Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny, with scattered thundershowers, and a high of eighty-seven. Sunrise is 5:22 AM and sunset 8:36 PM, for 15h 13m 09s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 10% of its visible disk illuminated.Today is the nine hundred sixty-ninth day.
On this day in 1832, Atkinson enters the Trembling Lands:
The area was some 10 square miles and contained a large bog. Although the land appeared safe, it would undulate or tremble for yards when pressure was applied. Many of the militiamen were on horses, which plunged to their bellies in the swamp. The “trembling lands” forced Atkinson to retrace his steps back toward the Rock River, in the process losing days in his pursuit of Black Hawk.
Recommended for reading in full:
Steve Karnowski and Balint Szalai report In Trump aid package to farmers buckled by trade war, many find ways to skirt caps:
When President Donald Trump’s administration announced a $12 billion aid package for farmers struggling under the financial strain of his trade dispute with China, the payments were capped. But many large farming operations had no trouble finding legal ways around them, records provided to the Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act show.
The government paid nearly $2.8 million to a Missouri soybean operation registered as three entities at the same address. More than $900,000 went to five other farm businesses, in Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee and two in Texas. Three other farming operations collected more than $800,000, and 16 others collected more than $700,000.
….
The numerous ways around the caps mean that millions of subsidy dollars flow to “city slickers who are stretching the limits of the law,” said Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, which has criticized federal farm subsidy programs as biased toward big producers and promoting environmentally damaging farming practices.
Urban dwellers might play only a small role in an operation without ever setting foot on the farm because of the loose definitions for who qualifies, he said.
Alex Isenstadt reports NRA meltdown has Trump campaign sweating:
The National Rifle Association aired an avalanche of TV ads and pushed its 5 million-plus members to the polls for Donald Trump in 2016, propelling him in the Rust Belt states that delivered him the presidency.
Now, the gun rights group is in total meltdown — and senior Republicans and Trump 2020 officials are alarmed.
In recent weeks, the NRA has seen everything from a failed coup attempt to the departure of its longtime political architect to embarrassing tales of self-dealing by top leaders. The turmoil is fueling fears that the organization will be profoundly diminished heading into the election, leaving the Republican Party with a gaping hole in its political machinery.
With the Chamber of Commerce and Koch political network withdrawing from their once-dominant roles in electing conservatives, Republicans worry that three organizations that have long formed the core of their electoral infrastructure will be effectively on the sidelines.