The muddled and inconsistent information we got (and still get) from the government and public health experts about lockdowns and masks is a big reason people don’t trust it. But a recent review of 172 studies finds that wearing masks drastically reduces the risk of infection. The mask mandates that were implemented might have reduced infections by at least 230,000 in the U.S. Countries with early mask requirements had shorter outbreaks and fewer deaths. The point of a mask is not to filter out viruses. It’s 1) to stop the viral particles from traveling very far (which is why we wear them to protect others) and 2) to block the larger droplets in which the virus travels. Masks, in combination with social distancing (and shutting down when needed), are the key to slowing the pandemic.

OK. Off my soapbox. Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending July 5…

Missed From Previous Weeks:

1. Research shows that the surge in coronavirus cases across the U.S. started before any cases caused by the George Floyd protests could have incubated, so the uptick likely started with Memorial Day celebrations. In at least 14 states, numbers were on the rise.
2. The World Health Organization (WHO) expresses support for the George Floyd protests despite the pandemic, saying the agency rejects every kind of discrimination. At the same time, the WHO recommends protestors comply with safety guidelines as much as possible.
3. A federal judge orders the Department of Education to cancel student loan debt for over 7,200 students in Massachusetts alone. They had attended a branch of Corinthian College, which is no longer in existence.
4. A co-founder of Reopen Maryland, a lockdown protest group, tests positive for coronavirus and refuses to cooperate with contact tracers. He’s had a cough for months and only recently worsened.

Shootings This Week:

1. There were THIRTY-EIGHT mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring four or more people). Shooters kill TWENTY-SEVEN people and injure ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY more. Gun violence is at an extremely high level since the lockdowns started easing—it’s the worst since I started following it.
2. Some of the worst:

• • A gang-related shooting at the Lavish Lounge in Greenville, SC, leaves two people dead and eight injured.
  • An argument after a car hits a pedestrian in Atlanta escalates into a shooting and leaves two dead and 12 injured. Atlanta had six shootings resulting in four deaths and 22 people injured over the Fourth of July weekend, leading the governor to declare a state of emergency.
  • In Chicago, four men walk up to a group of people and begin shooting, killing four and injuring four. Three of the victims were children, including one who was killed.

Russia:

1. Remember how we found out last week that Russia placed a bounty on U.S. service members’ lives in Afghanistan? Well, it turns out that Trump received a written briefing on this in February and has continued to meet with Putin and hasn’t mentioned a word of dismay or disapproval about it.

• • In fact, Trump called Putin six times in just two months. How many other leaders does he speak with that often?
  • White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany continues to deny Trump was briefed, saying that it hasn’t been confirmed that Russia placed the bounties.
  • At the moment she’s saying this, administration officials brief House Republicans on the intelligence.
  • Taliban leaders confirm that Russia did, indeed, offer bounties on American troops’ lives.

2. Russians vote overwhelmingly in favor of changing the rules for Putin, allowing him to stay in power until 2036 should he continue to win the presidential elections.
3. Higher than normal radiation levels register in northern Europe, leading to speculation that Russia has had another leak. Putin denies it.

Fallout, Legal and Otherwise:

1. The Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney’s office charges Ghislaine Maxwell for recruiting and grooming underage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse. Maxwell was Epstein’s former girlfriend and is now on suicide watch in jail.
2. According to reporting by Carl Woodward, several of Trump’s former top deputies think he’s often delusional in his dealings with foreign leaders and almost always unprepared for conversations with them.

• • They say strongman leaders outplay Trump all the time, and Trump is abusive to our allies.
  • They also say Trump never became any more skillful at dealing with leaders.
  • In his conversations with leaders like bin Salman and Kim Jong Un, Trump bragged about his own wealth and “genius” while trashing former U.S. presidents.

3. Senator Tammy Duckworth threatens to hold up the promotions of 1,123 senior military officers until she gets confirmation from Defense Secretary Mark Esper that he hasn’t blocked and won’t block Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman’s promotion to full colonel. There’s suspicion that the delay in getting the promotions list from the DOD is because Trump won’t approve it with Vindman’s name on it.
4. The Commerce Department blocks the release of a report on whether the department pressured the head of NOAA to support Trump’s false claim that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama.
5. Former national security advisor Michael Flynn posts a bizarre video of him including the QAnon slogan “Where we go one, we go all” in a bizarre fireside oath on the Fourth of July. He tags the video with a QAnon hashtag. You might remember he was deep into conspiracy theories by the time he joined Trump’s campaign.

Courts/Justice:

1. The Supreme Court rules that Trump can fire the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau even though it is supposed to be a non-political post confirmed by the Senate.
2. Mitch McConnell, who held up a record number of Barack Obama’s federal court confirmations, brags that there isn’t a single circuit court vacancy for the first time in at least 40 years. Most of these conservative judges are in their 30s and 40s and will shape the judicial system for decades to come. 70% of them are white and male.
3. Adding to the shakeup in U.S. Attorney offices, Rickard Donoghue, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, steps down to take a higher position at the Department of Justice.

Coronavirus:

1. Some interesting and geeky COVID info found from autopsies:

• • COVID-19 and dengue fever affect similar cells. Dengue fever destroys platelet-producing cells, which causes uncontrolled bleeding. The coronavirus amplifies those cells, producing dangerous clotting.
  • The virus attacks the lungs the most ferociously.
  • Medical examiners found the virus in the lungs, brain, kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract, spleen, and blood vessel lining.
  • They found blood clots in the heart, brain, kidney, liver, and especially the lungs.

2. Dr. Anthony Fauci expresses concern that we’ll start seeing 100,000 new coronavirus cases per day unless we take drastic action.
3. As Fauci testifies again before the Senate, Rand Paul asks him why we should listen to experts. Paul says the experts keep getting it wrong and that they should stop pretending they know it all and embrace a little humility. It shocks me that this man studied any kind of science.

• • Experts have been very clear that they’re working with the best knowledge they have and that it’s rapidly evolving.
  • Experts have also given us guidelines, which some states have embraced and some have not. So it’s not like the experts are giving any ultimatums.

4. Having clear and consistent guidance on wearing masks, social distancing, and staying home is what some scientists credit for the success of some countries and states at controlling the pandemic.
5. Mike Pence extends federal support for testing in Texas for two weeks due to the high rate of infections there. Meanwhile, the federal government has provided little testing support to Arizona, which is having a major outbreak as well.
6. At long last, Pence says that Americans should all wear masks in public to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Even Republican Senators Lamar Alexander, Mitt Romney, and Mitch McConnell, as well as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), start to recommend masks.
7. Sweden’s Prime Minister orders an investigation into their lax lockdown policy. The country has the fifth-highest death rate per capita.
8. Former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain is hospitalized with COVID-19. Cane recently traveled to Arizona and Tulsa, OK, for Trump’s rally. It doesn’t appear they’re doing any contact tracing as people he was in close contact with at the rally were never notified.
9. The new messaging from the White House is that we need to learn to live with the coronavirus. Unless it kills us, I guess. Amid the rapidly rising number of cases, Trump again says the pandemic will just disappear.
10. A new prediction model from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) shows that if most everyone wears masks, we could prevent 20,000 to 30,000 deaths by October.
11. Scientists urge the WHO to take the airborne spread of the coronavirus more seriously.
12. More than 800 Georgia professors protest plans to reopen the Georgia Institute of Technology without requiring masks.
13. Jim Yong Kim led the WHO’s HIV response under George W. Bush and led the World Bank for parts of the Obama and Trump administrations.

• • On a conference call in May about infection containment strategies (like testing, contact tracing, and isolation), he was incredulous that the U.S. is so lacking in a coordinated strategy to deal with the pandemic.
  • He says the planned standard response to an outbreak is apparently “something that we’re just not going to do” He asks why we’ve given up on any attempts at containing the pandemic, and points out that we’re world’s richest nation and couldn’t stop the virus from paralyzing us as other countries have.

14. The Global Health Security Index, which rates countries’ readiness to handle an outbreak, rated the U.S. as the best-prepared country overall in 2019. But they didn’t take into account political inaction and political ineptitude. Experts criticize the U.S. for not having the political will to meet the moment.
15. San Quentin State Prison in California is having one of the largest coronavirus outbreaks, and a group of COVID-positive inmates starts a hunger strike in protest of the conditions there.
16. The WHO says the pandemic is speeding up and that the worst is yet to come.
17. Scammers advertise fraudulent COVID-19 testing as a way to get personal information. Go to an official site for testing!
18. The people who are testing positive for coronavirus now are largely younger. People in the 18 to 49 age group make up 35% of the hospitalized population, up from 27% before. More than half of known cases in California are now in this age group.
19. The CDC says that the coronavirus is spreading too rapidly and too broadly for us to contain it in the U.S. I guess that’s why the administration has given up and says we just need to learn to live with it. Good strategy.

Shortages:

1. Facing a scarcity of resources, some Arizona hospitals request approval to use “crisis standards” to determine who gets treated when they are overwhelmed with patients. This includes things like allocating resources to patients with the best chances of survival or the best outcome. These standards are rarely invoked. Medical facilities are delaying nonessential procedures to free up beds and personnel. ICU beds are nearly 90% full across the state.
2. The Strategic National Stockpile had more ventilators than it ended up distributing to medical facilities so far during the pandemic. They started with 16,660 ventilators and loaned out 10,640.
3. The U.S. has bought up nearly the entire world’s supply of the anti-viral drug remdesivir, which makes experts wonder what will happen when a vaccine becomes available. There won’t be more available until after September, except 10% of the production in August and September.

Exposures:

1. Pence changes his travel plans to Florida and Arizona because eight Secret Service agents who were there preparing for his trip test positive.

• • At least 15 agents tested positive a few weeks ago while preparing for Trump’s campaign rally in Yuma, AZ. They ended up having to drive back to DC.
  • Some agents complain that Trump and Pence trying to keep up a normal travel schedule is unnecessarily putting them at risk. According to the agents, it’s one thing to take a bullet to protect them; it’s another to get sick for no good reason.

2. Don Jr. has to miss the Fourth of July rally at Mount Rushmore because his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle, tests positive after arriving.
3. Scientists find a new mutation of the coronavirus that came from Europe to the U.S. The new version is more infectious but doesn’t seem to be any deadlier or cause worse sickness. This is the form that is mostly infecting Americans right now.
4. Studies suggest that super-spreader events have been a large driver of coronavirus infections. They estimate that 10% of the people are causing around 80% of the infections.

Closures:

1. At least 14 states slow down their reopening or backtrack on them.
2. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says Florida will not go back to any of the lockdown orders, even as Texas Governor Greg Abbot and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey put reopening on pause and even backtrack a little on opening. Florida did stop allowing people to consume alcohol at bars.
3. Abbot issues an executive order requiring Texans to wear face coverings in public, but only in counties with 20 more COVID-19 cases. A group of conservatives files a lawsuit to stop the order.
4. Some states start closing businesses back down, and those businesses lay off workers again.
5. Crowds pack beaches and parks to celebrate the Fourth of July, despite growing coronavirus cases. In some states, officials close beaches and parks and cancel fireworks displays.
6. And congratulations, Americans! You can’t travel to Canada, parts of Mexico, or the European Union now that the EU confirms it will block travel from America when it reopens.
7. Residents of Puerto Peñasco, a beach town in Mexico, block all southbound traffic from Arizona with their cars. The town’s mayor doesn’t want Americans visiting Mexico right now.

Numbers:

1. Daily new coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpass 50,000 for the first time. Daily cases have increased by 80% in two weeks.
2. Cases worldwide surpass 10,000,000 and deaths surpass 500,000.
3. Eight states post record single-day highs: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Montana, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Previously stable states like Ohio, Kansas, and Louisiana also see some of their highest daily numbers.
4. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 2,839,542 people in the U.S. are infected so far (up from 2,510,323 last week), with 129,676 deaths (up from 125,539 last week).
  • 11,240,740 people worldwide have been infected (up from 9,953,229 last week), with 530,581 deaths (up from 498,550 last week).

Healthcare:

1. Health scientists are monitoring a new H1N1 flu strain, which is popping up in people working on pig farms in China. It hasn’t yet made anyone ill, but scientists are concerned about another pandemic. In one year, H1N1 killed between 151,700 and 575,400 people worldwide (compared to COVID-19’s over 530,581 in half a year).
2. Oklahoma voters pass Medicare expansion, which would extend health benefits to nearly 200,000 low-income adults. This makes Oklahoma the fifth state where the voters overrode their Republican officials who have refused to expand Medicare under the Affordable Care Act. Why do voters keep electing people who go against their wishes?
3. The Supreme Court strikes down Louisiana’s restrictive abortion law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital because it puts a severe burden on access to legal abortion.

• • Chief Justice Roberts was the deciding vote. He ruled this way because of a precedent set in a Texas abortion case even though he thinks that the case was wrongly decided.

International:

1. Iran issues an arrest warrant for Trump for murder and terrorism charges over the killing of General Qasem Soleimani.
2. At the UN Security Council’s virtual meeting, the U.S. is the only country that refuses to express support for the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA). Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calls it “flawed.” Most diplomats on the call criticize the U.S. for leaving the agreement and criticize Iran for the moves it’s taken in violation of the agreement since.

Legislation/Congress:

1. House Republicans have skipped every House Intelligence Committee meetings since March.
2. Senate Republicans force changes to the National Defense Authorization Act, removing the requirement presidential campaigns report offers of foreign assistance in an election.

• • Trump, in turn, threatens to veto the act if it includes requirements to change the names of military bases currently named after Confederate soldiers.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Racial justice protests continue, though they’re quieter and the media isn’t as interested in them anymore. Sigh.
2. Cities around the country continue to amend their use-of-force policies, and they create unarmed response teams for certain types of 911 calls.
3. Mississippi will take down all their flags and create a task force to design a new one without the cross of the Confederate battle flag. The new design will be on the ballot in November.
4. With the recent toppling of statues honoring the Confederacy and slave ownership, the Department of Homeland Security creates the Protecting American Communities Task Force to protect historic landmarks from anarchists and rioters. How does this fall under their jurisdiction?
5. The Department of Housing and Urban Development under Ben Carson announces a plan to roll back protections for transgender people in need of HUD programs, including homeless shelters. At a time when people are experiencing economic pain and health concerns, HUD prioritizes putting people who are already in the most danger in even more danger. Got it.
6. The CEO of Reddit bans over 2,000 of their communities for promoting hate speech, and that includes the largest pro-Trump community, r/The_Donald. Reddit has long resisted moderating posts.
7. Twitch temporarily suspends the Trump campaign‘s channel for hateful conduct.
8. The mayor of Seattle disbands the Capitol Hill Organized Protest area, which had been set aside for protestors in a police-free zone.
9. At least 70 people have died in police custody after saying, “I can’t breathe.” Most were stopped for nonviolent infractions, and more than half were black. It’s a varied group of people who died, including a chemical engineer, a nurse, a doctor, an Iraqi war vet, and others.
10. A federal judge strikes down a Trump administration rule that would require asylum seekers who pass through multiple countries to reach the U.S. to apply for asylum in one of those countries first in order to be eligible for consideration here.

Climate/Environment:

1. The House Select Committee on Climate Crisis releases its vision for solving the problem of climate change. It calls for 100% clean energy by 2040, similar to what several states have enacted. The legislation is unlikely to pass this year.
2. The dust cloud from the Sahara that blanketed many of the Gulf states has largely moved on, but some haze remains and a second plume is on its way.
3. Energy companies have long been fighting for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, but abandon their efforts this week. The tunnel would’ve gone from West Virginia through Virginia and ended in North Carolina. Environmental, religious, and property rights activists joined in opposing the pipeline. Even though the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the pipeline last month, other court rulings related to the Keystone XL pipeline make the project seem too risky.

Budget/Economy:

1. The U.S. has added 7.5 million jobs back in since the shutdowns started lifting two months ago, 4.8 million of those in June. Twenty million jobs were lost due to the shutdowns. While this is positive news, more stimulus from the government might be needed. For now, Trump isn’t on the stimulus package bandwagon.
2. The unemployment rate dropped from 13.3% in May to 11.1% in June, but those numbers still contain the pandemic discrepancy. I don’t know why BLS hasn’t been able to address that yet.
3. 1.4 Million Americans applied for first-time unemployment insurance last week.
4. The Congressional Budget Office predicts unemployment levels to stay above pre-pandemic levels for at least a decade. The office also predicts a federal deficit this year of $3.7 trillion.
5. Senate Democrats successfully push Republicans to approve extending the Paycheck Protection Program for small businesses to August 8.
6. Goldman Sachs estimates that a national mask mandate could save the U.S. economy $1 trillion. Wearing masks is hugely politicized, and I’m not sure if Republican leaders can turn that around with their late entry into embracing masks.
7. The update to NAFTA (called the USMCA) goes into effect, changing some of the trade rules between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in the areas of automotive manufacturing, agriculture, and intellectual property.
8. Fed Chair Jerome Powell tells the House Financial Services Committee that the economy is “extraordinarily uncertain.”
9. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, on the other hand, touts the 18% increase in retail sales after businesses start to reopen and says that nearly 80% of businesses are partially open. This is before businesses start closing back down due to the surge in coronavirus cases.

Elections:

1. Several former George W. Bush officials form a new super PAC to rally disenchanted Republicans to help elect Joe Biden. This makes at least three high-profile Republican PACs that are working on getting Biden elected.
2. Now that the RNC changed their national convention from North Caroline to Jacksonville, FL, to avoid distancing and mask requirements, Jacksonville institutes a mask requirement.
3. Before Trump’s rally in Tulsa, the campaign removed the social distancing stickers placed on seats to keep people at a safe distance.
4. Trump holds a Fourth of July re-election rally at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. There’s no social distancing and masks are handed out but not required, but at least it’s outside so that’s safer.

• • Instead of a unifying speech celebrating the nation on the anniversary of its birth, Trump doubles down on the culture wars and gives a bleak speech about the state of America and the enemy within — people who don’t like Confederate statues and protestors fueling a “left-wing revolution. Except he calls them marauding bands of looters, angry mobs, and anarchists who threaten our heritage by tearing down our monuments to the side that lost the Civil War.
  • He paints a grim picture of the results of his 3-1/2 years in office, which is a weird way to run a re-election campaign.
  • He claims that 99% of coronavirus infections are harmless. In reality, 81% are mild but can still result in lasting damage to the lungs; 19% are serious, requiring hospitalization; and nearly 5% are critical.

Miscellaneous:

1. Former Secretary of Defense William Perry joins the chorus of military leaders decrying Trump’s politicization of our armed forces and his threats to use them again U.S. citizens.
2. I don’t mind a good conspiracy theory that doesn’t have any consequences, but the latest conspiracy theories connecting 5G with the coronavirus are causing real-world problems. People are harassing and threatening telecom engineers in real life and doxxing them online. Believers are also damaging 5G equipment and setting towers on fire.

• • How many more people will end up in jail because they believe a dumbass conspiracy theory?
  • Celebrities who were duped by these conspiracies include Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, M.I.A., and Wiz Khalifa.

3. And my favorite story of the week, an online troll starts rumors that Antifa protestors will gather at Gettysburg on the Fourth of July to burn flags – they’ll even give kids little flags to throw into the fire.

• • Hundreds of homegrown militia members, skinheads, bikers, and far-right groups converge on Gettysburg armed to the teeth only to find there is no one there but themselves.
  • Rumors like this have been going around for weeks, mostly about Antifa busing in protestors to some small town. Armed vigilantes have lined the streets to protect towns from these non-existent boogeymen.
  • How many times do these conspiracy theories need to fall flat before people stop falling for them?

Polls:

1. 87% of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction we’re headed.

What a week. Locusts, Saharan dust clouds, ongoing protests, more police brutality, an out-of-control pandemic, and bounties on U.S. soldiers. And really, what a year. Who can remember all the way back to January when Australia was on fire, the Senate was starting an impeachment trial, the U.S. assassinated an Iranian general, Iran accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane, Kobe freaking Bryant died, Puerto Rico got whacked by a 6.4 earthquake, and Brexit finally happened. All before the pandemic shut everything down and took all our focus away from the things that came before. You’d think that’d be enough for one year, but who knows what else 2020 is cooking up?

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending June 28…

Shootings This Week:

1. There were 23 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 15 people and injure 94 more.
2. One of the worst shootings this week happened in Charlotte, NC, where nearly 200 rounds were fired into a crowd of about 400 at a block party, killing 4 and injuring at least 5 people.

Russia:

1. A federal appeals court panel rules two-to-one that Michael Flynn’s case should be dismissed since the Justice Department no longer wants to prosecute. The full court of appeals could decide to take it up, though.
2. Russia holds a WWII victory parade despite the pandemic. The parade had been postponed but was rescheduled to the day before the Russian people vote on whether to let Putin essentially be president for life. OK. Not for life, but at least until 2036.
3. According to U.S. intelligence, a Russian military intelligence unit has been offering bounties to Taliban militants for killing U.S. forces and their allies in Afghanistan.

• • Twenty American troops were killed there in 2019, though it’s not clear which killings received a bounty payout.
  • Trump continued to meet with Putin after being briefed on this, and even tried to get Russia re-admitted back into the G7.

4. Four Russian reconnaissance aircraft enter the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone and are intercepted by U.S. fighter jets.
5. A federal judge denies Roger Stone’s request for a delay in serving his prison sentence and orders Stone to report to prison on July 14. The delay was requested in consideration of the coronavirus pandemic.

Courts/Justice:

1. House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler says he’ll subpoena Attorney General Bill Barr for testimony about the DOJ’s role in overriding prosecutors in the Roger Stone case, the DOJ’s dealings with Rudy Giuliani, and the removal of U.S. attorneys. Nadler also invites former SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman to testify.
2. Federal prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky testifies about the politicization of the DOJ. He says:

• • Prosecutors in the Roger Stone case were heavily pressured by the highest levels of the DOJ to give Stone a break.
  • Bill Barr poses a threat to the rule of law.

3. John Elias, who works in the DOJ’s antitrust division, also testifies to Congress. He says:

• • Barr ordered them to investigate mergers between marijuana companies because he doesn’t like the industry.
  • The investigation into the pact between California and automakers on emission limits did not appear to be initiated in good faith.

4. Former U.S. Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and former deputy attorney general Donald Ayer also testify. Ayer says that Bill Barr has polarized the DOJ, but Mukasey says he hasn’t. But even Mukasey says that Trump maybe used politics to sway the DOJ and help his friends.
5. A bipartisan group of professors and faculty at Barr’s old law school write a letter saying that Barr has “failed to fulfill his oath of office to ‘support and defend the Constitution of the United States.’” They also say he has “undermined the rule of law, breached constitutional norms, and damaged the integrity and traditional independence of his office and of the Department of Justice.”
6. The House Judiciary Committee will subpoena Barr if he refuses to appear to testify.
7. The Supreme Court rules that a Sri Lankan farmer seeking asylum can’t challenge his deportation order in federal court. It’s not clear what this means for future asylum cases, but it seems that once an asylum seeker is denied asylum by immigration officials, they don’t have the recourse of a hearing before a judge.
8. Trump’s Solicitor General Noel Francisco announces his resignation as of the end of the court’s term this year. Francisco has defended Trump and the Trump administration in cases at the Supreme Court level. He argued for the Muslim Ban, to end the ACA, for extreme abortion restrictions, and to end DACA.
9. The head of the DOJ’s civil division announces his resignation. Barr had offered this position to former SDNY U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman to entice him away from the SDNY office and its ongoing investigations.
10. The head of the DOJ’s criminal division also announces his resignation.
11. Trump says he had nothing to do with Berman’s firing, but the White House later admits he signed off on it (only the president could fire Berman).
12. The Senate confirms Trump’s 200th lifetime federal judge.

Coronavirus:

1. Trump clarifies that he doesn’t kid when asked if he was joking about slowing down coronavirus testing. So I guess he did try to slow it down.
2. Joe Biden accuses Trump of slowing down testing because Trump thinks he’ll look bad if more Americans get sick. Biden also reminds us that if Trump gets his way with the ACA, lingering symptoms from COVID-19 will be considered pre-existing conditions that can prevent you from being insured.
3. More than two dozen public health officials have resigned in recent weeks over threats against their lives, protests at their homes, and just plain resistance to their recommendations about stopping the spread of the coronavirus. So much of this is over whether or not we should wear masks.

• • During a pandemic, we need to hear from doctors and scientists; but this pandemic is super politicized, and people are viewing safety measures as political issues rather than health issues. Ugh.
  • Attacks against public health officials have been particularly bad in California (where one county has seen four officials resign), Colorado, Georgia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Public health officials spend their careers trying to help people, and they’re being demoralized and threatened by the minority of Americans who think they’re trying to take away their freedoms.

4. Hospitalizations in seven states hit a new high — Arizona, Arkansas, California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Fatalities increased in the U.S. for the first time in over two weeks.

• • Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, and Missouri all report one-day highs in new coronavirus cases, with TX and CA hitting more than 5,000 each in one day. The seven-day rolling average in TX is up 70% from the previous week.
  • In 33 states and territories, the rolling average for new cases is higher than last week.
  • At the beginning of the week, most states continue with their reopening plans, but by the end of the week, some states put those plans on pause and some states take a few steps back.

5. Even countries that seemed to have a handle on the pandemic start seeing spikes in cases (Australia, Germany, Portugal, and South Korea).
6. The USDA finds a toxic substance in hand sanitizer manufactured by Mexican company Eskbiochem.
7. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, halts funding for lung treatments for severe COVID-19 infections. BARDA is shifting funds to vaccine development.
8. A judge in Brazil orders President Jair Bolsonaro to wear a mask in public. Bolsonaro has called COVID-19 “a little cold” and even joined protestors in a rally against lockdown restrictions. Oh, and Brazil has the second-highest number of coronavirus infections and deaths, right behind the U.S.
9. Doctors Without Borders has been working with the Native American population in New Mexico to help with the pandemic. Now they’re also working in Florida assisting with migrant farmworkers. I never thought we’d need an international medical relief organization to help inside our borders.
10. The White House will funding and support from 13 drive-thru testing sites despite the increase in cases. The administration tells states to take over their own testing.

• • I guess they think the pandemic is over because the white House also ends its COVID-19 screening tests for visitors. Eight staffers plus a few Secret Service agents tested positive just last week.

11. Ringle, Wisconsin, will host the Herd Immunity Fest in July, with 15 bands playing the three-day concert. Performers are antsy to get back on stage, but most concerts across the country are still canceled.
12. Follow-ups with COVID-19 patients find that many of them still have respiratory complaints one month after recovering. Their chest X-rays are still abnormal, and nearly half have measurable breathing abnormalities. Some also have kidney and neurological issues. PTSD, anxiety, and depression are common.

• • They still don’t know the effects of COVID-19 on the brain or on fetuses carried by infected mothers.
  • Some survivors of serious COVID-19 infections face massive medical bills despite the Trump administration’s promise to protect patients from pandemic expenses. This is partially because healthcare providers and insurers don’t associate lingering health symptoms with the virus in their billing classifications. Some insurers, like Cigna, waive these fees for patients as long as they’re billed correctly.

13. German, British, Spanish, and French citizens say Trump has done a poor job managing the pandemic. They say Angela Merkel has done the best job. Italians say that China has been more helpful to them than Europe.
14. There are currently 16 vaccines in human trials in around 200 vaccines in various stages of development.
15. Some sheriffs in certain states (Washington and Arizona come to mind) not only refuse to enforce wearing masks, but they also encourage people to ignore mask-wearing rules. A few of them have tested positive.
16. The coronavirus task force holds its first briefing in two months. Dr. Anthony Fauci appeals to the American people to take responsibility not to get infected and not to infect others, and he reminds us that every outbreak has a global effect.

• • He says he’s never seen a disease that is so inconsistent in whether certain groups of people sick or how severely they get sick.
  • He appeals to our altruism: “If we want to end this outbreak, really end it with a vaccine hopefully putting the nail in the coffin, everyone has to realize that we are part of the process. We can be either part of the solution, or part of the problem… We are all in it together and the only way we’re going to end it is by ending it together.”
  • During the briefing, Mike Pence refuses to recommend people wear masks.

17. Dr. Fauci is cautiously optimistic about a vaccine, predicting we could have one by the end of the year or by early 2021.
18. Despite Trump’s claims, Dr. Fauci says he’s never been told to slow down testing. On a call with governors, Dr. Deborah Birx encourages them to expand their testing.
19. Dr. Fauci testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. He says that the Trump administration told the National Institutes of Health to cut off funding to a long-running research project on bat coronaviruses like the one causing our current pandemic. Coincidentally, a reporter asked Trump about the research grant and the conspiracy theory that the current virus escaped from the lab. Two days later, NIH announced the end of funding. This was the only U.S. research group still working in China on the origins of COVID-19.
20. Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow says there’s no second wave coming—there are just hotspots. Thanks, Dr. Kudlow! Real health experts say the second wave will likely come in the fall. Kudlow also says we just have to live with the surges in infections and that there will be no more shutdowns… as some states are starting to shut things back down again.
21. The CDC adds more demographic groups to the list of people who are most at risk for COVID-19, including younger people who are obese or who have other health problems, people with a BMI of over 30 (it was previously over 40), and being pregnant.
22. The CDC is studying whether a mask can protect the wearer from other people. We already know that wearing a mask protects other people from the wearer.
23. Departments of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says the window is closing for us to get this pandemic under control.

Shortages:

1. Nursing homes, which are one of the hardest-hit institutions, see staffing shortages as their workers choose to take unemployment checks rather than come back to work. Some need to stay home to take care of their now stuck at home children, and some are concerned about the concentration of coronavirus infections in nursing homes.
2. In both Florida and Texas, some hospital systems stop including information about ICU capacity. Several are reaching 100% capacity. Houston expects its ICUs to reach an unsustainable surge capacity by July 6. Arizona hospitals are also reaching capacity.

Exposures:

1. More young people test positive for coronavirus across the southern states that were some of the first to reopen. Experts trace clusters of new cases in Mississippi to fraternity rush parties. In Texas, the majority of cases in several counties are people under 30. In Florida, the median age for new infections is 37, and more than 62% of them are under 45 years old.
2. Health experts say they can trace back the spike in coronavirus in many states to around Memorial Day when states started loosening their lockdowns and people started to feel freer to gather and go out. They don’t see the same association with the racial justice protests.

• • They say that the clusters of cases that are popping up around the country can mostly be traced back to parties and other social gatherings where people don’t tend to wear masks. Which is why so many of the new cases involve people under 30.
  • Most of the protestors are wearing masks and are spread out outside, which experts say helps slow the spread.

3. In Massachusetts, more than 17,000 people who protested took advantage of free testing sites last week. 2.5% of them tested positive, which is consistent with ongoing statewide testing. In Minnesota, 1.5% of protestors who were tested are positive, and in Seattle, fewer than 1% are. It’s possible that more infections will show up, though.
4. All of the Trump campaign staffers who went to his Tulsa rally are quarantining since they all interacted with the eight staffers who tested positive for the virus. Several Secret Service agents were also told to quarantine after two agents who were at the rally tested positive.
5. Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, suggests that the actual number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. could be 10 times the confirmed number of cases, making it more than 20 million people infected. This assessment comes from looking for antibodies in blood samples.
6. Mike Pence cancels re-election events in Florida and Arizona because of the surge in cases. And he finally admits that wearing a mask is a good idea. But then he attends a church service where a 100-member choir sang without masks. 😱
7. Tennis great Novak Djokovic and his wife test positive for coronavirus after he played a series of exhibition matches he organized. There was no social distancing enforced at the matches, and three other players also test positive afterward. In his apology, he says “Unfortunately, this virus is still present…” Um, duh.
8. In 16 states that recommend, but don’t require wearing masks, cases are up 84% over the past two weeks. In 11 states that require masks, new cases have fallen by 25% over the same period.

Closures:

1. Major League Baseball plans to open spring training camps on July 1 and to open the season on July 23 or 24. This is despite current coronavirus infections in league players.
2. Some states make it a statewide mandate that people wear masks in public, taking the choice away from localities (which have been erring on the side of chance as opposed to science).
3. The Kentucky Derby is rescheduled for September 4-5 and will have a live audience.
4. Public health experts predicted a surge in coronavirus infections when states began opening back up in May, and we’re seeing that surge now.
5. Governor Greg Abbott says Texas is experiencing a massive outbreak, and health officials there say their infrastructure is overwhelmed.
6. Texas suspends reopening the state after hospitals in the state are inundated with COVID-19 cases. Texas Governor Greg Abbott urges all Texans to wear a mash, wash their hands, and social distance. This is a surprise coming from the governor who previously wouldn’t allow localities with high COVID-19 numbers to require the wearing of masks in public. Abbot expresses regret for allowing bars to reopen. He didn’t realize how fast the virus could spread.
7. Abbot also postpones unnecessary medical procedures to free up more hospital beds, and he recommends that Texans stay home as much as possible.
8. California closes bars again in some counties with the highest increases in new infections. Texas and Florida ban consuming alcohol on premises at bars as they hit record high numbers of new cases. Florida closes down some beaches as well.
9. The European Union is reopening their borders after months of shutdowns, but say they’ll likely continue to block Americans because of the failure of the U.S. to contain the pandemic.
10. New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut require travelers entering from states with high infection rates to quarantine for two weeks. Those states include Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, Utah, and Texas. Massachusetts requires a 14-day quarantine no matter what state you come from.
11. New Jersey’s governor says amusement and water parks can open starting July 2. Nope, nope, nope. Not going there.
12. American Airlines and United Airlines end social distancing on all flights and will fully book them. Again, nope.

Numbers:

1. The U.S. has its highest daily coronavirus infections since the beginning of the pandemic, with more than 40,000 cases in just one day. Coronavirus cases are up 30% from the beginning of June.
2. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 2,510,323 people in the U.S. are infected so far (up from 2,255,119 last week), with 125,539 deaths (up from 119,719 last week).
  • 9,953,229 people worldwide have been infected (up from 8,796,835 last week), with 498,550 deaths (up from 464,292 last week).

Healthcare:

1. The Trump administration tells the Supreme Court that the ACA must fall because the individual mandate was removed. AFAIK, there’s no plan to replace it should the court strike down the ACA. At the same time, Republican legislators, who’ve voted dozens of times to strike down the ACA, are encouraging constituents who’ve been affected by COVID-19 to take advantage of the ACA.

International:

1. Trump backtracks on comments he made that indicated a possible meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The Trump administration previously took the side of Maduro’s opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, who claims to be the legitimate leader of the country. Even Trump’s allies in Congress took issue and restated their support for Guaidó.

Legislation/Congress:

1. The House approves a bill establishing statehood for the District of Columbia. It’s doubtful it’ll get past the Senate.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

1. A federal appeals court rules that the Trump administration can’t use military funding to pay for its border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
2. Environmental groups accuse the Trump administration of destroying hundreds of ancient saguaro cacti in the process of trying to build the border wall. This includes the path of destruction through the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, which is an international reserve. Saguaros are protected under Arizona law. Customs and Border Patrol say they’ve relocated 1,104 cacti. What a waste of resources…

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Trump suspends certain immigration visas, including work visas used to hire skilled workers, due to the high level of unemployment in the U.S. from the pandemic. Tech companies and others worry that this will hold us back from economic recovery by pushing investment abroad and reducing job creation. The order also includes visas for dependent spouses, managers at multinational companies, exchange students, and non-farm seasonal workers.
2. Protests against police brutality and for racial justice continue across the country. This is going on five weeks now. And yet, instances of excessive use of force by police against black people also continue, even with police in the spotlight and being filmed. It’s almost like they don’t care…
3. Protestors attempt to remove the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square.
4. The police officer who killed Breonna Taylor in a no-knock warrant is fired, and the other officers involved are placed on leave.
5. Democrats in the Senate block a police reform bill saying it doesn’t go far enough. The House passes their police reform bill. Last week’s blog lists several differences between the House and Senate bills. You can read more here.
6. In arguing against statehood for the District of Columbia, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) claims that Wyoming deserves to be a state because it’s a “well-rounded working-class state” and D.C. doesn’t deserve to be a state because it’s just lobbyists and federal workers. He ignores the D.C. working class, including its large African American population.
7. The Republican platform for 2020 continues to include banning same-sex marriage and banning transgender members of the military. It also includes support for conversion therapy. The platform is the same as the 2016 platform because the pandemic prevented them from gathering to rewrite it. So let’s just go with the same hate platform from last time.
8. Several active-duty military members are also members of online networks that Boogaloo Bois frequent. Some members of the Boogaloo movement actually are active-duty military. No conflict of interest there.
9. Trump retweets a video of Trump supporters trolling protestors and, in the first seconds of the video, you can hear one of his supporters yell, “White Power!” Trump thanks them for their enthusiasm. His spokespeople later say he didn’t hear the shout.
10. In New York City, prosecutors file charges against an officer who put a man in a banned chokehold.
11. Police officers killed Elijah McClain almost a year ago in Aurora, CO. Just this week, Colorado Governor Jared Polis appoints a special prosecutor to determine whether charges should be filed against the officers. McClain was unarmed, an introvert, and slight of build. He played his violin at an animal shelter because he wanted to soothe the animals. Real tough guy.
12. In a protest against McClain’s killing, where people play their violins in remembrance, police arrive in riot gear with tear gas to disperse parts of the crowd.
13. Three white men are finally formally indicted for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.
14. Three officers in North Carolina are fired for making violent, racist remarks about Black people.
15. Cities continue to divert funds from their police departments to other assistive services.

Climate/Environment:

1. West Asia and East Africa have been fighting a plague of locusts, and an estimated 450 billion locusts have been killed since January. The locusts start their migration again this week, which could lead to food shortages and starvation.
2. A dust cloud out of Africa hits gulf states, covering several areas in a thick, dusty haze. This happens every year (except not usually the thick, dusty haze part), and is thought to bring nutrient-rich soil to the U.S. But this year is the biggest in 50 years. It’s thicker and lower than normal and can exacerbate respiratory issues.
3. The EPA issues a rule that adds 172 perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals (PFAs) to a list of pollutants businesses are required to report when releasing into waterways. But at the same time, they’re creating exemptions for polluters by playing around with the percentages.
4. California passes the country’s first electric truck standard, which should help put more electric trucks on the road. The goal is to add 350,000 electric trucks by 2035 and phase out diesel trucks by 2045.
5. The Vatican urges Catholics to divest their investments from weapons and fossil fuels because they have a duty to protect human rights and because of the dangers of climate change.

Budget/Economy:

1. Economic advisor Kevin Hassett steps down again. Hassett was the chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors for two years. He left in 2019 and returned to the administration to help with the response to the coronavirus pandemic. I guess his work here is done?

• • Hassett was pivotal to getting Trump to support economic stimulus and relief packages for those affected by the pandemic. Which is weird, because he’s also pretty cavalier about the seriousness of the pandemic.
  • In addition to losing Hassett in the middle of a recession, the administration is also losing Tomas Philipson, who took over at the CEA after Hassett left last year.

2. The Trump administration is looking at another $3 billion in tariffs on products from Europe and on aluminum from Canada. European products that might fall under the tariffs include purses, leather, olives, and gin, with hikes on existing tariffs for aircraft and dairy products.

• • Stocks fell everywhere on the news and then fell again over fears of having to reinstate lockdown measures. Tariffs might not be the best tool to use on a pandemic economy.

3. Cities and counties hit hard economically by the pandemic shutdowns put a halt to new and ongoing infrastructure projects.
4. New home sales rose by 16.6% in May despite the unemployment rate and surge in coronavirus infections. Mortgage interest rates are historically low.
5. New unemployment claims were over 1 million for the 14th week in a row. Continuing unemployment claims finally fell below 20 million for the first time in two months.

Elections:

1. Voter turnout in Kentucky was off the charts between mail-in and in-person voting. Kentucky closes their polls down at 6:00 PM after opening significantly fewer polling places. So when a bunch of voters waiting in line to vote got locked out of their voting center at 6:00, Senate primary candidate Charles Booker steps in and gets a judge to order the doors back open so everyone can vote. People were waiting in hour-long lines just to park.

• • Booker’s race against Amy McGrath is still too close to call by the end of the week.

2. Trump holds another re-election rally in Yuma, AZ, where he again calls COVID-19 the Kung flu and the China flu. He brags about his “big, beautiful wall”(about 220 miles have been completed, and about 215 of those miles just replaced existing wall) and then tells a group of students that the election could be stolen by fraud. He complains about the removal of Confederate statues.
3. Then Trump holds another reelection rally at a shipyard in Wisconsin where he predicts a rosy economy.
4. Trump claims that Joe Biden is trying to get out of debating him, but Biden has officially committed to participating in at least three debates and says he’s eager to debate Trump.
5. The Democratic National Committee announces that they’ll conduct as much business remotely as possible during the nominating convention in Milwaukee this August. They’re calling it a “Convention Across America,” moving it to a smaller venue, and are waiting for public health officials to complete a pandemic assessment before finalizing their plans.

Miscellaneous:

1. The Trump family sues to stop Trump’s niece Mary from publishing her tell-all book about the dysfunctions of the Trump family.
2. Trump signs an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services to bolster partnerships among state and local foster care organizations to provide better service to foster children during the pandemic. In hindsight, the administration’s earlier decision to allow faith-based organizations to discriminate against gay parents probably wasn’t helpful during a pandemic.

Polls:

1. Trump’s disapproval rating hits a high of 58%, with 49% strongly disapproving. That’s a record not just for him, but for any president polled before him.
2. Joe Biden is ahead of Trump in presidential polling by 8 percentage points.
3. 34% of women want to postpone pregnancy later or have fewer children than they had planned before the pandemic.
4. 80% of voters have a positive view of people who wear masks.
5. 89% of Americans say they wear a mask when out. Only 11% say they don’t. Most of that 11 % must live in my neighborhood.

A review of records shows that black protestors arrested in New York City in recent weeks have been detained for longer than their white counterparts. Just like for other crimes. In general, black people are more likely to get stopped by the police. And then more likely to be detained. And then more likely to be arrested. And then more likely to go to trial. And then more likely to be found guilty. And then more likely to be sentenced. And then more likely to have longer sentences. Every single step of the justice system weeds out white perpetrators while punishing black perpetrators to the fullest extent of the law. It’s not hard to see why exponentially more black lives are ruined by the justice system than white lives. And that’s why #BlackLivesMatter.

Here’s what happened in politics during the week ending June 21…

Shootings This Week:

1. There were 21 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 8 people and injure 95 more.

Russia:

1. A new report by research firm Graphika claims that Russia used fake accounts and blog posts on over 300 social medial platforms for their disinformation campaigns to undermine opponents. They’ve been running these campaigns for over six years, and have gone after Ukraine’s government, the World Anti-Doping Agency, Putin’s opposition leader Alexei Navalny, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Hillary Clinton.
2. Trump’s fourth Russia director at the NSC steps down.

Legal Fallout:

1. A federal judge refuses the Justice Department’s request to block the release of John Bolton’s book. The judge says there’s no point since the book has been leaked and is widely circulated already.
2. According to the book:


• • Bolton would’ve testified in the impeachment hearing if the House would’ve subpoenaed him. He thinks the House should’ve waited for approval to go through the courts. Just a reminder, the House’s previous subpoena for former White House lawyer Dan McGahn is still going through the courts more than a year after it was issued.
  • The House should’ve investigated further because not only was Trump guilty of extorting Ukraine, there were several more instances of obstruction of justice and extortion to be found.
  • Trump asked China’s president to buy more agricultural products in 2018 to make him look better so more Republicans would get elected in the midterms.
  • North Korea has been playing Trump by sending him flattering letters and posing for photo ops while doing nothing to denuclearize.

3. On Friday night (the standard news dump night for this administration), The Justice Department announces that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York is stepping down from his post. Trump plans to put the U.S. Attorney in New Jersey in the position in an acting role until someone can be confirmed.

• • But U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman says he has no intention of stepping down. So the next day, Trump fires him because Bill Barr, as Attorney General, doesn’t have the authority.
  • This means that Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, is acting U.S. Attorney until the Senate confirms a replacement, so the investigations go on.
  • Barr had earlier tried to entice Berman away from the U.S. Attorney position by offering him a job leading the civil division of the DOJ in Washington.
  • Trump plans to nominate Jay Clayton, who is currently the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commissions and who has never tried a case.
  • This is the office that led the investigation into Michael Cohen and is currently investigating Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman.
  • Trump thinks the investigations are an attempt to damage him, but Berman is a Trump administration appointee and a Trump donor.

Courts/Justice:

1. The Supreme Court rules that Trump can’t carry out his plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, so those youngsters avoid potential deportation for now.

• • As has been so common in court cases with this administration, Chief Justice Roberts labels Trump’s actions as arbitrary and capricious.
  • The administration can try again to do this in a legal way.

2. The Supreme Court rules that LGBTQ workers cannot be discriminated against by their employers for their sexual orientation or gender identity. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch join the more liberal members of the court in the majority.
3. The Justice Department announces that the federal government will start up executions of criminals again. Three inmates are scheduled to be executed in July and one in August. There have only been three executions in just over three decades, one of which was Timothy McVeigh who bombed the Oklahoma City federal building.
4. The Supreme Court declines to hear appeals of ten cases involving gun rights. The cases were brought by gun activists hoping to strike down ownership limits.
5. The Supreme Court also declines to hear a case on qualified immunity for law enforcement.

Coronavirus:

1. Only three out of 53 countries say the U.S. is handling the pandemic better than China. The electorate in Greece, Taiwan, Ireland, South Korea, Australia, and Denmark are happiest with how their government is handling it. Brazil, France, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. get the lowest rating from their electorates. 33% of respondents say the U.S. response is good compared to the 60% who say China’s is.
2. The FDA revokes its emergency authorization for the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 treatment. The agency thinks the few benefits don’t outweigh the risks. Tests are still ongoing for hydroxychloroquine treatment though.
3. Initial reports from tests treating several COVID-19 patients with a cheap, easily available steroid indicate that use of the drug (dexamethasone) reduced deaths by a third. More testing is needed.
4. The staff of the Centers for Disease Control was told not to talk to Voice of America reporters. VOA is a government-funded news agency and apparently their coverage wasn’t positive enough to Trump. Trump says the VOA is run by communists.
5. Here are the states and territories where COVID-19 cases are having a surprise increase: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming.

• • Deaths are increasing in those states and also in Idaho.

6. A judge rules that Trump’s rally in Tulsa can go ahead as planned after two lawyers bring a suit on behalf of residents to stop it because of the increased risk of coronavirus spread.

• • Officials in Tulsa plead with the Trump campaign to either cancel his planned rally or to at least hold it outside due to the spike in coronavirus cases there.
  • The coronavirus task force recommends against holding the rally due to the health risks.

7. Dr. Anthony Fauci says that the government originally held off on recommending the public wear masks because they were worried about shortages of supplies. He now unequivocally advocates wearing a mask and social distancing.
8. Fauci expresses his frustration over our inability to stop the spread of the coronavirus and says it’s because Americans aren’t following the recommended guidelines. He says part of the problem stems from leadership, but not local leadership. So…. that leaves….??
9. Fauci is also frustrated by the American public’s refusal to believe in science during this time.
10. Mike Pence pens an oped about how there is no second wave and any panic about it is overblown. He even says no second wave is coming. According to public health experts, we’re still in the first wave. You can’t have a second wave until the first wave is over, and the second wave is expected in the fall.

• • A plateau is nothing to celebrate. While the states that were hit hardest early, like New York and New Jersey, are seeing declining numbers, the increasing numbers across other parts of the country are why our numbers still aren’t going down.
  • Pence blames the spike in coronavirus cases across the country on more testing, but that doesn’t account for the higher positive return rate nor the increase in hospitalizations and deaths.
  • Our positive test rate is much higher than in Europe as a whole.
  • Pence says our approach has been a success. The country with 4% of the world’s population has 26% of the world’s COVID-19 cases and deaths is a success. OK.
  • Pence doesn’t mention that we’ve lost over 120,000 people now from the pandemic.

11. The U.S. National Stockpile is now stuck with 63 million doses of hydroxychloroquine they can’t use since the FDA revoked approval to use it for COVID-19 patients. Some infectious disease experts say there was never any evidence that the drug was effective for COVID-19 cases, but the U.S. put all their eggs in that one basket.
12. At his Tulsa rally, Trump says that he told the coronavirus task force to slow down on testing because the number of cases was increasing too much.
13. The Trump administration still hasn’t distributed $8 billion of the $25 billion designated to ramp up testing.
14. Defense officials won’t reinstate Navy Captain Brett Crozier, commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt after all. A new investigation reversed the findings of an earlier investigation that he was not at fault for trying to stop the spread of coronavirus on his ship.

Shortages:

1. Some hospitals in Florida run out of ICU beds as their cases spike. Same with Arizona, and Texas is on its way.
2. Mike Pence drastically overstates the amount of equipment distributed through Project Airbridge by combining the numbers of several projects. Pence claims the program has distributed:

• • More than 143 million N95 masks (it’s closer to 1.5 million)
  • 598 million surgical and procedural masks (it’s actually 113.4 million)
  • 20 million eye and face shields (it’s actually 2.5 million)
  • 256 million gowns and coveralls (it’s actually around 52 million)
  • 14 billion gloves (it’s actually 937 million).

Exposures:

1. Representative Tom Rice (R-SC) tells us that he, his wife, and his son all had COVID-19. His entire family fell sick, but not to the point of hospitalization.

• • Two weeks ago, he refused to wear a mask on the House floor, so who knows how much he might have spread the virus.
  • Several members of Congress have tested positive so far during the pandemic.
  • In his statement, Rice calls it the Wuhan Flu. There’s your member of Congress, doing what he can to repair race relations 🙄

2. An NPR survey finds that 37 U.S. states don’t have the contact tracers they need to reopen, even though the tracing workforce has tripled.
3. Health officials in Oregon are working to contain an outbreak of 200 new cases related to the Lighthouse United Pentecostal Church.
4. In Great Britain, as in the U.S., the areas seeing increases in coronavirus cases are more rural than the areas where the infections first broke out.
5. As national sports teams get back to practice, some are having to shut down and quarantine for 14 days due to the number of infections. Five members of the Philadelphia Phillies test positive for the coronavirus. The team declines to comment on what that might mean for the season.
6. Six members of Trump’s campaign working on his Tulsa rally test positive for the coronavirus. Two more who attend the rally later test positive.
7. Two weeks after Nevada reopened its gyms, restaurants, churches, bars, and casinos, the state reports its largest one-day increase in coronavirus cases. Same for Las Vegas.
8. Senior-care facilities continue to represent about 40% of the COVID-19 deaths so far.
9. Initial data indicate that the protests aren’t causing spikes in coronavirus cases. There have been no significant differences in trends between counties with protests and counties without. Several of the states that had large protests aren’t seeing an uptick in cases.

• • Public health officials point to an increase in indoor gatherings as states reopen as a more likely cause.
  • They also say it’s possible that it’ll take a while for anyone infected at the protests to infect their communities.
  • As with the people protesting the lockdowns several weeks ago, those protesting George Floyd’s death are a small portion of the overall population.

Closures:

1. Beijing raises emergency levels and tightens its lockdowns as its latest outbreak worsens. The outbreak is linked to a supermarket. Unessential travel is banned, hundreds of flights have been canceled, and screening is reinstated.
2. Texas Governor Greg Abbott still won’t let localities require that people wear masks in public even though the state keeps setting new one-day highs for coronavirus cases. Nine mayors ask him to reverse his decision, including some of the biggest metropolitan areas in the state.
3. Nebraska’s Republican governor warns local officials that if they mandate face coverings, they’ll lose federal coronavirus relief money.
4. Some businesses in Florida close within one week of reopening due to the spike in cases in the state. That includes several bars that closed because patrons or staff tested positive. Officials shut down three restaurants in Miami for violating coronavirus safety regulations.
5. Utah, Oregon, Miami, Baltimore, and Nashville all slow down on reopening over spikes in cases.

Numbers:

1. Coronavirus cases are on the rise in 77 countries. Cases are declining in 43 countries.
2. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 2,255,119 people in the U.S. are infected so far (up from 2,074,526 last week), with 119,719 deaths (up from 115,436 last week).
  • 8,796,835 people worldwide have been infected (up from 7,760,308 last week), with 464,292 deaths (up from 430,130 last week).

International:

1. India says that a clash with Chinese forces along a disputed border left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead. These are the first deaths in 45 years between these two countries (which both have nuclear weapons).
2. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has several cases pending against him, denies that Joe Biden ever approached him about the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board the same year Poroshenko became president.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. After Michael Brown’s shooting in 2014, Obama put together a task force that recommended 59 changes for better policing. Several departments have implemented these, but not all, and even those that have are finding progress to be slow.
2. The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s office rules that Rayshard Brooks’ death was a homicide. Brooks was shot by a police officer during a DUI stop. The Fulton County DA charges the Atlanta police officer who shot Rayshard Brooke with 11 counts, including felony murder. The officer with him is charged with aggravated assault.
3. The UN Human Rights Council agrees to investigate “systemic racism, police brutality, and violence against peaceful protests” in the U.S. and other countries on behalf of African countries that requested it.
4. A senior State Department official resigns over Trump’s mishandling of the current racial tensions. She is the first black woman to have served as assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs.
5. A member of the right-wing Boogaloo movement is charged with murdering a Santa Cruz police officer and injuring four others with pipe bombs. He planned the attacks to coincide with protests to use them as cover.
6. A bipartisan group of national security leaders says military forces shouldn’t have been used against civilians. They also say protestors should not be called “terrorists.”
7. The New York State Legislature bans chokeholds by police and removes a roadblock to holding police accountable for their actions.
8. New York State plans to dismantle its plainclothes police units with high numbers of shootings.
9. Trump signs an executive order creating a database to track officers with misconduct complaints and encourages police departments to work with mental health professionals when dealing with people who have addiction, homelessness, or mental health issues. It also encourages following standards for use of force. It doesn’t address racial discrimination or stereotyping.
10. The North Carolina Supreme Court rules that anyone who sought relief under the Racial Justice Act before it was repealed can still proceed with their claim. This means they have a chance to prove that their death sentences were based on racial discrimination.
11. The display of the Confederate flag is banned from all Army installations in South Korea.
12. People get a little bent out of shape as Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, and Mrs. Butterworth remove their racial stereotypical representations of black people.
13. Trump claims credit for making Juneteenth very famous. There have been Juneteenth celebrations in the U.S. since the final slaves were freed in 1865.
14. Even though around 75% of Americans approve of granting permanent legal status to DACA-eligible immigrants, Trump says his administration will try to end the Dreamers program again after the Supreme Court shot down the most recent attempt.
15. Facebook removes ads put out by the Trump campaign that use a red triangle similar to the symbol used by Nazis to classify political prisoners in WWII. The campaign claims it’s a symbol used by Antifa. It isn’t.
16. Facebook and Twitter remove a doctored video shared by Trump trying to show that the media tries to paint Trump supporters as racist.
17. The Trump administration continues to point the finger at Antifa for violence during the protests.

• • A review of footage showed that Antifa mostly stood back at protests and didn’t engage at all, much less in violent ways.
  • Most of the violence that occurred during the protests was opportunistic, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
  • Antifa sympathizers are drawn to events where white supremacists show up.

18. The FBI is actively investigating the hanging deaths of two black men in Southern California. They were both previously thought to be suicides. Another black man was found hanged in a park in New York City. Another black teenager and a Latino man were found hanged in a public area in Houston.
19. The Air Force inspector general launches an investigation into whether using drones to monitor protests violates the civil rights of protestors. Military drones were used in Washington and Minneapolis.
20. A federal judge orders Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to distribute nearly $670 million in emergency COVID-10 funds to Native American tribes that have been waiting months for the aid. The government has been missing deadlines for paying out the funds for months now, while small businesses (and even some large ones) are getting relief loans.
21. The Supreme Court declines to hear a Trump administration challenge to so-called sanctuary laws in California. This leaves in place rules that limit local law enforcement participation in immigration issues.
22. The Supreme Court prohibits employers from discriminating against LGBTQ employees, ruling that “sex” in the Civil Rights Act applies to gender identity and sexual orientation.
23. Republicans in the Senate and Democrats in the House have been busy writing their own police reform bills. Though they both aim roughly at the same areas, there’s enough disagreement to doubt whether we’ll get anything this time around. Here’s what’s in them.

Senate Version	House Version
Encourages agencies to stop using chokeholds or lose federal funds. Requires the use of body cams.	Bans the use of chokeholds and requires the use of body cams.
Requires law enforcement to be better about compiling “use of force” reports.	Creates a national registry for instances of police misconduct.
Provides funds for de-escalation training and establishing “duty to intervene” protocols.	Incentivizes racial bias training and teaching a “duty to intervene.”
Tracks the use of no-knock warrants.	Bans no-knock warrants for federal drug cases.
Makes lynching a federal hate crime.	Includes anti-lynching legislation (which Rand Paul has been holding up in the Senate).
Launches a study into the social status of black men and boys.	Launches studies into police actions and practices.
Suggests a decertification process instead of changing qualified immunity.	Reforms qualified immunity for officers.

Climate/Environment:

1. A small town in Siberia hits 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature on record north of the Arctic Circle.
2. The EPA announces it won’t regulate or limit perchlorate in drinking water. The chemical is linked to brain damage in infants. The EPA says the level has already been reduced enough. What could go wrong?
3. The Senate approves a $3 billion bill for conservation projects, outdoor recreation, and national park and public land maintenance.
4. A federal appeals court keeps in place a ruling that suspended the last two oil and gas leases near Glacier National Park, MT.
5. Greenhouse gas emissions are increasing sharply as the world reopens after the pandemic shutdowns.

Budget/Economy:

1. Two years ago, the U.S. topped the list of the world’s most competitive economies according to the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland. For three decades, the U.S. was in the top five on the list. This year, the U.S. falls to 10th, right behind the United Arab Emirates.
2. In violation of the CARES Act, the Department of Education reveals that it seized over $2.2 billion in tax refunds from people who still owe on their student loans.
3. Some members of Congress received small business benefits from the coronavirus relief package they helped create.
4. The Trump administration continues to block oversight and transparency into the payments made to businesses as part of the package.
5. The Trump administration plans to end the $600 unemployment benefit supplement in July saying it’s more than people would make by working (in the jobs that are still non-existent).

Elections:

1. According to John Bolton’s book, Trump asked China for help with his re-election. He asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to buy American agricultural products so he could win farm states in November. Trump stressed the importance of farmers in the election to President Xi.
2. On the day of Trump’s Tulsa rally, Tulsa County reports its highest daily record for new coronavirus cases. Trump campaign officials say they picked Tulsa because Oklahoma is well into reopening and they view it as a celebration that the worst of the pandemic is over. WTF? Have they literally never cracked a book?

• • People start lining up for the rally midweek. The night before the rally, Trump supporters and protestors start to gather in downtown Tulsa, business board up their windows, and the mayor issues a curfew.
  • The rally is held the day after Juneteenth, so celebrations are happening as well. Also on Juneteenth, Trump issues a very thinly veiled threat against protestors saying they won’t be treated as nicely as they are in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis.
  • The attendance for the rally is low, around half what was expected. It only filled around a third of the arena. Attendance is so low, they cancel a planned second speech.
  • The campaign blames the low attendance on protestors and on the media—“radical” protestors that tried to scare off Trump supporters. Weird. His supporters are such tough guys…
  • Officers on site say that no one who wanted in was turned away.

3. Trump misspoke a bit at his rally when he wasn’t busy showing off how he can drink water with one hand and describing in excruciating detail his walk down the ramp at West Point.

• • He says he passed the largest tax cut in history. It’s the fourth largest.
  • He says he accomplished Veterans Choice (in healthcare providers). The program started under Obama in 2015 (though Trump did expand it).
  • He pretends not to understand the policy changes requested by the Defund The Police movement.
  • He calls the coronavirus the Chinese virus and the Kung flu, illustrating exactly how seriously he takes the pandemic.
  • He says he’s spent over $2 trillion to completely rebuild the strength and power of our military. We’ve spent less than a quarter of that (roughly $419 billion).
  • The best line of the night… when you do more testing for COVID-10, you’re gonna find more cases. Everyone knows by now it’s the positive rate, not the testing rate, that indicates whether we’re headed the right direction.

4. His 2020 campaign promises so far are the same old stories as in 2016—he’ll root out MS-13 gang violence, he’ll ban abortion, he’ll bring back economic prosperity, and he’ll create a conservative court. What has he been doing for 3 ½ years?
5. Trump says that mail-in voting is the biggest risk to his re-election.

Miscellaneous:

1. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) blocks two Trump nominations on the condition that the White House explain all the recent firings of inspector generals. Some of these firings are under investigation by House Democrats.
2. Trump’s new head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the agency that produces Voice of America around the world, fired the senior leadership for the agency’s foreign networks, including in Europe, Asia, Cuba, and Middle East outlets. The two top VOA officials had already resigned.

• • Michael Pack dissolved several advisory boards and placed his own aides above them. The advisory boards are there because they understand the unique situation in each location.
  • Even though Pack is under investigation for improperly funneling funds from non-profit to for-profit companies he runs, the Senate still confirmed him two weeks ago.
  • Staffers say that VOA is effectively shut down.
  • The VOA has been a target of the Trump administration since 2018 when Bannon called it a rotten fish from top to bottom.

Polls:

1. Americans are the most unhappy they’ve been in half a century. A mere 14% of Americans say they’re very happy.
2. 80% of Americans worry about a second wave of coronavirus. About as many say they’ll abide by any new social distancing measures that are put into place.

What the past few weeks have shown me is that there are indeed good protestors and bad protestors, good cops and bad cops, good people and bad people. But none of that changes the systemic racism holding this country back from its potential. We can get all the racists out of positions of authority and power, but that won’t fix the problem. The problem is that racism is baked into our institutions, our systems, our infrastructure, and our financial systems. Nothing will truly change until we root it all out and rebuild something new and better. If you’re wondering why some people are good with burning it all down, that’s why.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending June 14…

Missing From Last Week:

1. The U.S. Department of Justice files a brief with the Supreme Court arguing against requiring adoption agencies to place children in LGBTQ homes based on the agencies’ religious beliefs.
2. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorses Joe Biden for president while calling Trump’s actions dangerous for democracy and our country.
3. Russia declares a state of emergency after an accident at a power plant spills around 23,000 tons of diesel fuel in a remote Arctic region.
4. Confederate statues started coming down last week, some taken down by city officials and some by protestors.
5. People come together across the country to help clean up after protests, vandalism, and looting.
6. Biden brings Julián Castro onto his campaign team to help tackle the issue of police reform.
7. Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit, resigns from Reddit’s board of directors and urges the company to replace him with a POC.
8. A Tennessee judge rules that the state most allow all of its registered voters to vote by mail during the pandemic.

Shootings This Week:

1. There were 33 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 29 people and injure 152 more. This was a violent week.

Russia:

1. In response to Russia’s meddling in our 2016 elections, the Senate Intelligence Committee approves a measure that would require campaigns to report any offers of foreign assistance.
2. Trump promises that Roger Stone won’t serve any of the prison time to which he was sentenced.
3. The former judged tasked with analyzing a path forward in the Michael Flynn case calls the Justice Department’s handling of the case a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power.” He says the DOJ engaged in irregular conduct to help one of Trump‘s allies.
4. The Senate Judiciary Committee votes along party lines to authorize subpoenas for former Obama administration officials, including James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan. This is for the investigation into the handling of the Russia investigations.

Legal Fallout:

1. While the White House is still fighting to stop John Bolton’s new book from being published, bits start leaking out this week. Bolton doesn’t think the House went far enough in its impeachment investigations because Trump’s malfeasance spread throughout his foreign policy and dealings with foreign leaders.

• • The White House is still working to block the release of the book, saying that there’s classified information in it.

Coronavirus:

1. Health officials warn governors to be on the lookout for a spike in coronavirus infections due to the racial justice protests.
2. A previously healthy woman in her 20s undergoes a double lung transplant after being infected with the coronavirus and being on a ventilator and ECMO for six weeks. Doctors say it was the only way to save her life.
3. A study out of Cambridge and Greenwich Universities finds that if everyone wears masks in public, it could prevent the coming waves of the pandemic and could keep transmission of the coronavirus down to controllable levels.
4. Beijing closes down a wholesale food market after more than 50 new coronavirus cases are linked to it. China orders people who visited the market to self-quarantine. Beijing hadn’t had any new cases for the previous two months.
5. 70 countries are seeing recent increases in the number of new cases.
6. The Los Angeles Times reports that in mid-March, a passenger traveling from New York to Los Angeles was infected with the coronavirus and spread the virus among people he came into contact with. He was headed to a longterm care facility, where he continued to spread the virus. No one from public health informed any of the passengers or crew on the flight. So much for contact tracing.

• • On an even earlier flight, March 8, a woman flew to Los Angeles from Seoul, went into cardiac arrest the next day, and became the first confirmed death in Los Angeles County. No one on her flight was alerted either.

7. The Orange County, CA, health officer who mandated face coverings while out in public resigns after receiving death threats and anti-mask protests at her home. Health officials across the country are facing the same kinds of threats and resistance.
8. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo proposes centralizing public health staff and operations under the State Department. This would distance them from the CDC, NIH, and USAID.
9. Dr. Anthony Fauci says that COVID-19 is his worst nightmare come to life, and that we’re still at the beginning of it.
10. The coronavirus task force hasn’t had a daily briefing in over a month, despite cases and hospitalizations being on the rise. The virus is still killing nearly 1,000 Americans per day.
11. The WHO walks back its previous statement that people who are carriers but are asymptomatic aren’t very infectious. They are still infectious.

Exposures:

1. Rates of coronavirus infections in some of the states hit early by the pandemic, like New York, New Jersey, and Illinois, see their numbers of new infections dropping daily. But other parts of the country that thought they missed the first wave are getting hit now. Fourteen states and Puerto Rico see their highest seven-day averages of new cases.
2. At least 19 states are still seeing a rise in cases and hospitalizations, and 24 states are trending downward. Seven are holding steady.

• • It’s largely hitting counties that are less populated.
  • It’s largely hitting states that have been more lax about reopening.
  • Experts think part of this is from Memorial Day festivities, but not all.
  • Los Angeles County, which had early stay-at-home orders and is gradually reopening, is still seeing high numbers of infections.

3. Trump says the rise in numbers is from an increase in testing, but the number of hospitalizations is rising as is the positive test rate, which is a better measure of whether we have a handle on it.

Closures:

1. As Los Angeles county slowly reopens and allows indoor dining at restaurants, health officials find that around half of the 2,000 restaurants they checked are not in compliance with mandatory protocols to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
2. New studies estimate that the shutdowns prevented around 60 million cases in the U.S. and around 285 million in China. Worldwide, around 3.1 million lives were saved.

Numbers:

1. Around 600 U.S. healthcare workers have died from COVID-19.
2. The U.S. surpasses 2,000,000 cases, prompting some to speculate that we’re hitting the second wave. Experts say we’re not. We have not yet been able to get out of the first wave.
3. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 2,074,526 people in the U.S. are infected so far (up from 1,920,061 last week), with 115,436 deaths (up from 109,802 last week).
  • 7,760,308 people worldwide have been infected (up from 6,863,012 last week), with 430,130 deaths (up from 399,532 las week).

Healthcare:

1. An appeals court upholds a lower court’s ruling that struck down a Kentucky law banning D&E abortions.

International:

1. Iran sentences an Iranian to death for spying on General Qassem Soleimani for the U.S. and Israel.
2. North Korea cuts off all communication with South Korea over leaflets dropped by South Korean activists. The country then demolishes an inter-Korean liaison office that was set up to improve relations between the two countries.
3. Several U.S. agencies have reinterpreted an arms treaty in order to allow the U.S. to sell armed drones to previously banned countries.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Rand Paul continues to hold up the bill that would make lynching a federal crime.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. George Floyd’s body is laid to rest in Houston, with thousands of people paying their respects and Al Sharpton giving another eulogy.
2. A self-admitted KKK leader drives his truck into a peaceful, family-centered protest in Virginia, injuring one cyclist and reminding everyone of Heather Heyer’s killing in Charlottesville.
3. Families of black men killed by police, along with civil rights organizations, demand the UN Human Rights Council convene a special session to look into police violence in the U.S. They also ask the council to investigate repression of the recent protests.
4. A super-majority of the Minneapolis City Council announces their approval of disbanding the Minneapolis police department and rethinking the structure.
5. The Broward County, FL, Fraternal Order of Police offers to hire officers in Buffalo who were fired or resigned over police misconduct (shoving an older protestor backward—he’s still in the hospital). Trump says with no proof that the protestor is Antifa.
6. An officer in Oregon is caught on video telling a group of armed white men protecting a store, “We’re going to really enforce the citywide curfew shutdown so we can arrest anybody walking around. My command wanted me to come talk to you guys and request that you guys secrete people inside the businesses or in your vehicles somewhere where it’s not a violation … so we don’t look like we’re playing favorites.”
7. Public opinion about police violence and racial injustice is shifting, but the police unions are only digging in deeper to support officers accused of brutality in recent weeks. Police unions have gained in power over the years and have formed PACs to donate to local races like district attorney, state attorney, and state senate and representative races.
8. Attorney General Bill Barr contradicts Trump’s excuse for going to the bunker a few weeks ago by insisting that Trump was in potential danger and the Secret Service recommended he go there.
9. So far, Federal records don’t show any links to Antifa in cases brought by the Justice Department over the demonstrations. The only extremist group mentioned in the documents is the right-wing Boogaloo movement.
10. Vigilantes have been showing up at protests, dressed in military-style clothing and carrying rifles. They say they’re just keeping the peace and guarding protestors, but they’re also responding to widespread and unfounded rumors that Antifa is bussing in troublemakers.
11. Some organizers have canceled planned protests because of the presence of armed civilians.
12. Trump rejects a proposal to rename U.S. military bases in the South that are currently named after Confederate officers who fought against the U.S.
13. More on the Lafayette Park incident from last week:

• • Despite denials, then admissions, and then more denials of the use of tear gas in Lafayette Park last week, it turns out that officers were alerted over their radios that CS gas, a form of tear gas, might be deployed, which is how they knew to put on their masks beforehand. The warning occurred shortly after Bill Barr and General Milley were seen in the blocked off sections of Lafayette Park. Video shows officers from the Prison Bureau carrying pepper canister launchers.
  • It turns out the Australian cameraman who was filming at the time and got knocked down was knocked down when an officer rammed him with his shield and then grabbed his camera. Then police used batons to hit the journalist who helped the cameraman flee. The two officers involved have been placed on leave.
  • Officers started detaining protestors even before curfew.
  • Five civilians were injured and some officers also reported minor injuries. 54 arrests were made within two hours in the vicinity.
  • Arlington County police say they were told to move the crowd in order to erect new barriers. Nothing was said about the photo op at St. John’s.

14. Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley apologizes for taking part in Trump’s walk across Lafayette Park for a photo op after police used tear gas and forcible measures make way for them. He apologizes for allowing the perception that the military is involved in domestic politics.
15. More than 1,250 former Justice Department employees call for the inspector general to open an investigation into Barr’s use of force to disperse protestors.
16. National Guard troops express discomfort at how they were used to handle the protests across the country, and they especially feel used for their role in clearing Lafayette Park. Some think the protestors’ civil rights were being violated.
17. Seattle’s mayor allows protestors to declare an autonomous zone in front of a boarded-up police station and even has portable toilets installed. Protestors make speeches, hold meetings, and share food in the zone. Trump tells Governor Jay Inslee that if he doesn’t take back his city, Trump will do it himself.
18. Local officials continue to order the removal of Confederate statues and protestors are toppling and vandalizing them as well. This is even spreading to Europe.
19. The Pentagon launches a review of the response of the National Guard to the protests.
20. Louisville, KY, bans no-knock warrants after demonstrators continue to protest the killing of Breonna Taylor. The measure is called Breonna’s Law.
21. In a meeting in Dallas with police union leaders and church leaders, Trump strongly defends police forces while saying there are a few bad apples. He does not meet with the city’s top three law enforcement officers, all of whom are black.
22. Video surfaces of an Oklahoma City police officer arresting Derrick Scott, a black man. In the video, Scott can be heard saying “I can’t breathe” after the officer puts a knee on his back just like Floyd. Scott later died, though it does appear that the officers followed protocol, turning him over as soon as he was handcuffed so he could breathe. Still, he had a collapsed lung.
23. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh declares racism to be a public health emergency.
24. As more videos and news come out about police brutality against black Americans and against the protestors, public sentiment moves toward support of Black Lives Matter. Most Americans now support sweeping policing reforms. The ideas behind defunding the police are being seriously considered and even enacted in cities across the country.
25. Police kill another black man, Rayshard Brooks, during a DUI call. Brooks falls asleep in his car and blocks a drive-thru. Police respond, talk to him for more than 20 minutes and perform a sobriety test and breathalyzer; but when they try to arrest him, there’s a struggle and Brooks grabs one of the officers’ taser. One of the officers shoots Brooks as he’s running away, pointing the taser behind him and appearing to fire it.
26. In the middle of Pride month and on the four-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting, Trump moves to eliminate protections that prohibit healthcare discrimination against transgender patients
27. A Republican legislator in the Ohio state Senate asks on the Senate floor whether coronavirus is hitting communities of color harder because they don’t wash their hands as well as other groups.
28. The Navy plans to ban the Confederate flag from all of their installations.
29. The Senate unanimously confirms General Charles Brown Jr. as Air Force chief of staff. He’s a four-star general and the first black man to hold the post.

Climate/Environment:

1. A federal court blocks the EPA’s approval of dicamba-based pesticides, which are used on genetically modified soybean and cotton crops. The court says the EPA strayed too far from its duty to assess environmental dangers.
2. The Department of the Interior announces that they’ll push for offshore drilling off the coast of Florida next year.

Budget/Economy:

1. Some of our largest hospital chains are sitting on tens of billions in rainy-day funds while laying off and furloughing medical staff and employees, as well as freezing and cutting wages. They’ve received more than $15 billion in bailout funds on the taxpayers’ dime. During the most recent year for which we have numbers, just FIVE of the industry’s executives received $874 million. Oh,
2. Job openings fell in April to 5.0 million and hires fell to a low of 3.5 million. The number of separations was the second-highest level in the series history at 9.9 million.
3. Current forecasts suggest that as many as 25,000 retail stores could close in 2020, and more than half of those stores are in malls.
4. The Dow Jones drops 1,800 in one day but gains 500 the next day. Volatility is super exciting!
5. Despite the transparency rules written into the coronavirus relief packages, the Trump administration isn’t saying who received $511 billion in the relief loans backed by taxpayers.

Elections:

1. Joe Biden officially gains enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for the presidential race.
2. The Trump campaign asks CNN to retract a poll conducted the previous week that showed Biden leading Trump by 14 points. The campaign demands that CNN publish a “full, fair, and conspicuous retraction, apology, and clarification to correct its misleading conclusions.”
3. Trump plans to hold a re-election rally in Tulsa, OK, on Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the date that the final slaves learned of their emancipation. Tulsa was the site of the Tulsa race massacre in 1921, where a thriving black community was attacked by white mobs, leaving the district burned down and mostly demolished. The massacre left dozens dead, and at least 800 injured. The area, known as Black Wall Street, was the wealthiest black neighborhood in the country at the time.
4. Georgia’s elections are a fiasco, with concerns about COVID-19, equipment failures, a dramatic cut in the number of voting centers, not enough paper ballots, and nearly seven-hour waits in some places. Tens of thousands of voters who requested vote-by-mail ballots because of the pandemic did not receive them.
5. The RNC tentatively moves its nominating convention to Jacksonville, FL, from Charlotte, NC, so they won’t have to abide by any social distancing or COVID-19 safety regulations. Coincidentally, or maybe just because they don’t know history, it will be held on the anniversary of a Ku Klux Klan attack on black civil rights activists in Jacksonville called Ax Handle Saturday.

Polls:

• 81% of Americans think discrimination against African Americans still exists.
• 82% of Americans support banning police from using chokeholds.
• 83% support banning racial profiling.
• 92% support requiring body cams for federal police.
• 75% of Americans support letting people sue for damages over police misconduct.

During what is shaping up to be the largest civil rights movement in history, Trump gasses peaceful protestors while saying he’ll protect protestors but also threatening to crack down using military force. Reverend Robert Hendrickson sums up what so many feel after this week:

“This is an awful man, waving a book he hasn’t read, in front of a church he doesn’t attend, invoking laws he doesn’t understand, against fellow Americans he sees as enemies, wielding a military he dodged serving, to protect power he gained via accepting foreign interference, exploiting fear and anger he loves to stoke, after failing to address a pandemic he was warned about, and building it all on a bed of constant lies and childish inanity.”

Here’s what happened in politics during the week ending June 7. Sorry it’s so late, but it was a doozy.

Missed from Previous Weeks:

1. Trump fires Dana Boente, the FBI’s top lawyer who’s been with the Justice Department for 38 years. He played a role in the Michael Flynn investigation and wrote a memo explaining how recently released documents don’t exonerate Flynn of wrongdoing.
2. Trump vetoed a bill that would’ve forgiven federal student loans for students who are victims of schools that employed illegal or deceptive practices to encourage them to take on the debt. The bill was only necessary because Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been trying, against court orders, to reverse Obama-era regulations on the matter.
3. Betsy DeVos warns colleges that allow transgender athletes to compete that they’ll lose federal funding unless they end the practice.

Shootings This Week:

1. There were 16 mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 14 people and injure 66 more.
2. One of the worst shootings this week is in Valhermoso Springs, AL, where 7 people were found dead from gunshot wounds in a private home.
3. Another is a drive-by shooting in Sikeston, MO, where 2 people were killed and 7 injured.

Russia:

1. Rod Rosenstein is the first big witness in the Senate Judiciary Committee’s latest investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation.

• • Rosenstein says that while he wouldn’t have signed off on the FISA warrants in hindsight, he also doesn’t think the Russia investigation was a hoax nor was it politically motivated.
  • He disagrees with Attorney General Bill Barr that the investigation was “utterly baseless” and a “corrupt criminal investigation.”
  • He also says it was not wrong of the FBI to investigate Michael Flynn.
  • He agrees that there seemed to be no conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign.

2. Senator Lindsey Graham plans a series of hearings on the investigation in the lead up to the 2020 election. Just like they did with Benghazi. Just like they did with the emails.
3. Ukrainian prosecutors complete their audit of Burisma Holdings and find no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden. So that means that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky did open up Trump’s requested investigation into the Bidens after all. Interesting.
4. Trump and Putin have another call, this time to discuss the pandemic, trade, and progress on pulling together the G7 summit. Remember that Russia was booted from the G7 for annexing Crimea.

Coronavirus:

1. The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine retract their studies showing that hydroxychloroquine was making patients worse because they couldn’t verify the sources of the data. This is the study on which the WHO based their decision to cancel their studies, so the WHO subsequently resumes the trials.

2. A new study indicates that taking hydroxychloroquine didn’t prevent healthy people from getting COVID-19.
3. On March 13 and April 27, Trump touted his plan to make drive-through testing available across the country and promised major pharmacies would roll out testing everywhere. Here’s what he’s got so far:

• • Overall, about 4% of major pharmacy store locations have testing.
  • Target has one testing site (out of 1,871 locations).
  • Walgreens has 28 (out of nearly 9,300 locations).
  • Kroger has 64 (out of 2,800 locations).
  • Rite Aid has 71 (out of 2,464 locations).
  • Walmart has 180 (out of 5,352 locations).
  • CVS has 991 (out of 9,900 locations).

4. A couple of things we’ve learned from our coronavirus response:

• • Shutting down non-essential medical services might have been overkill.
  • It was a bad idea for hospitals to discharge recovering COVID-19 patients back into nursing homes.

5. The ongoing protests over the murder of George Floyd could increase the spread of the virus and some health officials fear they could become super-spreader events. Marchers say it’s worth the risk, while mayors urge protestors to get tested.
   • Being outdoors is safer and wearing masks will help, but still, people are crowded in close and yelling (spreading droplets).
   • To add to that, tear gas and pepper spray make people cough, sneeze, and cry, all of which increase the likelihood of spread.
6. Sweden’s top epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, says that their coronavirus strategy resulted in too many deaths. The country had a lax approach to social distancing, and now has one of the highest death rates from COVID-19 in the world.
7. Dr. Anthony Fauci says Trump’s meetings with the coronavirus task force have decreased dramatically in recent weeks. The task force isn’t even meeting with itself as frequently, even though we still have no solid strategy for testing, tracing, and safe reopening.
8. A recent survey finds that some people actually are inhaling disinfectants, washing food in bleach, and using household cleaning products on their skin to fight the coronavirus. Some even gargled with or drank bleach or soapy water. None of these things work, and it’s resulted in an uptick in calls to poison control centers.
9. Trump tours a factory in Maine that produces swabs used for coronavirus testing. All the swabs manufactured while he was there will be discarded. Trump doesn’t wear a mask on the tour.
10. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which has postponed citizenship ceremonies for months, starts to schedule them again.
11. Lockdown protests die down this week, or at least they get lost under the massive racial justice protests going on right now.

Exposures:

1. GOP candidates held campaign events last week in Horry County, North Carolina, with no masks or social distancing. This week, the county sees a rise in coronavirus cases and deaths. I’m not saying the two are related other than that it doesn’t seem smart to be having those types of events while cases are still going up.
2. The NYPD’s crackdown on protestors could increase the spread of coronavirus. Detainees were crammed into busses to be transported to police headquarters, where they were detained in crowded conditions for anywhere from several hours to three days. Detainees begged for their masks but police refuse to give them back.
3. Fifteen out of the sixteen West Point cadets who returned to the academy before their graduation have tested positive for the coronavirus or antibodies. They were ordered back so Trump could give a commencement speech.
4. Around the globe, countries in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and South Asia have surges in cases. These countries largely avoided the earlier outbreaks.
5. The U.S. still has by far the most cases of any country, followed by Brazil with less than half the cases of the U.S. Russia has the third highest number of cases.

Closures:

1. Florida continues reopening stores, businesses, and outdoor spaces even as the state has three consecutive days with over 1,000 new cases per day, including its biggest one-day increase.
2. Arizona, which is also continuing to open, sees its highest number of new cases on Friday.
3. North Carolina also sees a spike this week, with three straight days of record high new cases.

Numbers:

1. Since May 21, worldwide cases of coronavirus have increased at an average of more than 100,000 cases per day. That’s higher than any single day in April. This is partially explained by an increase in testing.
2. The U.S. reaches 100,000 known COVID-19 deaths on May 28.
3. Here are the numbers by the end of the week:

• • 1,920,061 people in the U.S. are infected so far (up from 1,770,384 last week), with 109,802 deaths (up from 103,781 last week).
  • 6,863,012 people worldwide have been infected (up from 6,028,326 last week), with 399,532 deaths (up from 342,078 las week).

Healthcare:

1. Trump says he’ll urge the Supreme Court to overturn the ACA entirely, despite even Bill Barr recommending that he soften his stance on the ACA at least during the pandemic. Ah, but Barr doesn’t think it’s a bad idea because getting rid fo the ACA will hurt Americans; he just think it would be bad for Trump’s re-election chances.

International:

1. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial begins for charges of bribery, breach of trust, and fraud. He continues to serve in office during the trial
2. When asked about Trump’s handling of the protests, Trudeau pauses for a full 21 seconds, and then groans. Trudeau speaks out against adding Russia back into the G7 and criticizes Trump for abandoning the WHO. But he’s not the only foreign leader down on Trump.

• • Our traditional allies in Europe say they aren’t looking to the U.S. for any kind of leadership.
  • The EU’s foreign policy chief criticizes Trump’s recent actions.
  • After Trump’s announcement that he wants to add countries to the G7, including adding Russia back in, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson says they’d veto that unless Russia stops their “aggressive and destabilizing” activities. Johnson also criticizes Trump for pulling out of the WHO.
  • German Chancellor Angela Merkel expresses opposition to adding Russia to the G7 and criticizes Trump for his anti-China rhetoric and for pulling out of the WHO. She says she won’t attend Trump’s G7 meeting, and that she doesn’t want to be in the room with Trump.
  • Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg criticizes Trump for withdrawing from the WHO.
  • French President Emmanuel Macron expresses sadness and anger, and says that the U.S. is refusing to exercise leadership at a time of crisis and is instead creating divisions, which China is exploiting.
  • After Merkel says she won’t come to the G7, Trump postpones it to September and says he’ll invite Australia, India, Russia, and South Korea. He says the current G7 is a very outdated group of countries that doesn’t represent what’s going on in the world. I guess he forgot we already have the G20.

3. Brexit negotiations are deadlocked still, but trade talks resume this week and the U.K. refuses to extend the deadline.
4. China says Trump is a quitter, addicted to quitting groups and treaties. As a reminder, here are some of the international agreements Trump has pulled out of: the Paris Climate Agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, UNESCO, the UN Human Rights Council, the Open Skies Treaty, and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.
5. Trump says he’ll withdraw nearly one-third of our troops currently assigned to Germany. Even Republican leaders think this move is dangerous and misguided.
6. At the same time, Russia sends more troops to its European borders, and Putin signs a decree giving him more flexibility with nuclear weapons.
7. Iran releases Michael White, an American imprisoned there for nearly two years for insulting the supreme leader. He has symptoms of COVID-19. The U.S. had just released an Iranian scientist.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Congress begins working on bipartisan legislation to end the transfer of used military weapons of our police forces.
2. Democrats release their police reform bill, the Justice in Policing Act of 2020. The bill:

• • Makes it easier to prosecute misconduct by the police.
  • Expands the DOJ’s power to investigate and prosecute misconduct.
  • Lowers the requirements for being able to sue police in civil court for civil rights violations.

3. Tone-deaf Senator Rand Paul continues to block a bill that would make lynching a federal crime. The bill was all but passed when the House moved to change the name, requiring Senate approval. Since previous approval was unanimous, no one expected any trouble passing it again.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

Governors’ Conference Call:

1. In a conference call with governors, Trump threatens to deploy the military to states if governors don’t quash the protests themselves. He says they have to “dominate” rioters or they’ll look like “a bunch of jerks.” He says he’s “strongly looking for arrests” and wants them to respond aggressively.

• • He says he’s putting Barr in charge of the federal enforcement response.
  • He tells them he’s putting General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in charge of the protest response.
  • He calls the governors weak.
  • He tells the governors to seek retribution.
  • Trump praises Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for mobilizing the National Guard, and then he says Minnesota is “a laughingstock all over the world.”

2. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) calls out Trump: “Rhetoric coming out of the White House is making it worse, people are experiencing real pain. We’ve got to have national leadership calling for calm and legitimate concern for protestors.” Trump says he doesn’t like Pritzker’s rhetoric either.
3. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (R) calls Trump out afterward, saying “At so many times during these last several weeks, when the country needed compassion and leadership the most, it simply was nowhere to be found. Instead, we got bitterness, combativeness and self-interest.”

Clearing Lafayette Square:

This couldn’t have gone more wrong…

1. Trump holds a short press briefing in the Rose Garden on Monday evening with short notice to the press. Here’s a bit of what he says:

• • He’ll take immediate action to mobilize all civilian and military resources to stop the rioting and looting and to protect your Second Amendment rights.
  • He’ll immediately end the riots and lawlessness.
  • He’ll order thousands of armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement into DC to stop the unrest.
  • He’ll deploy the military to states if he doesn’t think they’re taking enough action (basically threatening to use the military against American citizens).
  • He only calls out Antifa by name as being responsible for the violence thought there’s no evidence yet that they are.

2. As reporters wait for the briefing to start, they hear loud booms coming from Lafayette Park, where peaceful protestors were gathered. The booms turn out to be pepper bombs and flashbangs thrown by police to disperse the crowd to make way for Trump to take a surprise walk from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church. They also use rubber bullets. This starts a half-hour before curfew, and chaos ensues in the streets of D.C.
3. Attorney General Bill Barr, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Milley (in combat dress), and national security advisor Robert O’Brien all accompany Trump on his walk to the church, among other aides.
4. Once there, Trump holds up a Bible for photos. He offers no prayers, scripture reading, or words of unity. He takes no questions and then returns to the White House.
5. Earlier in the day, all Homeland Security Investigation agents in the D.C. area receive a “high severity” alert telling them to prepare to help with demonstrations. So the FBI deploys its elite hostage rescue team and ICE deploys special response teams.
6. Upon receiving criticism for the way the crowd was dispersed, the White House and law enforcement say they gave the crowd three warnings. Reporters on the scene couldn’t find anyone who heard them except CNN reporters on a rooftop who heard three orders just minutes apart.
7. Officials insist they didn’t use tear gas (video footage shows that they did). Reporters following Trump also say they could smell it when they arrived at the church.

• • Fun Fact: Tear gas can cause damage to the lungs, which makes people more susceptible to respiratory illnesses like COVID-19.
  • The U.S. Park Police later denies using tear gas but admitted to using a chemical that the federal government classifies as tear gas. And then later a sergeant does admit they used tear gas. And then the park police chief denies it again.

8. During the melee, police knock over cameramen and shove their cameras. Several journalists are hit with rubber bullets while live on air.
9. Trump accuses the peaceful protestors removed from Lafayette Square for his photo op of starting a fire in St. John’s church. Prior to Trump’s visit, several media and social media accounts claimed that St. John’s was burning down, but firefighters managed to put out a small fire that was started in the basement.
10. The White House says that Bill Barr personally ordered the use of force to clear the protestors away from Lafayette Park to make way for Trump’s walk to the church. Barr claims he didn’t. He also says there wasn’t a correlation between the dispersal of the protestors and the photo op.
11. Kayleigh McEnany, who told us she’d never lie to us, says that protestors were throwing bricks and other objects and that police were afraid for their own safety. Not only is there no evidence of this, but witness accounts and videos contradict it.
12. Esper claims he didn’t know where Trump was going when he followed him to the church and that he didn’t know about the protestors being dispersed.

• • James Miller, a principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, resigns and tells Esper that his last straw was when Esper visibly supported Trump when tear gas and rubber bullets were used to clear the way to a photo op. Miller accuses Esper of violating his oath of office.

13. By the time of the photo op, the violence, looting, and vandalism from the previous weekend were largely over.
14. Leaders of the church weren’t informed beforehand of the event, and express anger at being used this way.

• • Trump says, “The church leaders loved that I went there with the Bible.”
  • The Episcopal bishop of Washington who oversees St. John’s church says, “In no way do we support the President’s incendiary response to a wounded, grieving nation… The President did not come to pray; he did not lament the death of George Floyd or acknowledge the collective agony of people of color in our nation. He did not attempt to heal or bring calm to our troubled land.” And later she added, “He sanctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear to clear the churchyard. I am outraged.”

15. When asked about it the next day, Republican legislators mostly claim to know nothing about it and not to have seen it. Senators Lisa Murkowski, Ben Sasse, and Mitt Romney all criticize Trump for it.
16. After the photo up, new 8-foot fences were put up around Lafayette Park and at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. A few days later, tall fences were also installed near the White House.
17. D.C. Mayor Bowser has “BLACK LIVES MATTER” painted in big, bright yellow letters on the road that leads to the White House. She renames that section of 16th Street Black Lives Matter Plaza.
18. Afterward, the D.C. chapter of Black Lives Matter files a lawsuit against Barr and Trump saying their right to peaceful protest was violated.
19. After all this, on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, Trump urges China to respect human rights.

Use of Military:

1. Pentagon and Department of Defense personnel are increasingly anxious about the military playing a more prominent role in tamping down the protests. That was heightened when Mark Esper called cities experiencing looting “battle spaces.” It was further heightened when Trump said General Milley is in charge of the response and Milley appeared with Trump in combat fatigues.
2. This isn’t the first time Trump has tried to use active-duty military on U.S. soil. He deployed them to the border as well.
3. Barr is in charge of the federal response and a variety of agencies, including the Secret Service, U.S. Park Police, National Guard, Capitol Police, Marshal’s Service, ICE, CPB, Bureau of Prisons, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. No overkill there.
4. The DOJ brings in its network of regional FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces to ID looters, rioters, and instigators of violence during the protests. In announcing this, Bill Barr only calls out Antifa (which is unorganized) and leaves out organized groups that coordinated looting and violence.
5. Military helicopters in D.C. perform a “show of force” maneuver in which they fly low, stirring up dirt and debris and even snapping tree branches. It’s a method of dispersing crowds and scaring people away.
6. Several current and retired military leaders criticize Trump’s use of military troops to disperse the protestors to make way for his walk:

• • Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis says he’s angry and appalled by the events around Lafayette Park. He calls Trump the first president to not even try (or pretend to try) to unite the American people; instead, he tries to divide. Mattis also criticizes Esper for using the term “battle space” to describe our cities and streets.

• • Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen says he was sickened to see security personnel use force and violence to clear the path for Trump’s walk.
  • Retired Army Col. Paul Yingling says General Milley betrayed his oath by participating in authoritarian theatrics.
  • Former undersecretary of defense James Miller says Esper and Trump violated their oaths of office.
  • Retired Air Force General Michael Hayden says he was appalled to see General Milley in battle dress during the event. Hayden formerly led the CIA and NSA.
  • Former White House chief of staff John Kelly also says Trump is dividing the country and adds that we need to look harder at who we elect.
  • Current and former U.S. intelligence agents express concern that the events we’re seeing in the U.S. resemble scenes from other countries showing signs of collapse. They say this is what autocrats do, and this is what nations in collapse look like.

7. The soldiers of the 82^nd Airborne Division, which is assisting with the protests in D.C., are armed with bayonets.
8. Six states and 13 cities are under a state of emergency with 67,000 National Guard troops deployed.
9. Washington, D.C. is full of unidentifiable officers who aren’t wearing any badges so people can tell which branch of law enforcement they’re from. They also won’t tell people who ask where they’re from. It turns out they’re from the Bureau of Prisons, and were called to D.C. by Bill Barr. So many issues with this…
10. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser demands that Trump withdraw the military presence from the city including the group of unidentifiable riot officers.
11. Esper says he’ll order the removal of hundreds of troop from D.C. but then reverses that decision. Esper also speaks out against the use of military force to control protests.

• • But wait! By Wednesday night, Esper reverse course on that and says he’ll keep some forces in the town.
  • Two days after the photo op, the Pentagon disarms the National Guard in D.C. and sends active-duty forces home. They don’t consult Trump, who ordered a militarized presence in D.C.

12. The House Armed Services Committee calls a hearing to look into the use of military force in the protests. Both Esper and Milley refuse to appear.

George Floyd Protests

1. Protests continue in at least 140 cities across the country, mostly starting out peacefully, but there’s still some looting and vandalism after curfew hours. Several cities and counties extend their curfews, but by mid-week, even though the protests keep grow larger and larger, the rioting dissipates.
2. The largest crowds of protestors yet gather in the U.S. and abroad on Saturday, the twelfth straight day of protests. Despite COVID-19 warnings, there were marches in the U.S., Australia, England, France, Germany, Kenya, Denmark, New Zealand, and more.
3. Public health officials are worried about an increase in the spread of the coronavirus following days of crowded protests. Most protestors are wearing masks, but enough aren’t. Some protests are canceled for this reason.
4. Twitter takes down an account linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa that claimed to be associated with Antifa and that pushed violent rhetoric about the protests and calls for violence.
5. Facebook suspends several accounts associated with white nationalists after they advocate bringing weapons to protests. They also remove accounts that falsely claim allegiance to Antifa in order to discredit Antifa.
6. The White House spreads videos that purport to show how Antifa planted piles of bricks and rocks along protest routes to inspire looting and vandalism. The bricks and rocks in the films were all parts of ongoing construction projects and nothing to do with Antifa.
7. An incredible amount of disinformation is being spread about the protests, including that George Soros is funding them (he’s not), that Floyd isn’t dead (he most certainly is), that Antifa is bussing in protestors from other cities (they aren’t), that protestors started a residential building on fire and blocked firefighters from saving a child in that fire (the building was unoccupied, the origin of fire is unknown), and that protestors started a horse trailer on fire (they threw a smoke canister over the trailer).
8. Officials have arrested more than 11,000 people so far during the protests. It’s not clear how many were for actual crimes and how many were protestors caught up in police sweeps.
9. Federal and local law enforcement are collecting video footage to use as evidence in arrests of people who were looting or committing acts of violence and vandalism.
10. In Los Angeles, of more than 2,700 arrests, the police say the vast majority are for failure to disperse, which is pretty incredible given the amount of looting there.

• • Same for Denver, where most were for violating curfew.
  • There’s no word yet on how many arrests were of people associated with extremist organizations or Antifa.

11. A New York Supreme Court judge rules that protestors can be detained indefinitely, literally suspending habeas corpus. Over 160 New Yorkers have been detained for more than 24 hours.
12. At least 15 people have died during the protests, some by police, some by people protecting their business from looting, some by “outside agitators,” and some by accident. The details are still being sorted out, but there’s no one group or ideology that appears to be responsible.
13. Around 100 instances of reporters being harassed or injured by the police, even when displaying their press badge, have been reported. Journalists have been hit by rubber bullets, arrested on live TV while being compliant, shoved to the ground, tear-gassed, and threatened with guns. Law enforcement has slit their tires, broken their car windows with rubber bullets, and destroyed their cameras.

• • The U.S. is one of the most dangerous countries now to be a journalist according to Reporters Without Borders.

14. A judge orders police to stop firing tear gas and rubber bullets at peaceful protestors.
15. Prosecutors charge the other three police officers who were present when George Floyd was murdered. They also upgrade the charges against the officer who killed Floyd to second-degree murder.
16. The state of Minnesota files civil rights charges against the Minneapolis Police Department in George Floyd’s death, which allows the state to launch a larger investigation into the department.
17. Minneapolis bans the use of chokeholds by police, and will require police to not only report unauthorized use of force by other officers but to actively intervene.
18. After several days of videos showing police using pepper spray and rubber bullets indiscriminately and without provocation, the House and Senate begin work to end a Pentagon program started after 9/11 that transfers old military weaponry to local police departments. Obama reduced the program, but Trump revived it.
19. The DOJ under Obama created a task force and started reforms to stop discriminatory police practices and to root out racism. The DOJ under Trump has mostly abandoned this effort, and Trump himself encouraged police officers to be rougher in how they handle suspects.

• • During George W. Bush’s first term, there were 12 DOJ investigations into unconstitutional acts by police officers; during Obama’s, there were 15. During Trump’s, the DOJ has opened just one.

20. Some police chiefs and forces continue to join and support protestors. In Santa Cruz, officers follow their chief’s lead and take a knee to recognize George Floyd’s murder for what it was.
21. Multiple videos show police altering the truth during altercations with protestors and others. And by altering the truth, I mean lying.
22. Six police in Atlanta are charged for using excessive force at protests. They yanked one college student out of a car and tased another. Atlanta’s mayor fired two of the officers last week.
23. Atlanta’s police chief resigns after an officer kills another black man. The officer claims the man grabbed his taser. The mayor calls for the officer to be fired.
24. At least 19 times, drivers have driven their vehicles into protestors.
25. Three men associated with the Boogaloo movement are arrested in Nevada for their plan to infiltrate protests and incite violence. Organized crime rings are responsible for looting in some cities. The Proud Boys are trying to provoke an Antifa response. And Alex Jones tells his followers to take up arms and head to the protests. Yikes.
26. An Orange County deputy appears in photos wearing symbols associated with right-wing extremists groups: an Oath Keepers/III Percenters patch and a “Don’t Tread On Me” patch. He’s now on leave.
27. The Buffalo, NY, police department suspends two members of the Emergency Response Team for shoving a 74-year-old man who approached them during a protest. The man fell backward hitting his head and was lying in his own blood until medics came to help. The man is still in the hospital.

• • The entire Emergency Response Team resigns from that duty in support of those officers but will remain on the police force.

28. An independent autopsy requested by George Floyd’s family finds that he died of asphyxiation, contradicting the official county medical examiner’s report. The autopsies found drugs in his system, but not enough to contribute to his death. Both autopsies find his death was a homicide.
29. After more than 20 NFL players record videos calling on the NFL to take a stronger stance for racial justice, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says that the NFL was wrong for not listening to the NFL players before. He encourages them to protest. He does not mention Colin Kaepernick once.
30. The U.S. Marines ban the Confederate flag and order it removed from bumper stickers, mugs, clothing, and so on.
31. A member of Ohio’s National Guard is suspended for posting white supremacist remarks on social media.
32. The right, egged on by Candace Owens, Glenn Beck, and Trump, start bringing up questions about George Floyd’s character. It doesn’t matter what his character was. Nothing in his background would’ve given him a death sentence.
33. When Trump announces a better than expected unemployment rate, he says George Floyd is looking down right now and that “this is a great day for him, this is a great day for everybody.”
34. Hundreds attend a memorial for George Floyd in Minneapolis, where Reverend Al Sharpton gives the eulogy. His message is, ‘Get your knee off our necks.’
35. Floyd’s body is brought to Raeford, NC, near where he was born for another service. Finally, it’s flown to Houston for his funeral to be held next week
36. Breonna Taylor’s birthday would’ve been this week. No one has been charged in her death yet.
37. An investigator testifies that Ahmaud Arbery was hit by a truck before he was murdered and that the man who shot him used a racial slur afterward.

Climate/Environment:

1. The 2020 hurricane season is having the quickest buildup on record, with three named storms in just two days.

Budget/Economy:

1. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the coronavirus epidemic could knock down the GDP by $15.7 trillion over the next decade unless Congress takes steps to mitigate the damage. The agency says it might take a decade to recover from the pandemic economically.
2. A third of Americans haven’t received the unemployment benefits owed to them, likely because agencies are struggling to keep up with the unprecedented demand.
3. While the Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows the unemployment rate dropped in May to 13.3% from 14.7% and 2.5 million jobs were added, it comes to light that data has been misclassified since March because of the pandemic. The BLS estimates that unemployment more likely came down to 16.3% from 19.7%.

• • The Dow Jones and S&P jump at the news.
  • The gain in jobs is largely because states are beginning to reopen businesses.
  • Regardless of the error, Trump boasts of having a 13.3% unemployment rate.

4. Economic advisor Kevin Hassett says the administration is working on yet another tax cut for businesses, this time a payroll tax cut. They’ll also be asking for more stimulus money.

Elections:

1. No wonder Trump thinks vote-by-mail fraud is rampant. He registered to vote in Florida using the White House address, but later corrected it to a Florida address. He says absentee ballot voting isn’t the same as voting by mail (it is exactly the same).
2. Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany voted in 2018 using her parents’ Florida address even though she lived in Washington, D.C.
3. Trump’s campaign shifts from promoting Trump’s calls for justice around George Floyd to promoting his calls for law and order around the protests.
4. Joe Biden formally clinches the Democratic presidential nomination, reaching the 1,991 delegate limit.
5. The Trump campaign pulls its “Make Space Great Again” ad because it appears to violate NASA regulations.
6. One good bit of news this week: Iowa votes out Representative Steve King, most known for his wildly racist remarks. It’s not clear if he lost because he’s too much of a racist or because he lost all his committee seats because the House leadership thinks he’s too much of a racist.
7. The Republican Attorney General of Kansas announces he’ll appeal a lower court’s ruling on state voting ID rules to the Supreme Court. The lower court ruled that Kansas’s law requiring people to provide citizenship papers when registering to vote is unconstitutional.
8. Trump says he’ll move the Republican National Convention from North Carolina to… wherever else will let them have it with full-capacity crowds, no social distancing, no masks, and filled-to-capacity bars and restaurants. The RNC was in the midst of negotiations with Charlotte and NC when Trump blew it all up.
9. Bill Barr says that one of his biggest worries is that foreign operatives will try to mail in fake ballots. Experts say that’s almost impossible to do without being detected.
10. Columnist George Will writes an op-ed calling for not just Trump’s defeat but also flipping the Senate blue and routing Republicans. His view is that the party is beyond repair and needs to start from the ground up.
11. States are seeing a record number of mail-in ballot requests because of COVID-19, but still, lines to vote in the primaries are long and some people never receive their mail-in ballots.
12. Like Trump, Joe Biden this week had a photo op at a church. Unlike Trump, Biden sat on a folding chair inside a church listening to church leaders criticize his 1994 crime bill. Unlike Trump, Biden took notes, wore a mask, and listened.

Miscellaneous:

1. A Twitter account reposts everything that Trump tweets and gets suspended within three days.
2. After criticism of him cowering in the bunker during racial justice protests, Trump says he just went there to inspect it. He says he was just there for a “tiny, short little period of time” and he’s been there “two and a half times.”