Crooked Media - What A Day: Yawn with the Wind

The U.S. remains in the throes of an uncontained coronavirus outbreak, yet states continue to reopen and President Trump has lost all interest in protecting the health and safety of American citizens. This has fallen far enough under the radar that today a CDC official straight up reminded everyone, “we are still in a pandemic.”

• The U.S. surpassed 2 million coronavirus cases today, with case numbers on the rise in at least 21 states. Arizona, which began reopening on May 15, has seen a spike so alarming that state health officials have called on hospitals to “fully activate” their emergency plans to increase ICU capacity. To make matters worse, inconsistent data reporting means we don’t know how dramatic many of those increases really are. At least 24 states have not been following the CDC’s guidelines on reporting probable coronavirus cases. Those states include some of the largest: California, Florida, North Carolina, and New York.
   
• With about 1,000 Americans confirmed to be dying from the coronavirus each day, and new hot spots emerging across the country, the Trump administration has simply stopped talking about it. It’s now been over a month since the White House ended its daily coronavirus briefings (which, okay, small blessings). Trump rarely joins his own coronavirus task force, which now meets only twice a week, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other top health officials have largely disappeared from national television, and Trump is prepared to resume campaign rallies next week. The result is a confusing messaging environment that will give many Americans the false impression that the crisis is over. 
   
• This is, of course, exactly what Trump wants. Addressing the new surges in case numbers last week, Trump once again blamed those pesky, meddling tests: “Remember this: When you have more tests, you have more cases. I say to my people: Every time we test, you find cases because we do more testing.” Public-health experts are in agreement that the surges are real, and attributable to relaxed social-distancing requirements. But since he brought up testing, let’s note that states are still scrambling to figure out how to ramp up testing without federal coordination, and the resulting variations in test reliability and policies governing who can get tested have made reopening decisions all the more difficult.

The good news is, there’s increasing evidence that widespread mask use can help mitigate the virus’s spread. 
 

• The bad news is, the president convinced a swath of his followers that masks are for effeminate liberal cowards. Nevertheless, mask up, LibCows™: A British study found that regular mask use by 50 percent or more of the population reduced COVID-19 spread to an R value (disease reproduction rate) of less than 1.0 (each person infects less than one person, on average, and the virus eventually dies out on its own). Researchers found that people wearing masks in public at all times is twice as effective at bringing down that R value as when people only wear masks after symptoms appear.
   
• We’re beginning to see how powerful the effect is in practice. Here’s a useful microcosm: Last month, two hairstylists at a Great Clips in Missouri tested positive for COVID-19, after interacting with 140 customers and six coworkers. The incubation period has since passed, and no new Great Clips-related cases were found. All stylists had been required to wear masks, in addition to other precautions. 

The official U.S. death toll now stands at over 114,000, and health officials’ dark predictions have come true: States’ premature easing of lockdowns have caused new outbreaks—with a more lethal second wave still potentially ahead. The White House will blame the protests against police brutality (even as Trump uses them to justify holding huge rallies), but the surges we’re seeing now are a direct result of the Trump administration pushing states to reopen weeks ago.

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The former judge appointed to argue against the government’s move to drop charges against Michael Flynn has accused the Justice Department of exercising a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power” to protect Trump’s political ally. Retired federal judge John Gleeson ripped Attorney General Bill Barr a new one in assessing the Justice Department’s handling of the case, noting that the government is required to request permission to drop charges precisely to safeguard against prosecutorial corruption: “Even recognizing that the Government is entitled to deference in assessing the strength of its case, these claims are not credible. Indeed, they are preposterous.” Gleeson argued that Flynn committed perjury by rescinding his guilty plea, and recommended that the judge overseeing the case proceed to sentence him on the false-statement charge he admitted to in 2017.

• Philonise Floyd, George Floyd’s brother, called on lawmakers to implement policing reforms and accountability in his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee: “I'm tired. I'm tired of the pain I'm feeling now and I'm tired of the pain I feel every time another black person is killed for no reason. I'm here today to ask you to make it stop.”
   
• Senate Republicans have begun drafting their own policing-reform legislation, led by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the Senate’s lone black Republican. The White House said today that Trump might get in the mix with an executive order on police reform.
   
• That order will pair nicely with Trump’s adamant refusal to consider renaming military bases that currently honor Confederate leaders, after top military officials suggested they were open to the idea. 
   
• In other masterful de-escalations of racial tensions, Trump’s first coronavirus campaign rally will take place on Juneteenth in Tulsa, OK, the site of the 1921 race riot during which a white mob destroyed Black Wall Street. 
   
• Seattle protesters took over City Hall for about an hour on Tuesday night, and demanded the resignation of the city’s mayor.
   
• Republicans have tentatively chosen Jacksonville, FL, to host the  RNC convention in August, after North Carolina was a huge buzzkill about demanding “safety measures” in order to “not cause a coronavirus explosion.”
   
• The founder of CrossFit has resigned as CEO after telling gym owners on a Zoom call, “We're not mourning for George Floyd,” and posting a related gross tweet. Glassman will retain full ownership of the company, a terrific reason to continue not throwing truck tires, or whatever. (Let’s have a round of applause for comedian Janelle James, who saw this coming a full two years ago.)
   
• The Trump campaign has demanded that CNN apologize for a recent poll that showed Trump losing. Similarly, we demand an apology from Apple for making a phone that took an unflattering picture of us. Tell us we’re pretty, Tim Cook, or we will see you in court.
   
• Swedish prosecutors announced the name of the man they believe assassinated Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in 1986: Stig Engström, a now-deceased graphic designer. That concludes this week’s edition of Decades-Old Mystery We Found Out About 24 Hours Before It Stopped Being a Mystery.

George Floyd and Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed him, not only knew each other, they reportedly had a tense history. Previous news reports suggested that Floyd and Chauvin worked security at a Minneapolis nightclub at the same time. Another worker at the club has now told CBS news that the two definitely knew one another, and “bumped heads” over Chauvin’s aggressive treatment of club customers. If that’s true, it would dramatically change the context of the incident, and could be a significant factor in whether prosecutors elevate Chauvin’s charges to first-degree murder.

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LeBron James and a handful of other athletes and entertainers have launched More Than a Vote, a new group aimed at protecting black voting rights.

Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo announced that the force would immediately withdraw from contract negotiations with the police union.

Virgina protesters toppled a Christopher Columbus statue and threw it in a lake, Massachusetts protesters beheaded a Columbus statue in Boston, and Minnesota protesters tore down a Columbus statue outside the state capitol. Incredibly satisfying every time.

NASCAR has banned Confederate flags at all of its events and properties.

IBM announced it will no longer produce facial recognition technology, and Amazon has banned police from using its facial recognition platform for one year.