconsin Now — an advocacy group that frequently tweaks Republicans online — in 2017 sued Vos, Rep. John Nygren of Marinette and then-Rep. Jesse Kremer of Kewaskum for blocking it on Twitter.

By blocking One Wisconsin Now, the three lawmakers prevented the group from responding to their posts and offering its own — often snarky — point of view.

Conley, who was appointed to the bench in 2010 by President Barack Obama, determined the three Republicans ran their Twitter accounts as public officials. By operating those accounts, they chose to participate in an interactive forum open to the general public, he wrote.

“Having opted to create a Twitter account … and benefit from its broad, public reach, defendants cannot now divorce themselves from its First Amendment implications and responsibilities as state actors,” he wrote.

Orca Calf Offers Hope for a Fading Group in the Pacific Northwest:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with snow falling in the late afternoon, and a high of twenty-seven.  Sunrise is 7:20 AM and sunset 4:50 PM, for 9h 29m 57s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 89.8% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1803, Pres. Jefferson requests funding for what would become the Lewis and Clark expedition.

Recommended for reading in full:

 Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier report President Trump Directed His Attorney Michael Cohen To Lie To Congress About The Moscow Tower Project (“Trump received 10 personal updates from Michael Cohen and encouraged a planned meeting with Vladimir Putin”):

President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.

Trump also supported a plan, set up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. “Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.

And even as Trump told the public he had no business deals with Russia, the sources said Trump and his children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project.

Update: But see In a rare move, Mueller’s office denies BuzzFeed report that Trump told Cohen to lie about Moscow project.

Mikhaila Fogel, Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, Matthew Kahn, and Benjamin Wittes assess this news in The Latest Revelation From BuzzFeed News: Trump Reportedly Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress:

First, the criminality alleged in this story is—if true—unsubtle and unambiguous, directly related to the president’s conduct as president, and concerning matters of great import.

This story is the first direct allegation of a crime by Trump involving L’Affaire Russe for which the president cannot claim that his actions were authorized by the Article II powers of the presidency. There is an active debate about the degree to which the obstruction statutes can or cannot be applied to facially valid exercises of presidential authority—like, for example, firing the FBI director or directing the conduct of an investigation. There is no debate, by contrast, about whether the president can obstruct justice in his conduct outside of his authorities as president.

Eric Mack explains How to see the last ‘super blood wolf moon’ lunar eclipse for 18 years:

Starting at around 7:34 p.m. PT or 10:34 p.m. ET Sunday, a partial eclipse will begin, with the full eclipse starting a little over an hour later. You can safely look at the blood moon from anywhere skies are clear enough, unlike solar eclipses that require special eye protection in most cases. The main event lasts about an hour.

If skies don’t cooperate or you can’t be bothered to step outside for some reason to see it for yourself, you can catch the livestream from the Virtual Telescope Project in Rome below. There’s also a handful of other eclipses still to come in 2019.

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-five.  Sunrise is 7:21 AM and sunset 4:49 PM, for 9h 28m 07s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 81.9% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority is scheduled to meet at 5:30 PM. (For a category at FREE WHITEWATER with posts describing the years-long failure of the Whitewater CDA’s approach, see CDA.)

On this day in 1864, the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry fights in the Battle of Dandridge, Tennessee.

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 Patrick Marley reports Wisconsin GOP lawmakers seek to hire attorneys at taxpayer expense to defend lame-duck laws:

Republican legislators have taken the first step to hiring private attorneys at taxpayer expense to fight a lawsuit challenging lame-duck laws that limit the power of Democratic officials and curtail early voting.

Top lawmakers were asked Wednesday to sign off on hiring lawyers without knowing what it would cost. If approved, two GOP leaders — Assembly Speaker Robin Vos of Rochester and Senate President Roger Roth of Appleton — would be given the power to determine whom to hire and how much to pay them.

The effort comes at a time when Vos has refused to release a legal contract in another case that is expected to cost taxpayers at least $850,000.

 Allyson Chiu reports Rudy Giuliani: ‘I never said there was no collusion’ between Trump campaign and Russia:

Rudolph W. Giuliani claimed Wednesday night that he “never said there was no collusion” between President Trump’s campaign and Russia leading up to the 2016 presidential election.

In a remarkable, at times contentious, interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, the president’s lawyer was accused of contradicting his own past statements about collusion as well as what Trump and his supporters have repeatedly asserted. On Twitter, Trump has used the phrase “no collusion” dozens of times, and a number of those instances were direct denials that his campaign was involved with the Russian government.

Giuliani’s shocking declarations — several of which Cuomo called out as being false — quickly sent the Internet into a tailspin as many wondered what could have prompted the former New York mayor to suddenly change course.

….

As recently as July, Giuliani was asked by Fox News contributor Guy Benson, “Regardless of whether collusion would be a crime, is it still the position of you and your client that there was no collusion with the Russians whatsoever on behalf of the Trump campaign?”

“Correct,” Giuliani responded at the time.

But on Wednesday, Giuliani appeared to amend his previous comments on the subject.

Spencer S. Hsu reports New court filing indicates prosecutors have extensive details on Manafort actions not yet made public:

Prosecutors working for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III have intensively scrutinized Paul Manafort’s activities after President Trump’s election — including after Manafort was criminally charged — and indicated they have extensive details not yet made public about Manafort’s interactions with former Russian aide Konstantin Kilimnik and others, a Tuesday court filing showed.

That Time a Heineken Distributor Convinced the Masses That Corona Contained Human Urine:

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of twenty-nine.  Sunrise is 7:21 AM and sunset 4:47 PM, for 9h 26m 20s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.6% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater School Board’s Policy Review Committee is scheduled to meet at 8 AM.

On this day in 1888, Wisconsin resident William Vilas becomes United States Secretary of the Interior.

Recommended for reading in full:

Jim Tankersley reports Shutdown’s Economic Damage Starts to Pile Up, Threatening an End to Growth:

The partial government shutdown is inflicting far greater damage on the United States economy than previously estimated, the White House acknowledged on Tuesday, as President Trump’s economists doubled projections of how much economic growth is being lost each week the standoff with Democrats continues.

The revised estimates from the Council of Economic Advisers show that the shutdown, now in its fourth week, is beginning to have real economic consequences. The analysis, and other projections from outside the White House, suggests that the shutdown has already weighed significantly on growth and could ultimately push the United States economy into a contraction.

….

Mr. Hassett [chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers] said on Tuesday that the administration now calculates that the shutdown reduces quarterly economic growth by 0.13 percentage points for every week that it lasts — the cumulative effect of lost work from contractors and furloughed federal employees who are not getting paid and who are investing and spending less as a result. That means that the economy has already lost nearly half a percentage point of growth from the four-week shutdown. (Last year, economic growth for the first quarter totaled 2.2 percent.)

(Making America Stagnant Again.)

 Bill Kaplan describes How Shutdown Is Hurting State:

Wisconsin dairy and other farmers are no longer receiving special payments because of the loss of foreign markets. “States like Wisconsin, which lost at least 638 dairy farms last year, are particularly vulnerable” (New York Times). Wisconsin Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin had added programs to the farm bill to help alleviate the burden of low prices and resultant stress. The shutdown has put everything on hold. Baldwin said: “More uncertainty and more stress. We can’t afford to wait months. We need to get this moving now.”

The shutdown also threatens FDA inspection of Wisconsin food processing companies (vegetables). Similarly, EPA inspections of state Superfund sites, chemical and industrial factories and water treatment facilities, are on hold. And, Wisconsin Native Americans are in trouble. The Oneida Nation said: “the shutdown is putting the health and welfare of our community and our members at risk and impeding our economic development potential”.

 Deer in Door County rescued after falling through ice:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of thirty-four.  Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:46 PM, for 9h 24m 36s of daytime.  The moon is a waxing gibbous with 62.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

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

On this day in 1967, the Packers win the first Super Bowl (35-10 over the Chiefs).

Recommended for reading in full:

Julian E. Barnes and Helene Cooper report Trump Discussed Pulling U.S. From NATO, Aides Say Amid New Concerns Over Russia:

There are few things that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia desires more than the weakening of NATO, the military alliance among the United States, Europe and Canada that has deterred Soviet and Russian aggression for 70 years.

Last year, President Trump suggested a move tantamount to destroying NATO: the withdrawal of the United States.

Senior administration officials told The New York Times that several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Current and former officials who support the alliance said they feared Mr. Trump could return to his threat as allied military spending continued to lag behind the goals the president had set.

(No greater gift to Vladimir Vladimirovich than the end of American participation in the NATO alliance.)

 Fred Kaplan considers Trump and Putin’s Cone of Seclusion (“It’s not just unusual that there are no notes from Trump’s meetings with Putin. It’s unprecedented”):

Whether his translator’s notes hold anything incriminating about Trump’s fealty to Putin, it is appalling that he would go into a one-on-one meeting with the Russian president without a note taker—especially given his shallow grasp of the issues and the very real possibility that he could have given away U.S. interests or disclosed vital secrets without understanding what he was doing. He also conducted his one-on-one with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at their summit in Singapore, without a note taker present.

….

Quite aside from matters that may be of concern to special counsel Robert Mueller, who knows what concessions Trump may have made in these sessions? In the follow-on meetings that have since taken place between U.S. and North Korean negotiators, American diplomats have sometimes raised points that they consider vital—only to have their North Korean counterpart wave it away, saying, “Go talk with your president.” Did Trump concede these issues in his one-on-one without telling his subordinates? We may never know; some U.S. officials suspect he did.

Meg Jones reports USO Wisconsin collecting gift cards for Coast Guardsmen working without pay because of shutdown:

Like other federal workers working without pay, Coast Guard members and their families are facing hardship paying bills, buying groceries and filling gas tanks.

To help, USO Wisconsin has started a gift card collection for local Coast Guardsmen and their families.

How to help pollinators in cities: