Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-three. Sunrise is 6:36 AM and sunset 4:40 PM, for 10h 03m 23s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 92.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred sixty-second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Downtown Whitewater, Inc. board will meet today at 5 PM.

On this day in 1860, former Illinois congressman Abraham Lincoln is elected President of the United States, defeating John Breckinridge, John Bell and Stephen Douglas. On this day in 1837, Burlington, Iowa is picked as the temporary capital of the Wisconsin Territory: “A year earlier, legislators offered a bill making Madison the capital with a temporary capital in Dubuque until which time a permanent building could be constructed in Madison. Legislators also proposed the City of Belmont as a temporary capital. One month later, on December 12th, a fire destroyed the two-story temporary capital in Burlington. The new legislature moved its headquarters to the Webber and Remey’s store in Burlington where they conducted government affairs until June 1838.[Source: State of Wisconsin Blue Book].”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Jon Swaine and Luke Harding report Trump commerce secretary’s business links with Putin family laid out in leaked files:

Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, is doing business with Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law through a shipping venture in Russia.

Leaked documents and public filings show Ross holds a stake in a shipping company, Navigator, through a chain of offshore investments. Navigator operates a lucrative partnership with Sibur, a Russian gas company part-owned by Kirill Shamalov, the husband of Putin’s daughter Katerina Tikhonova.

Ross, a billionaire and close friend of Trump, retained holdings in Navigator after taking office this year. The relationship means he stands to benefit from the operations of a Russian company run by Putin’s family and close allies, some of whom are under US sanctions.

Corporate records show Navigator ramped up its relationship with Sibur from 2014, as the US and EU imposed sanctions on Russians. The measures followed Putin’s aggression in eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea. Navigator has collected $68m in revenue from its Sibur partnership since 2014.

Michael S. Schmidt, Matt Apuzzo, and Scott Shane report Trump and Sessions Denied Knowing About Russian Contacts. Records Suggest Otherwise:

WASHINGTON — Standing before reporters in February, President Trump said unequivocally that he knew of nobody from his campaign who was in contact with Russians during the election. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has told the Senate the same thing.

Court documents unsealed this week cast doubt on both statements and raised the possibility that Mr. Sessions could be called back to Congress for further questioning.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, unsealed his first charges Monday in a wide-ranging investigation into Russian attempts to disrupt the presidential election and whether anyone close to Mr. Trump was involved. Records in that case show that George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser, had frequent discussions with Russians in 2016 and trumpeted his connections in front of Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions.

For months, journalists have revealed evidence that associates of Mr. Trump met with Russians during the campaign and the presidential transition. But the court documents represent the first concrete evidence that Mr. Trump was personally told about ties between a campaign adviser and Russian officials.

Rosalind S. Helderman, Tom Hamburger and Carol D. Leonnig report At least nine people in Trump’s orbit had contact with Russians during campaign and transition:

….While Trump has sought to dismiss these Russia ties as insignificant, or characterized the people involved in them as peripheral figures, it has now become clear that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III views at least some of them as important pieces of his sprawling investigation of Russian meddling in last year’s presidential campaign.

Documents released last week as part of Papadopoulos’s guilty plea show that Mueller’s team is deeply interested in the Trump campaign’s operations, including possible links to Moscow, at even the lowest levels. And Mueller’s interest in Russian contacts may extend to Trump’s business, as well, with the special counsel’s office recently asking for records related to a failed 2015 proposal for a Moscow Trump Tower, according to a person familiar with the request….

Jon Swaine and Luke Harding also report Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner associate (“Institutions with close links to Kremlin financed stakes through business associate of Trump’s son-in-law, leaked files reveal”):

 Two Russian state institutions with close ties to Vladimir Putin funded substantial investments in Twitter and Facebook through a business associate of Jared Kushner, leaked documents reveal.The investments were made through a Russian technology magnate, Yuri Milner, who also holds a stake in a company co-owned by Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser.

The discovery is likely to stir concerns over Russian influence in US politics and the role played by social media in last year’s presidential election. It may also raise new questions for the social media companies and for Kushner

Alexander Vershbow, who was a US ambassador to Russiaunder George W Bush and to Nato under Bill Clinton, said the Russian state institutions were frequently used as “tools for Putin’s pet political projects”.

Vershbow said the findings were concerning in light of efforts by Moscow to disrupt US democracy and public debate. “There clearly was a wider plan, despite Putin’s protestations to the contrary,” he said….

South Korea is getting ready for the 2018 Winter Olympics —

Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty-one. Sunrise is 6:35 AM and sunset 4:41 PM, for 10h 05m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred sixty-first day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1912, Wisconsin voters (men only) consider a referendum on women’s suffrage, when they “considered a proposal to allow women to vote. When the referendum was over, Wisconsin men voted women’s suffrage down by a margin of 63 to 37 percent. The referendum’s defeat could be traced to multiple causes, but the two most widely cited reasons were schisms within the women’s movement itself and a perceived link between suffragists and temperance that antagonized many German American voters. Although women were granted the vote in 1920 by the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Wisconsin’s own constitution continued to define voters as male until 1934. [Source: Turning Points in Wisconsin History]”

Recommended for reading in full:

Dan Balz and Scott Clement report Trump’s approval rating is far lower than any president in 7 decades of polling:

A majority of Americans say President Trump has not accomplished much during his first nine months in office and they have delivered a report card that is far harsher even than the tepid expectations they set for his tenure when he was sworn into office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News survey.

Approaching the first anniversary of his victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, Trump has an approval rating demonstrably lower than any previous chief executive at this point in his presidency over seven decades of polling. Fewer than 4 in 10 Americans — 37 percent — say they approve of the way he is handling his job.

Trump’s approval rating has changed little over the past four months, which have included tumultuous events, from hurricanes to legislative setbacks to indictments in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into the role Russia played in the 2016 campaign….

(Trump received three million fewer votes than Clinton, received that minority share of the vote with Russian help, is historically at the bottom of polling for a sitting president, is collapsing nationally among rural voters, and was decisively  rejected here within the City of Whitewater on election day. When one encounters someone from what’s left of Trump’s base taking up about him, it’s worth remembering and reminding of these uncontestable truths.)

Tai Ragan writes Don’t Lose Focus: Here Is Every Scandal Plaguing Donald Trump (“The Trump presidency is defined by the presence of scandal”):

Donald J. Trump has led a confrontational social and business life that often landed him in the tabloids. In both his personal and professional life he has been notoriously litigious and has been mired in many scandals over the years. The press mostly emphasized President Trump’s controversies while on the campaign trail, but a brighter light has shown on his actions since taking office.

Several books could be written on the events plaguing this administration, but these are the most egregious scandals [list that follows includes Trump-Russia, Nepotism And Swamp Creatures, Dog Whistling Dixie, Conflicts, Sexual Harassment & Assault, Gross Ineptitude]….

Ellen Nakashima reports U.S. investigators have identified Russian government hackers who breached the DNC:

Federal investigators have identified several Russian government hackers who penetrated the Democratic National Committee’s computers last year and siphoned out information that was released online, according to individuals familiar with the matter.

Gathering the evidence necessary to bring charges against them has proven to be a challenge, and it is not clear when that might happen, the individuals said. Prosecutors and FBI agents have been in discussions about the case and could bring charges next year, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Justice Department declined to comment. Russian President Vladi­mir Putin has denied his government played any role in the hacking or in seeking to influence the 2016 election….

Anna Nemtsova reports Ukraine Believes Paul Manafort’s Crimes Go Way Beyond Money Laundering:

MOSCOW—Many of Kiev’s journalists, investigators, and officials felt genuinely happy on Monday when they heard Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, had been indicted on charges of laundering more than $18 million from Ukraine.

Most of the 12 counts of the indictment pulled together by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team spoke about Manafort’s illegal financial deals when he was working for Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin Party of Regions from 2006 onward. It also accused him of “conspiracy against the United States,” since Manafort allegedly used multiple shell companies to hide his money, and never bothered to inform U.S. authorities about the true size of his income.

Manafort had racked up this fortune as an adviser to the infamously corrupt Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled into exile in Russia in 2014. So, to see Manafort brought up on charges and threatened with jail time was considered a triumph for Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, which overthrew Yanukovych. During the uprising, which centered on Kiev’s central square, the Maidan Nezalezhnosti, more than 100 people lost their lives in 2014.

“It is very important for Ukraine to never see such a phenomenon as Manafort on its soil ever again,” journalist and commentator Ekaterina Sergatskova told The Daily Beast. “He symbolizes the ‘old regime’ of money laundering, corrupt lobbying, dirty scams—the regime that made millions suffer—both in Ukraine and in United States. Manafort served a regime that worked under Russia’s total control—that regime should never come to power in Ukraine again.”

How ’bout A Michelin-Starred Meal for $1.50?

Chan Hon Meng is the master chef behind “Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle,” the food cart home to the cheapest Michelin-starred meal in the world. Ringing in at a mere $1.50, Meng’s perfected braised chicken recipe was passed down to him by his uncle. Now, he’s serving hundreds of meals a day out of his hawker in Singapore. And while his food has gained acclaim and recognition across the culinary community, Meng hasn’t forgotten his roots. He’s still serving up the same great food, all for under two bucks.

Good mornng.

Saturday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of forty-seven. Sunrise is 7:34 AM and sunset 5:42 PM, for 10h 08m 23s. We’ve a full moon, with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred sixtieth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1922, British archaeologist and Egyptologist Howard Carter discovers entrance to King Tutankhamen’s tomb. On this day in 1847, the first class assembles at Beloit College.

Recommended for reading in full —

Philip Rucker and Matt Zapotosky report Trump breaches boundaries by saying DOJ should be ‘going after’ Democrats:

President Trump on Friday repeatedly called on the Department of Justice and FBI to investigate his Democratic political opponents, a breach of the traditional executive branch boundaries designed to prevent the criminal justice system from becoming politicized.

Trump urged federal law enforcement to “do what is right and proper” by launching criminal probes of former presidential rival Hillary Clinton and her party — a surprising use of his bully pulpit considering he acknowledged a day earlier that presidents are not supposed to intervene in such decisions.

In a flurry of accusatory morning tweets, Trump claimed there was mounting public pressure for new Clinton probes, including over her campaign’s joint fundraising agreement with the Democratic National Committee that effectively gave her some control over the party’s finances, strategy and staffing before the primaries began….

(Trump, expressing himself as what he is: authoritarian.)

Mark Mazzetti  and Adam Goldman report Trump Campaign Adviser Met With Russian Officials in 2016:

WASHINGTON — Carter Page, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump presidential campaign, met Russian government officials during a July 2016 trip he took to Moscow, according to testimony he gave on Thursday to the House Intelligence Committee.

Shortly after the trip, Mr. Page sent an email to at least one Trump campaign aide describing insights he had after conversations with government officials, legislators and business executives during his time in Moscow, according to one person familiar with the contents of the message. The email was read aloud during the closed-door testimony.

The new details of the trip present a different picture than the account Mr. Page has given during numerous appearances in the news media in recent months and are yet another example of a Trump adviser meeting with Russians officials during the 2016 campaign. In multiple interviews with The New York Times, he had either denied meeting with any Russian government officials during the July 2016 visit or sidestepped the question, saying he met with “mostly scholars”….

(The more one asks, the more one finds, of Trump operatives’ lies and misconduct.)

Carl Schreck asks Who Are The Russia Contacts In The Papadopoulos Plea?:

According to U.S. court documents unsealed this week, a foreign policy adviser to the campaign of President Donald Trump said he was in contact with Russian officials and had been told during the campaign that Moscow had “dirt” on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and “thousands of her e-mails.”

The documents related to the guilty plea of former adviser George Papadopoulos — the first admission of guilt to emerge from U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election and potential collusion by Trump associates — do not provide the names of Papadopoulos’s contacts.

But the identities of two of these individuals appear to have been confirmed — a man described in court documents as “the professor” and another as a “connection” to the Russian Foreign Ministry. The name of another — a woman Papadopoulos initially believed was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s niece — remained unclear as of October 31.

Here’s a look at key individuals with ties to Russia in the October 5 plea deal signed by Papadopoulos, whose arrest in July on charges of lying to FBI agents only came to light after court documents were unsealed on October 30, and what we know about them [list follows]….

David Corn and AJ Vincens report Hackers Compromised the Trump Organization 4 Years Ago—and the Company Never Noticed:

Four years ago, the Trump Organization experienced a major cyber breach that could have allowed the perpetrator (or perpetrators) to mount malware attacks from the company’s web domains and may have enabled the intruders to gain access to the company’s computer network. Up until this week, this penetration had gone undetected by President Donald Trump’s company, according to several internet security researchers.

In 2013, a hacker (or hackers) apparently obtained access to the Trump Organization’s domain registration account and created at least 250 website subdomains that cybersecurity experts refer to as “shadow” subdomains. Each one of these shadow Trump subdomains pointed to a Russian IP address, meaning that they were hosted at these Russian addresses. (Every website domain is associated with one or more IP addresses. These addresses allow the internet to find the server that hosts the website. Authentic Trump Organization domains point to IP addresses that are hosted in the United States or countries where the company operates.) The creation of these shadow subdomains within the Trump Organization network was visible in the publicly available records of the company’s domains.

Here is a list of a Trump Organization shadow subdomains.

The subdomains and their associated Russian IP addresses have repeatedly been linked to possible malware campaigns, having been flagged in well-known research databases as potentially associated with malware. The vast majority of the shadow subdomains remained active until this week, indicating that the Trump Organization had taken no steps to disable them. This suggests that the company for the past four years was unaware of the breach. Had the infiltration been caught by the Trump Organization, the firm should have immediately decommissioned the shadow subdomains….

It shouldn’t be confusing, but sometimes it is —

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of fotrty-eight. Sunrise is 7:32 AM and sunset 5:43 PM, for 10h 10m 52s of daytime. The moon is full, with 99.5% of its visible disk iluminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred fifty-ninth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1804, a controversial treaty is agreed in St. Louis: “Fox and Sauk negotiators in St. Louis traded 50 million acres of land in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois for an annuity of $1,000. The treaty allowed the tribes to remain on the land until it was sold to white settlers. However, Chief Black Hawk and others believed that the 1804 negotiators had no authority to speak for their nation, so the treaty was invalid. U.S. authorities, on the other hand, considered it binding and used it justify the Black Hawk War that occured in the spring and summer of 1832. [Source: Along the Black Hawk Trail by William F. Stark, p. 32-33]”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Betsy Woodruff reports Mueller Reveals New Manafort Link to Organized Crime:

Buried deep in Robert Mueller’s indictment of Paul Manafort is a new link between Donald Trump’s former campaign and Russian organized crime.

The indictment (PDF), unsealed on Monday, includes an extensive look into Paul Manafort’s byzantine financial dealings. In particular, it details how he used a company called Lucicle Consultants Limited to wire millions of dollars into the United States.

The Cyprus-based Lucicle Consultants Limited, in turn, reportedly received millions of dollars from a businessman and Ukrainian parliamentarian named Ivan Fursin, who is closely linked to one of Russia’s most notorious criminals: Semion Mogilevich.

Mogilevich is frequently described as “the most dangerous mobster in the world.” Currently believed to be safe in Moscow, he is, according to the FBI, responsible for weapons trafficking, contract killings, and international prostitution. In 2009, he made the bureau’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.

