Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will see morning rain give way to occasional sunshine and a high of thirty-nine. Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 5:23 PM, for 10h 29m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}ninety-sixth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Abraham Lincoln is born this day in 1809. On this day in 2002, Verona, Wisconsin’s Casey FitzRandolph wins a gold medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games in the Men’s 500 Meters.

Recommended for reading in full —

J. Weston Phippen writes that Yale Changes the Name of Calhoun College Over Ties to Racism: “Yale University announced Saturday that it would rename its residential college that bore the name of John C. Calhoun, a Yale graduate, U.S. vice president, white supremacist and advocate of slavery. The college will now be named after Grace Murray Hopper, a mathematician who graduated from the university in 1934 and left a teaching role to enlist in the Navy during World War II. The name change is a reversal of a decision made last spring, when Yale’s president, Peter Salovey, said he would not remove Calhoun’s name, because he thought it better to confront history, not to erase it. In that same spirit, Calhoun’s name will not be removed from the college, but will appear alongside Hopper’s, although the college will only be referred to by the latter. Hopper left her teaching job at Vassar and joined the Navy to help defeat Fascism, and she remained in service most of her life. But she is much better known for her work on early computers, developing code and language that allowed non-specialists to use them. ”

Oliver Willis describes How To Fight Cult Leaders Like Donald Trump And L. Ron Hubbard And Win (Willis – a progressive, not a libertarian – has for months now described Trump’s appeal as that of a cult leader): “In the last fifteen years or so there has been a steady stream of books, tv series, and documentaries about just how crazy the behavior of the church [of Scientology] has been historically and leading up to the bizarre behavior of current leader (and Tom Cruise bestie) David Miscavige. This informational war has demystified the church in the minds of most of the public, turning it into more of a punchline than anything….In an ideal world, a Trump supporter would learn about the bed of lies his entire persona is built on and simply leave the Trump compound of their own accord. But in the real world, this is unlikely to happen. If anything, Trump cultists will double down on their loyalty due to external attacks, with Trump issuing verbal kool-aid to them by describing everything outside the bubble as “fake news.” But outside reporting and debunking of his lies and mendacity does erode the cult of Trump. It galvanizes those of us on the left who are opposed to him with a shared set of information and logic to pass back and forth within our ranks as ammunition. Then for those moderates who are open to a logical argument, it arms them with information they need to form an informed opinion. With these two divisions of an information army continually supplied with material, you can win a war.”

Emma Green describes how These Conservative Christians Are Opposed to Trump—and Suffering the Consequences: “Earlier this month, Jonathan Martin jotted off a sad tweet. “I’ve lost count of the number of people who say they’ve had ministry jobs threatened/been fired for speaking out in some way in this season,” the Christian author and speaker wrote. Confirmation rolled in: one story from a church planter in California, another from a former worship leader in Indiana. These are “not people who would historically self-identify as progressives, at all,” Martin told me later. They’re “people who see themselves as being very faithful evangelicals.” Donald Trump has divided conservative Christian communities. Most white Christians support Trump, or at least voted for him. Some who have spoken out against his presidency or his policies, though, have encountered backlash. For a small group of people working in Christian ministry, music, and nonprofit advocacy, the consequences have been tangible: They’ve faced pressure from their employers, seen funds withdrawn from their mission work, or lost performing gigs because of their political beliefs.”

Daniel Dale has The complete list [so far – it’s only been three weeks] of all 57 false things Donald Trump has said as president: “U.S. President Donald Trump makes frequent false claims about matters big and small. The Star is planning to track them all. Contact Daniel Dale at ddale@thestar.ca if you hear Trump say anything you know is false or should be checked. Last updated: Feb. 10, 2017….

53. Feb. 7, 2017 —

Meeting with the National Sheriffs’ Association

The claim: “The murder rate in our country’s the highest it’s been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? 47 years? I’d say that in a speech and everybody’s surprised. Because the press doesn’t tell it like it is. It wasn’t to their advantage to say that.”

In fact: The homicide rate is not even close to a 47-year high. In fact, it remains near historic lows. There were 10 homicides per 100,000 residents in 1980, eight per 100,000 residents in 1995; in 2015, the latest year for which there is national data, it was five per 100,000 residents. Trump sometimes correctly notes that the increase in the homicide rate between 2014 and 2015 was the largest in more than 40 years. But that is far different than the actual rate being the highest.”

Tea & Kung Fu? Of course —

Ya’an, China, is home to some of the country’s best tea. It’s also home to the amazing long spout tea performers. This performance art, which dates back to 220 AD, mixes Kung Fu and the long spout metal teapot. Liu Xumin is a tea performer who has spent years mastering this ancient art form. His hope, he says, is to “achieve the integration of tea pot and human, of heaven and human, and of tea and human.”

Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be forty-five and partly cloudy. Sunrise is 6:55 AM and sunset is 5:22 PM, for 10h 26m 46s of daytime. The moon is full today, with 99.6% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}ninety-fifth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s annual Freeze Fest at Cravath Lakefront takes place today, with a Polar Plunge from Noon – 3:00 PM to benefit Special Olympics of Wisconsin and a Chili Cook Off 11:00 AM – 2:30 PM.

Thomas Edison is born this day in 1847. On this day in 1842, Territorial Legislature member James R. Vineyard shoots fellow legislator Charles C.P. Arndt shortly after a session’s adjournment.

Recommended for reading in full —

Jason Horowitz reports that Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists: “ROME — Those trying to divine the roots of Stephen K. Bannon’s dark and at times apocalyptic worldview have repeatedly combed over a speech that Mr. Bannon, President Trump’s ideological guru, made in 2014 to a Vatican conference, where he expounded on Islam, populism and capitalism. But for all the examination of those remarks, a passing reference by Mr. Bannon to an esoteric Italian philosopher has gone little noticed, except perhaps by scholars and followers of the deeply taboo, Nazi-affiliated thinker, Julius Evola. “The fact that Bannon even knows Evola is significant,” said Mark Sedgwick, a leading scholar of Traditionalists at Aarhus University in Denmark. Evola, who died in 1974, wrote on everything from Eastern religions to the metaphysics of sex to alchemy. But he is best known as a leading proponent of Traditionalism, a worldview popular in far-right and alternative religious circles that believes progress and equality are poisonous illusions.  Evola became a darling of Italian Fascists, and Italy’s post-Fascist terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s looked to him as a spiritual and intellectual godfather. They called themselves Children of the Sun after Evola’s vision of a bourgeoisie-smashing new order that he called the Solar Civilization. Today, the Greek neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn includes his works on its suggested reading list, and the leader of Jobbik, the Hungarian nationalist party, admires Evola and wrote an introduction to his works. More important for the current American administration, Evola also caught on in the United States with leaders of the alt-right movement, which Mr. Bannon nurtured as the head of Breitbart News and then helped harness for Mr. Trump.”

Andrew Sullivan considers The Madness of King Donald: “Then there is the obvious question of the president’s mental and psychological health. I know we’re not supposed to bring this up — but it is staring us brutally in the face. I keep asking myself this simple question: If you came across someone in your everyday life who repeatedly said fantastically and demonstrably untrue things, what would you think of him? If you showed up at a neighbor’s, say, and your host showed you his newly painted living room, which was a deep blue, and then insisted repeatedly — manically — that it was a lovely shade of scarlet, what would your reaction be? If he then dragged out a member of his family and insisted she repeat this obvious untruth in front of you, how would you respond? If the next time you dropped by, he was still raving about his gorgeous new red walls, what would you think? Here’s what I’d think: This man is off his rocker. He’s deranged; he’s bizarrely living in an alternative universe; he’s delusional. If he kept this up, at some point you’d excuse yourself and edge slowly out of the room and the house and never return. You’d warn your other neighbors. You’d keep your distance. If you saw him, you’d be polite but keep your distance. I think this is a fundamental reason why so many of us have been so unsettled, anxious, and near panic these past few months. It is not so much this president’s agenda. That always changes from administration to administration. It is that when the linchpin of an entire country is literally delusional, clinically deceptive, and responds to any attempt to correct the record with rage and vengeance, everyone is always on edge.”

Greag Sargent believes that A blueprint for resistance to Trump has emerged. Here’s what it looks like: “1) Have (guarded) faith in our system….2) Keep pressuring Republicans to exercise real oversight on Trump….3) Fight hard in the Senate will all available procedural weapons….4) Keep looking to civil society and try to fortify it where possible….5) Keep Trump distracted and off balance, to minimize the damage he can do….”

(I’d say it’s still early, and there will be much more difficult days, with significant setbacks, along the way.)

Rosie Gray asks, and answers, What is the NRx (Neoreaction) Movement?: “White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been in contact via intermediaries with Curtis Yarvin, Politico Magazine reported this week. Yarvin, a software engineer and blogger, writes under the name Mencius Moldbug. His anti-egalitarian arguments have formed the basis for a movement called “neoreaction.” The main thrust of Yarvin’s thinking is that democracy is a bust; rule by the people doesn’t work, and doesn’t lead to good governance. He has described it as an “ineffective and destructive” form of government, which he associates with “war, tyranny, destruction and poverty.” Yarvin’s ideas, along with those of the English philosopher Nick Land, have provided a structure of political theory for parts of the white-nationalist movement calling itself the alt-right. The alt-right can be seen as a political movement; neoreaction, which adherents refer to as NRx, is a philosophy. At the core of that philosophy is a rejection of democracy and an embrace of autocratic rule.”

In Alaska, it’s Moose v. Moose:

Good morning.

Here in Whitewater, we’ll have a partly cloudy and windy day, with a high of forty-four. Sunrise is 6:56 AM and sunset 5:21 PM, for 10h 24m 06s of daytime. Today is the {tooltip}ninety-fourth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1763, the Treaty of Paris leaves Britain with most of France’s New World possessions. On this day in 1950, Sen. McCarthy again claims, without revealing a single name, communist infiltration within the U.S. government.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Despite official denials, Kylie Atwood and Brian Gottlieb report that Mexican foreign minister helped Jared Kushner re-write Trump border wall speech: “Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray personally made changes to President Donald Trump’s speech announcing an executive order calling for the construction of a border wall, according to Mexican officials. When Videgaray came to the White House in January, on the same day that Mr. Trump was to sign the executive order, Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser and the president’s son-in-law, showed him the speech Mr. Trump planned to deliver that day at the Homeland Security Department. Videgaray was horrified, according to the Mexican officials, and deemed the speech a non-starter. If the remarks were not changed, they would likely drive the two countries, whose relationship Videgaray was there to try and redress, even further apart. Such a speech would also do little to help President Pena’s approval ratings in his own country. Kushner suggested they re-write the speech together to make it less damaging.”

James Pethokoukis believes that The US economy may be growing faster than we think — and has been for a long time: “Might we somehow be statistically mismeasuring economic growth? Might growth be faster than we think? (It’s a topic I’ve written frequently about.) And now there’s a new research paper on the subject. See, it’s widely known that measuring quality improvements in a product is tough. So perhaps traditional inflation measures like the consumer price index fail to fully capture the benefits of new or upgraded products. (This seems to be particularly true when it come to software.) In a San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank working paper, “Missing Growth from Creative Destruction,” researchers add to that argument:

We argue that there exists a subtler, overlooked bias in the case of creative destruction. When the producer of the outgoing item does not produce the incoming item (i.e., when there is creative destruction), the standard procedure at statistical offices is to resort to some form of imputation. Imputation inserts the average price growth among a set of surviving products that were not creatively destroyed. We think this misses some growth because inflation is likely to be below-average for items subject to creative destruction. … As some products disappear precisely because they are displaced by better products, inflation may be lower at these points than for surviving products. As a result, creative destruction may result in overstated inflation and understated growth.”

Tyler Kingkade reports that Campus Rape’s Toughest Young Attorney Is Ready For Trump And DeVos: “Lately, Laura Dunn has tried to avoid thinking about rape on the weekends, but it doesn’t come naturally for the meticulous lawyer. Her idea of unwinding includes binge-watching Law & Order: SVU, not exactly light entertainment for a woman whose weeks are spent fielding calls and emails about the very topic — sexual assault — that dominates the show. For Dunn, though, this world of virtuous detectives and prosecutors is an escape from the calls and emails she receives from people asking for help, from the start of her workday at 8 a.m. until she’s collapsing into bed around 11 p.m. People who’ve been raped, people whose children were raped, people whose reports of rape were ignored and who finally got fed up enough to do something about it.”

Molly Ball considers The Anti-Trump Resistance and the Lessons of the Tea Party: “It’s too soon to tell if the current resistance movement will follow the tea party’s pattern. But there are already many parallels. It has arisen spontaneously and en masse. Many Republicans believe it’s not real: The protests, they tell me, are Astroturf funded by George Soros; the opposition to Betsy DeVos as education secretary, which jammed Senate switchboards, was merely manufactured by the teachers’ unions. But the unions and Soros didn’t start this fire any more than the Kochs started the tea party—they’re merely riding the wave in hopes it will advance their goals. Second, Trump’s election appears to have galvanized a lot of people who weren’t previously Democratic activists or politically minded at all. They may have voted Democrat, they may consider themselves “progressive,” but they’re not the Democratic base that donated to politicians and knocked on doors in years past. Commentators on the right have seized on the violent sentiments expressed by some participants as proof the whole movement is composed of frightening extremists.”

One falcon pursues many starlings, but still comes away empty –

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of twenty-three. Sunrise is 6:58 AM and sunset 5:19 PM, for 10h 21m 29s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 97.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}ninety-third day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1950, Sen. Joseph McCarthy contends, without ever producing evidence, that the U.S. Department of State is riddled with communists. On this day in 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution authorizing a National Weather Service.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Joe Pompeo reports that Wall Street Journal editor to face critics: “Amid growing newsroom discontent over his perceived resistance to critical coverage of Donald Trump, Wall Street Journal editor in chief Gerry Baker will host a town hall meeting next week where he is expected to address the paper’s reporting on the new administration and answer questions from his staff. The meeting, announced in a company email on Wednesday and scheduled for Monday, February 13, is billed as a wide-ranging session on the state of the Journal, but Trump coverage is expected to be high on the list of discussion topics….While other major news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, have covered Trump aggressively throughout the campaign, the transition and the early days of the 45th presidency, repeatedly stoking the ire of Trump and his aides, the Journal has taken an arguably more circumspect, if not softer approach. Baker has been hesitant to allow Journal reporters to characterize Trump’s false assertions as lies and has suggested that media “elites” are out to get Trump. During the campaign, reporters say, some of his editorial decisions tended to downplay Trump’s transgressions while he urged his staff to be tougher on Hillary Clinton.”

Josh Feldman reports on a critic of House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz in Toobin: Chaffetz Won’t Investigate Trump Because He Only Cares About Investigating Democrats: “Do you think there were enough investigations of Benghazi by the Republican House?… Jason Chaffetz is only interested in investigating Democrats. Period. That’s the reason why Jason Chaffetz is in Congress, which is to investigate Democrats. He has no interest in making trouble for Donald Trump and he’s not going to make trouble for Donald Trump.”

Anna Nemtsova writes that America’s ‘Resistance’ Has a Lot to Learn From Russia’s Opposition: ““Whoever tries to understand Russia should know that this country is changing, every little town has volunteer movements, human-rights defenders and street journalists investigating the true story, “ Zygar, the author of the international best seller All the Kremlin’s Men, told The Daily Beast. But the opposition leaders still believe that only persistent street protests can change the power and politics in Russia. “We plan to revive the Solidarity movements that were originally founded by Nemtsov and hit the streets again this spring, one year before presidential elections—a good time to start,” Yashin told The Daily Beast.”

Jennifer Rubin observes that Trump’s lies all make America look worse: “President Trump does not tell lies randomly. Watch him long enough and you will see a pattern: America is rotten, and the press is lying to cover it up. During the campaign, one might have written this off as an effort to discredit the results of the Obama presidency, for which Hillary Clinton was effectively seeking a third term. Most every candidate, regardless of power, will argue that the incumbent party has failed in any number of regards because there still is plenty of (fill in the blank: poverty/homelessness/unemployment/terrorism). Now that Trump is president, however, his efforts to denigrate the country seem strange, not to mention false.”

It was only a matter of time – and this is that time – before someone combined a tiny house with a van:

Good morning.

Midweek in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of twenty-four. Sunrise is 6:59 AM and sunset 5:18 PM, for 10h 18m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 92% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}ninety-second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1922, Pres. Harding has a radio installed at the White House. On this day in 1858, Wisconsin Congressman John Potter brawls with southerners on the House floor.

Recommended for reading in full —

Lee Bergquist reports that the EPA OKs slower roll-out of water rules for Wisconsin: “The EPA notified Department of Natural Resources on Monday that it will allow the state to phase in tougher regulations to limit the discharge of phosphorus from point sources such as sewage treatment plants and factories. Phosphorus is a major ingredient that feeds algae that clogs many Wisconsin lakes. In its latest assessment, the DNR in 2016 concluded that 41% of more than 7,700 waters in the state violated water standards for phosphorus.  The action has been in the works by the EPA for months and is not seen as influenced by the administration of President Donald Trump, who has promised to cut back on environmental regulations. “Our sense is that it has been working its way through the system for a while,” said Scott Laeser, water quality specialist with Clean Wisconsin, a Madison-based environmental group.”

David Sanger and Eric Schmitt report that Yemen Forbids U.S. Ground Missions After Flawed Raid: “WASHINGTON — Angry at the civilian casualties incurred last month in the first commando raid authorized by President Trump, Yemen has withdrawn permission for the United States to run Special Operations ground missions against suspected terrorist groups in the country, according to American officials. Grisly photographs of children apparently killed in the crossfire of a 50-minute firefight during the raid caused outrage in Yemen. A member of the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, Chief Petty Officer William Owens, was also killed in the operation. While the White House continues to insist that the attack was a “success” — a characterization it repeated on Tuesday — the suspension of commando operations is a setback for Mr. Trump, who has made it clear he plans to take a far more aggressive approach against Islamic militants.”

Avi Selk reports on the families of a murder victim: ‘My daughter’s death will not be used’: Parents furious over Trump’s false terrorism claims: “On Tuesday, both families saw their children’s murders on a White House list of terrorist attacks that hadn’t gotten enough attention, and Ayliffe said she felt she needed to set down words again. “My daughter’s death will not be used to further this insane persecution of innocent people,” she wrote in an open letter to President Trump. Her words were joined by the parents of the attack’s second victim, Jackson, who expressed their disbelief in an email to the White House and elsewhere. “I’m pretty sure he and his advisors know full well — or could very easily verify — that Tom and Mia died not as the result of an act of terror but rather through the actions of a disturbed individual,” Les Jackson wrote on Facebook. “Of course, that doesn’t suit his agenda.”

Kori Hill describes Nice views: Tallest building in each state: “Wisconsin – The U.S. Bank Center in Milwaukee is the tallest building in Wisconsin at 42 stories and 601 feet tall. It opened in 1973 and is famous for nesting Peregrine falcons outside the 41st floor. Since the program launched, 67 falcons have been successfully fledged by the building.”

Name Explain tackles Why Slovakia & Slovenia Have Such Similar Names:

Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will bring thunderstorms and a high of thirty-eight. Sunrise is 7 AM and sunset 5:17 PM, for 10h 16m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 85.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}ninety-first day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

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

Charles Dickens is born this day in 1812. Laura Ingalls Wilder is born this day in 1867, in a village near Pepin, Wisconsin.

Recommended for reading in full —

Former Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, argues that We can’t let Trump go down Putin’s path: “In retrospect, Russians who lament the consolidation of Putin’s autocracy all say they reacted too slowly at the beginning. They didn’t believe things could get so bad. They didn’t believe Putin would ever go as far as he did. Back in 2000, Putin had few allies within the state, and lukewarm support in society. He won his first election because of government support and weak opponents, not because of wild enthusiasm among voters for him or his ideas. Back then, important actors in Russia’s business class remained autonomous from the state, regional leaders also acted a check on Moscow’s power, independent media still existed and parliament still enjoyed some real power. Had these forces pushed back immediately against creeping authoritarianism, Russia’s political trajectory might have been different. Sounds familiar? Trump also had never run for office before last year. He presented himself emphatically as a law-and-order candidate. He has promised to cut taxes, thus ensuring support from the business community. Like Putin in 2000, he has pledged “to make America great again.” Just as Putin ordered the Russian army into Chechnya, Trump has already threatened to send federal forces into Chicago. Just like Putin, Trump and his team have labeled as enemies protesters, journalists and members of allegedly “terrorist” nations. Trump’s recent Twitter screed against those opposing him — “Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters” — sounds eerily similar to Putin’s reaction to crowds mobilized against him in 2011-2012.”

Conor Friedersdorf explains Why Donald Trump Bears Blame for Making America Less Safe: “First, Trump’s executive order shows an economic illiterate’s disregard for opportunity cost. At the stroke of a pen, he ensured that the parts of the U.S. government that vet immigrants, whether at foreign consulates or U.S. ports of entry, would spend months of additional time and effort on tens of thousands of people who’ve already been through years of vetting. It would be as if TSA forced a bunch of people who’d already gone through security to line up again for screening without realizing that less time and attention would be paid to folks who’ve not been screened. What’s more, are new hurdles for, say, Iranian grandparents or Libyan children who aren’t even old enough to have been alive on 9/11, possibly the best use of scarce resources? How many additional smugglers from unaffected countries slipped through customs last week while agents were busy handcuffing Green Card holders? If you were a “bad guy” from an unaffected country like Saudi Arabia, what better time to try slipping into the United States than the chaos of last week? And who focuses on countries that pose terror risks without listing Pakistan?”

David Frum offers advice on How to Beat Trump: “The more conservative you are [in style, manner], the more radical you are. You want to scare Trump? Be orderly, polite, and visibly patriotic. Trump wants to identify all opposition to him with the black-masked crowbar thugs who smashed windows and burned a limo on his inauguration day. Remember Trump’s tweet about stripping citizenship from flag burners? It’s beyond audacious that a candidate who publicly requested help from Russian espionage services against his opponent would claim the flag as his own. But Trump is trying. Don’t let him get away with it. Carry the flag. Open with the Pledge of Allegiance. Close by singing the Star Spangled Banner––like these protesters at LAX, in video posted by The Atlantic’s own Conor Friedersdorf. Trump’s presidency is itself one long flag-burning, an attack on the principles and institutions of the American republic. That republic’s symbols are your symbols. You should cherish them and brandish them. Don’t get sucked into the futile squabbling cul-de-sac of intersectionality and grievance politics.”

Kurt Eichenwald asks, Can Trump Tell the Difference Between Truth and His Lies?: “Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and probably every politician ever has used spin or told some whoppers to achieve a specific goal. But the benefit from the stories Trump has spun recently was not only zero, it harmed him. No rational person could possibly have cared how many people attended Trump’s inauguration; anyone could see the same photographs and read the same data about television viewership and Washington’s mass transit usage as everyone else. None could have reasonably believed that the most incredible voter fraud campaign in American history had just taken place, with millions of illegal votes cast for Democrats, particularly when Republicans won most of the key Senate races in that election and maintained control of the House. He could have said nothing about those two topics and no one would have thought the worse of him. But if he knows he is lying, he not only accomplishes nothing, he harms himself by showing he will lie over irrelevant trivialities. And that raises the question of whether he knows when he is lying. “Although deception is in almost everyone’s social repertoire, it is generally employed as a tactical or strategic option of last resort,’’ said Dr. Timothy R. Levine, a communications professor at Michigan State University who co-authored a 2010 report on experiments about lying. ”Absent psychopathology, people do not deceive when the truth works just fine.” (Emphasis mine.)

Why there are small bumps on the ‘F’ and ‘J’ keys of every keyboard? Here’s why —

Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of forty-five. Sunrise is 7:02 AM and sunset 5:15 PM, for 10h 13m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 75.7% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}ninetieth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Babe Ruth is born on this day in 1895. On this day in 1967, activist Stokely Carmichael speaks at UW-Whitewater.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Jon Finer describes Trump Is Attacking Any Institution That Challenges Him: “From the many disturbing aspects of Donald Trump’s controversial and dizzying first two weeks as President, a theme is emerging that, in the long run, may prove more dangerous than any individual policy: his unprecedented assault on institutions that could delay or derail his radical agenda. As I wrote previously, this approach began, not by accident, with an assault on the press and intelligence community, two entities in American society that traditional provide the verified facts that are the basis for policy decisions. Trump set the stage for these fights by disparaging both institutions throughout the presidential campaign and transition, punctuated by his trademark pungent insults (the press as “the most dishonest humans,” the intelligence community as employing Nazi tactics) aimed less at their work product than at their very legitimacy. In a democracy, it is normal––sometimes even desirable––for institutions to advance different agendas, the collision of which produces policy. But what isn’t normal is for arguably the most powerful institution to seek not to win arguments against the others, but rather to vanquish them.”

Elizabeth Dwoskin reports that Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and 94 other tech companies call travel ban ‘unlawful’ in rare coordinated legal action: “Silicon Valley is stepping up its confrontation with the Trump administration. On Sunday night, technology giants Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, Twitter, Uber and many others filed a legal brief opposing the administration’s contentious entry ban, according to people familiar with the matter. The move represents a rare coordinated action across a broad swath of the industry — 97 companies in total— and demonstrates the depth of animosity toward the Trump ban. The amicus brief was filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, which is expected to rule within a few days on an appeal by the administration after a federal judge in Seattle issued late Friday a temporary restraining order putting the entry ban on hold. The brief comes at the end of a week of nationwide protests against the plan — as well as a flurry of activity in Silicon Valley, a region that sees immigration as central to its identity as an innovation hub.”

Link to Amicus Brief by Tech Companies.

Lee Bergquist writes that a Study says Wisconsin DNR underreports gray wolf poaching: “A University of Wisconsin-Madison study shows the human toll on wolves is higher than previously estimated and that state officials have underreported wolf deaths in past analyses. For years, wolves have been shot illegally, struck by cars and trucks or legally killed by authorities acting on reports that wolves were killing and threatening livestock and pets. But in a study published Monday in the Journal of Mammalogy, UW researcher Adrian Treves and a group of scientists found higher levels of illegal killing of wolves in Wisconsin than reported by the Department of Natural Resources. As part of the study, the researchers reinvestigated fatalities of a subset of wolves and found “abundant evidence” of gunshot wounds and injuries from trapping that may have been overlooked as a factor in their deaths, the authors said.”

Katie Zernicke reports that Trump Protesters Borrow From Tea Party to Put Pressure on Lawmakers: “MORRISTOWN, N.J. — For weeks, a swelling group has been showing up every Friday here at the local office of Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen to demand that he hold a town-hall meeting to answer its concerns about his fellow Republicans’ plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. After weeks without an answer, the congressman’s staff replied that he would be too busy, that such gatherings took considerable planning and that just finding a meeting place could be tough. So the group, NJ 11th for Change, secured venues in all four counties that Mr. Frelinghuysen represents for times during the congressional recess this month — and constituents plan to show up even if he does not. With congressional phone lines overloaded and district offices mobbed across the country, it’s beginning to look a lot like 2009.”

Here’s the full 84 Lumber Super Bowl Commercial – The Entire Journey (only a portion appeared during the game):

Good morning.

Sunday in this small town will be partly cloudy with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise 7:03 AM and sunset 5:14 PM, for 10h 11m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 65.4% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}eighty-ninth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1937, Pres. Roosevelt proposed the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937^[1] (frequently called the “court-packing plan”)^[2] was a legislative initiative proposed by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt to add more justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Roosevelt’s purpose was to obtain favorable rulings regarding New Deal legislation that the court had ruled unconstitutional.^[3]” The legislation met its demise at the hands of a fellow Democrat, “Senate Judiciary Committee committee chair Henry F. Ashurst, who delayed hearings in the Judiciary Committee, saying “No haste, no hurry, no waste, no worry—that is the motto of this committee.”^[12] As a result of his delaying efforts, the bill was held in committee for 165 days, and opponents of the bill credited Ashurst as instrumental in its defeat.^[5]” On this day in 1849, the University of Wisconsin opens “with 20 students led by Professor John W. Sterling.”

Recommended for reading (or watching) in full —

Dave Itzkoff reports that ‘S.N.L.’ Goes After Trump Again, With Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer: “the night belonged to Ms. McCarthy, the star of “Bridesmaids” and “Ghostbusters,” who came out in thinning blond hair and an ill-fitting suit to play an aggressive, gum-chugging version of Mr. Spicer as he led a daily White House press briefing. “I know that myself and the press have gotten off to a rocky start,” she said, starting off the session. “When I say rocky start, I mean it in the sense of ‘Rocky,’ the movie, because I came out here to punch you in the face. And also I don’t talk so good.”

Alana Semuels describes America’s Great Divergence (A growing earnings gap between those with a college education and those without is creating economic and cultural rifts throughout the country): “Half a century ago, economic opportunity and upward mobility were available to many white Americans, regardless of where they lived and what kind of education they had. They could graduate from high school and find a job at a local factory and make a good wage, or graduate from college and sit behind a desk and make a slightly better wage. About 90 percent of kids born in the 1940s earned more than their parents did, according to work by Stanford economist Raj Chetty. But beginning in the 1980s, the returns on a college education started growing, and more of the benefits of economic growth started accruing to only those with an education, as those without an education saw their opportunities shrink. People with a college degree or more now earn 50 percent of aggregate U.S. household income, up from 37 percent in 1991, while people with less than a high school degree now earn 5 percent, down from 12 percent in 1991, according to Census data. (1991 is the earliest year for which there is comparable data.)”

Paul Gowder describes The Trump Threat to the Rule of Law and the Constitution: “The election of Donald Trump raises serious worries about the future of the rule of law in the United States. Many an authoritarian has taken power from a democratic state under the banner of populist nationalism, and Trump’s association with illiberal and antidemocratic individuals and groups (from Vladimir Putin to Steve Bannon and the “alt-right”) has raised the worry that Trump does not respect the basic norms of our Constitutional order….Specifically, a political leader has to undermine two key sites of opposition. First, a leader has to undermine the capacity of the population at large to collectively resist his illegal acts, by reducing the capacity of the public to engage in mass coordinated action (which can range from voting, to economic resistance and protest, to outright rebellion) against him. Second, a leader has to undermine the capacity or incentive of mid-level officials and elites, the sorts of people who control things like tax revenue and the transmission of orders to military units, to oppose him, primarily by declining to carry out his wishes. (The reader is advised here to consult the brilliant work of economist Avner Greif on administrative power.)”

The AP reports that About 600 Donald Trump protesters rally near Paul Ryan’s Janesville home: “JANESVILLE – Hundreds of demonstrators rallied Saturday in Janesville to protest President Donald Trump’s now-blocked executive order temporarily limiting immigration. The Janesville Gazette reported about 600 protesters gathered Saturday in a city park a few blocks from House Speaker Paul Ryan’s Janesville home.”

Hannu Huhtamo proudly observes that ‘Darkness Is My Canvas, Light Is My Brush’:

‘Darkness Is My Canvas, Light Is My Brush’ from Great Big Story on Vimeo.