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.