Good morning. 
Friday in Whitewater will be cloudy with scattered thundershowers and a high of eighty-three. Sunrise is 5:16 AM and sunset 8:30 PM, for 15h 13m 28s of daytime. The moon is full with 99.9% of its visible disk illuminated.
Today is the one thousand three hundred fifth day.
On this day in 1883, William Horlick patents the first powdered milk in the world.
Recommended for reading in full —
Dan Friedman reports Democrats Think Officers Policing Protests Need to Identify Themselves. Bill Barr Disagrees:
Over the past few days, Mother Jones and other media outlets have noted the presence of armed personnel with no visible identification confronting the protests in DC that were sparked by the recent police killing of George Floyd. These officers have consistently said that they are “with the Department of Justice” or that they are part of the “federal government.”
The Justice Department has since said these are officers are from Special Operations Control units in the Bureau of Prisons—that is, officers trained primarily to quell prison riots.
In response, Democrats in both chambers said Wednesday they would introduce legislation requiring uniformed federal officers doing domestic security work to identify what agency or military branch they represent. Several shared a photo I took on Tuesday.
In a letter Thursday to President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) requested a list of the agencies involved in responding to protests in DC and an explanation of the roles different troops and law enforcement agencies are fulfilling. Pelosi also blasted the deployment of officers without clear identification. “The practice of officers operating with full anonymity undermines accountability, ignites government distrust and suspicion, and is counter to the principle of procedural justice and legitimacy during this precarious moment in our nation’s history,” she wrote.
She noted that the Justice Department has previously warned local police departments against allowing officers to work anonymously.
Michael Carvajal, the acting BOP director, addressed this criticism in a news conference on Thursday, saying he was not aware of officers being ordered not to identify themselves, and stated the issue was that “within the confines of our institutions and we don’t need to identify ourselves. Most of our identification is institution-specific and probably wouldn’t mean a whole lot to people in DC.”
But, he said: “I probably should have done a better job of marking them nationally as the agency. Point is well taken.”
Is it fair to wonder, absent actual evidence of who they are, if what we are seeing is a mercenary army protecting the white house? Betsy DeVos, and her brother Erik Prince, do have resources in that industry.
Trump is deep into tinpot dictator mode, and his military is in rebellion over being forced to participate in domestic issues, so renting some mercs makes a lot of sense.
I wonder if we are the ones paying them to gas us?
Yes, it surely is. He lies and he conceals, so it is fair to wonder. Trump is responsible for others’ uncertainties – he governs through fear, uncertainty, and doubt.