“Ivan Fursin was a senior figure in the Mogilevich criminal organization,” Taras Kuzio, a non-resident fellow at Johns Hopkins-SAIS’ Center for Transatlantic Relations and a specialist on the region told The Daily Beast.

Martin Sheil, a retired criminal investigator for the IRS, said the indictment, with its connections to Fursin, helps illuminate the murky world Manafort operated in before taking the reins of Trump’s presidential bid.

“This indictment strongly indicates the existence of a previously unknown relationship between an alleged Russian organized crime leader and Mr. Manafort,” Sheil told The Daily Beast….

(Trump surrounds himnself with men swimming in corruption and lies.)

Evan Perez, Pamela Brown and Shimon Prokupecz report Jared Kushner’s team turned over documents to special counsel in Russia investigation:

Jared Kushner has turned over documents in recent weeks to special counsel Robert Mueller as investigators have begun asking in witness interviews about Kushner’s role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey, CNN has learned.

Mueller’s investigators have expressed interest in Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a White House senior adviser, as part of its probe into Russian meddling, including potential obstruction of justice in Comey’s firing, sources familiar with the matter said.

Their questions about Kushner signal that Mueller’s investigators are reaching the President’s inner circle and have extended beyond the 2016 campaign to actions taken at the White House by high-level officials. It is not clear how Kushner’s advice to the President might relate to the overall Russia investigation or potential obstruction of justice….

John Santucci and James Meek report the White House was unaware top adviser testified before grand jury:

The White House first learned one of its senior staffers met with the grand jury hearing the case presented by the special counsel into alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 election not from the staffer but from media reports, sources with knowledge of the investigation tell ABC News.

Former Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis recently testified before that grand jury into his role on President Donald Trump’s campaign. Clovis currently serves as the senior White House adviser to the Department of Agriculture.

Clovis’ testimony comes on the heels of another Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleading guilty to lying to federal authorities. As part of Papadopoulos’ admission of guilt, details of emails were disclosed that showed him describing to top Trump campaign officials communications he had with contacts in Russia….

(Manafort & Clovis: both campaign chairmen at different times during Trump’s campaign. And yet, Trump promised he’d hire only the ‘best people‘…)

Ben Collins and Joseph Cox describe how Jenna Abrams, Russia’s Clown Troll Princess, Duped the Mainstream Media and the World:

….Those same users who followed @Jenn_Abrams for her perfect Kim Kardashian jokes would be blasted with her shoddily punctuated ideas on slavery and segregation just one month later.

“To those people, who hate the Confederate flag. Did you know that the flag and the war wasn’t about slavery, it was all about money,” Abrams’ account tweeted in April of last year.

The tweet went viral, earning heaps of ridicule from journalists, historians, and celebrities alike, then calls for support from far-right users coming to her defense.

That was the plan all along.

Congressional investigators working with social media companies have since confirmed that Abrams wasn’t who she said she was.

Her account was the creation of employees at the Internet Research Agency, or the Russian government-funded “troll farm,” in St. Petersburg.

Jenna Abrams, the freewheeling American blogger who believed in a return to segregation and said that many of America’s problems stemmed from PC culture run amok, did not exist….

A panoramic view of Burgundy doesn’t disappoint —

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of fifty. Sunrise is 7:31 AM and sunset 5:45 PM, for 10h 13m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred fifty-eighth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission is scheduled to meet at 6 PM, and her Fire Department to have a board meeting at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1947, Howard Hughes’s Hughes H-4 Hercules (‘Spruce Goose’) makes its only flight:

The Hughes H-4 Hercules (also known as the Spruce Goose registration NX37602) is a prototype strategic airliftflying boat designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft Company. Intended as a transatlantic flight transport for use during World War II, it was not completed in time to be used in the war. The aircraft made only one brief flight on November 2, 1947, and the project never advanced beyond the single example produced. Built from wood because of wartime restrictions on the use of aluminum and concerns about weight, it was nicknamed by critics the Spruce Goose, although it was made almost entirely of birch.^[2][3] The Hercules is the largest flying boat ever built, and it has the largest wingspan of any aircraft that has ever flown.^{[4][N 1]} It remains in good condition and is on display at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon, United States.^[5]

Recommended for reading in full —

Good morning.

A new month begins for Whitewater with afternoon showers and a high of forty-five. Sunrise is 7:30 AM and sunset 5:46 PM, for 10h 15m 55s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 91% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred fifty-seventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1765, Parliament passes the Stamp Act of 1765 (Duties in American Colonies Act 1765; 5 George III, c. 12). On this day in 1863, George Safford Parker is born: ” George Safford Parker was born in Shullsburg. While studying telegraphy in Janesville, he developed an interest in fountain pens. In 1891 he organized the Parker Pen Company in Janesville. The company gained world-wide acclaim for innovations like the duo-fold pen and pencil. Parker served as president of the company until 1933. Parker died on July 19, 1937. [Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography, p.280]”

Recommended for reading in full — 

David Graham writes John Kelly Is a Trumpist After All (“The White House chief of staff’s stylistic differences have obscured the extent to which he, like many Republicans, is aligned with the president on substance”):

….The most striking example of Kelly’s Trumpian views, however, is his commentary from Monday night on Fox News.

“I would tell you that Robert E. Lee was an honorable man,” Kelly said. “He was a man that gave up his country to fight for his state, which 150 years ago was more important than country. It was always loyalty to state first back in those days.  Now it’s different today. But the lack of an ability to compromise led to the Civil War, and men and women of good faith on both sides made their stand where their conscience had them make their stand.”

As my colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates explains in detail, this is an atrociously bad analysis of the causes of the war, but it is closely aligned with Trump’s own, bad historical sense. It is not surprising that Kelly and Trump might find common ground on issues like border security, but it is remarkable for Kelly to stick his neck out on the Civil War question, applauding the military chief of a treasonous rebellion and giving aid and comfort to neo-Confederates…..

(This is true of all those around Trump: they are in meaningful measure what he is.)

Ta-Nehisi Coates accurately describes What This Cruel War Was Over (“The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it”):

This examination should begin in South Carolina, the site of our present and past catastrophe. South Carolina was the first state to secede, two months after the election of Abraham Lincoln. It was in South Carolina that the Civil War began, when the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter. The state’s casus belli was neither vague nor hard to comprehend:

…A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

In citing slavery, South Carolina was less an outlier than a leader, setting the tone for other states, including Mississippi:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin…

(Coates cites additional examples in his essay, and elsewhere. There is no honor in those who committed violent treason in defense of slavery. None.)

Katelyn Polantz reports Manafort has 3 passports, traveled to China with phone registered under fake name:

Among the highlights:
* Manafort currently has three US passports, each under a different number. He has submitted 10 passport applications in roughly as many years, prosecutors said.
* This year, Manafort traveled to Mexico, China and Ecuador with a phone and email account registered under a fake name. (The name was not disclosed in the filings.)
* Over the past year, Manafort traveled to Dubai, Cancun, Panama City, Havana, Shanghai, Madrid, Tokyo and Grand Cayman Island.
* Both Manafort and Gates were frequent travelers to Cyprus. “Extensive travel of this nature further evidences a risk of flight,” the prosecutor’s filing said.
* Manafort wrote on loan applications and other financial documents that his assets were worth between $19 million in April 2012 and $136 million in May 2016.
* In some months, like while he served as Trump’s national campaign chairman in August 2016, Manafort’s assessment of his total worth fluctuated. In August 2016 he said his assets were worth $28 million, then wrote he had $63 million in assets on a different application.
* Gates “frequently changed banks and opened and closed bank accounts,” prosecutors said. In all, Gates opened 55 accounts with 13 financial institutions, the prosecutors’ court filing said. Some of his bank accounts were in England and Cyprus, where he held more than $10 million from 2010 to 2013.

(And yet, Trump promised to hire only the ‘best people.’ His definition of best differs from that of every other English speaker on the planet.)

Jason Schwartz reports Murdoch-owned outlets bash Mueller, seemingly in unison:

After having generally avoided Trump’s efforts to de-legitimize democratic institutions, the Journal last week wrote an editorial calling for special counsel Robert Mueller to resign and featured a contributor op-ed Sunday afternoon that said Trump should issue a blanket pardon in the Russian scandal, including of himself.

The Journal has also called for an investigation into Democratic Party collusion with Russia, a conservative talking point in the wake of a Washington Post report that Hillary Clinton’s campaign paid for some of the opposition research that led to the infamous “dossier” of anti-Trump information – but which made no suggestion of any collusion with Russia.

The points made in the pieces in the Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch, not only tracked with White House talking points but were similar to those being hawked on other Murdoch properties, including the New York Post and Fox News. On October 28, the Post also ran an op-ed calling for Mueller’s resignation, while Fox News personalities have beat a steady drum calling for attention to shift away from any investigation of Trump and toward Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

Reaction to the Journal pieces on Twitter was mostly unkind:

“WSJ edit page has gone full bats–t, now hosting an op-ed suggesting Trump pardon everyone, including himself,” tweeted Columbia Journalism School professor and former high-ranking Wall Street Journal editor Bill Grueskin.

“This is embarrassing for every good reporter at that paper,” New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones tweeted of the Journal editorial board’s call for Mueller to resign and Democrats to be investigated.

(It’s not unkind to call Murdoch’s foul approach what it is.)

So, Why are Buffalo Wings Called That? —

Good morning.

Halloween in Whitewater will be increasingly sunny as the day progresses with a high of forty-two. Sunrise is 7:29 AM and sunset 5:47 PM, for 10h 18m 28s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 83.4% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}three hundred fifty-sixth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1941, although not yet at war with the United States, a German U-boat sinks the USS Reuben James: “At daybreak on 31 October, she was torpedoed near Iceland^[2] by U-552 commanded by Kapitänleutnant Erich Topp. Reuben James had positioned herself between an ammunition ship in the convoy and the known position of a German “wolfpack“, a group of submarines poised to attack the convoy. Reuben James was hit forward by a torpedo meant for a merchant ship and her entire bow was blown off when a magazine exploded. The bow sank immediately. The aft section floated for five minutes before going down. Of a crew of seven officers and 136 enlisted men plus one enlisted passenger, 44 enlisted men and no officers survived.^{[1][2] “}

On this day in 1968, the Milwaukee Bucks win their first game: “the Milwaukee Bucks claimed their first victory, a 134-118 win over the Detroit Pistons in the Milwaukee Arena. The Bucks were 0-5 at the time, and Wayne Embry led Milwaukee with 30 points. Embry became the first player in Bucks history to score 30 or more points in a regular season game.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes assess Robert Mueller’s Show of Strength: A Quick and Dirty Analysis:

The first big takeaway from this morning’s flurry of charging and plea documents with respect to Paul Manafort Jr., Richard Gates III, and George Papadopoulos is this: The President of the United States had as his campaign chairman a man who had allegedly served for years as an unregistered foreign agent for a puppet government of Vladimir Putin, a man who was allegedly laundering remarkable sums of money even while running the now-president’s campaign, a man who allegedly lied about all of this to the FBI and the Justice Department.

The second big takeaway is even starker: A member of President Trump’s campaign team now admits that he was working with people he knew to be tied to the Russian government to “arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government officials” and to obtain “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of hacked emails—and that he lied about these activities to the FBI. He briefed President Trump on at least some them.

Before we dive any deeper into the Manafort-Gates indictment—charges to which both pled not guilty to today—or the Papadopoulos plea and stipulation, let’s pause a moment over these two remarkable claims, one of which we must still consider as allegation and the other of which we can now consider as admitted fact. President Trump, in short, had on his campaign at least one person, and allegedly two people, who actively worked with adversarial foreign governments in a fashion they sought to criminally conceal from investigators. One of them ran the campaign. The other, meanwhile, was interfacing with people he “understood to have substantial connections to Russian government officials” and with a person introduced to him as “a relative of Russian President Vladimir Putin with connections to senior Russian government officials.” All of this while President Trump was assuring the American people that he and his campaign had “nothing to do with Russia.“….

(Forget Fox News: these are serious matters.)

Tony Romm and Kurt Wagner report Facebook says 126 million people in the U.S. may have seen posts produced by Russian-government backed agents:

Facebook, Google and Twitter plan to tell congressional investigators this week that the scope of Russia’s campaign to spread disinformation on their sites — and to potentially disrupt the 2016 U.S. presidential race — is much broader than the companies initially reported.

At Facebook, roughly 126 million users in the United States may have seen posts, stories or other content created by Russian government-backed trolls around Election Day, according to a source familiar with the company’s forthcoming testimony to Congress. Previously, Facebook had only shared information on ads purchased by Kremlin-tied accounts, revealing that they reached more than 10 million U.S. users….

(The more one learns, the clearer Putin’s reach into America media becomes.)

Anne Applebaum asks Did Russia teach Paul Manafort all its dirty tricks?:

Years from now, historians may study the documents indicting Paul Manafort to understand just how the Russification of American public life was accomplished. Manafort is alleged to have laundered money, to have cheated on taxes and to have lied about his clientele. All of this he did in order to “enjoy a lavish lifestyle in the United States,” according to the indictment. Among other things it is alleged that he spent $1,319,281 of his money, illegally hidden from the U.S. Treasury, to pay a home lighting and entertainment company in Florida; to purchase $934,350 worth of rugs at a shop in Virginia; and to drop $655,500 on a landscaper in the Hamptons.

Some will find it ironic that Manafort did all of this while coaching candidate Donald Trump to run an “anti-elite” election campaign, one directed at “draining the swamp” and cleaning up Washington. But in fact, this is exactly the kind of tactic that Manafort perfected on behalf of Russia, in Ukraine, where he worked for more than a decade.

Manafort was first invited to work in Ukraine in 2004, by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. But Manafort left a real mark in 2006, when he brought dozens of American political consultants to Ukraine to assist in an ethnically charged election that pit Russian and Ukrainian speakers against one another, in an attempt to help Russia retain influence over the country. In 2008, he helped run an anti-NATO campaign, opposing Ukraine’s membership in the transatlantic alliance. In 2010, he was one of several advisers — the others were mostly Russians — who helped remake the image of Viktor Yanukovych, the ex-con whom the Russian government then supported for president of Ukraine. Yanukovych charged the sitting government with corruption, declared that the election would be “rigged” and finally won….

(Posterity will be rightly harsh, and view these Trump men as opponents of America’s democratic tradition.)

Greg Sargent describes The Trump authoritarian cult:

The Glorious Republican Civil War of 2017 isn’t really a battle over policy or ideology. It isn’t even quite the clash of grand agendas we constantly read about — the supposed showdown between populist economic nationalism on one side, and limited government conservatism, free trade and internationalism on the other.

Instead, the GOP civil war is really a battle over whether Republican lawmakers should — or should not — genuflect before President Trump. The battle is over whether they should — or should not — applaud his racism, his authoritarianism and his obvious pleasure in dispensing abuse and sowing racial division. It’s also over whether Republicans should submit to Trump’s ongoing insistence that his lack of major accomplishments is fully the fault of Republicans who failed his greatness….

If you’re a Stranger Things fan, 13 details you might have missed in ‘Stranger Things’ season 2: