Good morning! Here is your news briefing for Monday July 13, 2020
THE DAILY SIGNAL
Jul 13, 2020
Good morning from Washington, where voting by mail remains a hot topic as coronavirus cases spike in some states. Scott Walter looks at the left’s goals in urging the change. The NFL still doesn’t understand how to bring Americans together, Ken Blackwell writes. On the podcast, a constitutional activist talks about protecting our heritage from the mob. Plus: the president reaches out to Hispanics; why our children are better off in school; and how the media encourages violence. On this date in 2013, after a Florida man is acquitted in the fatal shooting of a black teen, California activist Alicia Garza posts a Facebook message containing the phrase “Black lives matter,” which becomes a rallying cry and then a movement.
The Brennan Center for Justice, heavily funded by George Soros’ Open Society, is spearheading a plan that calls for a “universal vote-by-mail option for all voters,” or more precisely, absentee ballot initiatives.
Lori Roman, president of the American Constitutional Rights Union, explains how her organization is working strategically to activate political leaders to protect history and end mob rule.
Trump says education and school choice are “at the heart of our strategy to bring a prosperous future for every Hispanic American, as well as all Americans.”
Taking a holistic view of the situation, the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new report advocates opening schools while providing age-based safety guidance.
Watching the news, you would never guess that the research found that black officers were just as likely as white officers to shoot an unarmed black suspect.
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THE RESURGENT
THE EPOCH TIMES
“A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy.”
ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN
Good morning,
More than 600,000 Hong Kongers cast their votes over the weekend in what is considered a symbolic protest against Beijing.
“The primary election is our first time to let Beijing know Hongkongers never bow down to China,” Joshua Wong, pro-democracy activist, said about the vote.
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Slavery: What If There Were No United States?
By Thomas Del Beccaro
George Washington is under attack. Indeed, most of the Founders and even the savior of the Union, Abraham Lincoln, are under attack. Some say they are unforgivably bad people because of slavery. Read more
Maxwell Arrest Proves Epstein Case Is Far From Over
By Brian Cates
After sitting dormant for almost a year since famous financier and jet-setting pedophile Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his prison cell, the international sex trafficking case roared back into the national news… Read more
China’s Sloppy Battery Industry Threatens Global Gadget Supply Chain
By Cindy Drukier
(July 14, 2015)
The global supply chain for virtually all battery-powered products is grappling with a difficult problem: Lithium ion batteries, the kind found in just about every rechargeable device these days—from laptops, tablets, and iPhones, to power tools, medical devices, and electric cars—are highly volatile. Read more
Millions of dollars in loans under the Paycheck Protection Program went to companies linked to the Chinese Communist Party and state-owned enterprises. The National Pulse published an exclusive story on this, noting that some were tied to the CCP’s Confucius Institute.
LA Teachers Union Demands Charters Shut Down, Police Defunded Before Schools Open
The policy piece put together by the union is a political mess, criticizing Trump, demanding a wealth and millionaire tax, and calling for the state to “defund police” claiming “Police violence is a leading cause of death and trauma for Black people” (UTLA). This is the same school district that has had an ongoing problem with teachers sexually abusing children (ABC/LA Weekly).
2.
Police Seize Gun from St. Louis Couple Defending Their Home in Viral Video
From the story: St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner, a Democrat, claimed that the McCloskey’s defending their private property was a “violent assault” and that authorities “will use the full power of Missouri law to hold people accountable” (Daily Wire). From Texas congressman Dan Crenshaw: This is getting dangerous for people living in left wing cities. They will not protect you from the mob, and if you try to protect yourself, they’ll forcibly disarm you. Governor and AG must step in. This is unjust and unconstitutional (Twitter).
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3.
Hewitt: Biden Can’t Lead West Through Cold War 2.0
Hugh Hewitt explains why “if past is prologue, Biden would be to the CCP as President Jimmy Carter was to the U. S. S. R.: naive and paralyzed” (Washington Post). Another story notes Biden has had “a significant move to the left from where Biden and his party were only recently — on everything from climate and guns to health care and policing — and reflects a fundamental shift in the political landscape” (Washington Post). Meanwhile, Biden family members have an impressive rap sheet with an even more impressive ability to avoid consequences (NY Post).
4.
Daughter of Slain Texas Policeman Slammed for Tweeting #bluelivesmatter
Her father was one of two killed in an ambush. The hatred was awful and she has since deleted the post which was a sweet tribute to her father (NY Post). Meanwhile, an Indiana woman was shot and killed shortly after an argument where she told a group of BLM folks “All lives matter” (Daily Mail).
5.
Minnesota Governor Asks Trump to Pay for Damage from Riots
From the story: The Trump administration’s response to Walz this Friday came a day after Minnesota Rep. Tom Emmer, a Republican, submitted his own letter to Trump urging him to launch an investigation into the state’s response to the riots. “To date, there has been no federal analysis of the actions that were — or were not — taken by local and state officials to prevent one of the most destructive episodes of civil unrest in our nation’s history,” he wrote.
California to Release 8000 More Prisoners Due to Virus
Saying it’s for their safety, ironically putting the general public in jeopardy just as the Democrats running the state are cutting back on police (NY Post). Meanwhile, New York City saw 15 shootings in a 15 hour span (NY Post). And Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez suggested the crime rate is increasing because people “need to shoplift some bread or go hungry” (Fox News).
7.
Florida Sees Skyrocketing COVID-19 Cases
Florida saw over 15,000 new cases in one day Sunday. Over 3500 in Miami-Dade alone (Wordlometers). New York City apparently had zero COVID-19 deaths Saturday, the first time since early March (NBC New York). New York still has the highest number of cases per million citizens (Twitter). Overall deaths in the U.S. are still much lower than the peak (Twitter) even though we are at the peak in daily cases (Twitter). Dr. Scott Gottlieb explains why he believes schools can safely open this fall (WSJ).
8.
USA Today Deems Trump Campaign T-Shirt “Similar to Nazi Eagle”
In one of those drunken fact checks we get from the media these days.
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A new poll conducted by YouGov on behalf of CBS News indicates that Florida voters are concerned about the state’s efforts to contain coronavirus and that they attribute the state’s response to pressure from the administration of President Donald Trump.
The poll, which sampled 1,229 Florida voters between July 7 and 10, found that 65% of Florida voters believe the efforts to contain coronavirus are going badly.
The poll also asked voters who believe Florida reopened too quickly what they attribute that to, and 68% said it came from pressure from the federal government. Only 32% of voters said Florida reopened too quickly because it believed it was the correct policy.
Florida voters feel that pressure from Donald Trump is one of the reasons for the state’s poor response to coronavirus.
Forty-six percent of Florida voters said that generally speaking, they believe things are going very badly in America. Another 27% said they believe things are going somewhat badly.
On the other side of that question, 7% of Florida voters believe things in America today are going very well, and 20% believe they’re going somewhat well.
Eight percent of Florida voters believe the condition of the Florida economy is very good, and another 32% believe it’s fairly good. But 33% of Florida voters believe the state’s economy is going fairly bad, and another 24% believe that it’s very bad.
The poll also found that support for Democratic candidate Joe Biden goes up along with voters’ concern about the spread of COVID-19.
Sixty-seven percent of Florida voters who are very concerned about the virus say they will vote for Biden, while only 15% of voters who are not concerned will vote for him.
Overall, the poll found that Florida likely voters prefer Biden over Trump by a 48-42 margin.
Among Florida’s likely women voters, Biden leads by a 50-37 margin, and Hispanic likely voters prefer Biden over Trump by a 61-30 score.
For Florida voters who are 65 or older, Trump leads Biden by a 50-42 score. But in a similar CBS poll taken in 2016, Trump led Democrat Hillary Clinton 57-40 in the same demographic.
Among likely voters who have decided to vote for either Biden or Trump, 75% of Florida voters said their preference is very strong and will not change before the election, and another 19% characterize it as strong and probably won’t change.
Only 6% of voters who have decided indicated they might still change candidates.
Trump leads Biden 57-41 among white voters with no college education, and he leads Biden 68-63 in likely voters who are very enthusiastic about voting.
Sixty-seven percent of voters who prefer Trump said the main reason is that they like him, and only 17% indicated their vote is to oppose Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, 49% of likely Biden voters said their main motivation is to oppose Trump, and only 30% said their rationale is they like Biden.
Fifty-nine percent of Biden voters prefer to vote by mail, but only 25% of Trump voters do.
Situational awareness
—@RealDonaldTrump: Do RINO’S Pat Toomey & Mitt Romney have any problem with the fact that we caught Obama, Biden, & Company illegally spying on my campaign? Do they care if [James] Comey, [Andrew] McCabe, [Lisa] Page & her lover, Peter S [Strzok], the whole group, ran rampant, wild & unchecked — lying & leaking all the way? NO
—@MaggieNYT: Amazing the WH comms shop is doing an oppo dump on its own, decadeslong health expert in the middle of a pandemic. Everything to the WH is an up/down on Trump.
—@TamaraLush: A stunning fact: Florida had more cases today than South Korea has had total — and South Korea’s population is 2.5 times larger.
—@COVID19Tracking: Florida didn’t just break the record for reported cases. It also shattered the mark for cases per million population. New York, at peak, hit 595. Today, Florida reported 712 cases per million. Arkansas also entered the 500+ tier, where we’ve only seen FL, AZ, and LA.
—@JaredEMoskowitz: Thank you to our nurses and doctors and hospital staff. #heros on the front lines. Help is on the way
—@KevinCate: If we want schools to open safely, elected officials in the most infectious states must be willing to shut most things down for two weeks & reassess. Like, right now. If you’re not willing to make tough decisions, resign & let someone else.
—@FredPiccoloJr: Covid fatality rate in FL 15-24 yo — .02%. Covid fatality rate in FL 15-34 yo — .03%. Covid fatality rate in FL 15-44 yo — .09%. Seasonal influenza mortality rate in the US (2017 CDC) 18-49 yo — .02%. Gov focus on elderly saved lives. Common sense precautions. Back to school.
—@CourtyardBrew: Okay so we were planning on reopening next week but now thanks to all you dumb motherfuckers who refuse to wear masks we won’t be reopening. Fuck each and every one of you who refuse to take Covid seriously. Quote me.
—@Lin_Manuel: We learned to bake bread in this pandemic, we can learn to make our own adobo con pimienta. Bye.
—@GusCorbella: Arguing about adobo and cans of beans. What passes for political principles in 2020. Pathetic.
—@Tomgara: The owner of the National Enquirer now owns America’s second-biggest chain of local newspapers
Days until
Disney World Epcot and Hollywood Studios to reopen — 2; Federal taxes due — 2; MLB starts — 10; WNBA starts — 11; PLL starts — 12; TED conference rescheduled — 13; Florida Bar exams begin in Tampa — 15; NBA season restart in Orlando — 18; Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” premieres (rescheduled) — 18; NHL resumes — 19; Florida primaries for 2020 state legislative/congressional races — 36; Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee begins — 37; “Mulan” premieres (rescheduled) — 39; Indy 500 rescheduled — 41; Republican National Convention begins in Charlotte — 42; NBA draft lottery — 43; Rev. Al Sharpton’s D.C. March — 46; U.S. Open begins — 49; “A Quiet Place Part II” premieres — 53; Rescheduled running of the Kentucky Derby — 54; Rescheduled date for French Open — 69; First presidential debate in Indiana — 78; “Wonder Woman” premieres — 81; Preakness Stakes rescheduled — 82; First vice presidential debate at the University of Utah — 85; NBA season ends (last possible date) — 91; Second presidential debate scheduled at Miami — 94; NBA draft — 95; Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” premieres — 95; NBA free agency — 98; Third presidential debate at Belmont — 101; 2020 General Election — 113; “Black Widow” premieres — 118; NBA 2020-21 training camp — 122; Florida Automated Vehicles Summit — 130; “No Time to Die” premieres — 130; NBA 2020-21 opening night — 141; “Top Gun: Maverick” premieres — 163; Super Bowl LV in Tampa — 209; New start date for 2021 Olympics — 375; “Jungle Cruise” premieres — 383; “Spider-Man Far From Home” sequel premieres — 480; “Thor: Love and Thunder” premieres — 578; “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” premieres — 620; “Black Panther 2” premieres — 662; “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” sequel premieres — 816.
Corona Florida
“As U.S. grapples with virus, Florida hits record case increase” via Tamara Lush and Pablo Gorandi of The Associated Press — With the United States grappling with the worst coronavirus outbreak in the world, Florida hit a grim milestone Sunday, shattering the national record for a state’s largest single-day increase in positive cases. Deaths from the virus have also been rising in the U.S., especially in the South and West, though still well below the heights hit in April. “I really do think we could control this, and it’s the human element that is so critical. It should be an effort of our country. We should be pulling together when we’re in a crisis, and we’re definitely not doing it,” said University of Florida epidemiologist Dr. Cindy Prins. In Florida, 15,299 people tested positive, for a total of 269,811 cases, and 45 deaths were recorded, according to state Department of Health statistics. California had the previous record of daily positive cases, 11,694, set on Wednesday.
Guests wear masks as required to attend the official reopening day of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Image via AP.
“COVID-19 will peak in Florida later this month, AdventHealth CEO says on Face the Nation” via Naseem S. Miller of the Orlando Sentinel — The peak of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Florida will be “sometime in front of us in July,” AdventHealth’s president and CEO said Sunday on CBS’ Face the Nation. Terry Shaw said that his projection is assuming that people practice social distancing and wear masks to slow the spread of the virus. His remarks come as Florida on Sunday reported 15,300 new COVID-19 cases, once again shattering its record for a single-day increase in cases since the pandemic began and for the first time breaking a national one-day record. Former FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb, also on Face the Nation, said, “Things are going to get worse before they get better” and that some models show that there’s “possibly going to be a peak in the next two or three weeks.”
“Ron DeSantis: Virus spread has ‘plateaued’ in last two weeks” via Renzo Downey of Florida Politics — Although Florida continues to tally several thousand daily COVID-19 cases, sometimes more than 10,000 in a day, DeSantis finds consolation in the details. For the final 14 days of May, the percent positivity rate for prospective new cases was 2.8% before turning upward midway through June. Over the past two weeks, the average rate was 14.5%, including 12.6% for tests returned Friday. “We increased from the end of June into July, but it’s been plateaued for the last two weeks, which is a good sign,” he told reporters Saturday. “We’d rather be plateaued at 4%, but we didn’t want to see it continue to just go up and up.” While the daily positivity rate has been mostly stable in recent days, the weekly cycle of new cases has trended upward.
Ron DeSantis is encouraged by the positive trend in COVID-19 infection rates. Image via A.G. Gancarski.
“DeSantis seizes power — selectively — as he confronts crisis” via Gary Fineout of POLITICO Florida — The battleground-state Republican has quarantined out-of-state visitors, spent hundreds of millions of dollars without legislative approval, and ignored constitutional deadlines for judicial appointments. He’s also used his emergency power to enact a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. His administration ordered local schools to open or risk financial ruin. And he’s gotten little to no resistance from Republicans who control the Legislature. Yet DeSantis, as he confronts a growing viral outbreak and polls showing Trump trailing Democrat Biden in Florida ahead of the November election, simultaneously has argued that he lacks authority to alter election law or increase unemployment benefits, issues that could break the wrong way politically for him — and the President.
“DeSantis: People, drugs on the way in COVID-19 fight” via Cristóbal Reyes of the Orlando Sentinel — DeSantis announced deployments of health workers throughout the state as well as new shipments of a promising antiviral used to treat the novel coronavirus as the state continues to see a resurgence in new cases. At a Saturday press conference in Bradenton, the governor said about 1,000 personnel will be sent to hospitals around the state to support local efforts to combat COVID-19. “COVID is very labor intensive,” DeSantis said. “There’s a lot of procedures that go into place [to test and treat it] … so the personnel is something that’s very significant.” He also said a new shipment of Remdesivir, an experimental drug that may speed up recovery from an infection, was arriving today with more expected from the federal government in the coming weeks.
“DeSantis downplayed New York help his aides ‘very much appreciated’” via Arek Sarkissian and Anna Gronewold of POLITICO Florida — Florida will start getting shipments this weekend of an antiviral drug that has shown signs of helping severely ill COVID-19 patients — cargo senior aides scored in part from New York just as DeSantis was publicly dismissing the state’s help. Fresh doses of remdesivir were expedited with help from Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, DeSantis told reporters at the Blake Medical Center in Bradenton. While DeSantis was quick to praise the Trump administration, the governor spent the past few days downplaying the notion that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo‘s office had come to Florida’s aid. “They’re not helping us,” DeSantis told reporters during a Jacksonville news conference.
“Governor vows to keep Florida bars shut down as virus rages” via A.G. Gancarski of Florida Politics — DeSantis said in Bradenton that the “status quo” of bar closures would remain in place until the “positivity rate is down” for COVID-19 tests. That rate, per the Florida Department of Health, stood at 12.5% in tests processed Friday. The comments came after a group of bar owners in Volusia County sued the Governor and Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Halsey Beshears this week. “Right now, we’re not making any changes. Status quo,” DeSantis said, adding that “we want to get this positivity rate down” until Florida is in a more “stable situation.” The Governor said the state “plan” allowed bars to reopen at reduced capacity, but they couldn’t comply.
Ron DeSantis vows to keep the bars closed until there is a slowdown in coronavirus infections. Image via AP.
“Recovered from COVID-19? Donate plasma to help patients in hospitals fight the virus” via Naples Daily News staff reports — Hospitals in Southwest Florida need people who have recovered from COVID-19 to consider donating their plasma to help others fight the disease. The NCH Healthcare System in Collier County and Lee Health in Lee County are involved in studies to help evaluate convalescent plasma as a therapy for COVID-19. Both hospitals are facing a shortage of donors for convalescent plasma and need people who have recovered from COVID-19 to step forward. Donating plasma can help save lives. The treatment involves using infection-fighting antibodies in the plasma, which may boost the immune systems of patients currently with COVID-19 and speed their recovery, according to experts.
Assignment editors — U.S. Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a member of the bipartisan Congressional Coronavirus Task Force, will join Sens. Oscar Braynon, Annette Taddeo and José Javier Rodriguez, as well as County Commissioner Daniella Levine Cava for a virtual news conference with public health experts to discuss the surge in COVID-19 and what steps the state and county can take, 11:30 a.m. For the Zoom link, RSVP to katy.nystrom@mail.house.gov.
Back to school?
“Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos want schools ‘fully’ open, but not many are listening” via Laura Meckler of The Washington Post — Trump and DeVos spent much of this week pressuring and cajoling schools to reopen. DeVos, in particular, made clear she means five days a week. School systems across the country have already decided on models where students learn from home part of the time. That includes a charter school network that DeVos has repeatedly praised for its approach during the pandemic. Many schools face the same problem, which is why districts across the country have announced hybrid plans, where students will be in schools some days and learning from home on others.
Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos are calling for schools to open ‘fully,’ but few are listening.
“Medical group cited by Trump denounces school funding threat” via The Associated Press — A medical association that the White House has cited in its press to reopen schools is pushing back against Trump’s repeated threats to cut federal funding if schools don’t open this fall. In a joint statement with national education unions and a superintendents group, the American Academy of Pediatrics said decisions should be made by health experts and local leaders. The groups argued that schools will need more money to reopen safely during the coronavirus pandemic and that cuts could ultimately harm students. “Public health agencies must make recommendations based on evidence, not politics,” the groups wrote in the statement.
“Trump campaign to open schools provokes mounting backlash even from GOP” via Michael Stratford, Nicole Gaudiano and Juan Perez Jr. of POLITICO — An overwhelming alignment of state and even Republican-aligned organizations oppose the rush to reopen schools. The nation’s leading pediatricians, Republican state school chiefs, Christian colleges and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have all challenged parts of Trump’s pressure campaign. “Threats are not helpful,” Joy Hofmeister, the Republican state superintendent of public instruction in Oklahoma, said. “We do not need to be schooled on why it’s important to reopen.” Both Trump and Education Secretary DeVos have issued federal funding threats to schools that don’t fully reopen. On Friday, Trump went a step further in blasting online learning — which many school districts and colleges are planning to use this fall as an alternative or supplement to in-person instruction.
“No school choice: Schools must open for fall semester” via Renzo Downey of Florida Politics — The Department of Education’s school reopening order left some question about whether schools had to reopen come August. Senate President Bill Galvano left no room for doubt. “Yes, the answer is yes. The DOE cannot be ignored … must be adhered to,” he clarified. “School boards cannot ignore this order.” Sitting alongside DeSantis at a news conference in his hometown of Bradenton, the top Senate Republican fielded the question when the Governor was unable to give a confident answer about the order issued by Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran. As COVID-19 outbreaks spike in Florida, the Commissioner’s mandate said extending school closures can impede students’ educational success and prevent parents and guardians from returning to work.
“‘Difficult to achieve’: Alberto Carvalho talks school reopening amid spiking outbreak” via Spencer Fordin of Florida Politics — Carvalho, the superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday and discussed the logistics of students returning to school. Carvalho said his district, which is the fourth-largest school district in America, has gone through CDC guidelines and consulted with local and state health departments in advance of reopening. “The issue of social distancing in any one school in Miami-Dade or Broward or Palm Beach or other districts may be difficult to achieve,” Carvalho said. “But there are mitigation strategies that you can take in lieu of the six-feet of distancing like the wearing of masks, which will be a mandatory element when we do reopen, like the use of nontraditional spaces, like cafeterias or media centers or gymnasiums.”
“‘How will I be safe?’ Teachers grappling with potential school reopening as COVID-19 cases surge” via Wells Dusenbury and Ramishah Maruf of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel — With school slated to begin next month, Broward teachers are facing a potential dilemma: return to work and risk getting sick or stay home and risk losing a job. As COVID-19 cases continue to spread rapidly throughout the state, the Broward County School District is still debating whether to reopen brick-and-mortar classrooms when the fall semester begins on Aug. 19. With over 270,000 students and more than 14,000 teachers, Broward is home to the sixth-largest school district in the country, heightening the risk of transmission. For many teachers, that issue is weighing heavily as the school year creeps closer.
“Escambia County educators supportive of school district’s reopening plan” via Kevin Robinson of the Pensacola News Journal — Escambia County School District Superintendent Malcolm Thomas said students will have their choice of one of three instructional models for the 2020-2021 school year: they can return to campus for traditional face-to-face instruction, opt for “remote” instruction conducted via teleconferencing or follow a largely self-guided “virtual” curriculum. Teachers are generally expected to return to campuses in the fall, and Thomas cautioned that space limitations meant social distancing would not always be possible. He also said that face masks would be encouraged, but not mandatory. With COVID-19 cases still hitting historic highs in Florida, there are understandable concerns about the risks of in-person education.
“Leon Schools weighs options for clear face masks for certain students, teachers” via C.D. Davidson-Hiers of the Tallahassee Democrat — Leon County Schools plans to invest in specialized face masks for teachers, staff and students throughout the district who would benefit from being able to read facial expressions. Many of these students are those in exceptional student education (ESE) programs or have an individualized education plan (IEP). They are students with autism, or who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, or others with learning differences. District Assistant Superintendent Alan Cox, who oversees health and wellness at the district, said the district is considering several options among specialized masks. Some of the masks are cloth and have a clear plastic strip in the middle. Some others, with more complicated designs, may wrap around the head with a plastic portion similar to a face shield, but includes a mask component, Cox said.
Leon County Schools Assistant Superintendent Alan Cox holds up a specialized face mask that would aid students who rely on lip-reading and facial expressions. Image via Tallahassee Democrat.
“Volusia released three options for reopening schools, then deleted them” via Cassidy Alexander of the Daytona Beach News-Journal — In a since-deleted post on its website sharing long-awaited information about what school will look like in August during the coronavirus pandemic, the Volusia County school district outlined three options for students and families — including a new option for students to join traditional classes virtually. The district was scheduled to release details about its reopening plans on Wednesday at a special School Board meeting but posted a message from the superintendent to its website on Friday night. The post was removed by 10 a.m. Saturday, less than 24 hours later. “It was a flat-out, honest mistake,” district spokeswoman Kelly Schulz said.
“FHSAA Fall Sports Task Force’s “Plan B” takes shape, first practices could begin Aug. 10” via Adam Regan of the Pensacola News Journal — The Fall Sports Task Force turned to flexibility in its third meeting where it examined a plan Justin Harrison, the FHSAA’s associate executive director for athletic services, called a “fallback” that would cater to individual schools and districts should practice not begin in 18 days. “There are a lot of unknowns,” said Harrison, who took a rough draft of the plan laid out in last week’s meeting and put it on paper. “Whatever I say may change tomorrow. We don’t have an answer now.”
Corona local
“First Coast counties decrease COVID-19 positive test rates” via Drew Dixon of Florida Politics — While the rate of positive test results is beginning to slow, the five-county First Coast region added 790 new cases of coronavirus in one day. Jacksonville, with the highest population in the area, led the way again with 577 new cases of COVID-19 by the end of Saturday, bringing the total cases to 12,964. Jacksonville also recorded five further deaths attributed to the illness, which now stands at 81. Meanwhile, for the first time in several weeks, Jacksonville’s positivity rate for all tests administered dropped below 10%.
“More COVID-19 cases at Jacksonville group home” via the News Service of Florida — With nine more cases this week, 11 staff members and residents at a Jacksonville group home for people with developmental disabilities have tested positive for COIVD-19. Arc Jacksonville Executive Director Jim Whittaker said six residents and three staff members at the Bert Road group home tested positive for the virus this week. The Duval County Health Department tested all the residents and staff members at Arc facilities after two residents were taken to the hospital the first week in July. Residents at the Bert Road group home who tested negative have been moved to apartments. The residents who tested positive — all of whom are asymptomatic — have remained at the home and are isolated “like a sick bay,” Whittaker said.
Arc Jacksonville Executive Director Jim Whittaker said 11 residents and staff members of the group home tested positive for COVID-19.
“A mom’s tale of premature childbirth, coronavirus and separation” via Sonja Isger of The Palm Beach Post — COVID-19 sneaked into the Whitfield house in April despite her family’s best efforts at distancing and mask-wearing. Their caution was driven by the need to protect the littlest Whitfield, a miracle baby who arrived 11 weeks early and was still in the hospital more than a month later. What followed was close to three weeks of isolation, in which mommy and baby connected only in rare video chats or once from four floors of separation, Erica Whitfield gazing up from the parking lot as a nurse held baby Nora to the window. While their symptoms never rose far beyond the discomfort of a bad cold, Whitfield said the weekslong infection and its consequences were nonetheless traumatizing.
“’The price of denial’: Teenager died after attending church party as Florida reopened” via Nicholas Nehamas and Sarah Blaskey — The reopening of First Youth Church after three months of remote sermons was going to be a party. Sixteen-year-old Carsyn Davis was a dedicated student at the Fort Myers youth ministry, her family said. Carsyn was among the hundred or so kids to attend the church’s reopening event on June 10. Carsyn didn’t wear a mask when she attended the party, even though she was obese, asthmatic, and had a history of childhood cancer and a rare autoimmune disorder. None of the other kids around her wore masks either — wearing a mask wasn’t required by state officials despite the known risks of indoor transmission. Less than two weeks later the teen died of pneumonia brought on by COVID-19.
Carsyn Leigh Davis, 16, died of COVID-19 two weeks after attending a church reopening where masks were not required.
“As virus rages, S. Florida residents cling to government aid. What happens when it runs out?” via Rob Wile and Alex Daugherty of the Miami Herald — With about one out of every nine Miami-Dade workers and nearly one out of every six in Broward still out of a job due to the coronavirus pandemic, a question lingers in South Florida: How long can the region stave off an even worse economic disaster? Greater Miami ranks as one of the hardest-hit metros in the country, thanks to its reliance on a tourism industry that has instantly dried up. Yet the region seems to have avoided, so far, a more traumatic economic shock thanks to massive government intervention. After a rough start, Florida’s unemployment system has come online to furnish tens of thousands of local workers with as much as $875 per week in unemployment insurance.
“School Board chair: Where’s Palm Beach County’s school reopening plan?” via Andrew Marra of The Palm Beach Post — The chair of the Palm Beach County School Board criticized school district leaders Sunday for failing to release their school-reopening plan with only three days left before it is set to be adopted. Board Chairman Frank Barbieri said he was troubled that neither board members nor the public have had a chance to see details of the district’s proposal for how schools will operate when classes resume online next month amid the coronavirus pandemic. The reopening plan is sure to be among the most scrutinized proposals in the school board’s history. Schools Superintendent Donald Fennoy has promised to deliver a reopening plan for board members to consider Wednesday, but he has not released details and has given little indication of what he plans to recommend.
“Two weeks then gone? Not even close, say doctors about lingering effects of COVID-19” via Wendy Rhodes of The Palm Beach Post — As the virus persists and researchers collect and analyze data, theories are confirmed and denied, and “facts” are ever-changing. But one thing on which medical experts worldwide now agree is that long-term effects from COVID-19 on the liver, kidneys, brain, lungs, heart, gastrointestinal tract and psyche could be very real for people of all ages. Blood clots triggered by the virus can cause fingers to turn black and “die,” patients can suffer extended bouts of debilitating exhaustion, and immune system disorders can lead to organ failure or death after the virus has left the body.
“The Keys report a record number of new COVID-19 cases. It’s not as bad as it seems, health official says” via Howard Cohen and David Goodhue of the Miami Herald — The Florida Health Department in the Keys reported 74 new cases of COVID-19, which is the highest ever reported in the island chain. But the number is not quite as bad as it appears, according to Monroe County’s top health official. The numbers reflect cases confirmed both Thursday and Friday. The reason all the cases weren’t reported Friday from Thursday is Robert Eadie, the administrator and health officer, gave the department’s epidemiologist the day off. The number of cases has recently been climbing at a greater pace than they had been exhibiting in the Keys when single-day cases would tend toward single-digit growth and the death rate would hold steady for days at a time.
More local
“Disney reopens as a different world with masks, social distancing and light crowds” via Gabrielle Russon and Dewayne Bevil of the Orlando Sentinel — At the Magic Kingdom, all Disney employees wore face coverings, and workers with high contact with guests, such as ride operators, were equipped with clear face shields as well. Most visitors seemed to be obeying the required mask rule Saturday as well as markers meant to keep them 6 feet apart. Employees were observed enforcing the requirements. “We’re encouraged by our guests’ overwhelmingly positive feedback for our phased reopening and are grateful for their support of the new measures we’ve added,” Disney spokeswoman Andrea Finger said in a statement.
People wear face masks as required to attend the official reopening day of the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. Image via AP.
“As Walt Disney World reopens, Orange, Osceola counties see new peaks of virus infections” via Scott Powers of Florida Politics — With Walt Disney World reopening, the counties providing the most homes to employees of the world’s largest tourist attraction saw dramatically new highs in single-day increases in confirmed COVID-19 cases. Sunday’s latest report showed 1,371 new confirmed cases in Orange County in the previous 24 hours, with another 306 new cases in Osceola. It’s the first time Orange County had seen more than 1,200 new cases logged in a day, and the first time Osceola saw more than 250. Both cases, the totals grew by dramatically increased numbers of new test results that came on Saturday, the most ever for either county. The same was seen across the six-county greater Orlando region.
“Pinellas County COVID-19 positivity rate plummets in latest data” via Janelle Irwin Taylor of Florida Politics — The “plateau” DeSantis touted Saturday may be evidenced in Hillsborough and Pinellas counties where the daily positivity rates for new COVID-19 tests dropped for the third day in a row. The rate of new positive tests in Hillsborough dropped to 12.4% Saturday from 12.9% Friday and 14.2% Thursday, all down from a near-record of 19.8% Wednesday. The news is even better in Pinellas where the positivity rate dropped to 5.6% Saturday from 7.3% Friday and 9.6% Thursday. The county’s seven-day average is almost below the 10% threshold for which health officials find cause for concern, at 10.4%. Pinellas County also added just 248 new cases Saturday, a drop from 303 Friday.
“’Highly irate:’ Tampa Bay mask rules spur hundreds of police calls” via Christopher Spada and Sara DiNatale of the Tampa Bay Times — With most of Tampa Bay now subject to some sort of mandatory mask order, the Tampa Bay Times reviewed law and code enforcement records to get a sense of how that’s going. Hundreds of complaint calls, disturbances and mostly verbal arguments have been reported over masks. At least a couple turned violent. All five mask orders across Tampa Bay counties and cities carry penalties up to $500. But only St. Petersburg appears to have fined anyone. Authorities frequently have arrived to find the offender already gone.
“Two medical relief groups leave Immokalee despite climbing COVID-19 cases” via Liz Freeman of the Naples Daily News — Two international medical relief organizations have left Immokalee, leaving local health officials to address the rise in COVID-19 cases as the first group of farmworkers return later this month. “This is still very much a crisis,” said Emily Ptaszek, CEO of the nonprofit Healthcare Network in Collier County, which has been working in the community for months to combat the rapidly spreading disease. The rural community in eastern Collier has become a hot spot for COVID-19 infection with 1,680 people tested positive as of Friday, according to state Department of Health data. That’s a 175% increase from the 611 cases reported on June 1, according to the data.
“Sarasota-Manatee tourism will continue to shift” via Laura Finaldi of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune — The COVID-19 pandemic has created a different picture of tourism than what Sarasota-Manatee is used to seeing. Travel restrictions forbid tourists from crucial out-of-state markets from crossing into Florida unless their travel is considered “essential.” The visitors who are here and who will continue to come, it seems, are from nearby. The American Hotel & Lodging Association released a report that found just 44% of Americans are planning overnight vacations or leisure travel in 2020 — and most of those trips are to places within driving distance. The Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, which promotes Manatee County, including the beaches of Anna Maria Island, is currently targeting only in-state travelers, Executive Director Elliott Falcione said.
“FSU cuts athletic department budget 20% due to coronavirus pandemic” via Matt Murschel of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel — Florida State announced a 20% athletics department budget cut that includes job eliminations, pay cuts and other cost-cutting measures due to the coronavirus pandemic. “I am personally heartbroken over the impact this pandemic has had on our employees, and I am disappointed that I must give you this discouraging news today,” FSU athletic director David Coburn wrote. Coburn cited declines in football season ticket sales and donations to the Seminole Boosters annual fund among the reasons for the revenue shortfall as well as the expenses surrounding replacing the football coaching staff.
Corona nation
“Trump wears a mask on a visit to a military medical center.” via The New York Times — Trump wore a mask in public for the first time, after repeated urging from aides that it was a necessary message to send to Americans resistant to covering their faces. Trump wore a dark mask affixed with the presidential seal during a visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he planned to visit wounded troops. He was surrounded by Secret Service agents and others also wearing masks. Anticipation over whether he would wear a mask had been building, after the President had repeatedly dismissed suggestions to wear a mask, frequently appearing in public spaces without one, mocking those who did and ignoring public health rules in several states.
In a turnaround from his previous stance, Donald Trump wears a face mask in public during a trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Image via AP.
“Surgeon general now urges face coverings” via The Associated Press — Surgeon General Jerome Adams said the Trump administration is “trying to correct” its guidance from earlier in the coronavirus epidemic that wearing face coverings was not necessary. With virus cases surging and many states and cities now issuing orders to wear masks in public, Adams said he and other administration officials were wrong back in March. But he insists they were going with the scientific knowledge at the time, which suggested that people with COVID-19 who showed no symptoms were not likely to spread the virus. Adams said on CBS’ Face the Nation that “once upon a time, we prescribed cigarettes for asthmatics and leeches and cocaine and heroin for people as medical treatments. When we learned better, we do better.”
“As coronavirus surges in Republican territory, so does rage over masks” via Gus Garcia-Roberts of the NWF Daily News — After waiting hours for his turn to speak to the Montgomery City Council on June 16, pulmonologist Dr. William Saliski spoke slowly and in basic terms about what he had seen on the novel coronavirus front lines in his hospital in an area hit harder than any other in Alabama. He described emergency units overrun with COVID-19 patients, roughly 90% of whom were Black, and warned that if the spread continued, “we will be overrun.” He offered a simple partial solution: the council should pass the ordinance it was considering to require people to wear masks in public. “This mask slows that down,” Saliski said while waving a piece of fabric. “Ninety-five percent protection. Something as easy as this cloth.”
“Coronavirus deaths take a long-expected turn for the worse” via Mike Stobbe and Nicky Forster of The Associated Press — A long-expected upturn in U.S. coronavirus deaths has begun, driven by fatalities in states in the South and West. The number of deaths per day from the virus had been falling for months, and even remained down as states like Florida and Texas saw explosions in cases and hospitalizations, and reported daily U.S. infections broke records several times in recent days. Scientists warned it wouldn’t last. A coronavirus death, when it occurs, typically comes several weeks after a person is first infected. And experts predicted states that saw increases in cases and hospitalizations would, at some point, see deaths rise too. Now that’s happening.
“‘We do expect deaths to go up,’ warns White House COVID-19 task force’s Adm. Brett Giroir as cases rise” via William Cummings of USA Today — Adm. Giroir, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said that the increasing number of hospitalizations related to COVID-19 were “very concerning,” and he warned there would be an increase in deaths stemming from the spike in cases. “We expect hospitalizations to continue to go up,” Giroir said. More hospitalizations mean more Americans will die from the virus “over the next two or three weeks before this turns around.” Giroir said the overall mortality rate should remain lower than it was during the initial surge in cases in March and April because medical professionals know more about caring for COVID-19 patients and have seen benefits from the drug remdesivir. “Even though the death rate, if you get it, is going down, your chances of surviving are much better, we do expect deaths to go up.”
In an interview, Adm. Brett Giroir broke with the President on several issues including the severity of the coronavirus, mask-wearing and guidelines for reopening schools. Image via Getty.
“‘Pushing the frontiers’: Long lines for COVID tests, stressed labs delay results as demand spikes” via Ken Alltucker of USA Today — America’s testing system is once again strained and labs are struggling to keep pace as coronavirus rages faster than ever in the South and West. From Florida to California, large and small labs running 24/7 can’t process samples quickly enough from millions of Americans tested every week. That means COVID-19 test results are delayed a week or longer in hot spot communities, undercutting public health efforts to track, isolate and prevent spread. The number of daily tests reached an all-time high of more than 719,000 on July 3 and averaged nearly 640,000 each day this past week, according to data from the COVID Tracking Project.
“COVID-19 death toll is twice as high among people of color under age 65 as for white Americans” via Lena H. Sun of The Washington Post — The coronavirus proved substantially deadlier to people of color under the age of 65 than to their white counterparts in the early days of the pandemic. The report from the CDC is the agency’s most comprehensive analysis of the demographics of those who died of COVID-19. Researchers analyzed data for about 52,000 confirmed deaths between mid-February and mid-April. The study found stark differences in the age at which people from different racial and ethnic groups died of COVID-19. Among White people, the median age was 81, while for Hispanics it was 71, and for all nonwhite, non-Hispanic people it was 72.
Corona economics
“After the fastest recession in U.S. history, the economic recovery may be fizzling” via David J. Lynch of The Washington Post — If there were still hopes of a “V-shaped” comeback from the novel coronavirus shutdown, this past week should have put an end to them. The pandemic shock, which economists once assumed would be only a temporary business interruption, appears instead to be settling into a traditional, self-perpetuating recession. When states and cities began closing most businesses in March, the idea was to smother the virus and buy time for the medical system to adapt. Without a uniform federal strategy, many governors rushed to reopen their economies before bringing the virus under control.
Rows of United Airlines check-in counters at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago are unoccupied amid the coronavirus pandemic. Image via AP.
“It could be years before Florida’s jobs recover from COVID-19” via David Lyons of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel — South Florida’s tourism-heavy economy is paying a price in jobs lost to COVID-19 — a toll so heavy that some executives don’t see a recovery until two years from now. All three counties have lost a substantial number of jobs in hotels, restaurants and leisure-oriented businesses, but Broward County has taken the biggest hit. Unemployment reached 16% in Broward in May. Palm Beach County fared better at 14.1% and Miami-Dade at 11.3%, just a year after unemployment hovered around 3%. Unemployment in Orange County, home to Disney World, Universal, and other nationally prominent attractions, hit a sky-high 23.2% in May, the second-worst in the state. Only Osceola County, directly to the south, was hit harder, with 31.1% of the workforce unemployed.
“Breaking point: As COVID-19 cases surge, Florida restaurants closing for ‘summer breaks’” via Annabelle Tometich of the Fort Myers News-Press — Uncertainty continues to plague the state’s restaurants, which are a driving force in Florida’s economy. Restaurant and food-service jobs accounted for 12% of employment in the state, close to 1.1 million jobs in 2019. In 2018, Florida’s restaurants reported some $50.1 billion in sales, per the National Restaurant Association. 2020 has been nowhere near as kind. And many restaurants are hitting their breaking points. Restaurants that received money from the federal Paycheck Protection Program during the first round of applications in April spent the last of it in mid-June. PPP funds went to restaurants in Southwest Florida far more than any other industry.
“Carnival Corp. to sell 13 ships, resume cruises in Germany amid COVID-19 pandemic” via Taylor Dolven of the Miami Herald — After record-breaking second quarter losses, Carnival Corporation will begin cruising again during the COVID-19 pandemic in August and shed 13 of its ships by the end of the year. The company previously reported a loss of $4.37 billion, or $6.07 a share, during the second quarter, its largest quarterly loss ever, as cruises remain banned in the U.S. through at least late July. While U.S. health authorities remain focused on curbing COVID-19 outbreaks among crews on cruise ships in U.S. waters, the cities of Hamburg, Kiel and Rostock, Germany, have given the industry the go-ahead to start cruises again next month. The company has already received around 1,000 bookings for the cruises, which went on sale Thursday.
More corona
“Data shows Fourth of July was busy travel day despite pandemic” via WFLA — A new analysis of cellphone data in 10 coronavirus hotspots shows even more people hit the road over the Fourth of July weekend than over Memorial Day, despite warnings from health experts. The analysis comes from data by “Cuebiq,” a private company that the CDC uses to track general movement in the United States. Cuebiq focused on the number of visitors to and from 10 metro area hotspots in the United States. According to the data, nearly all of these metro areas saw an increase in the number of visitors when compared to either Memorial Day weekend or the two weeks prior. Orlando saw the largest increase in visitors compared to the weeks leading up to the Fourth of July.
Despite the pandemic, travel during the July Fourth weekend was busier than expected.
“As the pandemic surges, old people alarm their adult kids by playing bridge and getting haircuts” via Tara Bahrampour of The Washington Post — The effects of COVID-19 are most devastating for older people, with a 30% death rate among people over 85 in the United States who develop it. Many in that age group are sheltering in place and skipping social events in an effort to avoid the virus that causes the disease, and younger family members have often stayed away or gotten coronavirus tests before seeing them, to protect them. Others have taken a more relaxed attitude, engaging in behavior that fills their middle-aged children with terror, for both their parents’ health and their own. Whatever the reasons, the dynamic can leave middle-aged people, many of whom may already be worried about their adult children going to protests or beach gatherings, feeling that they must also parent their parents.
“Lessons from Walt Disney World’s reopening: Smaller crowds make up for COVID-19 protocols” via Britt Kennerly and Seth Kubersky of USA Today — The parks opened even as the Sunshine State recorded a sharp increase in new infections. On Saturday, the Florida Department of Health reported 10,360 new cases, the 18th consecutive day that at least 5,000 new cases of the novel coronavirus have been announced and pushing total cases to 254,511. And those making their way back to the “Place Where Dreams Come True” found a smaller, much more sanitized and COVID-19-conscious world. The coronavirus-forced changes were myriad, from touch-free forehead temperature checks to hand-sanitizing stations and six-foot separations between guests in lines.
“Virus causes uncertainty for state lotteries” via Michael Casey of The Associated Press — Since March, Texas, Arkansas and Montana and several other states have seen an increase in sales, in part, driven by housebound residents putting cash down for scratch-off tickets. But lottery officials say other states, like Massachusetts and Oregon, confronted revenue drops due to stay-at-home orders that forced the closure of restaurants, bars and some retailers selling tickets. Some also blamed a lack of an online presence, something only a handful states currently allow. State lottery revenues do not make up a huge portion of a state budget. But because the monies are often directed to specific programs like education, environment or veterans programs, they can have an outsized impact when there are upticks or declines in sales.
Smoldering
“A new generation challenges the heartland” via Tim Craig and Aaron Williams of The Washington Post — The number of young people of color living in the Midwest has surged over the past decade, as the older white population has nearly stalled. Forty percent of the nation’s counties are experiencing such demographic transformations. A review of census data released last month showed that minorities make up nearly half the under-30 population nationwide compared to just 27% of the over-55 population, signaling that the United States is on the brink of seismic changes in culture, politics and values. As this young, diverse cohort enters adulthood, it’s challenging the cultural norms and political views of older white Americans.
“Orlando activists debate demands for change in how police operate” via Cristóbal Reyes, Grace Toohey and Monivette Cordeiro of the Orlando Sentinel — In Central Florida, where activist coalitions have been a ubiquitous presence during street marches and government meetings, a consensus on the movement’s demands has yet to match its passion. “We’re applying pressure in so many places you have no idea about,” Lawanna Gelzer, a longtime community organizer and one of the most visible figures at the local protests, said at a march last week. The local movement has included a variety of voices, with demands ranging from stronger accountability measures for police misconduct, to shifting funding from cops to social programs, to outright “abolition” of law enforcement. Police agencies, meanwhile, have already made modest policy changes.
Community organizer and activist Lawanna Gelzer says there is a lot of pressure to change how police operate in Central Florida.
“Arrests, demonstration outside St. Pete Mayor’s house roils protest movement” via Bailey LeFever and Josh Fiallo of the Tampa Bay Times — An unsettling week for the city’s protest movement culminated Saturday when four demonstrators were arrested at two different protests. The first incident took place outside the home of Mayor Rick Kriseman in the Pasadena Estates area. A small group of protesters assembled outside of his home, just as they did the week before. But this time two women were arrested, one of them on a charge of child neglect after police said she allowed her child to block traffic. Hours later, as demonstrators continued their nightly march through downtown, St. Petersburg police vehicles suddenly appeared and officers took three people into custody.
“In Parkland, one side of the street chanted ‘Black Lives Matter.’ The other, ‘U.S.A.’” via David Goodhue of the Miami Herald — Four lanes of road separated Black Lives Matter protesters and protesters supporting police Saturday afternoon in Parkland. The opposing protesters stood diagonally from each other on the corner of Holmberg and Pine Island roads. One side chanted “Black Lives Matter,” “No Justice No Peace, No Racist Police” and “All Lives Matter When Black Lives Matter.” The other “U.S.A,” and held signs that read “We Support the Police.” Each side contained a crowd of around 80 people.
“Lynching of Claude Neal: Group urges Marianna tree be removed; nephew wants it preserved” via Nada Hassanein of the Tallahassee Democrat — Neal was lynched in Marianna, Florida, in 1934. A group of six white men kidnapped him and tortured him to death in the woods near the Chattahoochee River. They maimed him, burned him with hot irons and stabbed and shot him over and over. The mob dragged his already dead, mutilated body back to Marianna for display before thousands of people. They hung his body from a tree that still stands today in front of the present-day Jackson County Courthouse. Recently, a Marianna-based group started a petition to cut the tree down and instead install a historical marker.
D.C. matters
“Anthony Fauci is sidelined by the White House as he steps up blunt talk on pandemic” via Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey and Laurie McGinley of The Washington Post — As the Trump administration has strayed from the advice of many of its scientists and public health experts, the White House has moved to sideline Fauci, scuttled some of his planned TV appearances and largely kept him out of the Oval Office for more than a month even as coronavirus infections surge in large swathes of the country. In recent days, the 79-year-old scientist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has found himself directly in the President’s crosshairs. During an interview Thursday with Sean Hannity, Trump said Fauci “is a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes.”
The White House sidelined Dr. Anthony Fauci after his increasing blunt talk about the COVID-19 pandemic. Image via AP.
“Trump rips private Texas border wall built by his supporters” via Nomaan Merchant of The Associated Press — Trump on Sunday criticized a privately built border wall in South Texas that’s showing signs of erosion months after going up, saying it was “only done to make me look bad,” even though the wall was built after a monthslong campaign by his supporters. The group that raised money online for the wall promoted itself as supporting Trump during a government shutdown that started in December 2018 because Congress wouldn’t fund Trump’s demands for a border wall. Called “We Build the Wall,” the group has raised more than $25 million promoting itself as supporting the President.
Assignment editors — U.S. Rep Kathy Castor will host an online meeting with her Tampa constituents about keeping them and their families safe as COVID-19 positive test numbers increase, 11 a.m., Zoom link available from Rikki.Miller@mail.house.gov.
Happening today — U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist will hold a virtual town hall with representatives of NASA for Pinellas County students, families and teachers. Participants include astronaut Mike Fincke and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, 11 a.m., nasaenterprise.webex.com.
Statewide
“NFL players’ stickup victims recant after payoffs in lawmaker’s office, warrant says” via Nicholas Nehamas, David Ovalle, and David Smiley of the Miami Herald — The case against two NFL football players accused of armed robbery in Miramar took a twist after it was revealed that detectives believe four victims recanted after being paid a total of $55,000 in cash, at the office of a South Florida defense lawyer and state lawmaker. Michael Grieco, who represents accused Seattle Seahawks cornerback Quinton Dunbar. Grieco, a Democrat, won a seat in the state House in 2018. “Grieco’s office was the background that facilitated a cash transaction that later obstructed the integrity of an investigation,” said one of the police reports.
Seattle Seahawks CB Quinton Dunbar and New York Giants CB Deandre Baker are both wanted on four counts of armed robbery after an argument at a party the players attended. Image via the Miami Herald.
“Hedge Fund Chatham wins bankruptcy auction for McClatchy’s Newspapers” via Jonathan Randles and Lukas I. Alpert of The Wall Street Journal — Hedge-fund manager Chatham Asset Management LLC emerged as the winner in a bankruptcy auction for McClatchy Co. The sale, announced by McClatchy on Sunday, must be approved by the judge overseeing its bankruptcy. McClatchy publishes some 30 daily papers, including the Miami Herald, the Sacramento Bee and the Kansas City Star. A sale to Chatham would mean roughly one-third of all newspapers sold in the U.S. each day are published by companies controlled by financial institutions.
“Polk courts cut staff, reduce hours to offset budget shortfall” via Suzie Schottelkotte of The Lakeland Ledger — Twenty courthouse employees lost their jobs this week, another 21 vacant positions have been eliminated and about 200 court employees will be furloughed one day a week through September to offset a $1.6 million shortfall caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Polk Clerk of Court and Comptroller Stacy Butterfield said revenue from traffic fines, lawsuit filing fees, and other court functions has plummeted since March, when the pandemic led to a shutdown across Florida. “This is a financial crisis for us,” she said. “We are funded through those fines, fees and costs that we can retain by statute, and those revenues have been greatly reduced during the pandemic. Revenue from traffic tickets and civil filings are what support all of our court operations.”
“Orange production down as season ends” via the News Service of Florida — Florida’s citrus growing season ended on a sour note, with the production of the state’s signature orange crop down about 6% from the prior season. The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday released final numbers for the 2019-2020 season, with growers filling 67.65 million 90-pound boxes, the industry-standard measurement. That number was below the 71.85 million boxes filled during the 2018-2019 season. The industry entered the 2019-2020 season with an optimistic tone, expecting to continue a rebound after a disastrous 2017-2018 season in which Hurricane Irma reduced production. The state saw upticks during the 2019-2020 season in grapefruit and specialty crops. Grapefruit production in Florida ended with 4.85 million boxes, an increase from 4.51 million boxes in the 2018-2019 season.
“Flags lowered to honor Wayne Mixson” via the News Service of Florida — Flags were flown half-staff Saturday to honor former Florida Gov. Mixson, who died Wednesday at age 98. DeSantis ordered flags at half-staff at the Capitol, the Leon County Courthouse and Tallahassee City Hall. Mixson was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1978 and 1982 as the running mate of Democrat Bob Graham and served three days as Governor in early 1987. That came after Graham was elected to the U.S. Senate and stepped down as Governor before his term ended to go to Washington.
Former Florida Gov. Wayne Mixson (right) dies this week at age 98. He had served as Governor for three days. Tallahassee Democrat.
Lobby regs
New and renewed lobbying registrations:
Michael Corcoran, Matt Blair, Jacqueline Corcoran, Will Rodriguez, Andrea Tovar, Corcoran Partners: RareGuru
Jorge Chamizo, Charles Dudley, Floridian Partners: NACM of Tampa
Kasey Lewis, Melissa Ramba, Lewis Longman & Walker: Florida Association of Nurse Anesthetists
Jason Unger, GrayRobinson: Contact Network LLC dba InLine
2020
“Donald Trump gets some good election news: GOP voter registrations outpace Dems” via David Siders of POLITICO — Late last month, the Democratic data firm TargetSmart found that while new voter registrations had plummeted amid the coronavirus pandemic, those who were registering in competitive states tended to be whiter, older and less Democratic than before. Ben Wessel, executive director of NextGen America, said he “got nervous,” and other Democratic-leaning groups felt the same. The report seemed to confirm what state elections officials and voter registration groups had been seeing in the field for weeks: Neither Democrats nor Republicans had been registering many voters during the pandemic. But Democrats were suffering disproportionately from the slowdown.
Donald Trump finally gets some good news; GOP voter registration is outpacing Democrats.
“‘Republicans are really fed up’: GOP increasingly splits with Trump as his polls drag” via Courtney Subramanian Christal Hayes of the NWF Daily News — Weeks before Trump accepts his party’s nomination, cracks are deepening within the party as a host of GOP lawmakers distance themselves from the Republican standard-bearer as they weigh their election chances in November. Republicans have increasingly split with Trump on a host of issues shadowing his administration, from his tone on racism and the removal of Confederate statues, to wearing a face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic and questions over intelligence reports of a Russia-backed bounty program on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It’s a rare moment in the President’s three-and-a-half-year tenure, during which Trump otherwise relished inparty unity on issues such as his impeachment and former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
“‘You get made fun of’: Donald Trump campaign office shuns masks, social distancing” via Dan Diamond of POLITICO — Inside the Trump campaign’s headquarters this week, a team of cleaners scrubbed down surfaces and disinfected equipment, a recognition that coronavirus has found its way into the heart of the President’s reelection bid, regardless of Trump’s public dismissals of recent risk. The campaign’s headquarters is normally packed with dozens of staffers, often sitting in proximity to conduct phone calls and other urgent campaign business, said three people with knowledge of its operations. The office was shut down for its first deep cleaning in weeks after a senior campaign official tested positive for the virus.
“The once-mocked ‘Never Trump’ movement becomes a sudden campaign force” via Ashley Parker and Robert Costa of The Washington Post — Groups such as the Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump emphasize guerrilla tactics and scathing ads as they troll the President. The movement seeks to build a national political operation to oust both the President and his supporters in Congress, with a particular emphasis on persuading white suburban voters who consider themselves true Republicans to break from the President. Advisers to the Lincoln Project, which they say has about 30 employees and raised $16.8 million this quarter, will soon expand to include ground operations. Their surgical strike ads air on Fox News in Washington, which are aimed not at persuading disaffected Republicans but simply at needling Trump.
“When Val Demings stood by police officers accused of excessive force” via Matt Dixon and Maya King of POLITICO — In 2010, Daniel Daley broke his neck outside a Florida bar after being slammed to the ground by an Orlando police officer young enough to be his grandson. The Orlando police chief defended the officer, 26-year-old Travis Lamont. A jury disagreed that the encounter was defensible, awarding Daley $880,000 in damages. The chief was Demings, now in her fourth year as a U.S. representative. As a Black woman and 27-year veteran of a big-city force, Demings has emerged as an unusually credible voice on the relationship between law enforcement and urban communities. As Biden inches toward choosing a running mate, Demings is branding herself as a police reformer.
In 2010, Val Demings stood firm with police officers accused of using excessive force.
“Tammy Duckworth bursts into VP contention” via Natasha Korecki of POLITICO — Duckworth is no longer an afterthought in the Democratic veepstakes. The Illinois senator and Purple Heart recipient has landed squarely in the conversation after a high-profile clash with Tucker Carlson last week and her advocacy against politicization of the military in the weeks prior. The attention hasn’t escaped Biden’s vetting team. It has stepped up information-gathering on Duckworth recently, scrutinizing her legislative record and talking to her colleagues. A contingent of Duckworth-for-VP backers, including high-dollar donors and a politically active veterans group, has intensified efforts on her behalf in the past two weeks, pushing her as the best choice for Biden’s running mate.
“Facebook mulls political-ad blackout ahead of U.S. election” via Kurt Wagner of Bloomberg — Facebook Inc. is considering imposing a ban on political ads on its social network in the days leading up to the U.S. election in November, according to people familiar with the company’s thinking. The potential ban is still only being discussed and hasn’t yet been finalized, said the people, who asked not to be named talking about internal policies. Still, there are concerns that an ad blackout may hurt “get out the vote” campaigns, or limit a candidate’s ability to respond widely to breaking news or new information. This would be a big change for Facebook, which has so far stuck to a policy of not fact-checking ads from politicians or their campaigns. Ad blackouts before elections are common in other parts of the world, including the U.K., where Facebook’s global head of policy, Nick Clegg, was once deputy prime minister.
Convention countdown
“It’s Trump’s call on what the GOP convention will look like” via Zeke Miller of The Associated Press — After months of insisting that the Republican National Convention go off as scheduled despite the pandemic, Trump is slowly coming to accept that the late August event will not be the four-night infomercial for his reelection that he had anticipated. After a venue change, spiking coronavirus cases, and a sharp recession, Trump aides and allies are increasingly questioning whether it’s worth the trouble, and some are advocating that the convention be scrapped altogether. Privately, concerns are mounting, and plans are being drawn up to further scale back the event or even shift it to entirely virtual. Officials who weeks ago had looked for the convention to be a celebration of the nation’s vanquishing of the virus now see it as a potent symbol of the pandemic’s persistence.
Donald Trump addresses delegates during the final day of the 2016 Republican National Convention. It is up to the President to determine what shape the 2020 RNC will take. Image via AP.
“Republicans tap top fundraiser in mad scramble for convention cash” via Alex Isenstadt of POLITICO — Republicans have tapped a top party fundraiser as they race to lock down money for their convention, a task that’s been complicated by a tight timetable and growing concerns about holding a large-scale event during the pandemic. Jeff Miller, a veteran fundraiser with deep connections to the tight-knit world of Republican donors, will serve as a national finance chair for the late-August convention in Jacksonville. Republicans are scrambling to raise millions of dollars after Trump moved most of the event from Charlotte. They say they’ve received several millions of dollars in commitments toward a fundraising goal of $20 to $25 million, but declined to be more specific.
“Joe Gruters says RNC convention will be safe” via Zac Anderson of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune — Florida had 69,069 coronavirus cases when the Republican National Committee announced on June 11 that the party’s convention was moving to Jacksonville. Since that time the number of Florida cases has more than tripled and questions surrounding the safety of holding a major gathering in the state have only grown. Some Republican leaders have announced they will skip the convention because of health concerns. Florida GOP Chair Gruters said he is confident the convention, which will culminate with Trump’s acceptance speech on Aug. 27, will be safe. “They’re not going to take anything for granted; they’re going to make it safe,” said Gruters, a state senator from Sarasota. Gruters said he does not expect Florida’s big surge in coronavirus cases to derail the event.
“Jacksonville RNC costs draw questions from City Council President Tommy Hazouri” via Steve Patterson of The Florida Times-Union — Mayor Lenny Curry’s office is getting questions from City Council President Hazouri about costs to taxpayers from Jacksonville hosting the Republican National Convention next month. Hazouri outlined seven questions in a memo this week to the Mayor’s Office and said he wants financial information soon so council members can judge sensibly any agreement they’re asked to approve. “I can’t wait until anyone submits an unannounced piece of legislation,” he said. “It’s not fair to us and, quite frankly, it’s not fair to the public.” It’s not clear what arrangements will require council approval, however.
More from the trail
“Kat Cammack hits the airwaves with first ad in CD 3” via Drew Wilson of Florida Politics — Cammack has released her first ad in the race to succeed Ted Yoho in Florida’s 3rd Congressional District. The 30-second spot, “Chicken,” casts Cammack as the only candidate in the 10-person primary field that will stick to their guns on conservative issues. “My opponents are a lot like career politicians in DC: Chicken,” Cammack says in the ad. “I’ve spent my whole life being tough. When I was younger my family was homeless. Now, I run a small business and was Congressman Yoho’s deputy chief of staff. “I’m Kat Cammack and I approve this message because in Washington these guys will run away from President Trump, guns and the pro-life values that we care about.” The campaign said the ad will be backed with a six-figure, districtwide buy. Her ad drops about six weeks before the Aug. 18 primary and just a day after Judson Sapp rolled out his first TV spot of the cycle.
“Super PAC attack labels William Figlesthaler candidacy as midlife crisis” via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics — The same super PAC airing negative ads against Byron Donalds now has a website devoted to trashing Figlesthaler. Honesty America launched the website FreakyFig.com Tuesday. The opposite characterizes the Naples Republican’s run for Congress in Florida’s 19th Congressional District as nothing more than a midlife crisis. The ad tackles Figlesthaler’s personal life and professional history while citing a freshly filed Federal Elections Commission complaint filed by Fort Myers attorney Chris Brown, who said he’s supporting Casey Askar in the crowded Republican primary in CD 19. The complaint alleges a consultant working with Figlesthaler’s campaign, Matt Hurley, set up shell companies in his girlfriend’s name to shield his income and avoid addressing some $750,000 in debt owed to the Atrium and other claimants.
“Ethics, elections complaints filed against Cris Dosev in HD 2” via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics — A Republican candidate in Florida’s Panhandle may need to explain some sloppy bookkeeping to the state. Complaints against Dosev, who is challenging Rep. Alex Andrade in a Republican primary in District 2, were filed with the Division of Elections and the state Ethics Commission. Drew Palmer, a Destin resident who has long tracked Dosev’s missteps, submitted his concerns when he saw multiple missteps in Dosev’s state documents. For example, Dosev’s financial disclosures don’t properly list full assets with a Roth IRA and just lists the accounts, Palmer said. Palmer also suggests Dosev failed to report interests in private businesses worth $184,465, a substantial oversight. The financial concerns get documented in an ethics complaint Palmer filed.
“Old charges give ammo to new attacks on Jason Maughan” via Jacob Ogles of Florida Politics — A video ad from Bonita Springs Republican Adam Botana dubs his primary opponent “Drive-By Shooter Jason Maughan.” The two Lee County candidates face each other in a battle for an open House seat in District 76. The allegations will be familiar to those who remember a nasty 2016 primary when Maughan challenged incumbent Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto. Maughan lost that primary badly after a guilty plea from the ‘90s fueled the narrative around his candidacy. In the years since, Maughan won a seat on the Sanibel City Council and rallied establishment endorsements, including one this week from retired Sheriff Mike Scott.
“Lawmakers back efforts to unseat incumbent” via the News Service of Florida — Numerous Democratic state lawmakers are backing a challenger to Rep. Al Jacquet, a Riviera Beach Democrat who has come under fire for making anti-gay comments. Incoming Senate Minority Leader Gary Farmer of Fort Lauderdale, Sen. Jason Pizzo of North Miami and Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith from Orlando, are the latest lawmakers to back the candidacy of Lake Worth Beach Commissioner Omari Hardy. Hardy, Jacquet and three other Democrats are running in the Aug. 18 primary in Palm Beach County’s House District 88. Hardy, who was raised in an LGBTQ household by two mothers, received a flood of endorsements after he accused Jacquet of making anti-gay comments against him for the second time this year.
Top opinion
“Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so” via Robert S. Mueller III with The Washington Post — The work of the special counsel’s office, its report, indictments, guilty pleas and convictions, should speak for itself. But I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Stone was a victim of our office. The Russia investigation was of paramount importance. Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.
Opinions
“America is being way too calm about COVID-19” via Cathy O’Neil of Bloomberg Opinion — The accelerating resurgence of COVID-19 in the U.S. is filling me with dread. But what’s even scarier is the propensity of Americans to ignore or downplay a malaise that is generating tens of thousands of entirely preventable deaths. It makes total sense that the rest of the world wants to keep Americans out these days. Thanks at least in part to mostly young people socializing in bars and nightclubs, the country has been setting records for daily case counts, now nearing 3 million. Yes, testing has roughly tripled in Arizona, but so has the percentage of people testing positive (from about 7.5% to about 25%). This suggests that more of the people coming in to get tested have a major reason to think they’re sick, and that the tests are missing even more of the people with mild or no symptoms.
“Our pandemic response is stalling. And it’s made worse by Trump’s ignorance.” via The Washington Post editorial board — The pandemic response in the United States is stalling. Left to a patchwork of 50 states, absent a national strategy, buffeted by multiple outbreaks from premature openings, and now facing critical decisions about risks of reopening schools, the nation is headed in the wrong direction. A critical pillar of containing the pandemic is diagnostic testing. An average of 634,000 people a day were tested over the past week, but that is way below the nationwide target of 1.6 million daily tests needed for mitigation of the virus. Just as important is the percentage of positive tests, rising in many states, because of both more illness and limited testing.
“Trump talks a good game in Miami, but he doesn’t really like its immigrants, either” via the Miami Herald editorial board — “The Trump administration’s war on immigrants, undocumented, legal and almost-legal, continues. Of course, the implications for many in South Florida are huge and they are not good. Last week, the administration threatened to kick international students out of the country if the colleges and universities that they attend do not open for in-person classes, the dangers of the coronavirus be damned. This would be devastating for several local universities, U.S. Rep. Donna Shalala said. “They will have go home if the schools are teaching only online. This will be serious for the University of Miami and for FIU and Florida Memorial,” she said.
“COVID-19 data reporting by Florida is unreliable” via Rebekah Jones of the Tallahassee Democrat — While the rest of the world drowned in third-party, speculative and nonscientific coronavirus data at the onset of the pandemic, the Florida Department of Health (DOH) stood proudly and steady in its position as the single-point-source of information in the state. That monopoly over COVID data in the state is partly my fault. I worked very hard for several months to ensure DOH was the only authority over COVID-19 data, and since I was the sole creator and publisher of that data, I trusted its authenticity and accuracy above all else. A few weeks later, on the day Gov. DeSantis announced the full reopening of K-12 schools in August, Scott Pritchard, the lead epidemiologist for Florida’s COVID-19 response since January, abruptly quit after 15 years of service.
Today’s Sunrise
Florida set a COVID-19 record Sunday — not just for the state, but for the entire nation.
Also, on today’s Sunrise:
— The Florida Department of Health reported 15,300 new COVID-19 cases Sunday, setting a new one-day nationwide record. New York previously held that dubious distinction, but Florida beat the record by more than 3,000. When last we heard from DeSantis, the Governor insisted there won’t be any changes in Florida’s reopening.
— Florida added a mind-boggling 70,000 new cases of coronavirus in the past week, bringing the total to almost 278,000. Dr. Ronald Saff of Tallahassee says those numbers would have been a lot lower if DeSantis had done a better job responding to the crisis.
— Florida’s death toll is also rising. Forty-five new fatalities were reported Sunday; the new total is now 4,346. That’s an increase of more than 500 over the past week; it’s keeping the Grim Reaper busy.
— Speaking of which, the man behind the Grim Reaper Tour is Dan Uhlfelder, who will talk about his unusual crusade.
— Checking-in with a Florida Man fired for racist postings on social media. Not Facebook or Twitter, mind you. It was LinkedIn. What kind of moron posts racial rants on a site designed to connect business professionals, you ask? Florida Man.
“Tiger Woods documentary ‘TIGER’ announced by HBO Sports for December 2020” via Mike Chiari of The Bleacher Report — A two-part documentary chronicling the rise, fall, and comeback of Woods entitled TIGER is set to debut on HBO in December. Part 1 will air on Dec. 13, followed by Part 2 on Dec. 20. In addition to being broadcast on HBO, the documentary will be available for streaming on HBO Max. Academy Award winner Alex Gibney will serve as one of the executive producers for TIGER, while Emmy Award winner Matthew Heineman and Emmy Award nominee Matthew Hamachek will direct. TIGER will feature never-before-seen footage and interviews with many of those closest to Woods.
A two-part documentary chronicling the rise, fall and comeback of Tiger Woods is set to debut on HBO in December. Image via AP.
“Vintage Super Mario Bros. video game sells for $114,000” via The Associated Press — An unopened copy of a vintage Super Mario Bros. video game has been sold for $114,000 in an auction that underscored the enduring popularity of entertainment created decades ago. A bidder who wished to remain anonymous snapped up an early version of the pioneering Super Mario Bros. game released in 1985 for Nintendo’s NES console during an auction. The $114,000 price eclipsed Heritage Auctions’ previous record amount for a video game, which was a $100,150 bid made early last year for an unopened copy of the same game.
Happy birthday
Belated wishes to top Democrat fundraiser Jon Adrabi, as well as former AG Bill McCollum and former Sen. John Grant. Celebrating today are Dan Sweeney (recently elevated to the editorial board of the Sun-Sentinel) and Tampa City Council member Guido Maniscalco.
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“President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant Roger Stone… The move came just days before Stone was to begin serving a 40-month prison sentence for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia.” AP News
From the Right
The right is divided over the commutation.
“Stone had no inside knowledge of Russian hacking or WikiLeaks’s role in disseminating stolen DNC emails; instead, he tried to parlay media gossip and what he heard from an intermediary into a sense that he knew more than he did. Never before has an alleged spy been such a fatuous figure and ridiculous braggart…
“There is no doubt, though, that Stone was guilty of perjury and a laughably ham-handed attempt at witness tampering. He was justly convicted of these charges and deserved to go to jail… Trump’s handling of the matter is indefensible. It is another indication of his perverse, highly personalized view of the criminal-justice system — and another reminder of the loathsome characters he’s surrounded himself with his entire adult life.” The Editors, National Review
“Stone’s defenders have argued that the court was stacked against him and that his trial was unfair. There’s certainly something to that. Stone’s original sentence was nine years in prison, an excessive amount of time for an elderly, nonviolent, first-time offender. But that’s why the Justice Department intervened and reduced Stone’s sentence to 40 months. The DOJ did not, however, argue against the actual charges against Stone. And why would they? He was and still is obviously guilty.” Kaylee McGhee, Washington Examiner
“The commutation of Stone barely stands out in the old gallery of White House pardons… Thomas Jefferson pardoned Erick Bollman for violations of the Alien and Sedition Act in the hope that he would testify against rival Aaron Burr for treason… Franklin Roosevelt also pardoned political allies, including Conrad Mann, who was a close associate of Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast. Pendergast made a fortune off illegal alcohol, gambling, and graft, and helped send Harry Truman into office…
“Richard Nixon was both giver and receiver of controversial pardons. He pardoned Jimmy Hoffa after the Teamsters Union leader had pledged to support his reelection bid. Nixon himself was later pardoned by Gerald Ford… To his credit, Ronald Reagan declined to pardon the Iran Contra affair figures, but his vice president, George Bush, did so after becoming president. Despite his own alleged involvement in that scandal, Bush still pardoned those other Iran Contra figures, such as Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger.” Jonathan Turley, The Hill
“Bill Clinton pardoned his own brother for felony distribution of cocaine. And a key witness in the Whitewater scandal for which he and Hillary Clinton were under investigation. And three others convicted in independent counsel Ken Starr’s probe. And Marc Rich, in what was a straight up political payoff. And his CIA director. And his HUD secretary. And eight people convicted in an investigation of his Agriculture Department…
“Obama also commuted the sentence of a U.S. soldier who passed top-secret information to WikiLeaks. He pardoned his former Joint Chiefs of Staff vice chairman, who’d been convicted of making false statements… So, as abuses of the pardon power go — and they do go — I can’t get too whipped up over President Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s 40-month sentence for non-violent criminal obstruction of a bogusly based and ridiculously over-prosecuted investigation.” Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review
“This is an old story: an underlying investigation that results in no directly relevant criminal charges and spawns a mess of felony charges for obstructing an investigation that went nowhere. In a normal prosecutor’s office, which has thousands of pressing matters and limited resources, Stone likely would never have been indicted, or would have faced a relatively light charge. Believe it or not, this is a good thing — limited prosecutorial capacity is an important check on prosecutorial overreach and helps to focus resources on truly important matters…
“But special prosecutors, with near-limitless budgets and little meaningful oversight, tend to become perpetual motion machines. They generate new criminal charges further and further distant from the original allegation that caused the appointment in the first place. It is this tendency, among others, that led the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in his dazzling dissent in a case that upheld the special counsel law, to describe them as a wolf that, far from being dressed in sheep’s clothing, ‘comes as a wolf.’” Brett L. Tolman, Fox News
From the Left
The left is critical of the commutation.
Former special counsel Robert Mueller writes that a jury “determined [Stone] lied repeatedly to members of Congress. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks’ releases. He in fact updated senior campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks. And he tampered with a witness, imploring him to stonewall Congress…
“When a subject lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of the government’s efforts to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable… The jury ultimately convicted Stone of obstruction of a congressional investigation, five counts of making false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness. Because his sentence has been commuted, he will not go to prison. But his conviction stands.” Robert S. Mueller III, Washington Post
“If the Justice Department showed the same care and concern for the defendants’ wellbeing in every case it pursued, it could defend its special circumstances for Stone. If the attorney general’s office showed the same zeal in opposing lengthy sentences for every defendant it prosecuted, it could justify its intervention in this case. If Trump was willing to free federal prisoners convicted of non-violent crimes who weren’t his friends or allies, he could claim a fig leaf of credibility here…
“According to a count by Jack Goldsmith, a professor at Harvard Law School, thirty-one of Trump’s thirty-six acts of clemency have been based on personal or political connections… But Trump had not, until now, used pardons and commutations to reward defendants who possessed incriminating information against him. The Stone commutation isn’t just a gift to an old friend—it is a reward to Stone for keeping his mouth shut during the Mueller investigation. It is, in other words, corruption on top of cronyism.” Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker
“It is not illegal for a U.S. citizen to act or attempt to act as a go-between between a presidential campaign and a foreign intelligence agency, and Stone was not charged with any crime in conjunction with his Trump-WikiLeaks communications. But it’s a different story for the campaign itself. At a minimum, the Trump campaign was vulnerable to charges of violating election laws… It was crucial to the Trump campaign that Stone keep silent and not implicate Trump in any way…
“Which is what Stone did. Stone was accused of—and convicted of—lying to Congress about his role in the WikiLeaks matter. Since Stone himself would have been in no legal jeopardy had he told the truth, the strong inference is that he lied to protect somebody else… ‘He knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t.’… Stone said [this] on the record to one of the best-known reporters in Washington. In so many words, he seemed to imply: I could have hurt the president if I’d rolled over on him. I kept my mouth shut. He owes me.” David Frum, The Atlantic
“Trump appears to be the first modern president to pardon someone for murder, and he’s done it three times — twice for military members who had been convicted and once for a soldier who was facing trial…
“Other pardons and commutations had to do with blatant issues of public corruption. Blagojevich is the most obvious one, but Kerik too was accused by the judge of trading on his public profile after 9/11 to enrich himself. The judge said Kerik using ‘that event for personal gain and aggrandizement is a dark place in the soul for me.’ And Arpaio explicitly and deliberately refused to follow the legal order of a judge…
“These officials have flouted the law in rather extraordinary ways for public officials, yet the drain-the-swamp president has seen fit to cut each of them a break… Trump is allowed to provide clemency to virtually any federal crime he wants, but the instances in which he’s chosen to exercise that power speak volumes.” Aaron Blake, Washington Post
Sponsored Post
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🇨🇳 Bulletin: China said it would bar entry to Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) and State Department religious freedom ambassador Sam Brownback, because of their criticism of the regime’s treatment of people of faith.
But AP reports no indication they planned to travel to China.
Good Monday morning. Tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. ET, at an Axios virtual event about telemedicine and other technology that’s disrupting health care, Caitlin Owens and I will talk with Oscar Health CEO Mario Schlosser and FCC Chair Ajit Pai.
Health care workers fear a new shortage of face masks, gowns and other protective equipment, Axios health care business reporter Bob Herman writes.
Supplies, already stretched thin, are likely to get even thinner as the coronavirus converges with flu season in the fall.
Health care workers are sounding alarms that they have to reuse masks and other supplies, and are worried their grievances are going unnoticed again.
Maria Serda, a respiratory therapist at an HCA Healthcare hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, said even though cases and hospitalizations are rising in the state, staff are limited to one N95 mask per day, and gowns are being monitored.
The state of play: Many medical providers have said their supplies of masks, face shields, testing supplies and other equipment are “adequate” — which is better than the spring, when some workers had to fashion gowns out of garbage bags.
“The supply chain concerns haven’t been addressed,” said Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association.
“Supply is still coming in, but not enough to meet demand,” an industry official told a House committee.
It’s a lot worse for nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, which are begging for PPE, an American Health Care Association official told Axios.
More than 40% of U.S. coronavirus deaths are tied to nursing homes.
PPE and disinfectants “simply are not readily available from the usual sources our physicians use,” the AMA warned.
Disney World reopened Saturday. Photo: Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP
“NBC Nightly News” pointed out that if Florida were a country, it would have the world’s fourth-highest tally of new COVID-19 cases (a record 15,300) for the 24 hours ending yesterday, after the U.S. (66,281), Brazil (45,048) and India (28,637).
3. Axios interview: Stone will campaign for Trump
Roger Stone appears yesterday outside his home in Fort Lauderdale. Photo: Johnny Louis/Getty Images
Roger Stone told me in a phone interview that he plans to write and speak for President Trump’s re-election now that Stone “won’t die in a squalid hellhole of corona-19 virus.”
“I’m asthmatic,” said Stone, 67. “Sending me to a prison where I could not be socially distanced … would, I think, be a death sentence.”
Stone said he’ll continue to follow one of his “Stone’s Rules”: “I will do anything necessary to elect my candidate, short of breaking the law.”
“First, I’m going to write a book about this entire ordeal to, once and for all, put to bed the myth of Russian collusion.”
I asked Stone about Peter Baker’s New York Times analysis saying that in keeping Stone out of prison, Trump crossed a line that even Richard Nixon “in the depths of Watergate dared not cross. … Nixon resigned … without using his pardon pen.”
Stone replied that the Friday evening commutation — for obstruction, witness tampering and false statements to Congress — shows Trump “has an enormous sense of fairness and justice and mercy.”
Stone flatly predicted Trump will win, despite the bleak outlook:
“It’ll be a very tough fight. He’s got three obstacles: voter fraud … internet censorship, which I have just recently experienced myself; and, of course, the constant falsehoods being pushed by the corporate-owned mainstream media. Those all make it a difficult race.”
“But he is a great campaigner. He’s a great communicator.”
When I asked Stone how he can be so sure Trump will win, he said: “I know more about it than anybody else.”
When I asked what he means, Stone cited his campaign work going back to his hero Nixon in 1968: “Who do you know who’s been through more presidential campaigns than me?”
Stone said he “had no assurances” about the commutation before Trump called his cellphone Friday evening: “But I had prayed fervently, … and I believe the whole matter was in God’s hands and that God would provide. And He did.”
🎧 Hear more of my phone conversation with Roger Stone on our morning podcast, “Axios Today” with host Niala Boodhoo.
4. Pic du jour
Photo: Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
A three-alarm fire aboard the amphibious assault ship Bonhomme Richard at San Diego Naval Base injured 17 sailors and four civilians and blazed throughout the day, causing massive smoke plumes, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.
The cause wasn’t announced. But the Navy believes the fire began in a lower cargo hold where marine equipment and vehicles are stored.
5. Europe’s green pandemic recovery
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Europe, long the most progressive continent when it comes to tackling climate change, is doubling down on this ambition to revive pandemic-ravaged economies, Axios’ Amy Harder writes in her “Harder Line” column.
Why it matters: The European Union is the world’s third-largest emitting region after the U.S. and China, but it’s not just that. These plans will push global corporate behavior and prod other governments by creating either templates to follow or protectionist battles (or both).
Where it stands: European nations account for three-quarters of green stimulus funding announced as of early June, according to a BloombergNEF report.
Other countries are not being nearly as aggressive in this space, despite mounting calls from the UN, IMF and IEA.
What we’re watching: If Joe Biden wins the presidential contest, expect America to start looking a lot more like Europe when it comes to climate ambitions.
Illustration by Bendik Kaltenborn for The New Yorker. Used by permission
At a time when even Republican voters are beginning to question President Trump’s competence, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “acts as his optimism ambassador, presenting a relentlessly sunny view of America’s economic future,” The New Yorker’s Sheelah Kolhatkar writes in a profile.
Why he matters: Mnuchin is “one of the most consequential policymakers in the world. To some degree, he has the power to determine which industries and which companies will survive the crisis, which groups of Americans will get through it with relatively little longterm economic damage, and how equitable the recovery will be.”
McClatchy, America’s second-largest newspaper chain, announced that Chatham Asset Management, a New Jersey-based hedge fund, will take over the company’s assets as a result of its bankruptcy auction, Axios’ Sara Fischer writes.
McClatchy’s bankruptcy restructuring ended 163 years of family control, and handed it over to the company’s creditors, led by Chatham.
Why it matters: It’s the latest step in the gradual dismantling of an industry that used to be controlled by local families with civic roots and has now largely passed into the hands of bottom-line-focused private equity managers.
The chain, based in Sacramento, includes the Miami Herald, Kansas City Star and Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the flagship Sacramento Bee.
“Iran and China have quietly drafted a sweeping economic and security partnership that would clear the way for billions of dollars of Chinese investments in energy and other sectors,” the N.Y. Times reports (subscription).
Why it matters: This undercuts “the Trump administration’s efforts to isolate the Iranian government because of its nuclear and military ambitions.”
“The partnership … would vastly expand Chinese presence in banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects.”
9. Pro-Trump PAC drops $23 million
Screenshot: America First Action
America First Action, a leading pro-Trump super PAC, will focus on Arizona, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in a $23 million anti-Biden summer ad campaign, Axios’ Alayna Treene reports.
Why it matters: The ad buy signals which swing states the groups sees as most vulnerable for President Trump. Arizona and Wisconsin weren’t included earlier this year in the core battleground strategy.
One PAC official tells Axios that North Carolina and Arizona may be the tightest of these, then Pennsylvania, with Wisconsin seen as the most secure.
Between the lines: The ads, to begin July 24 and continue through Labor Day, will serve as a bridge before the Trump campaign’s planned $100 million blitzkrieg that will begin in September and run through the election.
COLUMN | Like many black Americans, I’ve been followed by security personnel through stores without cause and pulled over by police officers at night for no reason. When I’m in scrubs, all of that happens less often.
Speed is of the essence in the fight against the coronavirus, but some testing sites are struggling to provide results in five to seven days. Others are taking longer.
Coronavirus ● By Rachel Weiner, William Wan and Abigail Hauslohner ● Read more »
Taliban commanders and fighters in eastern Afghanistan speak not of peace but of toppling the Afghan government in Kabul, and they boast of a hard-fought “military victory” over American forces in the country.
In a tweet Sunday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said he was concerned by the rising number of cases in Illinois, as this past week recorded the highest seven-day average since June 5.
Before they return to classrooms during a rapidly evolving pandemic, Chicago Public Schools educators have a list of demands they want met — from small enough class sizes to a nurse and social worker or counselor in every school every day. While it’s not yet certain if in-person classes will resume this fall, the district already has committed to some measures on CTU’s list in the event that they do.
Roman Catholic parishes and organizations in the Archdiocese of Chicago received between $24.4 million and $63.6 million in loans through the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program that was designed to save jobs amid the economic shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to federal records.
Wearing a Chicago Cubs cap, T-shirt and shorts, Dr. David Mayer finished a 7.2-mile morning walk from Northwestern University behind a group of supporters holding a “Patient Safety Movement” sign Saturday morning under the Wrigley Field marquee. Mayer, a Cubs season ticket holder who grew up in Chicago, is more than 1,000 miles since February into a walk to every Major League Baseball park and spring training fields, hoping to raise awareness about preventable deaths that occur in health-care settings.
Welcome to the world Hazel, Esperanza and Nish. The Chicago Audubon Society this weekend unveiled the names of Monty and Rose’s three fledged piping plover chicks.
Welcome to The Hill’s Morning Report. It is Monday. We get you up to speed on the most important developments in politics and policy, plus trends to watch. Alexis Simendinger and Al Weaver are the daily co-creators, so find us @asimendinger and @alweaver22 on Twitter and recommend the Morning Report to your friends. CLICK HERE to subscribe!
Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning: 135,205.
If the new normal in the United States requires figuring out how to live with the coronavirus, it also means puzzling through some of science’s most complex questions and absorbing a few grim truths.
Although Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) says he will not make masks mandatory in the Sunshine State, plenty of other powers have been speaking up. At least 40 states have versions of mask requirements, and in Utah on Friday, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked members in the state to wear face coverings in public (Daily Herald).
Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Brett Giroir, a pediatrician on Trump’s coronavirus task force, on Sunday during an interview on ABC’s “This Week” called mask-wearing in public “absolutely essential.”
“If we don’t have that, we will not get control of the virus,” he said (The Associated Press). The four-star admiral spoke a day after President Trump wore a mask for the first time in public.
As Reid Wilson reports, officials’ efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 have failed in much of the United States. Fatalities in some of the hardest-hit states are expected to rise this week. Forty-three states in the last two weeks have seen COVID-19 cases spike upward. In 29 states, the number of people hospitalized with the coronavirus has climbed over the same period. More than 80 percent of intensive care beds are occupied in Alabama, Arizona and Georgia.
Arizona’s Maricopa County medical examiner’s office on Friday hit 97 percent of capacity and the state called in refrigerated trucks to store COVID-19 fatalities (The Hill).
“I would be lying if I didn’t say I was concerned,” Kansas City, Mo., Mayor Quinton Lucas told The Hill during an interview. “We have looked at the trends out of Texas, Arizona and Florida. Those states kind of reflect the political choices that were made statewide in Missouri, and that does give us concern.”
The Kansas City metropolitan area has confirmed more than 10,000 coronavirus cases. One disease model portends that Jackson County, Mo., is likely to experience more than 200 new cases every day by the beginning of August.
And if scientists are correct, the situation is worse than imagined just weeks ago: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimates that 40 percent of people infected with COVID-19 do not have any outward symptoms and can transmit the virus unknowingly. That is up from the 35 percent the agency estimated on May 20. Other researchers say asymptomatic cases of the virus could be 50 percent (ABC News).
The latest revisions of public health guidelines announced by researchers and clinicians come as the nation’s school districts and universities establish new reopening policies and economically distressed businesses with enclosed spaces and faulty air filtration systems ponder how to safely proceed.
> Trump’s COVID-19 advisers: Anthony Fauci’s blunt public assessments as a virologist leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases got him sidelined with a president who loathes being publicly contradicted and insists on optimism even when it’s fiction (The Washington Post). … U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams finds himself in an administration defined by a White House spoiling for a fight. He’s never been alone in a room with the president, but as a member of the administration he’s inextricably tangled with Trump in the public eye (The Washington Post).
> World Health Organization (WHO): U.S. allies around the world bite their tongues after Trump withdraws U.S. financial support for the WHO during a pandemic (The Hill).
> Risks and government workers: Senators last week said the administration’s reopening plans for federal employees who are supposed to return to their offices and work locations are unsafe (Federal News Network). … More than 1,000 Transportation Security Administration employees have tested positive for COVID-19 (HuffPost). Essential employees and frontline workers in various cities are pushing for workers’ rights legislation and other measures as forms of COVID-19 protection (NBC News). Many teachers say they fear returning to classrooms because of the coronavirus risks (The New York Times).
✔ Better news!: No one died in New York City on Saturday from the coronavirus. It was a landmark for Gotham not experienced since March 13 (NBC New York). But New York state is quietly preparing for another COVID-19 surge, if it comes (The Associated Press).
2020 POLITICS: Only months out from Election Day, Democrats are making a concerted effort to tie down-ballot Republicans to the president and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over their threat to cut funding to schools that do not resume in-person classes in the coming months.
As The Hill’s Julia Manchester reports, the move by the administration to lay down this marker has angered teachers’ unions, which are looking to take out their frustration on lawmakers on the ballot in November.
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), the party’s Senate nominee in the state, is among the latest Democrats to go on the offensive, calling on incumbent Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) to denounce the president’s stance on the issue. In North Carolina, Democrat Cal Cunningham, who is running against Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, warned against the politicization of reopening schools, calling on Congress to do the work to ensure that schools open safely at the right time.
In Iowa, Democrat Theresa Greenfield, who is challenging Sen. Joni Ernst (R) (pictured below), is also hitting Republicans’ handling of the virus, saying that the incumbent Republican needs to “answer for this failure.” Ernst sidestepped whether she supports the administration’s plan.
“I’d have to look at that policy,” Ernst said on Thursday. “I want it [schools reopening] done safely and sensibly, and I think that’s the right way to do it.”
As an ABC News-Ipsos poll released on Friday shows, Democrats have good reason to lob the attacks. According to the survey, 67 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s response to the pandemic.
The Hill: Congress under pressure to provide billions for school openings.
> Florida, Florida, Florida: With the continued spread of the virus in the Sunshine State, former Vice President Joe Biden is making a hard play at flipping Florida blue, something former President Obama did twice before Trump’s 2016 victory.
The president appeared in the state on Friday and plans remain for the GOP to hold the majority of its convention in Jacksonville despite the pandemic. However, Biden is in pole position less than four months before Election Day, with the latest RealClearPolitics average showing a 5-point lead for the former VP.
As Niall Stanage writes in his latest memo, while most of the attention is directed at the “blue wall” states in the Rust Belt, a Biden win in Florida would make Trump’s path to reelection vanishingly narrow. Spiking coronavirus cases, and the related controversy around the approach taken by DeSantis, a staunch Trump ally, create grave problems for the president, who won the state by a little more than a point in 2016.
The Associated Press: It’s Trump’s call on what the GOP convention will look like.
The New York Times: Trump wants to derail Jeff Sessions. Now Alabama will have the final say.
The Washington Post: Brad Parscale hits a rough patch as Trump’s campaign manager.
IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES
CONGRESS: Lawmakers appear poised to do little, if anything, to legislatively respond to intelligence and reports that Russia placed bounties on the killings of U.S. and allied troops.
Democrats continue to press Trump administration officials for answers on the issue, going ahead with filing bills or amendments to the annual defense policy bill to address the issue. However, Republicans are echoing the administration’s talking point about the intelligence being “uncorroborated,” creating a steep climb for any legislative action to come to fruition.
“We know that countries like Russia and Iran, in particular, are using proxies to attack Americans wherever they can find them,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “So none of this should be a surprise to anybody who’s been paying attention. But I think we will continue to try to figure ways to protect our forces against any kind of threats, whether its Russian bounties or just people who want to kill Americans. That’s where I think we need to focus on, is maintaining that force protection.”
When pressed recently, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not directly address whether he would back a new round of sanctions against Russia, simply saying that it’s “no secret the Russians are up to no good” (The Hill).
Douglas London, The New York Times opinion contributor: Trump’s shocking inaction on Russia.
> Testimony: Democratic lawmakers are pushing to hear testimony from John Bolton, saying that the president’s former national security adviser should answer to Congress — under oath — about his time in the White House.
Bolton refused to talk to managers of the House impeachment proceedings against the president last year but in a book released last month he argued that Trump is incompetent as commander in chief and unfit to be president. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has yet to announce a decision on whether to force Bolton to testify, saying for weeks that she’s considering matters. While she decides, lawmakers have become vocal, calling for Bolton to speak to investigators about his 17 months in the White House. (The Hill).
Yahoo News: Amid Roger Stone flap, GOP senator to allow Robert Mueller testimony.
> Immigration: Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says he has a commitment from Biden and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) to make immigration reform the first major agenda item if Democrats win the White House and Senate in November.
In 2009, the first year of total Democratic control during Obama’s presidency, Democrats focused on health care first and then climate change, leaving many of their supporters in the immigration reform community sorely disappointed. While there’s been little discussion about any specific plans, some Republicans have already indicated they would be prepared to negotiate, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) (The Hill).
OPINION
It’s 2022. What does life look like? by David Leonhardt, writer, The New York Times. https://nyti.ms/2C7gzqX
Anti-Semitic posts and tepid reactions should enrage us, by Mitch Albom, columnist, Detroit Free Press. https://bit.ly/3eiPWwl
A MESSAGE FROM ARGENTUM
WHERE AND WHEN
The House meets for a pro forma session at noon and returns to legislative business on July 20.
The Senate meets at 5:30 p.m. for a pro forma session.
The president will have lunch with Vice President Pence at 12:30 p.m. Trump will participate in a roundtable at 2 p.m. with select attendees who offer testimonials about the benefits of law enforcement.
Pence will join the president for lunch.
INVITATION: The Hill Virtually Live talks to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday at 11 a.m. about “New Threats, New Defense: The Future of National Security.” Interviewer: Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack.RSVP HERE.
Washington Post Live will interview New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) today at 1 p.m. about the coronavirus situation in her state and her inclusion on Biden’s list of vice presidential contenders. Live stream conversation hosted by journalist Jonathan Capehart: wapo.st/grisham
The Hill’s Coronavirus Report has updates and exclusive video interviews with policymakers emailed each day. Sign up HERE!
➔ Sports: The Washington Redskins, after years of resistance, will indeed change the team name, considered a slur by Native Americans and many others. According to Sports Business Journal, Redskins owner Daniel Snyder is set to announce this morning that the franchise will retire its name. A new one — and there are many creative ideas out there — is in suspense (ESPN). … The Atlanta Braves announced Sunday that the franchise will not change its name despite such announcements by other teams (the Redskins and Cleveland Indians, for example). In a letter to season ticket holders, the team said it would “always” keep the name but indicated the Braves will weigh the future of the tomahawk chop (ESPN).
➔ Economy: As beach towns open, business owners say there are shortages of the foreign workers on whom they rely each summer. From Cape Cod, Mass., to Myrtle Beach, S.C., Trump’s ban announced in June on green cards and his freeze on temporary visas are hurting U.S. businesses, proprietors complain (The Associated Press).
➔ International:Iran in a report late Saturday blamed misaligned radar for the downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet. On Jan. 8, Iranian forces fired an anti-aircraft missile at the Boeing 737-800 shortly after its takeoff from Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing 176 passengers (The Washington Post). … China announced sanctions against Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other U.S. officials in response to a legislative effort to hurt Beijing over the treatment of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region. The move is largely symbolic, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying declining to elaborate on the “sanctions” (Reuters) … South Africa reimposed its national curfew as coronavirus infections surge across the country (AFP).
➔ Target Mars: Beginning this week, there could be a bit of a traffic jam ahead for Mars. The United States, China and the United Arab Emirates are all sending unmanned exploratory spacecraft to the red planet (The Associated Press).
➔ State watch: Stockton, Calif., is experimenting with a universal basic income for select residents, an idea advocated during the Democratic presidential primary and in various forms by some Democratic lawmakers in Washington. Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, pictured below, last year launched SEED, which sends $500 per month to 125 randomly selected residents in his city over two years. The program studies recipients with one key question in mind: How is guaranteed income impacting their income volatility? So far, advocates believe the program has a beneficial effect on recipients and their families (CNBC).
And finally … For Mary Daniel of Florida, where there’s a will, there’s going to be a way.
Daniel, 57, accepted a part-time nursing home dishwashing job during the pandemic so she could see her husband, Steve, who is a resident in the facility. He suffers from Alzheimer’s and the couple had been kept apart for 114 days during the spring and early summer as the coronavirus began to circulate. Mary’s first shift washing and scrubbing took place on July 3 and she said her husband recognized her even behind her mask.
“I walked into his room and he said my name. … When he said, Mary, and gave me the biggest hug, I mean, we both cried,” she explained (CNN).
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Voters in Maine, Texas and Alabama will head to the polls Tuesday to decide the matchups in a trio of competitive Senate races and a slew of House contests. And the primaries may follow a common theme in 2020: waiting on results. Read More…
ANALYSIS — After Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in 2016, there’s a temptation to avoid making political projections. But one election result shouldn’t cause us to ignore the data, which right now points to a great election for Democrats, including taking control of the Senate. Read More…
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Pandemic-related census delays have already caused political fallout in one state, with New Jersey’s Legislature kicking off the process to delay its legislative redistricting process from 2021 to 2023. Read More…
Retiring Rep. Nita M. Lowey said a handful of goodbyes as she oversaw her last appropriations markup marathon. But that didn’t stop Rep. Jeff Fortenberry from wishing he was with his wife on their anniversary, or the entire committee from singing an awkward “Happy Birthday” to Rep. Dan Newhouse. Read More…
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POLITICO PLAYBOOK
POLITICO Playbook: White House declares open season on Fauci
Presented by
DRIVING THE DAY
IN FLORIDA, some 15,300 CORONAVIRUS cases were reported in the last day. Health experts are warning of a resurgence of the virus. Yet, the White House is spending its time slagging ANTHONY FAUCI, slinging opposition research about his misjudgments or misstatements as he was trying to prepare the nation for the coronavirus.
A LOT OF WHITE HOUSE AIDES shake their heads when they look at the president’s Twitter feed, or complain when he otherwise strays off message. But they’re focusing their energy on trying to railroad the nation’s popular infectious disease doctor in the middle of an active pandemic that has killed more than 130,000 Americans.
NEW: JOE BIDEN’S MESSAGE THIS WEEK, via communications director KATE BEDINGFIELD: “Joe Biden just announced his Build Back Better agenda, a plan to repair the economic damage done by Trump’s abject mismanagement of the pandemic and constant siding with corporations and big money donors over working families. It charts the way for us to seize this moment and ensure that the future is made in America, by all of America. The response to this bold vision for change has already been resounding across the country.
“AT THE SAME TIME, ever since VP Biden’s speech, Donald Trump has been sputtering and flailing on his back foot because he knows the damning answer to the fundamental question Joe Biden posed: after all that we have been through during this presidency, all the sacrifice and division and trauma, what do we have to show for it? We’re going to keep underlining why Joe Biden has the right plan to rebuild a stronger, more inclusive, and more resilient middle class, and create millions of jobs – and that Donald Trump can’t ever be trusted with our livelihoods ever again.”
WSJ FRONT PAGE: “Fed, Treasury Disagreements Slowed Start of Main Street Lending Program,” by Nick Timiraos and Kate Davidson: “Disagreements between leaders at the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department in recent months slowed the start of their flagship lending initiative for small and midsize businesses, according to current and former government officials.
“The differences centered on how to craft the loan terms of their $600 billion Main Street Lending Program to help support businesses through the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic. Fed officials generally favored easier terms that would increase the risk of the government losing money, while Treasury officials preferred a more conservative approach, people familiar with the process said.
“Treasury, which has put up $75 billion to cover losses, resisted recent changes to relax loan terms. The disagreements over relatively narrow design issues reflect broader philosophical differences over what the program is trying to accomplish and how much risk the government should take as a result. The upshot is that the program, announced in March, went through multiple revisions and opened for business this past week. As of Wednesday, it hadn’t purchased any loans.”
Good Monday morning.
MARCO IS NOT WELCOME IN BEIJING … FT: “China sanctions U.S. lawmakers in retaliation for Xinjiang measures,” by Don Weinland in Beijing: “Hua Chunying, a Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman, said at a press conference on Monday that Beijing would sanction Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, House Representative Chris Smith and Sam Brownback, Donald Trump’s ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Ms Hua said the sanctions would take effect on Monday but did not elaborate on what the measures would entail.”
FRONTS: NYT, with the Ja’ron Smith profile and a Matt Flegenheimer story on the front … WSJ … N.Y. POST
SEAN HANNITY will interview ROGER STONE in his first TV interview since Trump commuted his sentence. It will air at 9 p.m. EST tonight on Fox News.
JOIN US! On Tuesday, Anna and Jake are hosting a virtual Playbook Interview with Austin Mayor STEVE ADLER at 9 a.m. to talk about how the city is handling the new spikes in the coronavirus, reopening schools and much more! Register to watch
SPOTTED: Speaker Nancy Pelosi at CVS in Georgetown on Sunday morning.
FIRST IN PLAYBOOK: JOE LOCKHART is joining Rational 360 as a partner, as the firm acquires his Strategic Heights LLC. He formerly ran comms for the NFL, was a founder of Glover Park Group and was a White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton.
— LAT: “The inside story of how California failed mass coronavirus testing,”by Emily Baumgaertner: “In the early days, officials didn’t know whether this would be a short-term undertaking to prevent community transmission in the state or an epic battle against a once-in-a-century pandemic.
“But as the latter scenario played out, California found itself unprepared, overwhelmed and constantly lagging, a Los Angeles Times investigation has found. Those early failures left California far behind in the fight against the coronavirus, and it has struggled to keep up — even as cases surge today.”
MORE BAD SIGNS FOR THE CAMPAIGN CHIEF … “Parscale hits a rough patch as Trump’s campaign manager,”by WaPo’s Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey: “Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale had an unusual cameo in the president’s first television ad of the year: Sandwiched among images of Trump and Vice President Pence, the bearded Parscale appears twice, taking a selfie with supporters and hugging girls in red ball caps.
“It was an unprecedented use of an ad — one that cost $142,655, according to the firm Ad Analytics — to promote a campaign staffer. It sent a clear message to Trump’s orbit: Parscale, a colorful and outspoken public face of Trumpism, was the leader of the campaign.
“But the image concealed a more complicated reality. As Trump’s reelection effort struggles, Parscale, despite his self-promotion, increasingly finds himself out of favor with his boss and hemmed in by newly hired staffers and recently promoted advisers, according to people familiar with the campaign.”
SIREN … ELENA SCHNEIDER, JAMES ARKIN and ALLY MUTNICK: “‘Adapt immediately or find a new job’: Senate GOP confronts fundraising emergency”: “Last month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee prepared a slideshow for Senate chiefs of staff full of bleak numbers about the party’s failure to compete with Democrats on digital fundraising. For anyone not getting the message, the final slide hammered home the possible end result: a freight train bearing down on a man standing on the tracks.
“The slideshow, obtained by POLITICO, painted a grim picture of the GOP’s long-running problem. Republican senators and challengers lagged behind Democrats by a collective $30 million in the first quarter of 2020, a deficit stemming from Democrats’ superior online fundraising machine. Since then, Democrats’ fundraising pace accelerated further, with the party’s challengers announcing huge second-quarter hauls last week, largely driven by online donors giving through ActBlue, the party’s preferred fundraising platform.
“The money guarantees Democrats nothing heading into November 2020. But with President Donald Trump’s poll numbers sagging and more GOP-held Senate races looking competitive, the intensity of Democrats’ online fundraising is close to erasing the financial advantage incumbent senators usually enjoy. That’s making it harder to bend their campaigns away from the national trend lines — and helping Democrats’ odds of flipping the Senate.” POLITICO
TRUMP’S MONDAY — The president will have lunch with VP Mike Pence at 12:30 p.m. in the private dining room. He will participate in a roundtable with “stakeholders positively impacted by law enforcement” at 2 p.m. in the East Room.
PLAYBOOK READS
MICHAEL KRUSE ON MARY TRUMP: “Why the President’s Niece Has Written ‘The Godfather’ of Trump Books”: “Too Much and Never Enough (at least on its own) is not likely to hurt the president politically. (There’s plenty else at this point that’s doing that.) It’s not going to lead immediately to any legal jeopardy he doesn’t already face. It’s almost certainly not going to ‘take Donald down,’ either, as she characterizes her impetus—first, she reveals, by having been foundationally helpful to a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times investigation, then by writing the rest of what she herself has written. But what this book does do is help us understand him, offering the most incisive rendering yet of why he is the way he is.”
ZOSIA WANAT in Rzeszów:“Poland’s Duda secures another 5 years as president: preliminary result”: “Incumbent Andrzej Duda has been reelected for a second term as Polish president, according to unofficial results released Monday morning by the country’s National Electoral Commission, paving the way for continued conflict between Warsaw and Brussels.
“Duda’s win is a victory for the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party that backed him, which now has a clear path to continue controversial reforms of the rule of law, media freedom and abortion in Poland.
“After a tight race and indecisive exit polls, Duda won 51.21 percent of the vote, while his opponent, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski of the Civic Platform party, took 48.79 percent, with 99.97 percent of polling stations reporting. The electoral commission said the votes that are yet to be counted will not affect the final result.”
NYT’S ‘THE LONG RUN’ SERIES … A1 … MATT FLEGENHEIMER: “What Donald Trump’s ‘Access Hollywood’ Weekend Says About 2020”: “Campaign advisers told Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman who was helping with debate preparations inside the team’s hotel suite, that Mr. Trump had to leave for a perfunctory ‘meet and greet.’ They feared that Mr. Priebus would object if he knew the truth: Mr. Trump would be appearing on camera with women who had for years accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct — a brazen attempt to turn the issue of mistreating women back against the Clinton family.
“And those accusers, who had been invited to the debate as surprise Trump guests but had little warning on the fuller itinerary, seemed unsure themselves about what awaited them as they were led into a reception room at the hotel. ‘I had no idea what we were going in there for,’ one of them, Juanita Broaddrick, recalled. ‘But that doesn’t matter. I would do it all again.’
“Before the room’s doors opened to the media and the women were revealed, Stephen K. Bannon, the campaign’s chief executive, shared his vision for the spectacle: ‘They’re going to rub up on you and be crying,’ he remembered telling Mr. Trump. ‘And you’re going to be empathetic.’ Mr. Trump closed his eyes, Mr. Bannon said, tilting his head back ‘like a Roman emperor.’ ‘I love it,’ the future president ruled.
“Four years later, Mr. Trump looks, to all the political world, like a significant underdog again. His advisers concede that if the election were held today, he would lose to Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, most likely by a considerable margin.
“But as the president road-tests a series of scattershot tactics to kick-start his struggling campaign — race-baiting through a national crisis; defending symbols of the Confederacy; denying the objective realities of a pandemic — allies and adversaries say their minds have wandered lately to his lowest moment in 2016, the last time his chances appeared so dire.”
JOSH GERSTEIN: “First federal execution in 17 years back on track”: “The federal government appears to be back on track to conduct its first execution in more than 17 years on Monday after a federal appeals court overturned a lower-court order blocking the event because family members of one victim did not want to travel amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“A three-judge panel of the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously lifted the lower-court injunction Sunday. The appeals judges called the victim’s family members’ suit ‘frivolous’ and said they had no basis to file suit because — although they were invited to attend the execution — they had no right in law or regulations to attend.
“Barring further developments, Daniel Lee, 47, is set to be executed at a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind., on Monday afternoon for the brutal 1996 murder of a family of three in Arkansas as part of a robbery aimed at raising funds for a white supremacist organization.” POLITICO
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Erica Sackin, senior director of comms at Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and Dave Stroup, senior digital strategist at Sierra Club, welcomed their first child, Sebastian Elliott Sackin-Stroup, on Friday at Sibley Hospital. He came in at 6 lbs, 3 oz. Pic
— Alyson Kelly Northrup, associate director for government affairs at the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs and a Kirsten Gillibrand alum, and Jason Northrup, senior manager for test accommodations at Graduate Management Admission Council, recently welcomed Rosalie Frances Northrup. She joins big brother Everett. Pic
BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Josh Dawsey, White House reporter for WaPo,is 3-0. How he got his start in journalism: “I was the editor of my hometown paper in Aynor, S.C., at the age of 17. As a high school senior, I had the job as part-time writer for the paper, writing about town council meetings and high school football games. The editor suddenly quit, and the owners needed someone with 36 hours’ notice to put out the paper. The Aynor Journal is unfortunately no more … but as editor, I wrote and designed the paper and sometimes even delivered it in the back of a pickup truck.” Playbook Q&A
BIRTHDAYS: Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) is 69 … WaPo’s Devlin Barrett is 47 … Joe Lockhart is 61 … Kirk Wagar (h/ts Jon Haber) … Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips … Anne Schroeder (h/t Tim Burger) … Aneesh Chopra … Jill Pike, VP for comms at Vox Media … Bret Swanson … Will Dempster … Celia Fischer … Microsoft’s Kate Frischmann … Amanda Hunter, research and comms director at the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, is 41 … Mike Hais … Heather Larrison … Todd Zwillich … Jen Howard … José Andrés, who’s celebrating with his wife and daughters in Spain, is 51 (h/t Jorge Guajardo) …
… Alex Vogel … Zaina Javaid … POLITICO’s Max Cohen … Julie Eddy Rokala,SVP at Cassidy & Associates … Dan Smith … Brent Appel … Elizabeth Bagley … Grace Van Cleave (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … Barry Posen … Gabby Seay … Ilona Cohen, chief legal officer at Aledade … Antoinette Rangel … Curtis Isakson … Sarah Persitz is 35 … Tony Kornheiser is 72 … Christina Roof … Rebecca Gaghen … Jon McClellan … Keith Ashdown … Dennis Craig II … Patricia Brooks … Cindy Hoffman … Michelle Gaps … Casey Katims … Steve Crawford … Emma Rodriguez … Jennifer Goodman Lilintahl … Cara Mathis
“And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself,'” (Matthew 22:37-39, ESV).
By Michael Farris on Jul 13, 2020 12:29 am
Remember back just a few years ago, when academia and other societal elites told us that there were no moral absolutes. Every person could decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong.
There were even entire school courses built around this premise. One popular program was called Values Clarification.
Academia challenged the idea that education should center on the pursuit of truth since truth was relative and individualistic.
I heard Francis Schaefer speak on one occasion at Notre Dame Law School. He said that pluralism was always a temporary state marking a transition from one orthodoxy to another.
The advocates of relativism wrapped themselves in the mantle of pluralism—back in the day.
The pretense is over. The new orthodoxy has arrived and it intends to purge society of all contrary views.
Facebook and its fact checkers are just the tip of the Progressive Orthodoxy power structure on the hunt for heretics who deviate from their official views.
The cancel culture that seeks to deplatform, destroy, and silence anyone who disagrees with the new orthodoxy manifests itself in a wide array of venues from the boardrooms of mega-corporations to the riots in Seattle.
The new orthodoxy has a checklist of its tenets that cover sexuality, environment, economics, and more. But one thing it does not believe is freedom—especially freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
So what is the Christian response?
Two things.
First, during the “truth is relative/pluralism” era, many Christians were cowered into silence under the theory that we should not force our views on others.
That was an error then and it is a far more obvious error today.
Every citizen should vote based on their values. Christians should vote based on their values. For goodness sake, progressives are voting their values and are willing to hunt down and punish all dissenters.
Vote your values. It’s your right. It’s your duty.
Second, Christian voters need to remember that freedom is a Christian value and it means that we stand for freedom for all faiths and all viewpoints.
Even if we think Progressives are wrong about everything, it is our duty to stand up for their freedom of speech and faith.
Part of the reason that many Christians were confused in the pluralism era arises from the failure to understand the difference between pluralism and freedom.
Pluralism taught that all viewpoints were equally valid.
Freedom taught that all viewpoints have equal rights to be freely expressed.
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President Donald Trump will have lunch with Vice President Mike Pence then participate in a roundtable with people who #BacktheBlue. Keep up with Trump on Our President’s Schedule Page. President Trump’s Itinerary for 7/13/20 – note: this page will be updated during the day if events warrant Keep up with …
Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday he will approve Democrats’ request to invite Robert Mueller to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee after the former special counsel published an op-ed in The Washington Post criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence for Roger Stone. “Apparently Mr. Mueller is …
As a subject matter expert in my field, I understand that people look to me for advice and guidance. Some believe my schooling and experience make my opinions unassailable and substitute my thoughts for their own. Accepting the pronouncements of “experts” is a lazy substitute for critical analysis and reasoned …
We certainly didn’t have to wait long this week for someone in the mainstream media to step in it and embarrass themselves because of their Trump Derangement Syndrome. USA Today decided to fact-check claims that some Trump campaign swag was Nazi because it featured — and I kid you not — an American eagle.
Before we delve into this lunacy about the eagle in question, it should be noted that USA Today is the CNN of newspapers. Just as CNN would have no audience whatsoever if it weren’t being broadcast to people stuck in airport terminals, USA Today wouldn’t have any readership if it weren’t being given away for free in hotels all over the country. Honestly, I rarely read it when I’m on the road and it’s delivered to my hotel room door every weekday.
It’s also rather laughable that the paper was presenting this as a “fact-check.” Trump must be the most fact-checked president in history. Barack Obama enjoyed eight years of a fact-free presidency while never, ever being fact-checked by the swooning MSM.
It’s official, the useful idiots on the Left and never-Trumper clan have simply lost their damned minds. The American eagle on your money is now deemed a cancelable object because President Trump’s campaign store put an eagle on a tee-shirt that they claim, if you squint your eyes and look a thousand yards out there somewhere there’s a Nazi symbol.
The Bald Eagle was chosen as the national symbol back in 1782, so it’s not like all of this snuck up on USA Today. This “fact-check” is indicative of how invested the MSM is in keeping this “all Trump supporters are Nazi racists” false narrative going. Some idiot intern of theirs was probably watching Man in the High Castle, for the twelfth time while trolling the Trump campaign site and decided that the picture of the eagle on the t-shirt was literally Hitler or something.
(AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)
To say that the paper got dragged for this Nazi eagle nonsense on social media would be a monumental understatement. The morons stuck with the original post though. The USA Today Twitter account did issue a hilariously tone-deaf clarification that said, “Worth noting, the eagle is a longtime US symbol, too.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if the social media millennial who wrote that tweet didn’t know that about the eagle until just then.
Twitter stepped up with a lot of eagle awareness help for USA Today. Looks like Granny Boxwine is a Nazi eagle fan too:
PJ Media Deputy Managing Editor Bryan Preston offered this:
As Victoria pointed out in her post, a similar eagle symbol is on our money. The United States Marine Corps also uses an eagle in its logo. Using the USA Today logic, Nazi eagles abound.
The patent absurdity of choosing a graphic of an eagle on a t-shirt to make the Orange Man Bad Nazi pitch would have been laughed off as a pathetic joke at a saner time in American history. What’s sad is that there wasn’t an adult anywhere in any room at USA Today to say, “Hey, maybe this isn’t a good idea.” As long as it’s dumping on Trump, every editor at every major newspaper in America thinks it’s a great idea.
Happy Monday! The past few days have been filled with some incredibly silly news—mostofitrelatedtocannedbeans. We hope you were able to tune it all out and enjoy your weekend like a normal person.
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Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
As of Sunday night, 3,302,695 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States (an increase of 56,770 from yesterday) and 135,176 deaths have been attributed to the virus (an increase of 399 from yesterday), according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, leading to a mortality rate among confirmed cases of 4.1 percent (the true mortality rate is likely much lower, between 0.4 percent and 1.4 percent, but it’s impossible to determine precisely due to incomplete testing regimens). Of 40,282,176 coronavirus tests conducted in the United States (728,781 conducted since yesterday), 8.2 percent have come back positive.
President Trump officially announced he would be commuting the sentence of Roger Stone—one of his longtime friends—who had been convicted of obstructing justice, lying to Congress, and witness tampering in relation to investigations into the 2016 Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. Stone, 67, was facing 40 months in prison for 7 felony convictions.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced on Sunday he will call former special counsel Robert Mueller to testify before Congress. Mueller broke his near yearlong public silence over the weekend with a Washington Post op-ed defending the prosecution of Roger Stone.
China and Iran are reportedly nearing a large-scale economic and military partnership agreement, which would lead to China investing billions of dollars in Iran’s beleaguered economy and involve joint military training exercises and weapons development between the two countries.
President Trump acknowledged in an interview late last week that he authorized a 2018 cyberattack against Russia’s Internet Research Agency.
As a resurgent coronavirus has stalled—and in some cases reversed—reopening efforts in Texas, Joe Biden is gaining on President Trump in the Lone Star state. A new CBS News/YouGov poll has Trump leading by only 1 in the state, while a Dallas Morning News/UT-Tyler survey shows Biden up by 5 points.
Roger Stone Is a Free Man
President Trump commuted the sentence of Roger Stone on Friday night after eleventh-hour pleas from the former Republican operative. Stone had been expected to report to prison this week to serve out his sentence for witness tampering, obstruction, and lying to Congress under oath.
The White House took aim at Robert Mueller’s Russia probe—which initiated the investigation into Stone—to explain the president’s decision, referring to Mueller’s investigation as the “collusion delusion” and leveling accusations against “overzealous prosecutors” and “activist-jurors” involved with Stone’s trial. “Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump presidency,” the statement reads. “[He] is now a free man!”
Mueller defended himself and his special counsel team in a Washington Post op-ed over the weekend. “Russian efforts to interfere in our political system, and the essential question of whether those efforts involved the Trump campaign, required investigation,” he wrote. “We made every decision in Stone’s case, as in all our cases, based solely on the facts and the law and in accordance with the rule of law. The women and men who conducted these investigations and prosecutions acted with the highest integrity. Claims to the contrary are false.”
Five months into our pandemic, we’re back in a place where every day brings a new wave of bad COVID news. The picture is grim whether you’re looking at the nation as a whole or the growing number of individual hotspots. A month ago, we were averaging about 20,000 new COVID cases per day; now that number is 60,000 a day, and still skyrocketing. On Sunday, Florida alone reported more than 15,000 new cases of the disease—the largest single-day spike for any state at any point in the pandemic.
With earlier hopes that the virus would offer a breather over the summer months now thoroughly disabused, the debate is raging again over whether U.S. schools will be able safely to reopen in the fall. It’s an extremely thorny issue for a number of reasons. On the one hand, kids tend to be vectors of infectious spread when clustered together (although the jury is still out on how widely they spread COVID in particular). On the other, keeping schools shut down carries astronomical costs for both kids themselves and their families, not to mention America’s education infrastructure.
A top writer for Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show resigned Friday after a CNN report from Oliver Darcy detailed that the writer had an extensive history of bigoted pseudonymous posts on an internet chat board. The writer, Blake Neff, joined Fox News from The Daily Caller, and quickly solidified a role as a trusted source for Carlson’s commentary and analysis on his top-rated cable news show. “Anything [Carlson is] reading off the teleprompter, the first draft was written by me,” Neff recently toldDartmouth Alumni magazine. Top Fox News execs denounced the “horrific racist, misogynistic and homophobic behavior” reflected in the posts.
On July 4, faculty members at Princeton sent a list of progressive demands to the university’s president, calling on him to “reward the invisible work done by faculty of color with course relief and summer salary,” and “constitute a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication on the part of faculty.” The letter now has hundreds of signatories, but Princeton classics professor Joshua Katz believes most signed not because they agree with all the letters’ demands, but because they agree with some of them and it “felt it was good to act as ‘allies.’” He writes in a piece for Quillette: “Independence of thought is considered the hallmark of academia, but everyone deserves it.”
Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson uploaded several anti-Semitic posts to Instagram last week lauding Louis Farrakhan and quoting Adolf Hitler—albeit inaccurately—as saying that Jews “will extort America” and have a “plan for world domination.” Jackson apologized for not “realiz[ing] what this passage was saying,” and the Eagles fined him, saying that “in order to remain on the team,” Jackson must “commit to supporting his words with actions.” New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, who is Jewish, said he has invited Jackson to the Holocaust and African American History museums so the two could educate one another. In the Detroit Free Press, Mitch Albom explains why words like Jackson’s are so harmful. “DeSean Jackson got his Hitler quote wrong. But here’s one that’s accurate. It comes from Hitler’s autobiography, ‘Mein Kampf,’ which, despite our recent trend of banning offensive works, you can still buy on Amazon: ‘The personification of the devil, as the symbol of all evil, assumes the living shape of the Jew.’ That’s the kind of venom Jewish people have been living with for centuries, before and after Hitler tried to wipe them from the face of the earth.”
Jake Tapper joined Sarah and Steve for the latest episode of The Dispatch Podcast to discuss The Outpost, a new movie based on Tapper’s book about a brutal—and heroic—battle between a small team of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of Taliban fighters at a remote base in Afghanistan.
Many on the religious right often conflate “religious power” with “religious liberty.” David’s latest French Pressargues that there’s an important difference between the two: Americans enjoy more religious liberty than we’ve ever had in our history, David writes, but the declining political power of conservative white Protestants has given them the impression that they’re losing the battle.
Conservatives spend a lot of time talking about the anti-Americanism of some segments on the left. But as Jonah writes in his latest G-File, many members of the intellectual right’s ascendant “post-liberal” faction are similarly opposed to America’s founding principles.
The latest Ruminantfeatures a solo Jonah discussing language, the contemporary philosophical debates within the conservative movement, and whether or not the term “Eskimo” is still politically correct.
On the site today, Brad Polumbo talks to international students who are navigating a very difficult situation in the wake of the Trump administration’s announcement that it will extend visas for those whose schools do not offer in-person instruction.
Cancel culture is just the latest incarnation of public shaming, a trend that dates back at least to the days of people being put in the stocks or forced into public labor. Christian Schneider explains why it’s not going away, either.
William Jacobson: “Democrats’ November Strategy: Worry, Don’t Be Happy — Rebounding economic numbers are likely to be off the charts come the fall. So the media and Democrats need to create the perception of failure.”
Kemberlee Kaye: “Spent a few days with family. It was wild and chaotic (with 4 kids under 4), but it was so much fun and exactly what we all needed. It’s the stuff that really matters.”
Mary Chastain: “You can no longer throw out food scraps in Vermont. The state is forcing everyone to compost. It’s not just coffee grounds, veggies, and fruit. It’s ALL food scraps. What the heck?! I compost because I want to. I hate mandates like this.”
Vijeta Uniyal: “Turkey’s President Erdogan rebuked Western countries for ‘Islamophobia’ in response to growing criticism of his decision to turn the historic Hagia Sophia cathedral into a mosque. “Those who do not take a step against Islamophobia in their own countries … attack Turkey’s will to use its sovereign rights,” Erdogan said on Saturday.”
David Gerstman: “Ever hear Palestinians (or Muslims, generally) stoking outrage over Israel’s presence in Al Quds? Well, Al Quds is short for Baitul Maqdis. But the latter term is a corruption of Beit Hamikdash, the Hebrew term meaning Holy Temple. This is something to remember, when you read that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to turn Byzantine-era monument Hagia Sophia and accuses his critics of Islamophobia. And, yes, Erdogan declared that converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque is the first step in “the liberation of the Al-Aqsa mosque,” which is located on the ruins of the Jewish Temple.”
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“Today, the nostrum goes, it is not enough for Americans to be not racist. They must be “anti-racist.” … What, pray tell, is the difference between being against racism and being anti-racist?….”
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The Case for Optimism Even If We All Feel Like Screaming Inside Our Masks Despite a recent Gallup poll showing Americans believe the pandemic is getting worse (68% say worse, 18% say better), the stock market sees some hope in the current economic situation. It’s partially because the doom and gloom scenario sold by the media hasn’t panned out like they may have hoped. Even media outlets on the Left like the New York Times and The Atlantic are finally reporting that while testing, and therefore cases, are up, deaths are down.
Regarding optimism on the economy, Forbes reports:
“First, employment has increased a lot more than anticipated. For example, while nonfarm payrolls were suppose to only increase by 2.9 million in June, they actually increased by 4.8 million.”
…
Second, hospitals are no where near as crowded and overwhelmed now, relative to the peek in April, although some media outlets have offered a different perspective. Thanks to a significant amount of work by the White House to coordinate the delivery of personal protective equipment (PPE) and strengthen supply chains, hospitals are more prepared to accommodate an influx of patients. If that were not the case, then hospitals would be refusing elective surgeries.
…
A huge part of the way that people form expectations about the economy is through personal experience. So, if everything is closed, as it was in April and much of May, then people are naturally going to be more afraid. But, as the economy began opening up, people begin getting use to the new federal and state guidelines, allowing optimism to return to trend.”
SC Police Chief On Going Into Black Communities for Recruiting North Charleston, South Carolina Police Chief Reggie Burgess was interviewed over the weekend about his thoughts on bridging the diversity gap in police hiring. From FoxNews.com:
“North Charleston Police Chief Reggie Burgess told “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Sunday that in order to recruit officers with diverse backgrounds, departments have to go into the community and look potential recruits “in the eye.”“You can’t do it from a computer at the office, you can’t do it on the television, you have to go to those folks and try to attract them and speak to them one on one and that’s what we are trying to do,” Burgess explained.
…
“This city is everything that I know and what I’m looking to do is really try to look at the community and see exactly how we can work better to serve the community.”
He said when he speaks with members of the community, “one of the things they say is that in our very diverse community they would like to see the police department look more diverse.”
“And so we went out really, really hard, going to areas where knowingly law enforcement was not really wanted or law enforcement don’t really think that we’ll be accepted and we went into those areas, and really, really attracted a lot of applicants,” Burgess continued.
He added that he found out “a lot of folks want to get into law enforcement.”
Burgess stressed the importance of going out into the community and talking to people face-to-face.”
What I’m Reading This Week
The neighborhood pool is finally open and this book sounds like it will be the perfect poolside read. From the description of 28 Summers by Elin Hilderbrand:
“When Mallory Blessing’s son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he’s not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It’s the late spring of 2020 and Jake’s wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election.
There must be a mistake, Link thinks. How do Mallory and Jake know each other?
Flash back to the sweet summer of 1993: Mallory has just inherited a beachfront cottage on Nantucket from her aunt, and she agrees to host her brother’s bachelor party. Cooper’s friend from college, Jake McCloud, attends, and Jake and Mallory form a bond that will persevere – through marriage, children, and Ursula’s stratospheric political rise – until Mallory learns she’s dying.
Based on the classic film Same Time Next Year (which Mallory and Jake watch every summer), 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair and the dramatic ways this relationship complicates and enriches their lives, and the lives of the people they love.”
A Case of the Mondays
Nursing home that has been in lockdown for four months recreates album covers with residents (Twitter)
I LOVE this little girl discovering punk music (Twitter)
A big dog with an even bigger heart comforts Missouri soldiers (NBC KSDK)
With several fabulous Independence Day outfits, I couldn’t confine them all to just last week. At the White House celebration last weekend, the First Lady didn’t disappoint in the accessories department. From John Binder’s Fashion Notes:
“The Alaïa belt is from the famed designer’s famed 1992 Spring/Summer Ready-to-Wear collection, where it was featured in black leather and a wider version was featured in red. The belt is a piece of fashion history that the most well-connected couture collectors are unable to get their hands on.Online, only one of the belts can be found on the second-hand luxury fashion site 1stDibs.com — retailing for nearly $600.
Loyal Fashion Notes readers will know that Mrs. Trump is quite fond of the clingy cuts of Alaïa’s dresses and the cinched, old-world look of the label’s leather belts. In 2017, Mrs. Trump wore a tan Alaïa leather belt to visit the Great Wall of China and this year, she wore the white version of the belt to the Daytona 500.”
Mondays with Melania is a weekly feature that highlights what the First Lady is doing and wearing.
Note: By using some of the links above, Bright may be compensated through the Amazon Affiliate program and Magic Links. However, none of this content is sponsored and all opinions are our own.
Jul 13, 2020 01:00 am
If Democrats regain power, they will change the rules so that they never lose again. The NeverTrump ‘Republicans’ support this. Read More…
Jul 13, 2020 01:00 am
While some organizers of the ‘Lincoln’ Project may still belong to the Republican party, there is nothing “conservative” about them. Read More…
Jul 13, 2020 01:00 am
In May 2020, I graduated with a journalism degree from a liberal university in a mostly liberal northern Arizona city. I feel cheated. Read More…
Jul 13, 2020 01:00 am
Thomas Sowell’s books sell, and he boasts a global following, but the left works hard to keep his voice out of the mainstream and out of higher education. Read More…
#BuycottGoya
Jul 13, 2020 01:00 am
Diverse, pluralistic, and multicultural buyers of all backgrounds, demographics, ethnicitys, religions, locations and ages have decided to buycott Goya. Read more…
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt suggested Friday that St. Louis attorneys Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple who went viral for defending their property from an encroaching mob, are being politically targeted. On Friday, law enforcement … Read more
According to the left, men’s fears of men are valid, but women’s fears of men are bigotry. When gender identity wins, women always lose. It’s time for the rules to change.
Despite recent polls showing Joe Biden with a commanding lead over Donald Trump, a new shock poll reveals Americans aren’t quite as eager to hand over their freedom as it has appeared.
The New York Times smears religious Americans as a ‘major source’ of COVID outbreaks even as church-related infections represent only 0.02 percent of cases.
Hospitals in every community who begged, nay, demanded that their local economies self-immolate on pain of state enforcement owe their communities both data and money.
In the latest illustration that Trump Derangement Syndrome has broken legacy media, USA Today accused the Trump campaign of using Nazi imagery for an eagle picture on a T-shirt.
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Portland, Oregon, is a city that is crumbling under the weight of inaction. Mayor Ted Wheeler and Governor Kate Brown have abdicated their governance over the city, forcing local law enforcement to stand down on just about every issue. Meanwhile, federal law enforcement has been ordered by the White House to protect federal property to local law enforcement’s chagrin. But can they really blame them?
“Protesters” with Antifa black bloc and Black Lives Matter rule the streets at night, particularly around federal buildings that are vulnerable to attacks. As journalist Andy Ngo has reported from the beginning, standing down to “deescalate” the situation on the local government’s orders has yielded a state of anarchy. A daily visit to his Twitter feed reveals just how bad it is, and that may be the only place to find real information as mainstream media seems to be in a perpetual yawning state regarding the city under siege.
Antifa are trying to set the federal courthouse on fire again. This is why federal law enforcement were deployed to protect it. Portland city officials would allow it to burn down to appease mob. #PortlandRiotspic.twitter.com/HTai3U7N4F
Antifa harass and assault person filming them at the public gathering in Portland. On social media they have released names and photos of non-approved media & cameramen. Recently they beat & robbed a livestreamer. Video by @livesmattershowpic.twitter.com/ijqzf3Fwsu
Armed with melee weapons, Portland antifa black bloc militants are calling for federal law enforcement to come out so they can fight. LE have noticeably scaled back presence after being criticized for being too responsive at yesterday’s riot. pic.twitter.com/psL4yPSR0K
This is the lawlessness that repeats every night as antifa and BLM militants claim control of downtown Portland. They confront an elderly man with a bicycle and say he’s not allowed in the area. Video by @livesmattershowpic.twitter.com/10cgQRanhu
Keep in mind, these Tweets aren’t accumulated over a week or even a day. This is two hours worth of reporting on the devastation taking place under mainstream media’s noses. As JD and Tammy discussed on the latest episode of the NOQ Report Podcast, the blame for this squarely lands on the shoulders of Mayor Wheeler and Governor Brown.
The President has become an easy target for these radical Democrats because with so much going on in the world, media is barely covering the truth in Portland. The feckless leadership at City Hall is drawing zero confidence from the Portland Police Union who voted as such last week, but even that has been buried by media. However, the Mayor’s and Governor’s quotes following an incident when a “protester” was hit in the head with a rubber bullet has received widespread coverage.
At this point, it behooves the President to announce he is pulling out of Portland and letting local law enforcement handle it until their presence is requested. This would be a political hit against him as an American city burns, but at some point this radical leftist mayor and governor must do the right thing on their own. It is always sad to allow an American city to get overrun or American citizens to be victimized, but local law enforcement will not be given the green light to end it appropriately until federal law enforcement is out of the way. Otherwise, this will be prolonged indefinitely.
The anarcho-communist revolution is starting as we speak in Portland. This is far worse than Minneapolis, worse than “The CHOP.” It has been planned for years and that plan is being executed. Few other than Andy Ngo are paying appropriate attention.
Join fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
A few Tweets hit my desk this afternoon pointing to racial justice and Trump Derangement Syndrome by two employees at Twitter. By themselves, there’s not much to go on. In a company that size, anecdotal examples doesn’t paint a complete picture. So, I reached out to an old friend who has worked at Twitter for a while. He didn’t want his name or location used, not necessarily out of fear of retribution but simply over the headache of being “outed” as a conservative. According to “Billy,” the few outspoken conservatives at his office are generally scorned and engage in more debates than he’s willing to have.
The Tweets that prompted my inquiry came from two employees at Twitter, Chris Klotzbach in Product Marketing and Product Designer Ashleigh Kaneski. Parler user Nick Monroe posted screenshots of one Tweet that appears to be deleted, but throughout these and other Twitter employees’ Tweets we see a penchant for racial justice and a near-universal disgust for President Trump.
If you still think Trump isn’t racist when he is hosting a rally on the holiday that commemorates the ending of slavery in a town that experienced the single worst incident of racial violence in this country’s history you are the problem. Period.
Expressing political opinions is allowed on Twitter by employees, so there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing from an employment perspective. But considering how embroiled Twitter has been in recent weeks with accusations coming from as high as the White House regarding the social network’s bias, one would think the rhetoric among its employees would be subdued. And as “Billy” said, you’d never see a Twitter employee espousing conservative tenets on the site. So I asked him how he’s able to find other conservatives.
“I remember the old days when I would smoke weed and you could meet someone and just tell they were a smoker,” ‘Billy’ said. “I think the same thing happens at Twitter with conservatives. There are so few of us, it’s sort of easy to spot one if you know what to look for.”
Politics comes up almost as often as work-related tech issues, “Billy” told me. He said it’s during these discussions that he’s been able to identify potential conservatives in the mix, though he said there are likely many times more progressives than conservatives. Some are open with their politics but most just avoid the topic. I asked him what signs he looks for that someone is a closet conservative.
“A half-hearted laugh at a joke about Trump, which is pretty constant, or maybe a military tattoo or something,” he said. “It’s hard to spot but I’ve found a few. And by a few I mean it’s like one out of a hundred.”
Where he lives, the city is generally left-leaning, though not as bad as San Francisco or Seattle. I asked him whether he is part of some conservative club that has secret meetings or goes bowling together after work.
“We don’t talk about it, even when we’re alone. It’s pretty sad, really, and it’s not out of fear but futility,” he said. “I promise you, man, if the money wasn’t so good I’d leave in a heartbeat but where does a backend software engineer go where the politics are a match?”
“Billy,” who does not work at Twitter headquarters, told me how much he makes, and it’s significant. And therein lies one of the differences between conservatives and leftists. He has thick skin, so being surrounded by progressives doesn’t get him down. He said he enjoys the overall atmosphere and even has friends he works with, though none of them are among the few conservatives he met. He doesn’t judge them. He just lets them espouse their ideas and generally plays the role of being apolitical.
One circumstance that risks exposing his political leanings is when discussions occur, jokingly or not, about influencing Tweets. Apparently, Twitter has ways through which certain employees can “amplify” or “suppress” Tweets based on the whims of the workers. He said it’s not easy and requires access to very specific employees, but Tweets that do not break Terms of Service but that seem questionable in the eyes of the employees can be escalated to have the reach of the Tweet manipulated. Invariably, it’s right-leaning Tweets that get the “silent suppression treatment,” as “Billy” put it.
During such discussions, “Billy” attempts to dissuade his colleagues for the sake of being unbiased while trying not to seem sympathetic to conservative causes. He said they love to target Hollywood conservatives the most. “I’ve seen them suppress James Woods, Buffy (Kristy Swanson), and Superman (Dean Cain). It’s hard to stop them when they have a star in their sights.”
“Billy” declined to put me in contact with other conservatives at the company. Normally, I like two sources for every story but I’ve known “Billy” long enough that I see no reason to doubt his word. After all, it’s just his opinion, but judging by actions taken by Twitter since 2016, there’s no reason to think his tail is untrue.
Twitter employees are generally leftist, and while they claim to be unbiased, our insider says that’s not the case. With the 2020 election ramping up, one has to wonder how bad the site’s going to get before November.
Join fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
There’s a concerted effort by progressives, mostly Caucasian, to label all Latinos and Latinas as “Latinx.” The accepted way of referring to people of Latin descent is “Latino,” but because it’s a gender-based word referring to males of Latin descent, radical leftists have been offended by it. Many powerful progressives, including people like Senator Elizabeth Warren, have made a point to refer to them as Latinx instead. This seems to be acceptable to most leftists other than, well, those of Latin descent themselves.
While my colleagues and I are progressive on social issues, as researchers, we have to put aside our personal biases and render advice based on the best available empirical evidence. To examine the acceptance of “Latinx” our firm conducted a nationwide poll of Latinos using a 508-person sample that is demographically representative of Census figures, yielding a ± 5% margin of error with a 95% confidence interval.
We presented our respondents with seven of the most common terms used to describe Latinos and asked them to select the one that best describes them. When it came to “Latinx,” there was near unanimity. Despite its usage by academics and cultural influencers, 98% of Latinos prefer other terms to describe their ethnicity. Only 2% of our respondents said the label accurately describes them, making it the least popular ethnic label among Latinos.
As is often the case, White social justice warriors felt outrage about the treatment of an intersectional group that the group itself didn’t feel. These progressives aren’t trying to end bigotry. They’re just looking for causes without a clue.
Join fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
We already have socialism in America. That was the shocking part of Maximo Alvarez’s comments at the White House last week. But he followed it up with a very good explanation. By his reckoning, we already have the safety nets and cultural protections necessary to make sure people are fed, housed, and protected. When radical leftists talk about socialism, they’re really referring to communism, according to the Cuban-American immigrant who is now CEO of Sunshine Gasoline.
He heaped praise on President Trump and the United States for bringing such prosperity to the world. He also noted the false narrative that things are so bad here is being echoed by “useful idiots” protesting and rioting across America. If they knew what things were like elsewhere in the world, they wouldn’t be so fast to complain about America. Their attempts to change this nation to something more akin to communist Cuba or “socialist” Venezuela is idiotic, Alvarez claimed.
In this episode of Non-Compliant America, JD took a different approach. Instead of highlighting the various needs to oppose government mandates, he turned his attention to the useful idiots who are trying to change America from within. As he noted in an article yesterday, the radical left wants to burn this nation down. It’s imperative that we stop them from achieving their goals.
People like Maximo Alvarez who support President Trump and are grateful for the opportunities he found in America should be the example everyone looks to for inspiration. The Sunshine Gasoline CEO is the American Dream personified.
Join fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
The timing was suspicious. Facebook, the social networking giant that has attempted in vane to toe the line between being “woke” and staying out of the political discussion, deplatformed Trump confidant Roger Stone days before his sentence was commuted by the President. Most who were paying attention knew the President was going to do it based on his constant reminders in recent weeks that he disagreed with the sentencing and conviction of his long-time friend. Was it a coincidence that Facebook took Stone down on their platform just before the commutation?
Coincidence or not, Stone took to Parler today to express his extreme discontent for the site.
“Facebook deplatformed me based on a bogus report from the left-wing ‘research group’ ‘GRAPHIKA’.
“When it comes to truth or accuracy; Graphika’s report on my social media activities makes the Steele Dossier look like the Bible. I have never owned a ‘fake’ FB page in any other person’s name or in the name of a fictitious person. I have never owned/controlled a FB page for a political organization that was not genuine. Deplatforming real people who shared posts or posted messages in support of me is outrageous censorship. Who says that Graphika or Facebook gets to decide what is ‘true’ & what is ‘false’?
“I’ve certainly used my personal FB pages & my Instagram page to pushback against the totally false ‘Russian collusion’ narrative. This report is about 80% false, and the 20% that is accurate is misrepresented as somehow being nefarious or deceptive. I have no choice but to bring a lawsuit VS these hucksters who are the same conmen who formulated the phony ‘Russian-troll-farm’ narrative.”
It is not clear whether Stone intends to sue Facebook as well, but he certainly seems poised to sue Graphika, a social network analysis firm that tracks influence campaigns and ties together accounts, groups, and pages through their proprietary model. But the challenge they and similar companies face is distinguishing between inorganic networks controlled by single parties and organic networks of like-minded profiles, groups, and page owners.
Leftists reacted negatively to the news of Stone’s commutation, but this seems to be the only tangible blowback. If they can’t jail him, they’ll deplatform him and go after the President’s pardoning powers.
IF YOU BELIEVE THIS YOU MAY BE A MORON,,,,Pelosi: Trump‘s Roger Stone Commutation a ‘Threat to Our National Security‘ https://t.co/ukrEJ6aLbT via @BreitbartNews
In total, those behind the pages spent about $308,000 on Facebook advertising.
Facebook said several of the inauthentic pages had links to Proud Boys, a white-supremacist hate group it had banned in 2018.
“Roger Stone’s personal accounts and his branded assets will be coming down as part of this network,” said Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook’s head of cyber-security policy. “We saw them deeply enmeshed in the activities here.”
Mr Stone told a New York Times reporter: “I have never owned or controlled any fake Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts.”
Here’s the bigger challenge, and it’s a glaring one. Big Tech companies have been engaged in purging their platforms since the 2016 election. It cannot be a coincidence that the vast majority of those purged have been right-leaning people or organizations. These alleged social media promotion tactics are not isolated to conservative personalities. On a personal note, my time as an executive with a social media marketing company prior to the 2016 election was quite revealing. Of the political organizations and campaigns that inquired about questionable promotion techniques, a strong majority were left-leaning. It was significant enough for our CEO, a conservative, to consider dropping political campaigns altogether.
Deplatforming is a powerful tool for censorship and narrative suppression. We can expect more of this to happen over the next three months as Big Tech puts its fingers on the scales to help Democrats win elections.
Join fellow patriots as we form a grassroots movement to advance the cause of conservatism. The coronavirus crisis has prompted many, even some conservatives, to promote authoritarianism. It’s understandable to some extent now, but it must not be allowed to embed itself in American life. We currently have 8000+ patriots with us in a very short time. If you are interested, please join us to receive updates.
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Almost every people’s democracy, which used to fill Eastern Europe, faced that embarrassing moment when workers dramatically demonstrated that they lacked appropriate appreciation for the many sacrifices made on their behalf by their Commie betters. At which point the only solution for the saviors of mankind was to send in the military, usually courtesy the lead workers’ paradise, the Soviet Union.
Since 1943 the American Association of Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS) has represented healthcare providers throughout the United States. Its motto is “omnia pro aegroto” (“everything for the patient”).
About a dozen Army bases are named for Confederate generals including Robert E. Lee, Braxton Bragg, John Bell Hood, and A.P. Hill. That fact enrages the professionally offended. The “woke” crowd — which ranges from congressional Democrats to the Black Lives Matter movement and the Antifa thugs — is demanding that those names be erased not only as the names of bases but from American history.
I have a few items on my mind that perhaps, on their own, don’t merit a full examination in an entire American Spectator column. Perhaps they don’t merit an entry in one of the frequent Five Quick Things columns which appear in this space. But, my thought is, they also do not merit thorough insouciance. So, here they are.
There is unbridled outrage by the political left and their media partners over President Donald Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s prison sentence. No matter what one thinks of the commutation, Trump’s executive clemency decision pales in comparison to the final two years of Bill Clinton’s presidency.
If we’re looking for an example of heartlessness from the political class, there are few better examples than California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s Twitter response to moderate-income freelance workers who lost their jobs because of her law restricting companies from using contract labor. Even during the coronavirus stay-at-home orders, where a suspension of the law would help desperate people make ends meet working at home and enable contract drivers to provide much-needed home deliveries, Gonzalez largely doubled down on her support for the law.
Every time I walk out of a good superhero movie, I feel the same way. I experience a sense of longing, realizing that life should be more than just doing the dishes, going to work, and doing the dishes again. It seems silly to say, but as I step down the stairs, throw away my popcorn, and head back to my car, I walk a little differently, striding as though something important lies ahead.us wrong.
Florida breaks 1-day record as coronavirus cases soar across the South and West: As the novel coronavirus continues to sweep across the U.S., the Florida Department of Health reported 15,300 new cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, making it the highest one-day total for a state in the U.S. since the pandemic began. In South Carolina, the percentage of positive COVID-19 tests reached 22.3% — the highest in the last 28 days. And 2,537 positive cases were recorded in Arizona on Saturday. While the increase in new cases could be attributed to the amount of tests being conducted, some states have linked the uptick in cases to parties. More than a week after Fourth of July celebrations, several people who attended a large gathering at the popular Torch Lake sandbar near Rapid City, Michigan, have tested positive for COVID-19, according to health officials. Now, the state’s health department is urging attendees to monitor for signs and symptoms of coronavirus and to seek testing. Meanwhile, several staffers of former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign slammed President Donald Trump for “politicizing” mask-wearing. According to Biden’s staffers, Trump, who wore a face covering for the first time in public on Saturday during a visit to Walter Reed Medical Center, has constantly ignored the advice of medical experts and mocked Biden for wearing a mask in May during his visit to a war memorial. Get the latest mobile updates about the coronavirus here.
Their painful bond: Black mothers speak out together on their unimaginable loss: When George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police in an incident captured on cellphone video, it galvanized the nation in a discussion about race and policing. It also laid bare the pain of so many in the Black community. But Floyd was only one in a disturbing and inequitable pattern of Black lives lost at the hands of law enforcement and in racially charged incidents across the nation. Before Floyd, there was Breonna Taylor, Antwon Rose, Botham Jean, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin — all killed by police, or in Martin’s case, neighborhood watch, within the past several years. And in February, the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery by two white men while he was jogging in Glynn County, Georgia, sparked weeks of protests. The list goes on of Black lives taken from their communities, their families and of course, their mothers. For the first time, the mothers of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Botham Jean, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Antwon Rose and Trayvon Martin, came together for a conversation with ABC News’ Deborah Roberts for “GMA” to discuss their shared bond in mourning, and their journeys and sacrifices as Black mothers in America. “We are never going to recover from this,” Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin said. “We live it every day. We carry the pain every single day.” Read their personal essays and watch their full conversation here.
Madeline Swegle makes history as US Navy’s 1st Black female fighter pilot: The U.S. Navy celebrated a historic moment last week as it announced Lt. j.g. Madeline Swegle would become its first Black female tactical fighter pilot. Swegle, who has already earned her wings as a U.S. Navy fighter pilot, will receive her “Wings of Gold” in late July, according to a tweet posted on Thursday by the chief of naval air training. Pioneering athlete Billie Jean King, Sen. Kamala Harris and former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly were among those who congratulated Swegle. The announcement comes more than four decades after women first received their wings in the Navy. Capt. Rosemary B. Mariner, the first woman to command an operational naval aviation squadron, earned her wings in 1974, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command website. And in 1980, Brenda Robinson became the first African American female graduate from the Navy’s Aviation Officer Candidate School.
This 7-year-old is helping Chicago’s homeless mask up: At just 7 years old, Olivia Tyler is on a mission to protect Chicago’s homeless from COVID-19. In April, after hearing of a statewide order requiring face coverings in public places, the rising third-grader asked, “How are homeless people going to get masks? How are they going to afford them?” according to her mom, Linda Tyler. The pair went out and bought facial coverings in bulk then sold a few online to members of their local community for $5. With each sale, Olivia donated another mask to people on the streets. To date, she has donated more than 800 masks, walking through tent cities and encampments for personal deliveries with her mom and dad. “She is a stickler about doing it herself,” dad Andrew Tyler said. “She wants to be on the street or in the parking lot, giving them out personally.” With the help of her parents, Olivia has also launched a nonprofit, since the family realized lots of neighbors and friends wanted to pitch in. “It makes me feel happy to give people something that protects them from getting sick,” Olivia said.
GMA Must-Watch
This morning on “GMA,” Brett Eldredge joins us to perform his song, “Good Day.” Plus, Luke Bryan talks about the CMA Best of Fest, which will showcase the most memorable CMA performances from the last 16 years. And Dr. Jennifer Ashton joins us live to discuss the FDA’s new list of toxic hand sanitizers and what to watch out for when trying to sanitize. All this and more only on “GMA.”
The White House is trying to undercut Dr. Anthony Fauci as he speaks out about the surge of coronavirus infections, more backlash over President Donald Trump’s commutation of Roger Stone’s sentence and a well-known actress lost her battle with breast cancer.
Here’s what we’re watching this Monday morning.
As coronavirus pandemic surges, White House seeks to discredit Fauci
President Trump is actively working to marginalize the renowned immunologist and his dire warningsabout the shortcomings of the U.S. coronavirus response.
In a remarkable broadside by the Trump administration against one of its own, a White House official said Sunday that “several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things.” The official gave NBC News a list of nearly a dozen past comments by Fauci that the official said had ultimately proven erroneous.
The list includes statements made in January when Fauci predicted the coronavirus was not a major threat, which was considered accurate at the time.
The attacks on Fauci come as Trump continues to downplay the pandemic, despite the growing infection rate.
Florida on Sunday reported over 15,000 new cases, the most any state has reported in a single day since the pandemic began. The U.S. on Friday also surpassed70,000 new coronavirus cases nationwide for the first time.
Here are some other developments:
Trump wore a mask in a public setting on Saturday for the first timesince the coronavirus pandemic struck the nation in March.
In his op-ed, Mueller wrote that “Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”
Trump’s move to commute Stone’s sentence late on Friday night just before Stone was set to report to prison, sparked backlash from Democrats and a small number of Republicans.
“The president through this commutation is basically saying if you lie for me, if you cover up for me, if you have my back, then I will make sure that you get a get-out-of-jail-free card,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Stone, Trump’s longtime friend and adviser, was days away from having to surrender to a federal prison. He was sentenced in February to 40 months in prison for lying to Congress. (Photo: Joe Skipper/ Reuters)
Actress Kelly Preston dies after cancer battle
Actress Kelly Preston died on Sunday after a two-year battle with breast cancer, her husband John Travolta confirmed in an Instagram post. She was 57.
“It is with a very heavy heart that I inform you that my beautiful wife Kelly has lost her two-year battle with breast cancer,” Travolta wrote.
The couple had one of Hollywood’s longest-lasting marriages, celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary last year.
“She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many,” Preston’s husband John Travolta wrote on Instagram.
Do children spread coronavirus? What doctors say about going back to school
Trump is pressing state and local officials to reopen schools this fall, despite the number of COVID-19 cases growing across the country.
Evidence suggests that children are not as susceptible as adults to COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
But this doesn’t mean classrooms can be exempt from social distancing and other safety precautions, particularly if schools intend to welcome kids back on site in less than two months.
Meantime, for some parents,day care feels risky. For others, reopening couldn’t come sooner.
Fathers show love for their little girls in all kinds of ways. Sometimes it’s with a father-daughter pirouette.
One unconventional Philadelphia dance studio had reimagined the beauty of ballet with a class that combines ballet and yoga for dads and daughters to learn together.
With the coronavirus pandemic, the classes that were formerly held in a studio have moved online. But with a living room and Zoom, the father-daughter pairs are still making magic happen.
If you have any comments — likes, dislikes — drop me an email at: petra@nbcuni.com
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Thanks, Petra Cahill
NBC FIRST READ
From NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Carrie Dann and Melissa Holzberg
FIRST READ: No hoax: How the Russia investigation remains one of Trump’s biggest scandals
The Russia investigation, which began this summer four years ago, is back in the news – with President Trump on Friday commuting Roger Stone’s prison sentence, with Robert Mueller’s op-ed defending Stone’s prosecution, and even with Jeff Sessions’ Senate runoff tomorrow in Alabama.
And despite everything that’s happened since Mueller concluded his probe in early 2019 (including Trump’s impeachment over Ukraine and the coronavirus pandemic), that investigation remains one of the biggest political scandals in generations.
2. Trump and his campaign got that help – in a contest decided by fewer than 80,000 votes in three states. (“Boy, I love reading those WikiLeaks.”)
3. Roger Stone lied about his contacts with Russian intelligence and WikiLeaks. (“He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks’ releases,” Mueller wrote in his op-ed.)
4. The president commuted Stone’s prison sentence, despite White House aides disagreeing with the move. (“Roger Stone is a victim of the Russia Hoax that the Left and its allies in the media perpetuated for years in an attempt to undermine the Trump Presidency,” the White House said on Friday.)
5. And Stone admitted his objective was protecting Trump. (“[Trump] knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didn’t,” Stone told journalist Howard Fineman before his sentence was commuted.)
Yes, some of the liberal theories about Russia investigation never came to pass (Michael Cohen didn’t travel to Prague; that “pee tape” appears to be fantasy).
And, yes, Mueller concluded that his investigation didn’t establish “that that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” (Though note he said “Russian government” and not intermediaries like WikiLeaks.)
But what DID happen was a bigger scandal – involving a foreign adversary – than we can remember for any recent administration or major presidential campaign.
“That president accepted the help. When caught, the private citizen lied. When the private citizen was punished, the president commuted his sentence.”
The Trump White House vs. Fauci
It’s now come to this: The Trump White House is dropping oppo on Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“In a remarkable broadside by the Trump administration against one of its own, a White House official said Sunday that ‘several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things.’ The official gave NBC News a list of nearly a dozen past comments by Fauci that the official said had ultimately proven erroneous,” NBC’s Josh Lederman and Kelly O’Donnell report.
“Among them: Fauci’s comments in January that the coronavirus was ‘not a major threat’ and his guidance in March that ‘people should not be walking around with masks.’”
But if we’re recalling months-old statements about the coronavirus, don’t forget this February tweet from President Trump: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
Or how about Trump retweeting a game-show host on the coronavirus?
By the way, here were the fav/unfav numbers for Trump and Fauci in the June NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll:
136,046: The number of deaths in the United States from the virus so far. (That’s 1,982 more than Friday morning.)
40.28 million: The number of coronavirus TESTS that have been administered in the United States so far, according to researchers at The COVID Tracking Project.
15,299: The number of new cases reported Sunday in Florida, shattering state-by-state daily records.
TWEET OF THE DAY: Hail to the new nickname
2020 VISION: Team Tuberville outspends Sessions
Tomorrow is the Senate runoff between Republicans Tommy Tuberville and Jeff Sessions.
And NBC’s Ben Kamisar breaks down the ad spending in the contest.
Through today, Tuberville’s campaign has spent $872,000 on the TV and radio airwaves, while the Club for Growth (which has endorsed the former college football coach) has spent another $692,000 according to Advertising Analytics.
Meanwhile, the Sessions camp has spent $760,000.
It’s similar to the trend we saw in the first round of the primary, when Tuberville led the ad-spending pack. But now it’s crunch time, with the winner punching a ticket to run against Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in the most favorable, offensive opportunity Republicans have this cycle.
Team Sessions is throwing the oppo book against the wall, dropping new ads in recent weeks highlighting a recent New York Times story that detailed some negative headlines from Tubverville’s time in hedge funds, as well as a spot that takes a swipe at Tuberville’s coaching record.
But the question is: Will that be enough to defeat Tuberville, who has been trumpeting President Trump’s endorsement and echoing the president’s criticism of Sessions over his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation?
Lindsey Graham calls for Mueller to testify (again)
The Mueller investigation has been over for quite a long time, but Robert Mueller’s time on Capitol Hill seems to be continuing.
After Mueller defended his investigation and Roger Stone’s conviction in a Washington Post op-ed on Saturday, Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham will be calling for Mueller to testify in front of the committee – a request that Democrats made in the midst of the Mueller report.
Originally, Graham had denied that request.
“Apparently Mr. Mueller is willing – and also capable – of defending the Mueller investigation through an oped in the Washington Post,” Graham tweeted on Sunday. “Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have previously requested Mr. Mueller appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about his investigation. That request will be granted.”
Mueller’s op-ed came after the president commuted Stone’s sentence over the weekend. Graham defended that commutation as well, tweeting, “In my view it would be justified if President @realDonaldTrump decided to commute Roger Stone’s prison sentence.”
Don’t miss the pod from Friday, when we looked at whether Trump can still mount a comeback in the 2020 race – or whether he’s crossed the point of no return.
Coronavirus cases are surging nationwide, but Florida has shattered the record for new single-day COVID-19 infections. Also, at least 21 people were hurt after a Navy ship caught fire while under maintenance at Naval Base San Diego. All that and all that matters in today’s Eye Opener. Your world in 90 seconds.
Watch Video +
Florida breaks U.S. record for single-day COVID-19 cases
Watch Video +
Arizona’s surge in virus cases has been “the worst” in the U.S.
Read Story +
DOJ’s overhaul of police reform initiative was “a punch in the gut”
Read Story +
Countries abroad allow kids back to class and have mixed results
Watch Video +
CBS News Battleground Tracker finds Biden ahead of or close to Trump in 3 key states
“With COVID-19 still wreaking economic havoc, both parties want to enact a new federal rescue package before they face voters in the fall. But Congress and the White House must avoid the mistakes they made in the $2 trillion CARES Act, enacted in March.”
By Nicole Gelinas New York Post
July 13, 2020
Join the Manhattan Institute’s Nicole Gelinas later today for a conversation with Janno Lieber, the MTA’s Chief Development Officer and President of MTA Construction & Development, on the state of the agency’s infrastructure projects and the future of its long-term capital projects.
CBS Sunday Morning profiles Community Renewal International in Shreveport, Louisiana, including founder Mack McCarter (2005 Social Entrepreneurship Award winner) and community coordinators Emmitt and Sharpel Welch (2019 Civil Society Fellow).
Tomorrow, the Manhattan Institute will host a virtual discussion with senior fellow Chris Pope and City Journal senior editor Steven Malanga on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. The conversation will be moderated by City Journal editor Brian Anderson.
On July 20, join us for a discussion between Senator Tom Cotton and Manhattan Institute president Reihan Salam on the future of policing in America and the challenges of public debate in an age of polarization.
On July 9, the Manhattan Institute hosted a conversation with Upwork’s Adam Ozimek on the implications of remote work for the future of cities and the American workforce.
On July 8, the Manhattan Institute hosted a discussion with health-care policy and industry experts about telehealth’s promises and challenges, and what implications this innovation has for public policy and medicine in the United States.
As some policymakers push to include “green energy” initiatives as a key feature of economic recovery, a new report by Mark Mills offers a sobering reality check. Any large-scale shift to using so-called green energy technologies instead of oil and gas as primary energy sources would require an unprecedented increase in the mining of key minerals across the globe.
Rafael Mangual joins Seth Barron to discuss the surge in gun violence in New York City and other American cities, the impact of newly enacted criminal-justice reforms on policing, and the connection between “low-level” enforcement and major-crime prevention.
With America and its cities still reeling from the Covid-19 pandemic and the recent civil unrest, Manhattan Institute scholars are charting a path forward at the federal, state, and local levels. Read more in the Summer 2020 update from president Reihan Salam.
Manhattan Institute is a think tank whose mission is to develop and disseminate new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility.
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REALCLEARPOLITICS MORNING NOTE
07/13/2020
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Carl Cannon’s Morning Note
Presented by Partnership for America’s Health Care Future: Duckworth; Gingrich; Newcomers’ Creed
By Carl M. Cannon on Jul 13, 2020 07:43 am
Good morning. It’s Monday, July 13, 2020. Sixty-nine years ago today, Harry Truman signed legislation granting guest workers legal status in this country. The rationale wasn’t humanitarian; it was economic. In the 1930s, huge disruptions in the U.S. farm economy and labor market during the Great Depression led to the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Mexican nationals living and working in the United States. After World War II, the opposite problem arose. A shortage of agricultural employees created pressure on Congress to allow workers to come north for the growing seasons.
Officially called Public Law 78, it was always known as the “bracero program” and it mandated that the foreign-born workers laboring in what writer Carey McWilliams had dubbed the “factories in the field” stay in the United States only temporarily. It was a proviso that would prove problematic: Difficult to justify morally, and even more difficult to enforce.
“It is absolutely impossible, without the expenditure of very large amounts of manpower and money, to seal off our long land borders to all illegal immigration,” President Truman noted on July 13, 1951, while signing the bracero program into law. “But,” the president added, “Congress will give us the tools we need to find and deport illegal immigrants once here and to discourage those of our own citizens who are aiding and abetting their movement into the country.”
Truman’s reassurance to those who believed that the U.S. should control its border would prove wishful thinking, just as it would when Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. That law granted amnesty to some 3 million new immigrants, most of them from Mexico, while also purporting to crack down on future illegal immigration. It fulfilled the former promise, but not the latter one. Lofty pronouncements about bringing order to U.S. immigration policy often prove empty. Foreign migration has not only always been the lifeblood of our economy, it’s also a force of nature that no wall or sanctions can staunch.
It’s an old story, and a current one, as I’ll explore in a moment. First, I’d point you to RealClearPolitics’ front page, which presents our poll averages, videos, breaking news stories, and aggregated opinion pieces spanning the political spectrum. We also offer original material from our own reporters and contributors, including the following:
* * *
Has Tammy Duckworth Helped or Hurt Her Chances to Be VP? Bill Scher considers the senator’s response to criticism of her comment about tearing down statues of George Washington.
Gingrich: Trump Must Be More Aggressive “Than Nixon or Reagan.” Phil Wegmann interviewed the former House speaker about the president’s chances of winning a second term.
Defund-Police Push Has Key Dem Campaigns on Defense. Susan Crabtree reports that a number of Senate candidates are cautious about embracing the controversial demand.
High Court Opens Door to Electoral College Subversion. Frank Miele argues that the Chiafolo v. Washingtonruling has greater implications than meets to eye.
Supreme Court Steps Up Where Congress Fails. Lawmakers should have enacted common-sense policies protectingLBGTQ and religious rights, but they are too cowardly, write Derek Monson and the Rev. Marian Edmonds-Allen.
Court Protects Religious Schools’ Autonomy in Hiring. In RealClearReligion, Stephanie Taub and Allison Pope examine last week’s decision that these schools have a constitutional right to decide who teaches their faith, without government interference.
Facebook Audit Exposes AI Biases in Policing Speech. Kalev Leetaru has the story.
Protecting U.S. Interests in Hong Kong.Sen. Marco Rubio warns that China’s authoritarian new security law is turning the American trading partner into a communist tool.
Private Donations and National Defense. Karl Zinsmeister spotlights the largesse of a nonprofit that’s aiding U.S. efforts overseas.
Tax Cuts, California, and the Triggering Phenomenon. RealClearMarkets editor John Tamny laments that there’s no convincing either the dopey left or the over-reactive right of basic economic truths.
The Pentagon’s Transgender Policy Exists for a Reason. In RealClearDefense, Thomas Spoehr explains why gender dysphoria is a condition that prohibits enlistment in the armed services.
* * *
Today is the 51st birthday of one modern pilgrim named José Ramón Andrés Puerta. Born in Spain, he has made the most of his chances in the land of opportunity. The owner of cutting-edge restaurants in Beverly Hills, Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., and Miami Beach, he became a wildly successful chef. In the past four years, José Andrés has attained fame far beyond the world of foodies. First, he backed out of an agreement to open a restaurant at Trump International Hotel in the nation’s capital. Second, in the wake of natural disasters from hurricanes in Puerto Rico to COVID-19, he has emerged as the human dynamo who knows how to feed masses of hungry people under the most trying circumstances.
Five years ago, I wrote about José Andrés mainly in the context of his innovations in small plate dining. He’s gone far beyond that now — a national treasure who engenders international goodwill. “The first time I saw America was from my perch on the mast of a Spanish naval ship, where I could spot the Statue of Liberty reaching proudly into the open, endless American sky.”
He wrote those words in December 2013, three weeks after becoming an American citizen, about his first impressions of the United States. “At night, I would often wonder whether that sky was the explanation for the stars on the American flag — put there so the world would know that this is a place of limitless possibility, where anyone from anywhere can strive for a better life.”
“I recalled that starry sky on Nov. 13, when after 23 years in America, my wife, Patricia, and I were sworn in as United States citizens,” he wrote. “The naturalization ceremony in Baltimore, attended by 72 other tearful immigrants from 35 countries, was a moment I had dreamed about since the day I arrived in America with little more than $50 and a set of cooking knives, determined to belong.”
America being an idea as well as a place, pilgrims like José Andrés have been coming here since before it was a nation. They have come by boat, horse, wagon, airplane, truck, car, railroad, or raft. Many have simply walked across the border, or in some cases swum across the body of water we know as the Rio Grande, but which our southern neighbors call the Rio Bravo.
José Andrés’ attitudes are timeless — and transcend race, ethnicity, and religious background. I’ve also previously written about a 19th century Dutchman named Johannes Remeeus, who made his way, with his family, from his homeland to Belgium, then sailing from Antwerp in 1854. Remeeus kept a diary intended to be a memoir for his descendants, which is how we know what he was thinking 166 years ago today — and almost every day from May 30, 1854 to August 28 of that year. Its pages reveal that the journey required every kind of conveyance to get to their destination. The trip also took up all the Remeeus family’s money — and still depended for its success on fortitude, good luck, and the generosity of strangers.
The Hollanders, as Remeeus called himself and his countrymen, sailed aboard the Robert C. Winthrop, a sturdy New England vessel with a proud Massachusetts name. They were paired on ship with an equal number of Germans. Language barriers between the two groups — and the ship’s crew — was an issue, which may account for the fact that the Dutch passengers thought they were heading to New York, instead of Boston, their actual destination.
Johannes Remeeus’ diary eventually made its way into the Wisconsin public library system and can be viewed here. I will leave you with four entries, including the last one in which Johannes is already referring to himself as “John” Remeeus. In less than 90 days, he’d practically transformed himself from a Dutchman to an American.
June 11: Today, the hardest wind we had as yet experienced. Many were sick, and mother who had been feeling so much better for the past few days was compelled to go to bed. The ship rolled violently. We now learned what a terrific force water exerts when stirred by a gale. … There was much rain until June 15.
June 23: Fair weather, the ship was steady. In the evening the Germans fittingly celebrated Saint John’s Day, which also was the 25th birthday of one of their group. This man was escorted to the aft deck where his sister presented him with a bottle of [Rhine] wine, of which they had a plentiful supply. … After having given him our congratulations, we all drank to his health with many bottles of beer which the captain had in store. We also proposed a toast to the captain, the officers of the ship, and in fact everybody and everything. That evening we learned how the Germans surpassed all other peoples at singing.
July 4: Declaration of Independence, which is celebrated by every American. So did we. Early in the morning flags were run up, and at 8 the crew fired salutes. One man who had been a dealer in fireworks got permission to open a box of guns. Everybody who had a liking for shooting could do as much of it as he wished. At 10 one of the pigs was distributed among the passengers. Saw many fish, also a ship. We had a fresh breeze; the evening was fair but cold. At the request of Mr. Westven, the captain gave the Hollanders permission to sing psalms. The captain sang the last psalm with us. We were approaching the Newfoundland Banks.
August 28: I began to work for an English-speaking man, earning $1.25½ a day. Soon I became a citizen of Milwaukee, a youthful and beautiful city, ideally situated for commerce.
Iran and Israel have been locked so pervasively in a twilight struggle for over 40 years that it is difficult to imagine how such a relationship could evolve after the current revolutionary Islamic regime departs the scene. And yet, with the Middle East witnessing older patterns of culture and politics reassert themselves, what can the historic record teach us about what lies underneath in Iran in terms of its ability to develop a new sort of relationship with Israel in a post-Islamic revolution era.
China is building a massive nuclear energy program that will ultimately enable the Communist regime to power a nuclear navy to take on America’s fleet worldwide.
Just as US politicians and businesses allowed the nation to become dependent on China for pharmaceuticals, electronics, and strategic minerals, they are helping Beijing to make America dependent on advanced nuclear technology. This can stop with a simple act of Congress that is unusually united against the Xi Jinping regime.
In the wake of the Chinese Communist Party pandemic, a lot of evil forces are on the march. One largely ignored malign actor is Turkey’s Sharia-supremacist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan who’s acting on his longstanding ambition to be the next Caliph, presiding over a new Islamist Ottoman empire.
A symbolic step in that direction took place in recent days as Erdogan turned the magnificent Byzantine cathedral known as Hagia Sophia into a mosque. His office announced that this step was intended “to reignite the fire of hope” of Muslims from Uzbekistan to Spain – an assertion of Islamic claims to vast territories once controlled by jihadist rulers.
Worse yet, Erdogan is ever more aligned with China, Russia and the Muslim Brotherhood – and others overtly hostile to the United States and the Free World more generally. There must be costs for his ominous conduct.
This is Frank Gaffney.
AMB. BOB JOSEPH, Senior Scholar at the National Institute for Public Policy, Former Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security:
An increase in the polarization of US politics in recent history
How has “burrowing in” contributed to disagreements within the US government bureaucracy?
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On the menu today: My reader who is the head of research for a top-ten hospital weighs in on how to get kids back into classrooms safely this fall, a blathering Biden comment I missed that could have gotten his Twitter account suspended, and California’s state government tries to implement an ambitious testing-and-tracing system . . . and trips over its own shoelaces.
Kids Need to Go Back to School, with Precautions
If you think you’re having a tough time getting through this pandemic, think about how the world’s children are coping. In the U.S. in about mid-March, with little warning, school and all youth activities just stopped. Everyone muddled through with “distance learning” as best they could — a tool that in normal circumstances could be a useful addition to regular in-person classes but is a poor substitute overall. All sports ended; all movie theaters closed; every indoor hangout from shopping malls to gyms is either closed or risky; summer jobs are few and far between; most summer camps are closed. Some kids are managing to get along with socially distanced play dates and Zoom hangouts . . . diverting even more of their … READ MORE
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Report: Facebook leads industry on removal of hate speech
At 35,000 people, our safety & security teams work to keep our platforms safe 24/7. A recent EU report found we remove more reported hate speech than other major platforms. But any hate speech is too much — there’s more work to do.
“Makes an original and compelling case for nationalism . . . A fascinating, erudite—and much-needed—defense of a hallowed idea unfairly under current attack.” — Victor Davis Hanson
SENATE POLLING ROUNDUP: A poll in Alabama conducted by Auburn University (Jul. 2-9; 558 RVs; +/-5.1%) showed former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville (R) leading former Attorney General Jeff Sessions (R), 47%-31%. The runoff is Tuesday. (release) In Georgia, a poll conducted for OANN by Gravis Marketing (July 2; 513 LVs; +/-4.3%) found Sen. David Perdue (R) leading 2017 GA-06 candidate Jon Ossoff (D), 48%-43%. In the special election, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA 09) led with 26%, followed by Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) at 24%, and Rev. Raphael Warnock (D) at 18%. Entrepreneur Matt Lieberman (D) and former U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver (D) trailed with 11% and 9%, respectively. (release)
In Texas, a Dallas Morning News/University of Texas at Tyler poll (Jun. 29-Jul. 7; 829 LVs; +/-3.3%) found 2018 TX-31 nominee MJ Hegar (D) leading state Sen. Royce West (D), 32%-20%. In general election matchups (Jun. 29-Jul. 7; 1,673 LVs; +/-2.4%), Sen. John Cornyn (R) led Hegar, 37%-26%, and he led West, 37%-25%. (Dallas Morning News) A CBS News/YouGov poll of Texas (Jul. 7-10; 1,212 RVs; +/-3.3%) found Cornyn led Hegar, 44%-36%. He led West, 43%-37%. (release) The runoff between West and Hegar is Tuesday.
PRESIDENTIAL POLLING ROUNDUP: The Dallas Morning News poll (Jun. 29-Jul. 7; 1,677 LVs; +/-2.4%) found Joe Biden led President Trump in the state, 48%-43%. (release) The CBS News/YouGov poll of Texas (Jul. 7-10; 1,212 RVs; +/-3.3%) found Trump led Biden, 46%-45%. (release) A CBS News/YouGov poll of Arizona (Jul. 7-10; 1,099 RVs; +/-3.9%) found Biden and Trump tied at 46%. (release) A CBS News/YouGov poll of Florida (Jul. 7-10; 1,229 RVs; +/-3.5%) found Biden led Trump, 48%-42%. (release) The Gravis Marketing/OANN poll of Georgia found Trump leading Biden, 48%-45%. (release) An internal poll of NE-02 for 2018 nominee Kara Eastman (D) conducted by GQR (Jun. 30-Jul. 5; 502 LVs; +/-4.4%) found Biden leading Trump, 51%-44%. (The Hill)
BATTLE FOR THE SENATE: “Last month, the NRSC prepared a slideshow for Senate chiefs of staff full of bleak numbers about the party’s failure to compete with Democrats on digital fundraising.” Much of Democrats’ success has stemmed from digital fundraising through ActBlue. The GOP version, WinRed, is meant to be an answer to that, but “a dozen Republican Party strategists and donors warned in interviews that not enough GOP campaigns are taking active steps to properly use the tools at their disposal to haul in money.” (Politico)
NH-01: Trump’s demands that state Republicans allow national resources to boost former state GOP executive director Matt Mowers (R) in the competitive primary to face Rep. Chris Pappas (D) is the latest example of the White House’s haphazard and heavy-handed approach to downballot electioneering that has the Republican Party struggling to keep up. (Hotline reporting)
TRUMP: The RNC and Trump’s campaign “say they have now hired 1,500 field staffers. … Trump Victory, the joint field effort of the two organizations, announced Monday the hiring of an additional 300 staffers set to hit 20 target states by Wednesday.” (AP)
NC GOV: Between Feb. 16 and Jun. 30, Lt. Gov. Dan Forest (R) raised $2.4 million, spent $1.2 million, and reported $2 million on hand. (North Carolina State Board of Elections)
KS SEN: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched a $400,000 TV ad campaign Monday backing Rep. Roger Marshall (R-01). The spot, which is running in the Kansas City media market, highlights Marshall’s background as a veteran and his record on veterans’ issues. (Kansas City Star)
IA SEN: Sen. Joni Ernst (R) launched a TV ad Monday targeting 2018 IA-03 candidate Theresa Greenfield (D). The spot claims Greenfield is lying when she says she “won’t take one dime” of corporate PAC money. (release)
BIDEN: The Biden campaign announced senior staff in Maine and Minnesota. In Maine, James Stretch will serve as state director and Spencer Thibodeau will serve as senior adviser. In Minnesota, Ryan Doyle will serve as state director and Misha Battiste will serve as coalitions director. Corey Day will serve as senior adviser. (ABC News)
On April 3, President Trump said he just didn’t want to wear a mask, despite CDC guidance. On May 21, he wore a mask during a visit to Michigan, but said he didn’t want to “give the press the pleasure of seeing it.” On July 1, Trump said he liked how he looked in a mask. And on Saturday, July 11, he wore a mask in public for the first time as he visited hospitalized soldiers. The president’s shift on the issue may indicate that he’s beginning to realize the pandemic won’t just go away. In key Sun Belt states, a botched pandemic response has driven some voters to Biden. While Trump has tried to win them back with visions of reopening schools and rebuilding a strong economy, experts have said masks will be critical to those endeavors. As coronavirus deaths begin to rise, the president could finally be listening. — Mini Racker
The first execution by the federal government in 17 years is set for Monday, following a year of wrangling over the method of execution. This has been an overlooked front in President Trump’s culture war; while his desire to exact justice on criminals is well-known (someprominentexceptionsnotwithstanding), resuming executions of federal prisoners is a clear play to his base after years of declining support for the death penalty. While, as of 2018, the death penalty still had a clear majority in support, per the Pew Research Center, independents went from 79% backing in 1996 to 52%. It may make for a campaign talking point, but given the state of the world, it seems unlikely that executing a prisoner who was never going to get out of prison will do much to change public opinion of the president. — Alex Clearfield
Fresh Brewed Buzz
“Donald Trump Jr., in quarantine since girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle tested positive for the coronavirus, says he’s used the time to finish a book that he’ll self-publish the week of the Republican convention, at the end of August. … ‘Liberal Privilege’ will be his effort to paint a picture of” Biden “and his record that the press ignores.” Guilfoyle will voice the audiobook. (Axios)
“After months of insisting that the Republican National Convention go off as scheduled despite the pandemic,” Trump “is slowly coming to accept that the late August event will not be the four-night infomercial for his reelection that he had anticipated. After a venue change, spiking coronavirus cases and a sharp recession, Trump aides and allies are increasingly questioning whether it’s worth the trouble, and some are advocating that the convention be scrapped altogether.” (AP)
“By the time the” Trump “campaign announced that” a planned New Hampshire rally “was off, citing ‘safety concerns’ over a tropical storm barreling toward the Northeast on Friday afternoon, people close to the campaign said fears over low turnout also motivated the decision to scrap the event.” (NBC News)
“Protesters carrying a banner and a caribou heart interrupted a Saturday evening event in Anchorage that launched” Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R-AK) “campaign for re-election. … After the protesters were restrained and escorted out by campaign staff and attendees, they issued a written statement saying their protest was peaceful and they want to pursue assault charges.” (Anchorage Daily News)
“[T]ensions between” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) “intensified over the last weekend, when a spate of gun violence erupted around the city and a large group ransacked the Department of Public Safety’s headquarters in southeast Atlanta, smashing up windows and damaging an office with a homemade grenade.” (Greg Bluestein, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
Businesswoman Brooke Siskin (D), who is running in GA-09, spent “this weekend in the Gwinnett County jail, serving a four-day contempt of court order for not turning over her guns to authorities.” (WAGA)
Rep. Val Demings (D-FL 10) will appear on The Tonight Show on Tuesday. (release)
“The former California political director for” Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ (I-VT) “presidential campaign,” Susie Shannon, “says she was demoted a day after undergoing cancer surgery and forced to quit after the campaign ignored her harassment and discrimination complaints.” (NBC News)
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows “has told several White House staffers he’s fed specific nuggets of information to suspected leakers to see if they pass them on to reporters—a trap that would confirm his suspicions.” (Axios)
Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) condemned Trump’s “decision to commute the prison sentence of” former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone, “the first elected Republicans to denounce the president’s Friday night move.” (Politico)
Former Rep. Todd Rokita (R-IN) “has won the Republican nomination for” Indiana attorney general, “having convinced party delegates that sticking with embattled” Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill (R) “is too much of a risk.” (Indianapolis Star)
“Federal prosecutors are seeking prison time for” former Kentucky’s Democratic Party Chair Jerry Lundergan (D), while his lawyers “are seeking probation. … Lundergan and a codefendant are set to be sentenced July 16. … Lundergan was convicted last year of orchestrating a scheme to funnel illegal contributions to his daughter’s failed 2014 U.S. Senate campaign against” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. (AP)
The House is in at noon for a pro forma session. The Senate is in for a pro forma session at 5:30 p.m.
Trump participates in a roundtable with stakeholders positively impacted by law enforcement at 2 p.m.
Swizzle Challenge
Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D-MN) claimed that Sen. Robert Kennedy (D-NY) tried to use his dog, Freckles, and astronaut John Glenn to win the Oregon primary.
John Waits won Friday’s challenge. Here’s his challenge: What former House Democratic Majority Whip went on to become the president of New York University?
Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale “lives in Florida, and the campaign is based in Northern Virginia, and staffers say that when they talk to him, he is often by his pool in Fort Lauderdale.” (Washington Post)
Chaser…
“They’re only using you for your pool, you know.” — Lisa’s Brain
“Shut up, brain! I got friends now, I don’t need you anymore.” — Lisa (The Simpsons)
The White House put out a statement to the Washington Post listing several mistakes by Dr. Anthony Fauci about the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus pandemic. While… Read more…
This weekend several locals were seen pointing over the Black Lives Matter street graffiti in front of the Florissant, Missouri police department. In Missouri.. Cops… Read more…
Adam Schiff House Intelligence Chairman and serial liar Adam Schiff on Sunday wasn’t too happy about Lindsey Graham’s move to call in Robert Mueller to… Read more…
Robert Mueller Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday announced he will be calling Robert Mueller to testify after the former special counsel blasted… Read more…
Mueller’s pitbull Andrew Weissmann wants Roger Stone hauled before a grand jury in New York and tortured some more. The corrupt MSNBC legal expert is… Read more…
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The pandemic has deeply cut carbon emissions, but the human and economic costs should give pause to those who imagine remaking the world’s habits of consumption.
The lessons from history never exactly repeat themselves, but they often rhyme. The Federal Reserve can learn important lessons from the pandemic of 1918, the Great Contraction of 1929-33, World War II and the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-2008. The Fed must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
A Hoover Virtual Policy Briefing with Bjorn Lomborg: False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 11AM PT/ 2PM ET.
Last month, we noted that employers expect working from home to triple after the pandemic as compared to the prepandemic situation. The large shift to working from home has prompted many to speculate about the demise of commercial real estate (CRE) and the demand for office space.
Josh Williams, co-founder and CEO of the blockchain gaming company Forte, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of online gaming and the potential of a blockchain-based gaming platform to create market economies with property rights within online games.
Pryce Boeye’s Hungry Hobo sandwich shops’ sales on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River have been booming since the state reopened dining rooms in mid-May, while those he owns in still-closed Illinois languish.
I rarely find time to listen to podcasts that are longer than 10 minutes. But I found the following description intriguing: Pointing to a recent Twitter thread from a progressive detailing his white male cisness, Bob shows how narrow the focus is on only particular “privileges” and not others. More generally, the effort to demonize white men is causing young people great harm, whether white or otherwise. The movement is based on power politics and relies on economic ignorance.
The pandemic has deeply cut carbon emissions, but the human and economic costs should give pause to those who imagine remaking the world’s habits of consumption.
The lessons from history never exactly repeat themselves, but they often rhyme. The Federal Reserve can learn important lessons from the pandemic of 1918, the Great Contraction of 1929-33, World War II and the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007-2008. The Fed must avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
A Hoover Virtual Policy Briefing with Bjorn Lomborg: False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet Tuesday, July 14, 2020 at 11AM PT/ 2PM ET.
Last month, we noted that employers expect working from home to triple after the pandemic as compared to the prepandemic situation. The large shift to working from home has prompted many to speculate about the demise of commercial real estate (CRE) and the demand for office space.
Josh Williams, co-founder and CEO of the blockchain gaming company Forte, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the state of online gaming and the potential of a blockchain-based gaming platform to create market economies with property rights within online games.
Pryce Boeye’s Hungry Hobo sandwich shops’ sales on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River have been booming since the state reopened dining rooms in mid-May, while those he owns in still-closed Illinois languish.
I rarely find time to listen to podcasts that are longer than 10 minutes. But I found the following description intriguing: Pointing to a recent Twitter thread from a progressive detailing his white male cisness, Bob shows how narrow the focus is on only particular “privileges” and not others. More generally, the effort to demonize white men is causing young people great harm, whether white or otherwise. The movement is based on power politics and relies on economic ignorance.
Hoover Institution fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali criticizes Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., over recent comments in which Omar called for “dismantling the whole system of oppression wherever we find it.” “Why would Omar flee from Mogadishu, flee from anarchy, flee from oppression — and then come to the United States and do all your best to turn Minnesota and the U.S. into Mogadishu?”
Hoover Institution fellow John Yoo talks about President Trump’s decision to commute Roger Stone’s sentence. Yoo notes that the constitution allows the president almost unlimited power to give pardons.
Thomas Sowell just turned 90, but he is still on the case. Indeed, his new book — Charter Schools and Their Enemies — was published on his 90th birthday. Among the many tributes to Sowell at 90 are this one by Steve Hanke and Richard Ebeling at NR, this one by Mark Perry at AEI, and this one by his friend Walter Williams at Jewish World Review.
Victor Davis Hanson is a very bright and wise man. What makes that all the more amazing is that he is an intellectual. He is affiliated with the Hoover Institute at Stanford University. Recently, he gave voice to something that I’ve been thinking about for a while.
Fifty-five-plus books on the table and more on the way. Charter Schools and Their Enemies, another bestseller, is hot off the press. The Thomas Sowell corpus stands as one of the rare and most impressive monuments of massive and meticulous research ever erected on this earth by one person.
Like many parents, Radhika Parakala is eyeing the calendar with mounting unease over what’s in store for her daughters when their San Jose schools are back in session next month. The online-only learning thrust upon them in mid-March to ease the risk of the COVID-19 pandemic went poorly.
Dr. Thomas Sowell has produced some excellent videos about the history of slavery and racism, available on YouTube. It is heartbreaking to watch, but it is important to learn about our history. It is also appropriate to learn from a brilliant Black scholar like Dr. Sowell.
In the July 2nd issue of National Review, Victor Davis Hanson, in bemoaning our present state of cultural chaos, asks, “How can so many so sheltered and prolonged adolescents claim to be all-knowing?” In other words, how could so many of our nation’s 18-year-olds become so clueless? The answer: Your colleges and universities have taught them to be.
Infections from COVID-19 have continued growing. Moreover, respondents between June 29 and July 5 from a recent Gallup poll show that roughly 68 percent of the population believes the coronavirus situation is getting worse, whereas 18 percent thinks it is getting better. That’s reverse from June 1 to 7 when 47 percent reported that the situation was getting better and only 30 percent said that it was getting worse.
Economist Thomas Sowell expressed the belief that the term “systemic racism” has “no meaning” and that it reminds him of Nazi Germany. “It really has no meaning that can be specified and tested in the way that one tests hypotheses,” he said, adding that the phrase’s currency is reminiscent of Nazi “propaganda tactics” and that people accept the lie after it’s “repeated long enough and loud enough.”
Most of the new cases in the Southwest — in California, Arizona, and Texas — are sprouting up in counties closest to the U.S.-Mexico border. “When you look in the southern counties of California, Arizona and the bordering counties of Texas — with the Mexico border — these are where most of these cases are really exploding,” Atlas told Fox News. “And then you look at the Mexico map and in Mexico, that’s where their cases are. Their cases are in the northern border zone states. And it turns out the timeline here correlates much more to the Mexico timeline of increasing cases than anything else.”
According to the Oxford Dictionary, a snapshot is “a short description that gives you an idea of what something is like.” When the Trudeau government delivered its Economic and Fiscal Snapshot 2020 on Wednesday, it was anything but.
Chinese Foreign Minster Wang Yi gave an important speech in Beijing on Thursday in which he attempted to halt the slide in U.S.-China relations. He declared that China did not want to see its relationship with the United States descend into a new Cold War, and that China was willing to “activate and open all the channels of dialogue” with the United States.
The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Hoover Institution or Stanford University.
Thank you for subscribing to the Hoover Daily Report.
This email was sent to: rickbulow1974@gmail.com
@DaybreakInsider
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Voters in Maine, Texas and Alabama will head to the polls Tuesday to decide the matchups in a trio of competitive Senate races and a slew of House contests. And the primaries may follow a common theme in 2020: waiting on results. Read More…
ANALYSIS — After Donald Trump’s unexpected victory in 2016, there’s a temptation to avoid making political projections. But one election result shouldn’t cause us to ignore the data, which right now points to a great election for Democrats, including taking control of the Senate. Read More…
Proposals for how Congress could overhaul the lobbying disclosure system, provide lawmakers with continuing education opportunities and make legislative action more transparent are just a few of the big ideas in reports made public by the House Modernization panel last week. Read More…
Pandemic-related census delays have already caused political fallout in one state, with New Jersey’s Legislature kicking off the process to delay its legislative redistricting process from 2021 to 2023. Read More…
Retiring Rep. Nita M. Lowey said a handful of goodbyes as she oversaw her last appropriations markup marathon. But that didn’t stop Rep. Jeff Fortenberry from wishing he was with his wife on their anniversary, or the entire committee from singing an awkward “Happy Birthday” to Rep. Dan Newhouse. Read More…
Zoom video calls are one example of how campaigns, like Republican Wesley Hunt’s in Texas’ 7th District, have tried to keep volunteers and interns engaged in their shift to operating virtually during the coronavirus pandemic. Read More…
President Trump commuted the sentence of Roger Stone on Friday night after eleventh-hour pleas from the former Republican operative. Stone had been expected to report to prison this week to serve out his sentence for witness tampering, obstruction, and lying to Congress under oath.
police unions are terrorist organizations 
![[PHOTO: In this undated handout photo provided by Kensington Palace, Britain's Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge and Andy Murray attend a video call with pupils from Bond Primary School in Mitcham, England.]](https://i0.wp.com/s.abcnews.com/images/GMA/duchess-cambridge-andy-murray-ap-jt-200710_hpMain_1x1_384.jpg?resize=125%2C125&ssl=1)
![[VIDEO: A new generation has discovered 'jam skating', and this skater is one of the best ]](https://i0.wp.com/s.abcnews.com/images/GMA/200709_gma_digital_jamskater_hpMain_1x1_384.jpg?resize=125%2C125&ssl=1)
![[PHOTO: Noah Russell and his dad, Ryeheam Russell. ]](https://i0.wp.com/s.abcnews.com/images/GMA/20200710noahrussellgma_hpMain_1x1_384.jpg?resize=125%2C125&ssl=1)
July 13 2020
On the menu today: My reader who is the head of research for a top-ten hospital weighs in on how to get kids back into classrooms safely this fall, a blathering Biden comment I missed that could have gotten his Twitter account suspended, and California’s state government tries to implement an ambitious testing-and-tracing system . . . and trips over its own shoelaces.
“Makes an original and compelling case for nationalism . . . A fascinating, erudite—and much-needed—defense of a hallowed idea unfairly under current attack.” — Victor Davis Hanson
Episode 89: Covering the Courts 
Shepard Smith Joining… 
19 West 44th Street, Suite 1701, New York, NY, 10036, USA
