Good morning.

Whitewater’s Monday will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-five. (The average December high is thirty-one.) Sunrise is 7:24 AM and sunset 4:27 PM, for 9h 03m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 6.7% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1776, having crossed the Delaware, Washington is victorious at Trenton:

“At 4:00 am, the soldiers began to march towards Trenton.^[31] Along the way, several civilians joined as volunteers, and led as guides (see Captain John Mott) because of their knowledge of the terrain.^[32] After marching 1.5 miles (2.4 km) through winding roads into the wind, they reached Bear Tavern, where they turned right.^[33] The ground was slippery, but it was level, making it easier for the horses and artillery. They began to make better time.^[33] They soon reached Jacobs Creek, where, with difficulty, the Americans made it across.^[34] The two groups stayed together until they reached Birmingham, where they split apart.^[8] Soon after, they reached the house of Benjamin Moore, where the family offered food and drink to Washington.^[35] At this point, the first signs of daylight began to appear.^[35] Many of the troops did not have boots, so they were forced to wear rags around their feet. Some of the men’s feet bled, turning the snow to a dark red. Two men died on the trip.^[36]

As they marched, Washington rode up and down the line, encouraging the men to continue.^[27] General Sullivan sent a courier to tell Washington that the weather was wetting his men’s gunpowder. Washington responded, “Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton.”^[37]

Worth reading in full — 

It’s December 26th, 2016, after a long but revealing political campaign, yet at the State Journal, ‘Two Minutes with Mitch Henck’ concludes that Donald Trump could really turn on the press. Henck uses the word could the way people with a proper grasp of English use has, is, and will continue.  (Admittedly, Henck’s not sucking on his thumb while speaking of Trump’s conduct, but that’s only because Henck couldn’t speak at all if he did so.)

At Cato, Neal McCluskey asks [concerning a report from Sightlines]  Do Colleges Have an Edifice Complex, an Amenities Arms Race, or Both?: “Essentially, the report says that colleges have been on a big building binge, but enrollment has been stagnant or declining….The basic math is concerning: Greater capital costs, plus decreasing revenue, equals trouble. Has the building boom been driven by an edifice complex — college presidents and faculty love new buildings all over campus that are imposing, cutting edge, or both — or an amenities arms race to bring in students? The report says that for decades, college construction has focused more on creating non-academic than academic space, and about half of all college space today is for non-academic use. It’s a classic arms race: Colleges frightened of losing tuition dollars feel constant pressure to spend on expensive facilities to compete for students, in the process greatly increasing the danger of becoming even more insecure financially, maybe hopelessly so.”

(One reads all this with concern, not because one doubts university life, but with a love for it, from a family that has always loved it, because that life derives strength primarily from substantive learning, and secondarily in a socialization that has no capital cost.)

Sergei Guriev writes that In Russia, It’s Not the Economy, Stupid: “Thanks partly to its near-complete control of the press, television and the internet, the government has developed a grand narrative about Russia’s role in the world — essentially promoting the view that Russians may need to tighten their belts for the good of the nation. The story has several subplots. Russian speakers in Ukraine need to be defended against neo-Nazis. Russia supports President Bashar al-Assad of Syria because he is a rampart against the Islamic State, and it has helped liberate Aleppo from terrorists. Why would the Kremlin hack the Democratic Party in the United States? And who believes what the C.I.A. says anyway?”

Philip Rucker and Robert Barnes report that Trump to inherit more than 100 court vacancies, plans to reshape judiciary: “The estimated 103 judicial vacancies that President Obama is expected to hand over to Trump in the Jan. 20 transition of power is nearly double the 54 openings Obama found eight years ago following George W. Bush’s presidency. Confirmation of Obama’s judicial nominees slowed to a crawl after Republicans took control of the Senate in 2015. Obama White House officials blame Senate Republicans for what they characterize as an unprecedented level of obstruction in blocking the Democratic president’s court picks. The result is a multitude of openings throughout the federal circuit and district courts that will allow the new Republican president to quickly make a wide array of lifetime appointments.”

Tech Insider reports on The 5 biggest tech controversies of 2016:

Good morning.

Christmas Eve in Whitewater will be mostly cloudy with a high of thirty-five. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:26 PM, for 9h 02m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 19.1% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1968, astronauts orbit the moon ten times before returning to Earth: “Apollo 8 took three days to travel to the Moon. It orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast where they read the first 10 verses from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8’s successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy‘s goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s. The Apollo 8 astronauts returned to Earth on December 27, 1968, when their spacecraft splashed down in the Northern Pacific Ocean. The crew was named Time magazine‘s “Men of the Year” for 1968 upon their return.”

Worth reading in full — 

Jason Stein reports that, concerning a high-level state administrator who sought to evade the public records law, Panel upholds firing of ex-Corrections secretary: “Madison — Former state Corrections secretary Ed Wall knowingly sought to evade Wisconsin’s open records law, a state panel found in upholding his firing. In a six-page opinion this month, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission threw out Wall’s appeal of his dismissal from a backup job by Attorney General Brad Schimel earlier this year. The case was an unexpected outgrowth of the controversy over abuses at a juvenile prison that worsened under Wall’s watch as corrections head….”Here Wall understood that the document indeed was a public record and that the only way to avoid the required disclosure was to unlawfully keep it ‘strictly between you and me’ as Wall proposed,” the panel’s decision reads. “Once the communication was disclosed, the attorney general had no choice but to terminate Wall. The action of a high-level administrator attempting to evade the law would significantly undermine the (Department of Justice) had lesser discipline been imposed.”

It should come as no surprise, as Philip Rucker reports in Trump tweets praise of Putin for attack on Clinton, that a would-be autocrat loves a Russian one more than his own people: “WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President-elect Donald Trump late Friday publicly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin for attacking Trump’s former Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. In a striking statement that seems to further align Trump with Putin, the incoming U.S. president tweeted that he agreed with the Russian leader’s assessment that Clinton and the Democratic Party generally have not shown “dignity” following widespread loses in the November election. “So true!” Trump tweeted of Putin’s comments, apparently referencing statements the Russian made at his year-end news conference.”

Earlier yesterday, as Harper Neidig reports, Trump share[d] letter from Putin: ‘His thoughts are so correct’: “President-elect Donald Trump on Friday praised Vladimir Putin and shared a Christmas letter the Russian president sent him. “A very nice letter from Vladimir Putin; his thoughts are so correct,” Trump said in a statement. “I hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts, and we do not have to travel an alternate path.”

On reads that Carl Paladino, Trump Ally [co-chair of Trump’s New York state campaign], Wishes Obama Dead of Mad Cow Disease in ’17: “Mr. Paladino’s comments were published in Artvoice, a weekly Buffalo newspaper. They came in response to an open-ended feature in which local figures were asked about their hopes for 2017. “Obama catches mad cow disease after being caught having relations with a Herford,” said Mr. Paladino, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2010, making an apparent reference to the Hereford cattle breed. He said he hoped the disease killed the president. Asked what he most wanted to see “go away” in the new year, Mr. Paladino — who has a reputation in New York political and business circles for speaking in an unfiltered manner reminiscent of Mr. Trump’s — answered, “Michelle Obama.” “I’d like her to return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla,” he said.”

At the Toronto Zoo, it’s a Giant Panda vs. a Snowman:

Good morning.

Whitewater will see snow today, of no more than a few inches of accumulation, and a daytime high of thirty-four. Sunrise is 7:37 AM and sunset is 4:25 PM, for 9h 02m 00s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 27.2% of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1783, Gen. George Washington resigns his commission as commanding general of the Continental Army.  On this day in 1865, after years of service to the Union (Missouri, Kentucky, Alabama, and Tennessee), the 1th Wisconsin Infantry returns home.

Worth reading in full — 

Jennifer Rubin observes that The House GOP agenda is already out of date: “The House GOP agenda rests on two flawed assumptions: (1) We are on the brink of a recession, and (2) Obamacare has to be repealed at all costs, as soon as possible.

Republicans seems to have bought into President-elect Donald Trump’s portrait of American dystopia. It may have worked to gin up votes among those concentrated in disintegrating communities and lacking requisite skills to thrive in a 21st-century economy. This does not make their plight any less compelling or diminish the need to attend to pockets of distress, but they are not representative of the country as a whole. It is hard to claim the country is tipping into depression when you look at the latest data:

Gross domestic product, a broad measure of the goods and services produced across the economy, expanded at an inflation- and seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.5% in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The rate was revised up from last month’s 3.2% estimate, and is the strongest quarterly pace of growth in two years.”

Kellyanne Conway will be a counselor to the president, but Long Before Trump, Kellyanne Conway Worked for Anti-Muslim and Anti-Immigrant Extremists: “After years in the political wilderness, extremist groups have gained new relevance, thanks to Trump’s victory. But Conway, who is now a senior adviser to the president-elect and is likely to run an outside group to support Trump’s agenda, has for years done work for some of these organizations, lending her polling expertise to their causes and helping them shape their messaging….Following the Paris terrorist attacks in late 2015, then-candidate Trump announced his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the United States until US leaders “can figure out what is going on.” To justify his proposal, he cited a flawed poll from June 2015 that portrayed American Muslims as increasingly radical. According to this poll, 51 percent of Muslims in the United States believe they should have the choice to be governed by Shariah law (Islamic religious law) instead of US laws, and nearly 20 percent believe “the use of violence in the United States is justified in order to make Shariah the law of the land in this country.”Conway’s firm, The Polling Company, conducted this poll for the Center for Security Policy….”

Nico Savidge reports on the resposne of a national Free speech group: Lawmakers’ push to end UW-Madison course is ‘definition of censorship’: “Warnings from two Republican lawmakers that the University of Wisconsin System’s budget could be affected if UW-Madison does not cancel a planned course on racism amount to an unconstitutional attempt to stifle free speech, according to a national anti-censorship group. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which tracks campus speech policies at colleges and universities across the country and criticizes efforts to limit First Amendment rights, said the statements this week from state Rep. Dave Murphy, R-Greenville, and Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, threaten academic freedom….The anti-censorship organization — which often draws praise from conservatives who warn of what they call restrictive campus speech policies put in place by left-leaning academics — countered that it was inappropriate for lawmakers to try to shut a course down because they disagreed with it.”

What’s popular in Wisconsin? Chelsey Lewis writes that Taco dip, gingerbread are some of Wisconsin’s favorite holiday foods: “What do you call a Wisconsin party without taco dip? A failure. The party staple is the most popular “holiday” recipe searched for by Wisconsin web users on General Mills’ sites, which include BettyCrocker.com and Pillsbury.com. General Mills looked at the search data across its websites from the holiday season and compiled a list of the most popular and unique holiday food traditions in each state.”

Go ahead, Sit with Santa at the Arctic Circle —

Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise is 7:23 AM and sunset 4:25 PM, for 9h 01m 49s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 35.3% of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Fire Department will hold a scheduled business meeting at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1864, Gen. Sherman offers a Christmas gift to Pres. Lincoln, and the president later replies with gratitude:

Sherman telegraphed to President Lincoln, “I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, also about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton.”^[15] On December 26, the president replied in a letter:^[16]

Many, many thanks for your Christmas gift – the capture of Savannah. When you were leaving Atlanta for the Atlantic coast, I was anxious, if not fearful; but feeling that you were the better judge, and remembering that ‘nothing risked, nothing gained’ I did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours; for I believe none of us went farther than to acquiesce. And taking the work of Gen. Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is indeed a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantage; but, in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole—Hood’s army—it brings those who sat in darkness, to see a great light. But what next? I suppose it will be safer if I leave Gen. Grant and yourself to decide. Please make my grateful acknowledgements to your whole army, officers and men.

Worth reading in full —

Oleg Kashin writes of Rex Tillerson’s Special Friend in the Kremlin: “[Head of Rosneft, Russia’s state oil company Igor I. ] Sechin is not just the chief executive of Rosneft, he is also one of the heroes of contemporary Russian politics. He is believed to have served as a K.G.B. agent in Africa and had no real experience in the business world until he was over 40. He didn’t come to lead the state oil company because of his business acumen; he earned his position through his loyalty to Mr. Putin. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Sechin aligned himself with Mr. Putin, another former K.G.B. officer, as he began consolidating power in post-Soviet politics. Everywhere Mr. Putin went, Mr. Sechin was by his side as a trusted aide and adviser.”

Well, she’s found an inside job after all, as Kellyanne Conway, ‘Trump Whisperer,’ Will Be Counselor to President: ”She is a tireless and tenacious advocate of my agenda and has amazing insights on how to effectively communicate our message,” Mr. Trump said. “I am pleased that she will be part of my senior team in the West Wing.” Ms. Conway stood by Mr. Trump after a 2005 video surfaced in which he spoke in vulgar terms about groping women, proving her loyalty and helping to secure her position as someone who will have the president’s ear on a wide variety of topics. Ms. Conway has been a favorite strategist for conservative candidates, such as Newt Gingrich in the 2012 presidential race, and she was an adviser to Vice President-elect Mike Pence in his run for governor of Indiana.”

Steve Reilly of USA Today reports that some Teachers who sexually abuse students still find classroom jobs: “When it came time to deal with the Orangefield High School football coach, administrators didn’t fire McFarlin or report him to police. They didn’t even notify Texas education officials who had the power to take away his teaching license. Instead, they let him become someone else’s problem. They hid his behavior from state regulators, parents and coaches. All McFarlin had to do was go teach somewhere else. “This incident does not have to end McFarlan’s (sic) career,” school district attorney Karen Johnson wrote in a letter in 2005 to then-superintendent Mike Gentry. In the letter, Johnson recommended the district negotiate “a graceful exit” for the teacher. Less than two years later, McFarlin, then 38, landed a job at a nearby school district, where no one had any idea about his past problems. In 2011, he had sex with one of his students, a 16-year-old girl.”

Philip Rucker and Karen Tumulty report that Donald Trump is holding a government casting call. He’s seeking ‘the look.’: “Trump’s closest aides have come to accept that he is likely to rule out candidates if they are not attractive or not do not match his image of the type of person who should hold a certain job. “That’s the language he speaks. He’s very aesthetic,” said one person familiar with the transition team’s internal deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “You can come with somebody who is very much qualified for the job, but if they don’t look the part, they’re not going anywhere.” Several of Trump’s associates said they thought that John R. Bolton’s brush-like mustache was one of the factors that handicapped the bombastic former United Nations ambassador in the sweepstakes for secretary of state. “Donald was not going to like that mustache,” said one associate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly. “I can’t think of anyone that’s really close to Donald that has a beard that he likes.”

Chefs in Chicago are helping make ‘elite’ cuisine approachable:

While New York might be the city most known for excellent cuisine, the food scene in Chicago is increasingly innovative and vibrant, especially on the weekends. At EL Ideas restaurant, people pay a fixed price for a unique and interactive experiences. For example, guests eat the first course of caviar by licking it off their plate, no silverware allowed. “Chicago is an exciting food town,” says Phillip Foss, the chef and owner of EL Ideas. “Chefs here in Chicago are actually pushing a little bit harder to explore the boundaries of what a restaurant can be.” This is the eighth and final episode in The Atlantic’s video series “Saturday Night in America,” which uncovers pockets of nightlife across the nation. It was directed by Ben Wu and David Usui of Lost & Found Films.

Good morning.

In Whitewater, we’ll have a cloudy Wednesday with a high of thirty-two. Sunrise is 7:22 AM and sunset 4:24 PM, for 9h 01m 42s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 45.5% of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Community Development Authority meets at 5:30 PM, and her Parks & Recreation Board at 6:30 PM.

On this day in 1898, Marie Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Pierre Curie discover radium in a uraninite sample.  On this day in 1862, the 2nd Wisconsin Cavalry (3,500 strong) sets out for Vicksburg, Mississippi (arriving on 1.5.1863).

Worth reading in full — 

Neil MacFarquahr and Andrew E. Kramer report on How Rex Tillerson Changed His Tune on Russia and Came to Court Its Rulers: “MOSCOW — As a member of the U.S.-Russia Business Council and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, Rex W. Tillerson frequently voiced doubts about Russia’s investment climate, saying as late as 2008 that Russia “must improve the functioning of its judicial system and its judiciary. There is no respect for the rule of law in Russia today”….[yet] oil industry experts and other analysts say, as Mr. Putin consolidated his control over Russia’s oligarchs, Mr. Tillerson underwent a profound change of outlook. He came to realize that the key to success in Russia, a country deeply important to Exxon’s future, lay in establishing personal relationships with Mr. Putin and his friend and confidant, Igor Sechin, the powerful head of Rosneft, the state oil company.”

Bruce Vielmetti reports that Megyn Kelly, Fox News win in Wisconsin court: “back when she was hosting “Kelly’s Court,” on a Fox News show called America Live in 2011, she and two guests breezily tossed out some commentary a former North Shore firefighter claims were defamatory. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Conen eventually dismissed the case, in part because he felt the segment clearly was not a serious news program, only a mock judicial debate. The plaintiff appealed. On Tuesday, the Court of Appeals also sided with Kelly. “While the commentary may have been sarcastic, belittling, and impolite, that does not make it defamatory,”  wrote a panel of the District 1 court. The decision came from judges Kitty Brennan, Joan Kessler and William Brash. “It is a prized American privilege to speak one’s mind, although not always with perfect good taste, on all public institutions.”

Michael Gerson observes that The GOP is at its peak, but conservatism has hit rock bottom: “Conservatives believe that human beings are fallible and prone to ambition, passion and selfishness. They (actually, we) tend to become swaggering dictators in realms where we can act with impunity — a motor vehicle department office, a hostile traffic stop, a country under personal rule. It is the particular genius of the American system to balance ambition with ambition through a divided government (executive, legislative and judicial). The American system employs human nature to limit the power of the state — assuming that every branch of government is both dedicated to the common good and jealous of its own power….This is not the political force that has recently taken over the Republican Party — with a plurality in the presidential primaries and a narrow victory in November. That has been the result of extreme polarization, not a turn toward enduring values. The movement is authoritarian in theory, apocalyptic in mood, prone to conspiracy theories and personal abuse, and dismissive of ethical standards. The president-elect seems to offer equal chances of constitutional crisis and utter, debilitating incompetence.”

Daniel Drezner enumerates Donald Trump’s three types of norm violations, but it’s the third of the three that matters: “The final set of violations are the ones where Trump is taking steps that run afoul of deeper norms, some of which are even enshrined in the Constitution: His refusal to properly divest from his company, which set up massive conflicts of interest in foreign policy. The possible violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn occupying positions of power in the White House. His reliance on his family as close advisers to the point where they are sitting in on meetings they should not be attending. His desire to make his staff sign nondisclosure agreements. His open war with the intelligence community. His laying the groundwork for his own private security force. These are the areas in which Trump is not only eviscerating existing norms, but creating a new set of arrangements that seem like a breeding ground of corruption, favoritism and the further erosion of trust in the political system.”

Could one have a bicycle-powered house?  NPR’s Skunk Bear investigates —