Good morning.

The year ends for Whitewater with mostly sunny skies and a high of nine degrees. Sunrise is 7:26 AM and sunset 4:31 PM, for 9:05:11 of daylight. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 96.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred sixteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1879, Thomas Edison holds a successful public demonstration of an electric light bulb (after successful private tests months earlier). On this day in 1967, Green Bay Packers triumph in the ‘Ice Bowl’: “On this date the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys played in what many consider to be the greatest game in NFL history – The Ice Bowl. With the thermometer dipping to a shocking 13 below zero and a wind chill of minus 46, Bart Starr scored the winning touchdown from the 1-yard line with 13 seconds remaining, sealing a record third straight championship for the Packers, their fifth in seven years. Green Bay defeated Dallas, 21-17, to win the NFL Championship.”

Recommended for reading in full —

Sharon LaFraniere, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo report How the Russia Inquiry Began: A Campaign Aide, Drinks and Talk of Political Dirt:

WASHINGTON — During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.

About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.

Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role.

The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired.

If Mr. Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. and is now a cooperating witness, was the improbable match that set off a blaze that has consumed the first year of the Trump administration, his saga is also a tale of the Trump campaign in miniature. He was brash, boastful and underqualified, yet he exceeded expectations. And, like the campaign itself, he proved to be a tantalizing target for a Russian influence operation….

(It wasn’t the Steele dossier, it was a talkative Trump aide with knowledge of Russian hacking, that motivated the FBI.)

Julian Sanchez states plainly what this means:

I don’t understand how people think there’s still a question of *whether* there was collusion, as opposed to “how extensive was it?” The campaign got advance word that Russia had thousands of hacked Dem emails, yet consistently feigned doubt publicly. https://t.co/aW1HM4X6yJ

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) December 30, 2017

Adam K. Raymond reports Mueller Probing Whether Trump Digital Team Aided Russian Disinformation Campaign:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s influence on the 2016 election has begun to zero in on the joint digital operation that got Donald Trump elected, Yahoo News reports.

Mueller’s team is trying to determine if members of the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee, who worked together on the digital arm of Trump’s campaign, provided assistance to Russian trolls attempting to influence voters. It’s the latest scare for Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, who managed the digital campaign and has already come under scrutiny by the special counsel for his foreign contacts.

Mueller’s move appears to concern the disproportionate targeting of swing districts by Russian trolls during the presidential campaign. CNN reported in October that ads placed by Russia-linked Facebook accounts targeted Michigan and Wisconsin in particular, with many “geared at swaying public opinion in the most heavily contested battlegrounds.”

Experts don’t think the trolls behind Russian Facebook accounts could have determined who to target on their own, but the question is whether the help they got came from Trump’s orbit. The leading suspects at this point are Kushner and Brad Parscale, the campaign’s digital media director….

(To cooperate with America’s enemies – and Putin is an enemy of America – is to be a fifth columnist.)

Nusrat Choudhury writes Jeff Sessions Takes a Stand for Debtors’ Prisons:

During the holiday season, many of us think about what we can do to help people struggling with poverty. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, on the other hand, decided just before Christmas to rescind a guidance meant to protect low-income Americans.

The 2016 guidance, issued by former President Obama’s Justice Department, urged state and local courts nationwide to abide by constitutional principles prohibiting the jailing of poor people who cannot afford to pay court fines and fees. Jeff Sessions’ action makes clear that he and his Justice Department are unconcerned by courts trampling on the rights of poor people.

The Obama Justice Department issued the 2016 letter after reports and lawsuits by the ACLU and other groups revealed how modern-day debtors’ prisons function in more than a dozen states, despite the fact that the U.S. two centuries ago formally outlawed jailing people simply because they have unpaid debts.

These efforts revealed that poor people were being locked up in Georgia, Washington, Mississippi, and elsewhere without court hearings or legal representation when they could not pay fines and fees for traffic tickets or other civil infractions or criminal offenses. These efforts also show that modern-day debtors’ prisons result from state laws allowing or requiring the suspension of driver’s licenses for unpaid court fines or fees without first requiring confirmation that the person could actually pay….

(Sessions is among the most consistent advocates for the most punitive measures – a patient, persistent reactionary.)

What about That Time People Put Frogs in Unrefrigerated Milk to Keep it From Spoiling?

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of three. Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:30 PM, for 9h 05m 11s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 90.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred fifteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1936, the Flint sit-down strike against General Motors begins.

Recommended for reading in full —

The New York Times has published Excerpts From Trump’s Interview With The Times:

President Trump spoke on Thursday with a reporter from The New York Times, Michael S. Schmidt. The interview took place in the Grill Room of his golf club in West Palm Beach, Fla., whose noise made some portions at times hard to hear.

The following are excerpts from that conversation, transcribed by The Times. They have been lightly edited for content and clarity, and omit several off-the-record comments and asides….

TRUMP: Yeah. Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion. And even these committees that have been set up. If you look at what’s going on — and in fact, what it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it’s ever been. Great congressmen, in particular, some of the congressmen have been unbelievable in pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is. So, I think it’s been proven that there is no collusion….

TRUMP: What I’ve done is, I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department. But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter….

TRUMP: Yeah, China. … China’s been. … I like very much President Xi. He treated me better than anybody’s ever been treated in the history of China. You know that. The presentations. … One of the great two days of anybody’s life and memory having to do with China. He’s a friend of mine, he likes me, I like him, we have a great chemistry together. He’s [inaudible] of the United States. …[Inaudible.] China’s hurting us very badly on trade, but I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war. O.K.?…

Ezra Klein contends Incoherent, authoritarian, uninformed: Trump’s New York Times interview is a scary read:

The president of the United States is not well. That is an uncomfortable thing to say, but it is an even worse thing to ignore.

Consider the interview Trump gave to the New York Times on Thursday. It begins with a string of falsehoods that make it difficult to tell whether the leader of the free world is lying or delusional. Remember, these are President Donald Trump’s words, after being told a recording device is on:

Virtually every Democrat has said there is no collusion. There is no collusion. And even these committees that have been set up. If you look at what’s going on — and in fact, what it’s done is, it’s really angered the base and made the base stronger. My base is stronger than it’s ever been. Great congressmen, in particular, some of the congressmen have been unbelievable in pointing out what a witch hunt the whole thing is. So, I think it’s been proven that there is no collusion.

It almost goes without saying that literally zero congressional Democrats have said that there was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign during the 2016 election. Zero.

What key Democrats are actually saying is closer to the opposite. On December 20, for instance, Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and thus the Senate Democrat leading the investigation into collusion, said, “despite the initial denials of any Russian contacts during the election, this Committee’s efforts have helped uncover numerous and troubling high-level engagements between the Trump campaign and Russian affiliates — many of which have only been revealed in recent months.”

Nor is Trump’s base strengthening, or even holding steady. In a detailed analysis of Trump’s poll numbers, FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten concluded that the president is losing the most ground in the reddest states:

In states where Trump won by at least 10 points, his net approval rating is down 18 percentage points, on average, compared to his margin last November. In states that were decided by 10 points or less in November, it’s down only 13 points. And it’s down 8 points in states Clinton carried by at least 10 points.

The fact that Trump has lost the greatest number of supporters in red states is perhaps the clearest indication yet that he is losing ground among some form of his base, if you think of his base as those who voted for him in November….

Jennifer Rubin contends Trump is as unfit and ignorant as ever:

He tweeted, “In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!”

Trump either was again playing dumb or evidencing his inability to distinguish between “weather” and “climate.” (“Man-made global warming, as the name suggests, refers to the steady rise of average temperature of Earth’s climate system because of the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere. Indeed, at the moment much of the rest of world is warmer than normal even if a portion of the United States is chilly.”)

His response was greeted by a tweet storm of ridicule from elected Democrats, scientists and ordinary social media users who continue to marvel at his willful contempt for scientific knowledge. His missive was a timely year-end reminder that this president refuses to educate himself on the most basic aspects of key policy issues.

Guy Faulconbridge, Jonathan Saul, Polina Nikolskaya report Exclusive: Russian tankers fueled North Korea via transfers at sea – sources:

LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian tankers have supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea, according to two senior Western European security sources, providing an economic lifeline to the secretive Communist state.

The sales of oil or oil products from Russia, the world’s second biggest oil exporter and a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, breach U.N. sanctions, the security sources said.

The transfers in October and November indicate that smuggling from Russia to North Korea has evolved to loading cargoes at sea since Reuters reported in September that North Korean ships were sailing directly from Russia to their homeland.

“The Russian vessels made transfers at sea to the North Koreans,” the first security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters. The source said the transfers of oil or oil products took place on several occasions and were a breach of sanctions….

Here’s How the Animal Kingdom Sleeps:

Sleep is universal in the animal kingdom, but each species slumbers in a different — and often mysterious — way. Some animals snooze with half their brain, while others sleep for just two hours a day (without suffering sleep deprivation). In this episode of Animalism, Ed Yong guides us through the latest research on how creatures catch their z’s.

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy, with a high of fourteen, and an even chance of afternoon snow showers. Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:29 PM, for 9h 04m 31s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 82.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred fourteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1879, General William “Billy” Mitchell is born:

On this date aviation pioneer Billy Mitchell was born in Nice, France. Mitchell grew up in Milwaukee and attended Racine College. During World War I, Mitchell was the first American airman to fly over enemy lines.  He also led many air attacks in France and Germany. Upon return to the U.S., he advocated the creation of a separate Air Force.

Much to the dislike of A.T. Mahan, Theodore Roosevelt, and other contemporaries, Mitchell asserted that the airplane had rendered the battleship obsolete, and attention should be shifted to developing military air power. Mitchell’s out-spokenness resulted in his being court martialed for insubordination. He was sentenced to five years suspension of rank without pay. General Douglas MacArthur — an old Milwaukee friend — was a judge in Mitchell’s case and voted against his court martial. Mitchell’s ideas for developing military air power were not implemented until long after his death. In 1946 Congress created a medal in his honor, the General “Billy” Mitchell Award. Milwaukee’s airport, General Mitchell International Airport, is named after him.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Chris Isidore and Julia Horowitz report Foxconn got a really good deal from Wisconsin. And it’s getting better [for Foxconn]:

The $3 billion incentive package used to lure Foxconn to Wisconsin to build a giant factory was only the beginning.

Associated sweeteners have now grown to more than $4 billion — adding in the cost of local government incentives and various infrastructure projects, like roads and highways, sewer and power lines.

Foxconn is also being allowed to skip state environmental rules and oversight it would otherwise have had to follow….

The Village of Mount Pleasant and Racine County, where the plant is to be built, have also agreed to provide $764 million in tax incentives to help get the facility constructed, including buying the land and giving it to Foxconn for free.

The state expects to spend about $400 million on road improvements, including adding two lanes to the nearby Interstate 94. And it’s seeking $246 million more in federal money to help pay for the interstate expansion.

In addition, the local electric utility is upgrading its lines and adding substations to provide the necessary power that will be used by the plant, at a cost of $140 million. The cost of those projects will be paid by 5 million customers in the area.

About half the state’s tax breaks depend upon how many workers Foxconn hires. While the state touts Foxconn’s plans for 13,000 workers, the company has only committed to hiring 3,000 at this point.

(Foxconn is everything wrong with state-subsidized capitalism and WEDC, made manifest and plain for all America. Three billion or four billion, whatever. Thirteen thousand or three thousand, whatever. Walker never graduated from Marquette, and that’s to Marquette’s advantage – if they had given him a degree, they’d have to explain how he got one every day until the end of time.)

Evan Osnos reports Why the 2018 Midterms Are So Vulnerable to Hackers:

The first primary of the 2018 midterm elections, in Texas, is barely eight weeks away. It’s time to ask: Will the Russian government deploy “active measures” of the kind it used in 2016? Is it possible that a wave of disinformation on Facebook and Twitter could nudge the results of a tight congressional race in, say, Virginia or Nevada? Will hackers infiltrate? low-budget campaigns in Pennsylvania and Nebraska, and leak their e-mails to the public? Will the news media and voters take the bait?

By most accounts, the answer is likely to be yes—and, for several reasons, the election may prove to be as vulnerable, or more so, than the 2016 race that brought Donald Trump to the White House….

“An attacker who wants to affect the national outcome could try targeting all of those races, find the states where the election systems are most weakly protected, and strike there,” J. Alex Halderman, the director of the Center for Computer Security and Society at the University of Michigan, told me. In the language of hacking and cyber-defense, the 2018 midterms present an unusually large “attack surface,” because of the sheer number of competitive races. “About a dozen states still rely on obsolete paperless voting machines, and most states fail to routinely conduct rigorous post-election audits,” he said.

On a technical level, the American election system is almost as vulnerable as it was in 2016. According to U.S. intelligence, Russian hackers tested the vulnerabilities of registration rolls in twenty-one states, but did not alter the vote tallies. Halderman, who testified recently in Congress about gaps in election defenses, told me, “Unfortunately, there haven’t been widespread security improvements so far. We can be sure that our adversaries have been paying attention, and so they may be more likely to try attacking election systems in November.” At the Def Con hackers’ conference in July, attendees demonstrated that they could break into thirty voting machines of multiple types, some in as little as ninety minutes. Without altering the results, hackers could sow doubt about the outcome by shutting down or disrupting voting machines on Election Day….

(Trump has no incentive to encourage better security if he assumes – as is true – that Putin will do whatever he can to aid Trump-supporting GOP results.)

Aaron David Miller and Richard Sokolsky ask ‘America first’? So far, Trump’s foreign policy mostly puts America last:

Concluding the national security strategy address that he delivered earlier this month, President Trump described his foreign policy aim “to celebrate American greatness as a shining example to the world.”

Not exactly.

At the end of his first year in office, the president’s approach to foreign affairs doesn’t fit the platitude-ridden narrative laid out in that speech as much as it lines up with six key components that define the Trumpian way abroad: America first, politics over policy, ego, deconstruction, risk aversion and dictators over democrats. They don’t make a neatly defined doctrine, but these components have a certain cohesion — at least in Trump’s mind — that hints at how he’ll operate for the rest of his tenure….

the yardstick for judging Trump’s foreign policy isn’t whether his administration solves the world’s toughest problems. The question is whether his approach to foreign policy can manage the challenges the United States cannot resolve in a way that strengthens our interests while avoiding international crises, such as an escalation of conflict with Iran or, particularly, North Korea, that might irreparably harm those interests. A year in, the record does not inspire confidence. His worldview isn’t one that carefully calibrates means and ends or clearly defines true U.S. national interests and makes them a priority. Instead, it is one that will likely end up putting America last, not first, on a range of issues critical to its long-term prosperity and security.

Mekela Panditharatne writes FEMA says most of Puerto Rico has potable water. That can’t be true:

The weeks after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico brought remarkable images of people desperate to find clean water, drinking from hazardous Superfund sites and thrusting containers under makeshift spigots on the sides of mountains.

According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, this particular problem has subsided now, more than three months after the storm: FEMA’s official statistics on Puerto Rico, which rely on data provided by the territory, suggest that 95 percent of Puerto Ricans now have access to potable water.

That just isn’t possible.

I’m a lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council, where I specialize in toxics and drinking water. Before Hurricane Maria, I worked with local groups in Puerto Rico on drinking-water contamination on the island. We put out a report in May showing that in 2015, 99.5 percent of Puerto Ricans — virtually all residents — were served by water sources that violated the Safe Drinking Water Act. These violations included contamination, failure to properly treat the water, and failure to conduct water testing or to report as required by federal rules. A substantial majority, 69.4 percent of the population, was drawing tap water that had unlawfully high levels of contaminants such as coliform bacteria, disinfection byproducts and volatile organic compounds, or that had not been treated in accordance with federal standards.

Even as mainland coverage of water access and quality issues in Puerto Rico has receded, overshadowed by chatter about the latest political crises and tax breaks in Washington, the hurricane has made an already bad water situation far worse. And by veiling the true extent of the damage, FEMA’s misleading statistics on water are exacerbating the problems.

(Bad before, worse now, and no incentive for an agency to speak truthfully when Trump, himself, lies daily.)

‘These Paper Puppets Are Like Origami But Better’:

(My late father loved origami, and he would have, I think, understood these clever paper toys as a kind of origami, not a separate art as the video’s title suggests. Beautiful, however one describes them.)

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will see cloudy skies, an even chance of flurries, and a high of fourteen. Sunrise is 7:25 AM and sunset 4:28 PM, for 9h 03m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 72.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred thirteenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière give the first paid public screening of a film: “[t]his history-making presentation featured 10 short films, including their first film, Sortie des Usines Lumière à Lyon (Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory).”

Recommended for reading in full —

Michael Morell and Mike Rogers write Russia never stopped its cyberattacks on the United States:

Every first-year international-relations student learns about the importance of deterrence: It prevented a Soviet invasion of Western Europe during the height of the Cold War. It prevented North Korea from invading South Korea in the same time frame. Today, it keeps Iran from starting a hot war in the Middle East or other nations from initiating cyberattacks against our infrastructure.

And yet, the United States has failed to establish deterrence in the aftermath of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. We know we failed because Russia continues to aggressively employ the most significant aspect of its 2016 tool kit: the use of social media as a platform to disseminate propaganda designed to weaken our nation.

There is a perception among the media and general public that Russia ended its social-media operations following last year’s election and that we need worry only about future elections. But that perception is wrong. Russia’s information operations in the United States continued after the election and they continue to this day.

This should alarm everyone — Republicans, Democrats and independents alike. Foreign governments, overtly or covertly, should not be allowed to play with our democracy.

Russia’s information operations tactics since the election are more numerous than can be listed here. But to get a sense of the breadth of Russian activity, consider the messaging spread by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter, which cybersecurity and disinformation experts have tracked as part of the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy.

In a single week this month, Moscow used these accounts to discredit the FBI after it was revealed that an agent had been demoted for sending anti-Donald Trump texts; to attack ABC News for an erroneous report involving President Trump and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser; to critique the Obama administration for allegedly “green lighting” the communication between Flynn and then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak; and to warn about violence by immigrants after a jury acquitted an undocumented Mexican accused of murdering a San Francisco woman….

(This should alarm everyone, but it does not alarm Trump: he benefits from Putin’s support. Putin is an organ grinder to Trump’s dancing monkey; the organ grinder variously plays a tune, offers a piece of fruit, or tugs on the tiny primate’s leash.)

Asawin Suebsaeng and Sam Stein contend The #NeverTrump Movement Has Been Neutered (“Conservative opposition to Trump is splintered and more than a bit pessimistic about what comes next”):

President Donald Trump is ending his first year in office in a worse political position than when he entered.

Republicans have lost statehouse seats, been trounced in the two marquee gubernatorial elections, and squandered their Alabama Senate stronghold. Trump himself has seen his popularity drop, including among conservatives and even watchers of Fox News, a Trumpian media bullhorn if there ever was one.

And yet, even at this particular nadir, the conservative intellectual forces rallying against the president remain dispirited and divided. There is dispute within the ranks, not just over how best to make the case against Trump but whether there is a coherent case at all. Looking forward, they don’t see salvation. It is an article of faith among the ranks that Trump will be challenged by a Republican in the 2020 presidential election….

By contrast, conservative Conor Friedersdorf contends ‘Never Trump’ Will Be the Only Faction Still Standing When He’s Gone (“When the Republican Party’s current coalition falls apart, those who stood up to bigotry will be the only ones with the credibility to rebuild”):

Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be clear and cold, with a high of nine. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:28 PM, for 9h 03m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 63.1% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred twelfth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1968, Apollo 8 splashes down at night in the Pacific after becoming “the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth orbit, reach the Earth’s Moon, orbit it and return safely to Earth. The three-astronaut crew — Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders — became the first humans to: travel beyond low Earth orbit; see Earth as a whole planet; enter the gravity well of another celestial body (Earth’s moon); orbit another celestial body (Earth’s moon); directly see the far side of the Moon with their own eyes; witness an Earthrise; escape the gravity of another celestial body (Earth’s moon); and re-enter the gravitational well of Earth.”

Recommended for reading in full —

Chris Hamby reports FBI Software For Analyzing Fingerprints Contains Russian-Made Code, Whistleblowers Say (“In a secret deal, a French company purchased code from a Kremlin-connected firm, incorporated it into its own software, and hid its existence from the FBI, according to documents and two whistleblowers. The allegations raise concerns that Russian hackers could compromise law enforcement computer systems”):

The fingerprint-analysis software used by the FBI and more than 18,000 other US law enforcement agencies contains code created by a Russian firm with close ties to the Kremlin, according to documents and two whistleblowers. The allegations raise concerns that Russian hackers could gain backdoor access to sensitive biometric information on millions of Americans, or even compromise wider national security and law enforcement computer systems.

The Russian code was inserted into the fingerprint-analysis software by a French company, said the two whistleblowers, who are former employees of that company. The firm — then a subsidiary of the massive Paris-based conglomerate Safran — deliberately concealed from the FBI the fact that it had purchased the Russian code in a secret deal, they said.

