Good morning.
Saturday in Whitewater will be cloudy with a high of seventy-four. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:37 PM, for 15h 20m 17s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 76.1% of its visible disk illuminated.Today is the nine hundred fifty-sixth day.
On this day in 1944, Pres. Roosevelt signs the G.I. Bill into law.
Recommended for reading in full:
Nick Miroff reports ICE raids targeting migrant families slated to start Sunday in major U.S. cities:
President Trump has directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to conduct a mass roundup of migrant families that have received deportation orders, an operation that is likely to begin with predawn raids in major U.S. cities on Sunday, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the plans.
The “family op,” as it is referred to at ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, is slated to target up to 2,000 families in as many as 10 U.S. cities, including Houston, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and other major immigration destinations, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the law enforcement operation.
(Trumpism is bigoted authoritarianism at home and subservience to authoritarians abroad. Nothing delights his base like actions against non-white migrants.)
Annie Gowen reports ‘I don’t know how we’re going to survive this.’ Some once-loyal farmers begin to doubt Trump:
Like farmers around the country they [residents of Orient, S.D] were faced with gut-wrenching choices: Plant their corn in muddy fields or file an insurance claim? How much would they receive from the $14.5 billion of aid that Trump promised in May to offset their losses from China’s tariffs, and what crops would they have to plant to receive it?
Some rural residents are growing increasingly frustrated with the ongoing trade feuds and wonder how long Trump will call upon farmers to make sacrifices as the country’s “patriots.”
“People are starting to say, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to survive this,’?” said Martinmaas, who voted for Trump in 2016, but says he’s open to a Democrat like Montana Gov. Steve Bullock this time. “You know, we’re the ones taking the brunt of it in all these negotiations, so they need to be kind of helping us out right now.”
Martinmaas, whose family homesteaded this land in 1888, said his farm operation lost more than $700,000 last year. He’s had to put a moratorium on buying new equipment, and he’s stuck with grain bins full of soybeans, because China isn’t buying. Other farmers can’t pay their bills for the hay and grain they bought from him.
Martinmaas, 69, says he’s skeptical that Trump’s aid package will help, given the uncertainty about how much individual farmers will receive and who will qualify.
(People choose freely: sometimes well, sometimes poorly. To choose Trump is to choose poorly.)