Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of sixty-eight. Sunrise is 6:21 AM and sunset 7:26 PM, for 13h 04m 33s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.8% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred ninety-seventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1945, Imperial Japan formally surrenders in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri.

On this day in 1862, rumors of an Indian attack worry some Wisconsinites: “Manitowoc settlers were awakened to the cry of “Indians are coming.” Messengers on horseback arrived from the Rapids, Branch, Kellnersville, and other nearby communities, announcing that Indians were burning everything in their path, starting what was known as the “Indian Scare of 1862.” Fire and church bells gave warning to frightened residents. Over the next few days, people from the surrounding areas fled to Manitowoc and other city centers. Ox carts were loaded with women and children carrying their most valuable belongings. Men arrived with guns, axes, and pitchforks, anything with which to defend themselves and their community. A company of recruits from the Wisconsin 26th Regiment formed themselves into two scouting units, both of which returned to report that there was no threat of an Indian attack. Even after the excitement had subsided, many frightened farm families could not be persuaded to return home.”

Recommended for reading in full —

Nicole Perlroth, Michael Wines, and Matthew Rosenberg report that Russian Election Hacking Efforts, Wider Than Previously Known, Draw Little Scrutiny:

The calls started flooding in from hundreds of irate North Carolina voters just after 7 a.m. on Election Day last November.

Dozens were told they were ineligible to vote and were turned away at the polls, even when they displayed current registration cards. Others were sent from one polling place to another, only to be rejected. Scores of voters were incorrectly told they had cast ballots days earlier. In one precinct, voting halted for two hours.

Susan Greenhalgh, a troubleshooter at a nonpartisan election monitoring group, was alarmed. Most of the complaints came from Durham, a blue-leaning county in a swing state. The problems involved electronic poll books — tablets and laptops, loaded with check-in software, that have increasingly replaced the thick binders of paper used to verify voters’ identities and registration status. She knew that the company that provided Durham’s software, VR Systems, had been penetrated by Russian hackers months before….

Jennifer Rubin asks That’s all Trump’s lawyers have?:

The Wall Street Journal reported this week on two memos President Trump’s lawyers prepared for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III:

One memo submitted to Mr. Mueller by the president’s legal team in June laid out the case that Mr. Trump has the inherent authority under the constitution to hire and fire as he sees fit and therefore didn’t obstruct justice when he fired Mr. Comey as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in May, these people said.

Another memo submitted the same month outlined why Mr. Comey would make an unsuitable witness, calling him prone to exaggeration, unreliable in congressional testimony and the source of leaks to the news media, these people said.

As legal arguments, these are pathetic. Taking the last one first, arguing to Comey’s long-time colleague Mueller that Comey is a liar won’t win the day, nor does it pass the laugh test. Comey’s testimony will be lined up against written evidence and other witness testimony and actually may come out looking even more credible as a result. This is the sort of weak assertion one would make on Sean Hannity’s show; it’s not worthy of consideration by Mueller or any other serious prosecutor.

The “he can fire at will” argument is obviously flawed for at least three reasons. The argument is so bad one wonders if the Trump team is not ready for prime time or is simply trying to provide fodder for his cult-like following to support him if he tries to fire Mueller.

Bill Buzenberg catches readers up on All the Trump-Russia News You May Have Missed:

As crises both national and international have set in this month, Trump has been on a tear, from his comments blaming “both sides” for the deadly white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, to his brazen pardon of Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio as Hurricane Harvey bore down on Texas. Somewhat lost in the fire and fury (literally) has been a series of consequential developments concerning the multiple ongoing investigations into Team Trump’s ties to and possible collusion with Russia.

Perhaps the biggest of the bunch: On August 27, the Washington Post reported that Trump was actively pursuing a deal to build a “massive” Trump Tower in Moscow while campaigning for the presidency. And the New York Times exposed a series of emails between Trump’s business associate Felix Sater and his lawyer Michael Cohen, in which Sater boasted about how the Moscow deal could help Trump win the White House. “Our boy can become president of the USA,” Sater wrote, “and we can engineer it.”

Here are some of the other Russia investigation-related developments you may have missed in recent weeks: [list follows]….

Ronald Brownstein writes of Why a Republican Pollster Is Losing Faith in Her Party:

Good morning.

A new month begins in Whitewater under partly cloudy skies with a high of seventy-one. Sunrise is 6:20 AM and sunset 7:28 PM, for 13h 07m 22s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred ninety-sixth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1939, the Second World War begins as Nazi Germany invades Poland. On this day in 1875, Edgar Rice Burroughs is born. Burroughs used the Midwest in his stories: “In chapter 27 of “Tarzan of the Apes”, Burroughs depicts Tarzan saving Jane from a forest fire in Wisconsin. ”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Chris Smith observes that Robert Mueller’s Lines of Attack Are Getting Clearer:

Robert Mueller is not ending the summer with a tan. The 73-year-old special counsel leading the sprawling Department of Justice investigation into alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia is keeping the same grueling hours he did a decade ago as director of the F.B.I. Mueller is among the first of his team to arrive in their borrowed offices inside Washington’s Patrick Henry office building every morning and one of the last to leave each night.

More of what’s going on behind Mueller’s office door is showing up in public, though, a sign of the growing momentum of his probes into possible collusion, money laundering, election hacking, and obstruction of justice. NBC News reported that Mueller has obtained notes from the phone of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, that include a cryptic reference to “donations” and “RNC.” The notes were apparently taken during a meeting with Russian nationals at Trump Tower. And Politico’s Josh Dawsey broke the news that Mueller has begun working with the office of New York state’s attorney general, Eric Schneiderman. (The offices of Mueller and Schneiderman declined to comment.)

The special counsel’s staff had been in touch with Schneiderman’s office for months, exchanging information and discussing whether they might coordinate their efforts, because the attorney general has spent years looking into Trump’s finances. He added to that knowledge in March by hiring Howard Master, who had been deputy chief of the criminal division under former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Bharara’s office had assembled a major money-laundering case against 11 Russian companies; the scheme had been uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow jail under mysterious circumstances. A defense lawyer who represented the Russian companies, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was part of the now-famous Trump Tower meeting, supposedly to discuss adoptions, during last year’s presidential campaign….

Andrew Prokop offers Paul Manafort’s central role in the Trump-Russia investigation, explained (“Why Robert Mueller appears to be zeroing in on the former Trump campaign manager”):

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation about Russian collusion has increasingly appeared to zero in on one particular Trump associate: Paul Manafort.

In July, we learned that Manafort — Trump’s former campaign manager — attended a meeting Donald Trump Jr. set up with a Russian lawyer last year to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. Later that month, the FBI raided Manafort’s house for documents. His business associates, from PR firms to his former lawyer and his current spokesperson, are being slammed with subpoenas from Mueller’s team. Even Manafort’s son-in-law has reportedly been approached and asked to cooperate with the investigation.

“If I represented Paul Manafort, I would conclude that my client has significant criminal liability,” says Renato Mariotti, a partner at Thompson Coburn and a former prosecutor for a US Attorney’s office in Illinois….

David Kocieniewski and Caleb Melby report Kushners’ China Deal Flop Was Part of Much Bigger Hunt for Cash: 

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, wakes up each morning to a growing problem that will not go away. His family’s real estate business, Kushner Cos., owes hundreds of millions of dollars on a 41-story office building on Fifth Avenue. It has failed to secure foreign investors, despite an extensive search, and its resources are more limited than generally understood. As a result, the company faces significant challenges.

Over the past two years, executives and family members have sought substantial overseas investment from previously undisclosed places: South Korea’s sovereign-wealth fund, France’s richest man, Israeli banks and insurance companies, and exploratory talks with a Saudi developer, according to former and current executives. These were in addition to previously reported attempts to raise money in China and Qatar.

The family, once one of the largest landlords on the East Coast, sold thousands of apartments to finance its purchase of the tower in 2007 and has borrowed extensively for other purchases. They are walking away from a Brooklyn hotel once considered central to their plans for an office hub. From other properties, they are extracting cash, including tens of millions in borrowed funds from the recently acquired former New York Times building. What’s more, their partner in the Fifth Avenue building, Vornado Realty Trust, headed by Steve Roth, has stood aside, allowing the Kushners to pursue financing on their own….

Aaron Blake finds A very intriguing new subplot in the saga of Donald Trump Jr.’s Russia meeting:

The Washington Post’s Rosalind S. Helderman and Karoun Demirjian had previously reported that Manafort took notes during the [June 2016] meeting — notes that naturally were of interest to investigators — but this appears to be the first report to indicate he did so using his phone.

Why is that significant? Because Manafort being on his phone was presented by both Trump Jr. and the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, as evidence of his disinterest in the meeting. It was used to suggest that the meeting was rather insignificant — a disappointment to all involved — and didn’t go anywhere. Trump Jr. and others have said that the information promised was a bust and was never used by the Trump campaign, whatever their intent in accepting the meeting was….

Precisely what this means is up in the air. But Trump Jr.’s version of the Russia meeting has been wrong before. And it doesn’t seem far-fetched to think that maybe he misunderstood how closely Manafort was paying attention in that meeting in June 2016 — and documenting the proceedings.

NASA highlights What’s Up for September 2017:

Good morning.

Month’s end in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of seventy. Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:29 PM, for 13h 10m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred ninety-fifth 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 this afternoon at 4:30 PM.

On this day in 1987, Michael Jackson releases Bad, his seventh studio album. On this day in 1864, “1st, 12th, 16th, 17th, 21st, 24th, 25th and 32nd Wisconsin Infantry regiments along with the 5th and 10th Wisconsin Light Artillery batteries fight in the Battle of Jonesborough, Georgia.

Recommended for reading in full —

Anna Nemtsova, Betsy Woodruff, and Spencer Ackerman contend that Someone’s Lying About the Money for Trump Tower Moscow:

….Reports from earlier this week indicate [Felix] Sater, a convicted felon and former business associate of Trump, claimed in November 2015 he had lined up funding from VTB—a huge Russian bank, 60 percent of whose shares are owned by the Kremlin—for a Trump Organization construction project in Moscow.

If Sater’s claim is true, it could be a key link between Trump world and the Kremlin. But the bank at issue told The Daily Beast it isn’t. The Daily Beast cannot independently determine which side is telling the truth.

“VTB never held any negotiations about financing the Trump Tower in Moscow,” a bank representative told The Daily Beast in a statement. “We’d like to underline that not a single VTB group subsidiary had any dealings with Mr.Trump, his representatives or any companies affiliated with him”….

Dan Friedman reports on The Curious Link Between Trump’s Moscow Tower Deal and a Ukraine “Peace Plan”:

A pair of Trump associates, Michael Cohen and Felix Sater, appear to be gaining significance in the Trump-Russia investigation. News broke this week that during the presidential campaign the two sought a deal for the construction of a Trump Tower in Moscow. And, as reported earlier this year, the pair pushed a Kremlin-backed proposal for the US to lift sanctions on Russia—part of a proposed “peace deal” between Ukraine and Russia that Cohen and Sater brought to Trump’s then national security advisor Michael Flynn.

Congressional investigators are now interested in how the Moscow tower proposal and the so-called peace deal may connect. “That is a question members will be exploring, certainly,” says an official close to the Senate Intelligence Committee. One thread running through both deals is Russia’s desire for relief from US sanctions, which the Trump presidential campaign repeatedly signaled it was interested in accommodating. How that might shed further light on the deals is a “very interesting line of inquiry,” the official adds….

Philip Allen Lacovara explains How the pardon power could end Trump’s presidency:

Almost certainly, a presidential decision to preemptively pardon any of those caught up in Mueller’s investigation, whether former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former national security adviser Michael Flynn or Donald Trump Jr., would be effective and would spare those pardoned from prosecution, at least on the federal level.

So Trump may be tempted to use this mechanism to extricate himself from what he calls derisively “the Russia thing.”

But issuing pardons to his own friends, associates and relatives could be a perilous path for Trump, creating additional exposure on two levels, criminal and political — both flowing from an important proposition that is often overlooked in the debate over presidential power. Our legal system provides mechanisms for probing the intent and motives behind the exercise of power. The president may have the power to grant effective pardons in the Russia investigation, but both Congress and the federal prosecutor are entitled to determine whether the exercise of that power violates constitutional and statutory norms….

Josh Dawsey reports that Mueller teams up with New York attorney general in Manafort probe:

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team is working with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman on its investigation into Paul Manafort and his financial transactions, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The cooperation is the latest indication that the federal probe into President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman is intensifying. It also could potentially provide Mueller with additional leverage to get Manafort to cooperate in the larger investigation into Trump’s campaign, as Trump does not have pardon power over state crimes.

The two teams have shared evidence and talked frequently in recent weeks about a potential case, these people said. One of the people familiar with progress on the case said both Mueller’s and Schneiderman’s teams have collected evidence on financial crimes, including potential money laundering….

Business Insider’s talking peanut butter:

Why oil collects at the top of some peanut-butter jars — and how to prevent it pic.twitter.com/LeMNo6y7Lk

— Business Insider (@businessinsider) August 31, 2017

Good morning.

Midweek in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 6:18 AM and sunset 7:31 PM, for 13h 12m 56s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 61.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred ninety-fourth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1945, MacArthur arrives in Japan, “and immediately decreed several laws. No Allied personnel were to assault Japanese people. No Allied personnel were to eat the scarce Japanese food. Flying the Hinomaru or “Rising Sun” flag was initially severely restricted (although individuals and prefectural offices could apply for permission to fly it). ” On this day in 1862, Wisconsin troops rest at the White House lawn: “The 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th Wisconsin Infantry regiments fought in the Second Battle of Bull Run. By the end of this third day, more than 18,000 soldiers had been killed or wounded and Union forces had been pushed back to Washington, D.C. When the Wisconsin regiments arrived in Washington, they rested on the White House lawn. According to historian Frank Klement, “President Lincoln came out with a pail of water in one hand and a dipper in the other. He moved among the men, offering water to the tired and thirsty. Some Wisconsin soldiers drank from the common dipper and thanked the President for his kindness.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

April Glaser reports that Russian bots posing as regular people are trying to sow discord on Twitter after Charlottesville:

….The Alliance for Securing Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund that tracks efforts to undermine democratic governments, monitors a collection of 600 Twitter accounts that are known to be linked to Russian influence, including openly pro-Russian users, accounts that take part in Russian disinformation campaigns, and automated bot accounts that parrot Russian messaging.

They found these accounts busy at work in the days after Charlottesville. “PhoenixRally,” “Antifa,” and “MAGA” were among the most common hashtags used by these accounts this week. One of the central themes shared by the Russian-linked accounts after Charlottesville was an accusation, propagated by both the Russian news agency Sputnik and American far-right media personality Alex Jones, that the left-leaning philanthropist George Soros had supported the counterprotesters.

One example of a likely bot was an account under the name Angee Dixson, opened on Aug. 8, the Tuesday before the Charlottesville rally started, as reported by ProPublica. Described in her Twitter bio as a conservative Christian, Angee sent about 90 tweets out a day, in which she vigorously defended President Trump’s response to the rally and shared pictures that allegedly showed violence on the part of counterprotesters in Charlottesville. The account has now been shut down….

The Digital Forensic Research Lab lists Twelve Ways to Spot a Bot (“Some tricks to identify fake Twitter accounts”):

“Bots” —automated social media accounts which pose as real people — have a huge presence on platforms such as Twitter. They number in the millions; individual networks can number half a million linked accounts.

These bots can seriously distort debate, especially when they work together. They can be used to make a phrase or hashtag trend, as @DFRLab has illustrated here; they can be used to amplify or attack a message or article; they can be used to harass other users.

At the same time, many bots and botnets are relatively easy to spot by eyeball, without access to specialized software or commercial analytical tools. This article sets out a dozen of the clues, which we have found most useful in exposing fake accounts….

(It’s worth keeping in mind that Putin uses both bots and actual people – trolls who are online all day – to spread anti-American lies and pro-Trump propaganda.)

Evan Perez reports that Special counsel subpoenas Manafort’s former attorney and spokesman:

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has issued subpoenas to a former lawyer for Paul Manafort and to Manafort’s current spokesman, an aggressive tactic that suggests an effort to add pressure on the former Trump campaign chairman.

The subpoenas seeking documents and testimony were sent to Melissa Laurenza, an attorney with the Akin Gump law firm who until recently represented Manafort, and to Jason Maloni, who is Manafort’s spokesman, according to people familiar with the matter.

Manafort is under investigation for possible tax and financial crimes, according to US officials briefed on the investigation. The allegations under investigation largely center on Manafort’s work for the former ruling party in Ukraine, which was ousted amid street protests over its pro-Russian policies….

Sean Illing interviews 10 legal experts on why Trump can’t pardon his way out of the Russia investigation [two of ten, below]:

Julie O’Sullivan, law professor, Georgetown University
If the President pardons anyone involved in the Russian investigation, it may prove to be one of the stupidest things he has yet done. If the president were to pardon Kushner or Manafort or Flynn, presumably that pardon would extend to the Russia investigation because that is what concerns Trump. If — and this is a big if — the president is shown to have pardoned them to avoid his own personal exposure in the Russia investigation, that in and of itself could constitute obstruction of justice.

Peter Shane, law professor, Ohio State University
Russiagate pardons would pose some strategic risks for Trump. No one pardoned could constitutionally withhold their testimony in either a criminal investigation or from Congress. And, unlike the pardon of Arpaio, which is a despicable blow to the rule of law, pardoning anyone who might have been a co-conspirator in misconduct involving Trump himself would much more plausibly be impeachable.

And in any event, there is no “ground to prepare.” Pardoning Manafort, Flynn, Kushner, or anyone surnamed Trump would unleash a firestorm of protest that the Arpaio pardon will not lessen in any way. In Marbury v. Madison, John Marshall said there were “political” acts for which the president “is accountable only to his country in his political character and to his own conscience.” While Trump’s “conscience” has yet to display itself, both Congress and the voters can hold him to account “in his political character.”

Allen Miller shows a monarch caterpillar going into a cocoon:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of seventy-four. Sunrise is 6:17 AM and sunset 7:33 PM, for 13h 15m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 52.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred ninety-third day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

John Locke is born on this day in 1632. On this day twelve years ago, Hurricane Katrina makes landfall in Louisiana.

Recommended for reading in full —

Ryan Goodman asks Did Trump Campaign Collude with Russia to Defeat Republican Opponents in GOP Primary?:

Russia’s election interference began well before the general election. It started during the GOP primaries and clearly in support of Donald Trump over his GOP opponents. Thanks to investigative reporting by the New York Times, we now know, at the very least, the Trump campaign was open to support from the Russian government by early June 2016 when senior campaign members met with Russians purporting to have information from the Kremlin that would harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid, discussed timing for implementing Russian support, and failed to report any of this to U.S. authorities. Many have raised the question whether the Trump campaign’s knowledge of Russian government support and these kinds of exchanges began before June 2016. Yet to truly understand the scope of Russian interference in the U.S. election, we must ask a more specific question: did the Trump campaign know about, accept, or work with the Russian government when the Kremlin interfered in the GOP primary?

The publicly available information on this matter should prompt Congress, Robert Mueller, news media, and others to pursue that question with utmost concern. Let’s take a closer look….

Rosalind S. Helderman, Carol D. Leonnig and Tom Hamburger report that a Top Trump Organization executive asked Putin aide for help on business deal:

A top executive from Donald Trump’s real estate company emailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s personal spokesman during the U.S. presidential campaign last year to ask for help advancing a stalled Trump Tower development project in Moscow, according to documents submitted to Congress on Monday.

The request came in a mid-January 2016 email from Michael Cohen, one of Trump’s closest business advisers, who asked longtime Putin lieutenant Dmitry Peskov for assistance in reviving a deal that Cohen suggested was languishing.

“Over the past few months I have been working with a company based in Russia regarding the development of a Trump Tower-Moscow project in Moscow City,” Cohen wrote to Peskov, according to a person familiar with the email. “Without getting into lengthy specifics, the communication between our two sides has stalled….

Manu Raju reports on How a request about Russians made its way from West Virginia to Trump’s team:

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will see thunderstorms with a high of seventy-two. Sunrise is 6:16 AM and sunset 7:34 PM, for 13h 18m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 42.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}two hundred ninety-second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Urban Forestry Commission is scheduled to meet at 4:30 PM, and her Library Board at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Dr. King delivers his ‘I Have a Dream Speech.’

On this day in 1862, the Iron Brigade fights its fights its first battle: “The unit was composed of the 2nd Infantry, 6th Infantry, 7th Wisconsin Infantry, and the 19th Indiana Infantry, 24th Michigan Infantry, and Battery B of the 4th U.S. Light Artillery and was well known for its valor at such Civil War battles as Bull Run, Antietam and Gettysburg.”

Recommended for reading in full — 

Carol D. Leonnig, Tom Hamburger and Rosalind S. Helderman report that Trump’s business sought deal on a Trump Tower in Moscow while he ran for president:

While Donald Trump was running for president in late 2015 and early 2016, his company was pursuing a plan to develop a massive Trump Tower in Moscow, according to several people familiar with the proposal and new records reviewed by Trump Organization lawyers.

As part of the discussions, a Russian-born real estate developer urged Trump to come to Moscow to tout the proposal and suggested that he could get President Vladimir Putin to say “great things” about Trump, according to several people who have been briefed on his correspondence.

The developer, Felix Sater, predicted in a November 2015 email that he and Trump Organization leaders would soon be celebrating — both one of the biggest residential projects in real estate history and Donald Trump’s election as president, according to two of the people with knowledge of the exchange.

….the details of the deal, which have not previously been disclosed, provide evidence that Trump’s business was actively pursuing significant commercial interests in Russia at the same time he was campaigning to be president — and in a position to determine U.S.-Russia relations. The new details from the emails, which are scheduled to be turned over to congressional investigators soon, also point to the likelihood of additional contacts between Russia-connected individuals and Trump associates during his presidential bid….

Meanwhile, here’s Trump in January 2017, lying on Twitter yet again:

It was November 9th, 2016. The mood was joyous in the Kremlin as President Vladimir Putin, along with Russian officials, celebrated the election of Donald J. Trump as 45th President of the United States. Champagne was literally popped and toasts were made, as this foreign adversary celebrated American democracy.

Russian Governor, Viktor Nazarov

What we have here is an orchestrated effort by Russia, a hostile foreign power, to undermine American democracy and prop up Donald Trump. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy involved complex espionage and coordinated propaganda campaigns designed to damage Hillary Clinton, chipping away at her support from both the far-left and far-right of the political spectrum.

Russia’s intentions have been widely debated. Some say they never truly expected Trump to win, and were merely trying to weaken Clinton politically, whom Putin has accused of sowing discord in his own nation after Clinton questioned the legitimacy of Russia’s 2011 parliamentary elections. Putin wanted Clinton to come into office beleaguered by congressional investigations and a divided United States [cheat sheet follows]….

Elizabeth Randol explains Why Government Can’t Be Allowed to Make You Pay for Free Speech:

Imagine if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., future Congressman John Lewis, and their compatriots in the civil rights movement had been stuck with the bill for Sheriff Bull Connor’s harassment, beatings, and arrests. Under a proposal before the Pennsylvania Senate, people who take to the streets to express their political views would face exactly that if they end up on the wrong side of the law.

On August 16, Senator Scott Martin (R-Lancaster) introduced a bill that could hold protesters liable for public safety costs associated with demonstrations.  The primary trigger for this proposed legislation was the protest of the  Dakota Access Pipeline, though it was introduced just four days after the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Under Senate Bill 754[2], courts could hold individuals convicted of protest-related misdemeanors or felonies liable for all public safety costs associated with demonstrations. This is most certainly unconstitutional and would likely be struck down in federal court, but only after a costly legal fight….

David Haynes warns of The risk of believing in Foxconn:

Even under the best conditions, Wisconsin taxpayers won’t break even for 25 years, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau. But it might be a lot longer if more workers than expected drive up from Illinois or if Foxconn automates more work than expected and creates fewer jobs. In a globally competitive industry, Foxconn will automate extensively, which is why predictions of 13,000 jobs in a few years at the Wisconsin plant sound wildly optimistic. Points for [WEDC leader] Hogan for trying to mitigate that risk. The fact is we really don’t know where the break-even point is. The Fiscal Bureau notes that the way Gov. Scott Walker’s administration accounted for the capital tended to reduce the cost to taxpayers. Using a more typical accounting method “could push the break-even point for the project further into the future,” the Fiscal Bureau warns.

But there is a more basic question that has to be answered: Can Foxconn be trusted?

I’d love to believe the story that Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou is spinning. I’d love to imagine a sprawling, new industry emerging in southeastern Wisconsin, an operation that includes thousands of good-paying factory jobs making next-generation flat-panel LCD screens (Hogan says the median wage would be nearly $54,000). I’d love to see scores of smart technical people working at a cutting-edge research and development facility.

But then the dream bubble over my head bursts, and I remember Harrisburg, Pa.

And India and Brazil.

And Vietnam and Indonesia.

In all of those places, Foxconn talked big and failed to deliver. Walker has blamed the collapse of a factory deal in central Pennsylvania on a transition in state government. (A Democrat took office). But how to explain the others?….

Here’s a map shows every upcoming solar eclipse until 2040: