Good morning.
Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of seventy-nine. Sunrise is 5:24 AM and sunset 8:18 PM, for 14h 53m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 86.3% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the nine hundred twenty-fifth day.
On this day in 1968, the Milwaukee Bucks get their name: “Milwaukee Bucks” was selected as the franchise name after 14,000 fans participated in a team-naming contest. 45 people suggested the name, one of whom, R.D. Trebilcox, won a car for his efforts.”
Recommended for reading in full:
Alex Ward reports Secret documents show Russian plot to stoke racial violence in America:
The Russians who interfered in the 2016 US presidential election are still at it — and this time, they’re trying to ignite racial violence in America and a partial collapse of the United States.
According to secret documents obtained by a Russian opposition group, hackers have discussed plans to stir up racial resentment in the United States in hopes of tearing American society apart. The operatives are apparently associates of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man who set up a troll farm and was indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller for his role in 2016 meddling.
Those documents, shared with but not verified by NBC News on Monday night, are extremely troubling.
Prigozhin and his team of Russian trolls tried to inflame racial tensions during the 2016 cycle by operating several social media accounts that tried to discourage African Americans from voting, mainly by repeating messages of police violence and voter fraud.
But the apparent new plot, discussed as recently as 2018 ahead of the 2020 presidential election, goes much further. The documents reportedly contain shocking proposals such as sending black Americans to Africa “for combat prep and training in sabotage,” as well as targeting people who have previously been incarcerated and people “who have experience in organized crime groups … for participation in civil disobedience actions.”
The goal, it seems, was to encourage the newly trained African Americans to create their own pan-African state in America’s South. That would “undermine the country’s territorial integrity and military and economic potential,” according to one document, by “destabiliz[ing] the internal situation in the US.”
It’s possible Prigozhin’s associates felt they had an opening to do this because President Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory “deepened conflicts in American society,” per one of the documents.
Jeff Stein Josh Dawsey report Confidential draft IRS memo says tax returns must be given to Congress unless president invokes executive privilege:
The memo contradicts the Trump administration’s justification for denying lawmakers’ request for President Trump’s tax returns, exposing fissures in the executive branch.
Trump has refused to turn over his tax returns but has not invoked executive privilege. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has instead denied the returns by arguing there is no legislative purpose for demanding them.
But according to the IRS memo, which has not been previously reported, the disclosure of tax returns to the committee “is mandatory, requiring the Secretary to disclose returns, and return information, requested by the tax-writing Chairs.”