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.