In recent years, Russian hackers have gained access to everything from the Democratic National Committee’s email servers to the systems of nuclear power companies to the unclassified computers of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to US authorities.

This September, the Department of Homeland Security ordered all federal agencies to stop using products made by the Moscow-based company Kaspersky Lab, including its popular antivirus software, and media outlets reportedthat Russian hackers had exploited it to steal sensitive information on US intelligence programs. The department later clarified that the order didn’t apply to “Kaspersky code embedded in the products of other companies.” The company’s founder, Eugene V. Kaspersky, has denied any involvement in or knowledge of the hack….

Maggie Astor reports Mike Huckabee Says Trump Is Like Churchill. Historians Disagree:

“Sure. Churchill served his country 55 years in parliament, 31 years as a minister and 9 as pm,” Kristian Tonning Riise, a member of Norway’s Parliament, wrote in a tweet liked more than 19,000 times. “He was present in 15 battles and received 14 medals of bravery. He was one of history’s most gifted orators and won the Nobel Literature Prize for his writing. Totally same thing.”

(Trump’s defenders will declare anything – however absurd – about him, knowing that ignorant supporters will repeat these claims, and knowledgeable opponents will be left stunned. Indeed, Roy Moore’s supporters heard that Moore was like St. Joseph, so nutty comparisons between Trump and Churchill should not surprise. They’ll say anything.)

Marina Koren writes of A Triumphant Year for SpaceX (“The company’s record-breaking 2017 and what it means for the science and business of rocketry”):

The year 2017 has turned out to be a good one for rocket science in the United States.

American companies made 29 successful rocket launches into orbit, the highest figure since 1999, which saw 31 launches, according to a comprehensive database maintained by Gunter Krebs, a spaceflight historian in Germany. The final launch of the year, by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a cache of commercial communications satellites, took place Friday night at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s private spaceflight company, is responsible for most of this year’s launches. After a brief hiatus following an explosion in September 2016 that destroyed a Falcon 9 and its $200 million commercial payload, SpaceXreturned to the launchpad in mid-January. At the time, the success of the launch was imperative; SpaceX had lost another rocket in June 2015, about two minutes after takeoff, and its rocket-fueling process was receiving intense scrutiny by a nasa safety advisory group. nasa was entering its fifth year of using SpaceX rockets for resupply missions to the International Space Station, and future deals were on the line….

Last Friday, SpaceX launched its 18th and final mission of 2017, sending a Falcon 9 rocket out of Vandenberg Air Force Base and into the California sky. The white tail of the rocket was an unusual sight, leaving many in Southern California who did not know a rocket launch was occurring confused, with some even speculating it was a UFO. Now, a spectacular 40-second time-lapse of the Falcon 9 has been posted by photographer Jesse Watson.

Watson lives in Yuma, Arizona, and according to PetaPixel had been following SpaceX launches for some time. Though this latest launch was held at Vandenberg Air Force Base, 400 miles away, he says it was “perfectly viewable” from where he lives in Yuma.

He had never shot a rocket before, but used The Photographer’s Ephemeris, a map-centric sun and moon calculator, as well as Google Maps to figure out where to set up his shots. Because he was working on estimated knowledge, Watson used four cameras and five lenses at four different locations, with three of the cameras rolling time-lapse and one rolling telephoto video….

Nicholas Casey, Ben C. Solomon, and Taige Jensen report on The Last Man to Speak His Language:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be chilly, with a high of nine degrees under sunny skies. Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset sunset 4:27 PM, for 9h 02m 54s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 52.1% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred eleventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1776, the Gen. Washington and the Continental Army are victorious at the Battle of Trenton.

Recommended for reading in full —

The Salt Lake City Tribune editorial board explains Why Orrin Hatch is Utahn of the Year:

The selection of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch as the 2017 Utahn of the Year has little to do with the fact that, after 42 years, he is the longest-serving Republican senator in U.S. history, that he has been a senator from Utah longer than three-fifths of the state’s population has been alive.

It has everything to do with recognizing:

Hatch’s part in the dramatic dismantling of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
His role as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee in passing a major overhaul of the nation’s tax code.
His utter lack of integrity that rises from his unquenchable thirst for power.

It would be good for Utah if Hatch, having finally caught the Great White Whale of tax reform, were to call it a career. If he doesn’t, the voters should end it for him.

Common is the repetition of the catchphrase that Hatch successfully used to push aside three-term Sen. Frank Moss in this first election in, egad, 1976.

“What do you call a senator who’s served in office for 18 years? You call him home.”

Less well known is a bit of advice Hatch gave to Capitol Hill interns in 1983.

“You should not fall in love with D.C.” he admonished them. “Elected politicians shouldn’t stay here too long.”

If only he had listened to his own advice.

(See also Has Trump Persuaded Orrin Hatch to Block Mitt Romney’s Senate Bid?)

Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Greg Jaffe report Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options:

The first email arrived in the inbox of CounterPunch, a left-leaning American news and opinion website, at 3:26 a.m. — the middle of the day in Moscow.

“Hello, my name is Alice Donovan and I’m a beginner freelance journalist,” read the Feb.?26, 2016, message.

The FBI was tracking Donovan as part of a months-long counterintelligence operation code-named “NorthernNight.” Internal bureau reports described her as a pseudonymous foot soldier in an army of Kremlin-led trolls seeking to undermine America’s democratic institutions.

Her first articles as a freelancer for CounterPunch and at least 10 other online publications weren’t especially political. As the 2016 presidential election heated up, Donovan’s message shifted. Increasingly, she seemed to be doing the Kremlin’s bidding by stoking discontent toward Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and touting WikiLeaks, which U.S. officials say was a tool of Russia’s broad influence operation to affect the presidential race.

“There’s no denying the emails that Julian Assange has picked up from inside the Democratic Party are real,” she wrote in August 2016 for a website called We Are Change. “The emails have exposed Hillary Clinton in a major way — and almost no one is reporting on it.”

The events surrounding the FBI’s NorthernNight investigation follow a pattern that repeated for years as the Russian threat was building: U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies saw some warning signs of Russian meddling in Europe and later in the United States but never fully grasped the breadth of the Kremlin’s ambitions. Top U.S. policymakers didn’t appreciate the dangers, then scrambled to draw up options to fight back. In the end, big plans died of internal disagreement, a fear of making matters worse or a misguided belief in the resilience of American society and its democratic institutions.

(There never was an Alice Donovan, but there were those duped to believe so. While America slept…)

Henry Meyer reports Putin Tries to Lure $1 Trillion Home as Sanctions Fear Grows:

President Vladimir Putin is using the threat of additional U.S. sanctions to encourage wealthy Russians to repatriate some of their overseas assets, which exceed $1 trillion by one estimate.

Putin told lawmakers late Monday that a new capital amnesty program was needed “given the foreign restrictions, which instead of lessening are now worsening,” according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s website. This “should stimulate the return of capital to Russia,” the president said, without specifying how long the measure will last.

“People should feel comfortable and secure and it shouldn’t involve additional expenses,” Putin said Tuesday at a Cabinet meeting where he ordered officials to finalize the plan.

Russia rolled out a similar amnesty program during the worst of the conflict in Ukraine, which coincided with a plunge in oil prices that triggered the country’s longest recession of the Putin era. That 18-month initiative, the results of which haven’t been disclosed, “didn’t work as well as we’d hoped,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said. Unlike that plan, this one waves Russia’s 13 percent tax on personal income, according to Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman….

(Sanctions aren’t nearly stringent enough against a nation that seized Crimea, forments war in eastern Ukraine, interfered in America democracy, and commits human rights violations at home and abroad.)

Emily Steel reports At Vice, Cutting-EdgeMedia and Allegations of Old-School Sexual Harassment:

One woman said she was riding a Ferris wheel at Coney Island after a company event when a co-worker suddenly took her hand and put it on his crotch. Another said she felt pressured into a sexual relationship with an executive and was fired after she rejected him.

A third said that a co-worker grabbed her face and tried to kiss her, and she used her umbrella to fend him off.

These women did not work among older men at a hidebound company. They worked at Vice, an insurgent force in news and entertainment known for edgy content that aims for millennial audiences on HBO and its own TV network.

But as Vice Media has built itself from a fringe Canadian magazine into a nearly $6 billion global media company, its boundary-pushing culture created a workplace that was degrading and uncomfortable for women, current and former employees say.

An investigation by The New York Times has found four settlements involving allegations of sexual harassment or defamation against Vice employees, including its current president.In addition, more than two dozen other women, most in their 20s and early 30s, said they had experienced or witnessed sexual misconduct at the company — unwanted kisses, groping, lewd remarks and propositions for sex.

The settlements and the many episodes of harassment the women described depict a top-down ethos of male entitlement at Vice, where women said they felt like just another party favor at an organization where partying often was an extension of the job.

(For Whitewater and elsewhere – there’s hard work everywhere to be done. Those who wish to defend an institution or organization at any cost – indeed rather than the redress of real injuries to individuals – will sometimes defend their efforts  as otherwise progressive, enlightened, or cutting-edge. There is no noble way to defend an ignoble act; there is no worthy distraction from obstruction of justice. These institutional and organizational efforts have the character of a taunt: Will you defend the truth if we build monuments to pretty lies? Sometimes, there is a resolute reply: Yes, so assertively and completely as one can.)

There are Long-Term Health Benefits Of Running A Marathon:

Good morning.

Christmas Eve in Whitewater will be cloudy with snow showers and a high of twenty-three. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:26 PM, for 9h 02m 12s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 32% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred tenth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

After years of war, on this day in 1814 the United States and Britain sign the Treaty of Ghent. The treaty formalized U.S. possession of land which included present-day Wisconsin.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Luke Harding and Stephanie Kirchgaessner report Ex-Trump adviser Carter Page accused academics who twice failed his PhD of bias:

Carter Page, Donald Trump’s former foreign policy adviser, accused his British examiners of “anti-Russian bias” after they took the highly unusual step of failing his “verbose” and “vague” PhD thesis, not once but twice….

Page first submitted his thesis on central Asia’s transition from communism to capitalism in 2008. Two respected academics, Professor Gregory Andrusz, and Dr Peter Duncan, were asked to read his thesis and to examine him in a face-to-face interview known as a viva.

Andrusz said he had expected it would be “easy” to pass Page, a student at the School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas). He said it actually took “days and days” to wade through Page’s work. Page “knew next to nothing” about social science and seemed “unfamiliar with basic concepts like Marxism or state capitalism,” the professor said….

The viva, held at University College, London, went badly. “Page seemed to think that if he talked enough, people would think he was well-informed. In fact it was the reverse,” Andrusz said. He added that Page was “dumbfounded” when the examiners told him he had failed.

Their subsequent report was withering. It said Page’s thesis was “characterised by considerable repetition, verbosity and vagueness of expression”, failed to meet the criteria required for a PhD, and needed “substantial revision”. He was given 18 months to produce another draft.

Page resubmitted in November 2010. Although this essay was a “substantial improvement” it still didn’t merit a PhD and wasn’t publishable in a “learned journal of international repute”, Andrusz noted. When after a four-hour interview, the examiners informed him he had failed again, Page grew “extremely agitated”….

(Just the sort of ignoramus who’d find his way to the Trump campaign.)

John Sipher writes of Russian Active Measures and the 2016 Election Hack:

….Putin’s rage: The scale and brazen nature of the 2016 attack can be attributed in part to the personality of Vladimir Putin. For Putin, years of resentment against the U.S. for perceived disrespect and betrayal, culminating in 2012 street riots in Moscow and the publication of the Panama papers, created a convenient target in Hillary Clinton and the Washington foreign policy establishment. Putin’s animus toward Clinton increased his tolerance for risk, and willingness to show his hand.

U.S. wasn’t prepared: By 2016, the years of focus on terrorism and the Middle East had fooled many into assuming that the Russians were no longer a threat. Greater familiarity with the Russian threat led to a better defense during the Cold War. Indeed, proximity to an aggressive Russia helped our European allies be better prepared to counter Russian propaganda and fake stories in 2015 and 2016. They Russians tried similar methods in France, Germany and elsewhere but did not have the same level of success.

Collusion? According to Russian doctrine, a successful active measures campaign relies on enlisting spies and “agents-of-influence” to help focus the attack. The Russians certainly called on all available resources to insure success, and like any good intelligence service, continued to seek new spies. Were the Russians aided by collaborators inside or around the Trump campaign, or inside our social media companies? We don’t know. If not, it would be a rare covert campaign that did not leverage human sources.

We do know, however, that countering similar attacks in the future will be made more difficult by the failure to hold Russia to account, and by Trump administration attacks on the media and national security institutions. Weakening our defenses does not seem a wise course of action….

(A ‘rare [Russian] covert campaign that did not leverage human sources’: Success of Putin’s efforts depended on American dupes, fellow travelers, and fifth columnists.)

David Frum observes Republicans Exact Their Revenge Through a Tax Bill (“Instead of eliminating favoritism, the GOP’s reforms load the costs of the state upon disfavored persons, groups, and regions”):

….If the idea behind tax reform is to eliminate favoritism from the tax code, then the tax law of 2017 is anti-reform: an aggressive loading of the costs of the state upon disfavored persons, groups, and regions. It leaves behind an unstable legacy, both economic and political. Economically, the system invites gaming. Politically, it accelerates the exodus of college-educated professionals out of the Republican Party. It will tint the blue states ever bluer, up and down the income scale.

States like California and New York desperately need a competitive Republican Party—especially at the state level—to challenge the lazy and often corrupt practices of local Democratic machines. This new tax law will have the opposite effect, wrecking whatever little remains of GOP strength in the states that motor American innovation and growth. It threatens to push New Jersey, Colorado, and Virginia into single-party blue rule as well, by painfully demonstrating that the party of Trump is not only obnoxious to their values but implacably hostile to their welfare….

McKay Coppins asks Has Trump Persuaded Orrin Hatch to Block Mitt Romney’s Senate Bid? (“The longtime Utah senator had promised this term would be his last, and told friends he planned on retiring. But after the president’s intervention, he may be changing his mind”):

After months of quietly laying the groundwork for his own retirement, the 83-year-old Utah senator has signaled to Republican allies in recent weeks that he’s having second thoughts about leaving office when his term ends next year. Interviews with 10 people familiar with the situation—some of whom requested anonymity to speak candidly—suggest that President Trump’s efforts to convince Hatch to seek reelection have influenced the senator’s thinking….

“Many of the senator’s recent positions and statements have led Utahns to speculate if he was falling into the trap that so many politicians do,” [Boyd] Matheson said, “becoming more interested in solving their own political problems than solving the American people’s problems.” As an example, he contrasted Hatch’s decision to defend Trump’s endorsement of Roy Moore with Romney’s insistence that electing a man credibly accused of sexually abusing teenage girls “would be a stain on the GOP and on the nation.” Hatch’s response, Matheson said, “has deepened this fearful question of, ‘Will he really say anything to hold on to power?’ And Utahns are increasingly exhausted by that”….

It’s The Harvard of Santa Schools:

What goes into becoming Saint Nick? It takes more than just a red suit and white beard to don the title of Santa Claus. Every year, those that want to perfect the art of being Santa travel to Midland, Michigan, to attend the world’s oldest and longest running Santa school. The Charles W. Howard Santa School has graduated thousands of Kris Kringles over its 80 years, teaching everything from beard grooming to caroling to child psychology.

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of twenty-six. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:25 PM, for 9h 01m 57s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 23.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred ninth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1948, former Imperial Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo is hanged for war crimes (“Crimes committed by Imperial Japan were responsible for the deaths of millions, some estimate between 3,000,000^[102] and 14,000,000^[103] civilians and prisoners of war through massacre, human experimentation, starvation, and forced labor that was either directly perpetrated or condoned by the Japanese military and government with a significant portion of them occurring during Tojo’s rule of the military.^{[104][105][106][107][108]} One source attributes 5,000,000 civilian deaths to Tojo’s rule of the military.”)

On this day in 1865, the 13th Wisconsin Infantry returns home: “The 13th Wisconsin Infantry returned home to Madison to be discharged. During its service it had moved through Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee. The regiment lost 193 men during service. Five enlisted men were killed and 188 enlisted men died from disease.”

Recommended for reading in full —

Amanda Erickson reports Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands just got caught lying about the Dutch:

A Dutch journalist just asked new U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra why he said there are “no go” areas in the Netherlands, where radical Muslims are setting cars and politicians on fire.

Hoekstra denied it, and called the claim “fake news.”

The reporter then showed Hoekstra a video clip of himself at a congressional hearing in 2015 saying: “The Islamic movement has now gotten to a point where they have put Europe into chaos. Chaos in the Netherlands, there are cars being burned, there are politicians that are being burned.”

“And yes, there are no-go zones in the Netherlands,” he added in the clip.

Then things got extremely weird.

When the reporter pressed, Hoekstra denied using the term “fake news,” which he’d uttered moments before.

“I didn’t call that fake news,” he said. “I didn’t use the words today. I don’t think I did.”

Hoekstra was being interviewed by reporter Wouter Zwart for current affairs program Nieuwsuur. The interview is not playing well in the Netherlands. (One sample headline: “The new Trump Ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, lies about his own lies.”)

(Lies about his own lies…that’s Trump and his vile horde.)

Michael Birnbaum reports Russian submarines are prowling around vital undersea cables. It’s making NATO nervous:

BRUSSELS — Russian submarines have dramatically stepped up activity around undersea data cables in the North Atlantic, part of a more aggressive naval posture that has driven NATO to revive a Cold War-era command, according to senior military officials.

The apparent Russian focus on the cables, which provide Internet and other communications connections to North America and Europe, could give the Kremlin the power to sever or tap into vital data lines, the officials said. Russian submarine activity has increased to levels unseen since the Cold War, they said, sparking hunts in recent months for the elusive watercraft.

“We are now seeing Russian underwater activity in the vicinity of undersea cables that I don’t believe we have ever seen,” said U.S. Navy Admiral Andrew Lennon, the commander of NATO’s submarine forces. “Russia is clearly taking an interest in NATO and NATO nations’ undersea infrastructure.”

NATO has responded with plans to reestablish a command post, shuttered after the Cold War, to help secure the North Atlantic. NATO allies are also rushing to boost anti-submarine warfare capabilities and to develop advanced submarine-detecting planes….

(Trump’s friends, the Russians…)

Ana Swanson reports Trump Promised to Protect Steel. Layoffs Are Coming Instead:

CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — At this sprawling steel mill on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the workers have one number in mind. Not how many tons of steel roll off the line, or how many hours they work, but where they fall on the plant’s seniority list.

In September, ArcelorMittal, which owns the mill, announced that it would lay off 150 of the plant’s 207 workers next year. While the cuts will start with the most junior employees, they will go so deep that even workers with decades of experience will be cast out.

“I told my son, ‘Christmas is going to be kind of scarce, because Mommy’s going to lose her job soon,’” said Kimberly Allen, a steelworker and single parent who has worked at the plant for more than 22 years. On the seniority list, she’s 72nd.

The layoffs have stunned these steelworkers who, just a year ago, greeted President Trump’s election as a new dawn for their industry. Mr. Trump pledged to build roads and bridges, strengthen “Buy America” provisions, protect factories from unfair imports and revive industry, especially steel.

But after a year in office, Mr. Trump has not enacted these policies. And when it comes to steel, his failure to follow through on a promise has had unintended consequences….

(Trump’s entire career is one of false and broken promises.)

Jennifer Rubin observes Once again, Ivanka Trump shows off her cluelessness:

She’s a walking advertisement for the danger of nepotism, an exemplar of class privilege and a perfect representative for Republican know-nothingism. She was supposed to be the brains of the family and the moral ballast; instead, she’s a self-righteous enabler.

We’re speaking of Ivanka Trump, as you might have divined. She was out talking nonsense again on Thursday: “I’m really looking forward to doing a lot of traveling in April when people realize the effect that this has … The vast majority will be [doing their taxes] on a single postcard.” Thunk. There’s no postcard. That was a prop. And the filing for the first year under the new tax code will be in 2019….

Trump leads the charmed life of one who will be able to take advantage of the reduction in the top marginal rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent. She’ll have the best lawyers and accountants to make certain her income is run through a pass-through, thereby reducing the amount counted as income by 20 percent. If she has been a dutiful Trump daughter, her taxes might look a lot like her father’s — which means she and real-estate mogul husband Jared Kushner can afford even more lavish clothes, bigger homes and ostentatious jewelry. (Remember, the president’s claims notwithstanding, he’s likely to make a mint: “It is clear that President Donald Trump is set to save millions if he signs the Republican tax plan, but exactly how much? Forbes crunched the numbers: It looks like up to $11 million a year from a single rule change.”) While Republicans were pleading poverty when it comes to funding government programs in the wake of the $1.5 trillion revenue-losing tax bill, Ivanka Trump and Kushner can breathe easy, as can their children. (“Under previous provisions, married couples could leave $11 million to their heirs before handing over about 40% of their remaining assets to the government. The new rule doubles that limit to $22 million, meaning Trump’s children will likely get an additional $4.4 million tax break on their inheritance”)….

These Birds Make Amazing Black Clouds In The Sky: