Good morning.

Saturday in this small town will be cloudy with a high of thirty-one. Sunrise is 7:04 AM and sunset 5:13 PM, for 10h 08m 39s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 54.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}eighty-eighth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

American civil rights activist Rosa Parks (née McCauley) is born this day in 1913. On this day in 1871, the Wisconsin Central Railroad is organized.

Recommended for reading in full —

Susan Craig and Eric Lipton report that despite his promises, Trust Records Show Trump Is Still Closely Tied to His Empire: “Just days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald J. Trump stood beside his tax lawyer at a Midtown Manhattan news conference as she announced that he planned to place his vast business holdings in a trust, a move she said would allay fears that he might exploit the Oval Office for personal gain. However, a number of questions were left unanswered — including who would ultimately benefit from the trust — raising concerns about just how meaningful the move was. Now, records have emerged that show just how closely tied Mr. Trump remains to the empire he built. While the president says he has walked away from the day-to-day operations of his business, two people close to him are the named trustees and have broad legal authority over his assets: his eldest son, Donald Jr., and Allen H. Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer. Mr. Trump, who will receive reports on any profit, or loss, on his company as a whole, can revoke their authority at any time. What’s more, the purpose of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust is to hold assets for the “exclusive benefit” of the president. This trust remains under Mr. Trump’s Social Security number, at least as far as federal taxes are concerned.”

Steven Verburg reports that State water woes drive ‘unpolished’ effort to sway lawmakers: Representatives of two dozen groups from around the state plan to tell lawmakers how their lives have been affected by things such as hazardous bacteria in drinking water, toxic algae that has killed pets and closed swimming beaches, and receding lakes that have left docks high and dry, [Criste] Greening said. While not aimed at any particular legislative proposal, the effort is intended as an initial warning shot across the bow of a state government that has rolled back water protections for the better part of a decade, Greening said. A few groups that formed mostly to seek stronger regulation of nearby animal feedlots are at the core of the effort, said Greening, a Wisconsin Rapids schoolteacher. Greening said it’s been heartbreaking to take her children to lakeside campsites she loved as a child and find signs banning swimming because of blue-green algae or E. coli bacteria. She said her neighbors’ concerns heightened last summer as public health officials received reports of people getting sick and pets dying after contact with algae blooms that were worse than usual in central Wisconsin.”

Daniel Dale’s keeping a list, and as of this date it’s The complete list of all 33 false things Donald Trump has said as president so far: “The [Toronto] Star’s running tally of the bald-faced lies, exaggerations and deceptions the president of the United States of America has said, so far….”

Scott Shane, Eric Lipton, and Matthew Rosenberg decribe how Trump Pushes Dark View of Islam to Center of U.S. Policy-Making: “This worldview borrows from the “clash of civilizations” thesis of the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington, and combines straightforward warnings about extremist violence with broad-brush critiques of Islam. It sometimes conflates terrorist groups like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State with largely nonviolent groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots and, at times, with the 1.7 billion Muslims around the world. In its more extreme forms, this view promotes conspiracies about government infiltration and the danger that Shariah, the legal code of Islam, may take over in the United States….Rejected by most serious scholars of religion and shunned by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, this dark view of Islam has nonetheless flourished on the fringes of the American right since before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. With Mr. Trump’s election, it has now moved to the center of American decision-making on security and law, alarming many Muslims.”

A Former Google Employee [Explains] How Your Phone Is Designed to Control Your Life:

Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of twenty-four. Sunrise is 7:05 AM and sunset 5:11 PM, for 10h 06m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 42.2% iof its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}eighty-seventh day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1917, the United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany over that nation’s policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. On this day in 1865, the 25th and 32nd Wisconsin Infantry regiments fight in the Battle of River’s Bridge in South Carolina.

Recommended for reading in full —

Doug Schneider reports that Despite claim to contrary, WI as tested only 9 backlogged rape kits: “GREEN BAY – Two days after the state’s top prosecutor said “a few hundred” of Wisconsin’s 6,000 backlogged rape kits had been tested, his office acknowledged that the number is a fraction of that. The state has completed testing of nine kits, said Rebecca Ballweg, a spokeswoman in the office of Attorney General Brad Schimel. Another 200 are being tested. The news angered leaders who have been pressing the state to move faster with testing. Schimel’s office received $4 million in grants from the federal government and New York prosecutors to address the issue 16 months ago, and is seeking additional grant money.

Matt O’Brien thinks Wall Street believes a myth about Donald Trump’s presidency. It will face a rude awakening: “It’s not just that Trump has backed up his tough talk about trade and immigration like Wall Street hoped he wouldn’t. It’s that he might have a tough time cutting taxes and boosting spending like they hoped he would. Take corporate tax reform. It might seem like a sure thing that a Republican White House, Senate and House of Representatives would be able to agree on this, but it’s a lot less so when their plan might actually increase taxes for retailers like Walmart….It’s the same story with infrastructure. Trump’s ideological consigliere Steve Bannon wants a trillion-dollar infrastructure package that would be “as exciting as the 1930s,” but the rest of the Republican Party isn’t too enthused about this. They’d rather focus on the things they’ve been waiting years to do, like repealing Obamacare and slashing the safety net and coming to terms on some tax cut for the rich. The Democrats, for their part, want to rebuild our roads and bridges, but they don’t want to do it the way Bannon does. They’d rather have the government spend the money directly on what it thinks the most important projects are than give private companies tax breaks to do what it thinks the most profitable ones are. In other words, all the stimulus the market thought would help the economy in the short-term might not materialize, but all the isolationism that would hurt it in the long-term is already starting to.”

Jonathon Chait contends that America’s Leading Authoritarian Intellectual Is Working for Trump: “Race is integral to [Michael] Anton’s sense of his own persecution. He sees the enthusiasm for Trump among avowed white supremacists as more reason to support Trump: “The Left was calling us Nazis long before any pro-Trumpers tweeted Holocaust denial memes,” he argues. “And how does one deal with a Nazi — that is, with an enemy one is convinced intends your destruction? You don’t compromise with him or leave him alone. You crush him.” It is a fascinating line of reasoning: There are Nazis supporting his chosen candidate, therefore the left will crush conservatives like Nazis, therefore his chosen candidate’s triumph is all the more necessary.”

Carl Zimmer writes about The Purpose of Sleep? To Forget, Scientists Say: “A pair of papers published on Thursday in the journal Science offer evidence for another notion: We sleep to forget some of the things we learn each day. In order to learn, we have to grow connections, or synapses, between the neurons in our brains. These connections enable neurons to send signals to one another quickly and efficiently. We store new memories in these networks. In 2003, Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli, biologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, proposed that synapses grew so exuberantly during the day that our brain circuits got “noisy.” When we sleep, the scientists argued, our brains pare back the connections to lift the signal over the noise.

Cold temperatures mean that thousands of people can walk over largest lake in central Europe:

Good morning.

Groundhog Day in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of twenty. Sunrise is 7:06 AM and sunset 5:10 PM, for 10h 03m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 31.1% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}eighty-sixth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

Whitewater’s Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1887, Punxsutawney Phil makes his first groundhog day prediction. On this day in 1905, professional baseball (as the Wisconsin State League) arrives in Wisconsin.

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Julia Edwards Ainsley, Dustin Volz and Kristina Cooke (of Reuters) report that Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam: “The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters. The program, “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States. Such a change would reflect Trump’s election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase “radical Islam” in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries. The CVE program aims to deter groups or potential lone attackers through community partnerships and educational programs or counter-messaging campaigns in cooperation with companies such as Google (GOOGL.O) and Facebook (FB.O). Some proponents of the program fear that rebranding it could make it more difficult for the government to work with Muslims already hesitant to trust the new administration, particularly after Trump issued an executive order last Friday temporarily blocking travel to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries.”

Reuters Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler, writing in Covering Trump the Reuters Way, says that his global news organization is prepared to cover the Trump Administration the way it would an autocracy: “So what is the Reuters answer? To oppose the administration? To appease it? To boycott its briefings? To use our platform to rally support for the media? All these ideas are out there, and they may be right for some news operations, but they don’t make sense for Reuters. We already know what to do because we do it every day, and we do it all over the world. To state the obvious, Reuters is a global news organization that reports independently and fairly in more than 100 countries, including many in which the media is unwelcome and frequently under attack. I am perpetually proud of our work in places such as Turkey, the Philippines, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Thailand, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia, nations in which we sometimes encounter some combination of censorship, legal prosecution, visa denials, and even physical threats to our journalists. We respond to all of these by doing our best to protect our journalists, by recommitting ourselves to reporting fairly and honestly, by doggedly gathering hard-to-get information – and by remaining impartial. We write very rarely about ourselves and our troubles and very often about the issues that will make a difference in the businesses and lives of our readers and viewers. We don’t know yet how sharp the Trump administration’s attacks will be over time or to what extent those attacks will be accompanied by legal restrictions on our news-gathering. But we do know that we must follow the same rules that govern our work anywhere…”

Rod Nordland reports that the Trump Presidency Could Offer Opportunity to World’s Autocrats: “The bromance between President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Mr. Trump is the most prominent example of a trend that has swept the world, instilling new hope for a strongman-friendly America in countries like the Philippines, Turkey or Egypt, and among nationalists in many other places who hope to follow in Mr. Trump’s footsteps and gain political power. Many appear to see a Trump presidency as an opportunity to engage with a like-minded leader who has stated nationalist aims. Others may hope for respite from criticism over their human rights records or authoritarian tendencies. Some, like Mr. Kim and Mr. Putin, might see an opportunity to further their national aims in a new geopolitical order.”

Greg Miller and Philip Rucker report No ‘G’day, mate’: On call with Australian prime minister, Trump badgers and brags: “But even in conversations marred by hostile exchanges, Trump manages to work in references to his election accomplishments. U.S. officials said that he used his calls with both Turnbull and Peña Nieto to mention his election win or the size of the crowd at his inauguration. One official said that it may be Trump’s way of “speaking about the mandate he has and why he has the backing for decisions he makes.” But Trump is also notoriously thin-skinned and has used platforms including social-media accounts, meetings with lawmakers and even a speech at CIA headquarters to depict his victory as an achievement of historic proportions, rather than a narrow outcome in which his opponent, Hillary Clinton, won the popular vote.”

NASA describes What’s Up for February 2017:

Good morning.

A new month in Whitewater begins with a partly sunny day and a high of thirty-one. Sunrise is 7:07 AM and sunset 5:09 PM, for 10h 01m 15s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 21.7% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}eighty-fifth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia is lost when it disintegrates over Texas and Louisiana as it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. On this day in 1860, Charles Ingalls and Caroline Quiner, Ma and Pa Ingalls, are married in Concord, Wisconsin.

Recommended for reading in full —

Matt Levine considers Trump’s relationship to businesses in Immigration Orders and Odd Tenders: “Many people in the business and financial and technology communities listened to what Trump said, and cheerily assumed he’d do something completely different. Sure he talked about restricting trade and banning Muslim immigrants, but what they heard was that he’d enact “sensible immigration policy” and pro-growth trade agreements, reduce taxes, cut back regulation and generally improve conditions for business….And what has happened so far? Immigration bans (with more to come), abandoned trade agreements, “alternative facts,” unprompted promises to bring back torture. And what has not happened so far? Tax policy is a complete mystery, with an unclear and walked-back promise to impose a border tax. Health-care policy is even more mysterious. Trump has made vague promises to cut regulations by 75 percent, but his specific regulatory focus seems to be on increasing penalties on companies that move operations abroad. Everything Trump literally said is coming literally true; everything the serious people heard remains an unserious hope. Businesses may eventually get the tax and regulatory reform they wanted, but it’s not a priority. The technology industry, and some others, are beginning to figure this out:

Trump has “had this extraordinary honeymoon where Wall Street has kind of discounted all the negative aspects,” Richard Fenning, the CEO of consultancy Control Risks, told Bloomberg Television. As companies react to the migrant ban, “perhaps that honeymoon is starting to be over,” he said.”

Thomas R. Wood shows What Democracy Looks Like:

What Democracy Looks Like from Thomas R. Wood on Vimeo.

Derek Thompson asks Want to Talk to the President? Advertise Here: “Indeed, some politicians and journalists are realizing just how much Trump’s statements are recapitulations of ideas he has just seen on TV. CNN’s Brian Stelter observed that minutes after Fox News used the words “ungrateful traitor” to describe Chelsea Manning and “weak leader” to describe President Obama, Trump sent a tweet calling Manning an “Ungrateful TRAITOR” and Obama “a weak leader. Last week, Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings directly implored the president to call him in a segment on Morning Joe. “I know you’re watching,” he said. “Call me. I want to talk to you.” Hours later, Trump called the congressman’s Washington office.”

Jeffrey Gettleman reports that State Dept. Dissent Cable on Trump’s Ban Draws 1,000 Signatures: “Within hours, a State Department dissent cable [for employees of the department], asserting that President Trump’s executive order to temporarily bar citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries would not make the nation safer, traveled like a chain letter — or a viral video. The cable wended its way through dozens of American embassies around the world, quickly emerging as one of the broadest protests by American officials against their president’s policies. And it is not over yet. By 4 p.m. on Tuesday, the letter had attracted around 1,000 signatures, State Department officials said, far more than any dissent cable in recent years. It was being delivered to management, and department officials said more diplomats wanted to add their names to it.”

There’s at least one Snow Guardian of the Rockies:

Good morning.

The last day of January in this small town will be cloudy, with a few flurries or snow showers possible, and a high of thirty-five. Sunrise is 7:09 AM and sunset 5:07 PM, for 9h 58m 51s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 13.2% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}eighty-fourth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}

On this day in 1958, America launches Explorer 1, her first satellite, into orbit: “Explorer 1 was launched on January 31, 1958 at 22:48 Eastern Time (equal to February 1, 03:48 UTC) atop the first Juno booster from LC-26 at the Cape Canaveral Missile Annex, Florida. It was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen radiation belt,^[2] returning data until its batteries were exhausted after nearly four months. It remained in orbit until 1970, and has been followed by more than 90 scientific spacecraft in the Explorer series.” On this day in 1846, Wisconsin’s territorial legislature charters Carroll College.

Recommended for reading in full — 

Conservative David Frum describes How Donald Trump Could Build an Autocracy in the U.S.: “Donald Trump, however, represents something much more radical. A president who plausibly owes his office at least in part to a clandestine intervention by a hostile foreign intelligence service? Who uses the bully pulpit to target individual critics? Who creates blind trusts that are not blind, invites his children to commingle private and public business, and somehow gets the unhappy members of his own political party either to endorse his choices or shrug them off? If this were happening in Honduras, we’d know what to call it. It’s happening here instead, and so we are baffled….

Those citizens who fantasize about defying tyranny from within fortified compounds have never understood how liberty is actually threatened in a modern bureaucratic state: not by diktat and violence, but by the slow, demoralizing process of corruption and deceit. And the way that liberty must be defended is not with amateur firearms, but with an unwearying insistence upon the honesty, integrity, and professionalism of American institutions and those who lead them. We are living through the most dangerous challenge to the free government of the United States that anyone alive has encountered. What happens next is up to you and me. Don’t be afraid. This moment of danger can also be your finest hour as a citizen and an American.”

Conservative David Brooks considers The Republican Fausts: “With most administrations you can agree sometimes and disagree other times. But this one is a danger to the party and the nation in its existential nature. And so sooner or later all will have to choose what side they are on, and live forever after with the choice.”

Conservative and former G.W. Bush Administration official Eliot Cohen Responds to Donald Trump’s First Week: “Precisely because the problem is one of temperament and character, it will not get better. It will get worse, as power intoxicates Trump and those around him. It will probably end in calamity—substantial domestic protest and violence, a breakdown of international economic relationships, the collapse of major alliances, or perhaps one or more new wars (even with China) on top of the ones we already have. It will not be surprising in the slightest if his term ends not in four or in eight years, but sooner, with impeachment or removal under the 25th Amendment. The sooner Americans get used to these likelihoods, the better.

The question is, what should Americans do about it? To friends still thinking of serving as political appointees in this administration, beware: When you sell your soul to the Devil, he prefers to collect his purchase on the installment plan. Trump’s disregard for either Secretary of Defense Mattis or Secretary-designate Tillerson in his disastrous policy salvos this week, in favor of his White House advisers, tells you all you need to know about who is really in charge. To be associated with these people is going to be, for all but the strongest characters, an exercise in moral self-destruction.”

Patrick Marley reports that Former teen inmate, now brain damaged, sues state: “Madison – A former inmate at Wisconsin’s teen prison filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Monday over a suicide attempt that left her severely brain damaged. The lawsuit by former Copper Lake School for Girls inmate Sydni Briggs and her mother alleges psychiatrists and prison officials failed to put protections in place even though Briggs had sent signals she was suicidal. She told a therapist she was thinking about suicide and twice scratched her arms so hard they bled, the suit says. “They knew that staff was stretched too thin,” Briggs’ attorneys wrote of prison officials in their lawsuit. “They knew that they were under-trained on how to prevent suicide attempts. They knew that a prolonged rash of suicide attempts had taken place at Copper Lake. Given the large number of attempts, it was only a matter of time before one was fatal.”

Consider how the planet, itself, has changed over the last few decades: