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In a throwback to the days before pandemic was cool, the stock market tanked on Thursday, as rich people surveyed the landscape and realized coronavirus didn’t “disappear” and Donald Trump isn’t “a competent president who cares about Americans.”
- New outbreaks, exacerbated by Trump’s decision to pretend the virus doesn’t exist, have state and local officials second guessing the steps they’ve taken to relax social-distancing restrictions, and, in some cases, what they’ve done with their lives. Amid a surge of cases, the Orange County, CA, health officer resigned, rather than cave to pressure (including a death threat) to rescind the county’s mandatory mask-wearing rule. (Her replacement caved instantly, which health care providers at increasingly crowded emergency rooms and ICUs surely appreciate.)
- Orange County isn’t the only place where public-health workers trying to do the right thing have faced harassment. Disinformation about contact tracers has flourished (where else) on Facebook, which first ignored the problem, then dragged its feet before removing a small sampling of threatening posts, without addressing the larger issue. Contact tracers help identify and test people who’ve been in contact with COVID-positive individuals, so they can be tested and quarantined before potentially spreading the virus to others. Right-wing conspiracy theorists have rewarded them for this service by comparing them to gestapo: another thing health care providers at increasingly crowded emergency rooms and ICUs surely appreciate.
- Against this backdrop, Gov. Kate Brown (D-OR) has paused Oregon’s reopening plan, citing a “significant increase in COVID-19 infections in counties across Oregon.” Oregon had escaped the acute outbreaks that forced California and Washington into early lockdowns, but facing case surges, Brown has decided to hold county applications to further relax public-health restrictions for seven days.
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Most governors haven’t shown Brown’s level of concern for human life, and that’s in large part because Trump (through bullying and threats, backed by loyalist Republican governors and officials) has made following science-based best practices nearly impossible. Not that they don’t know any better.
- Trump intends to resume
cramming thousands of people with COVID comorbidities into crammed spaces to mock social-distancing and mask-wearing practices campaign rallies next week, but only for the truly committed MAGA-heads who will sign liability waivers in case they catch a deadly virus at the venue.
- In other “take no responsibility” news, the White House has devoted what remains of its coronavirus response to
modeling responsible behavior blaming Mexico for the continued U.S. coronavirus epidemic. There is, to be clear, no basis for this accusation. Cross-border traffic is down dramatically. The U.S. is experiencing case spikes both along the border and in the interior of the country, because Trump failed to suppress the epidemic here. And Mexico’s outbreak is far less widespread than ours. But that hasn’t stopped the White House from “floating a theory.”
We’ve gone from worrying about a second wave of coronavirus infections later in the year to the infuriating reality that the first wave never crashed. Now, as the virus infects tens of thousands of new victims and kills almost a thousand each day, Trump has determined that 1) the public is just going to have to deal with it, and 2) he’ll shoulder none of the blame. It’s up to us to see that he fails in those ambitions.
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The first two episodes of Unholier Than Thou are out today! Join award-winning journalist and editor Phillip Picardi on his quest to better understand his relationship with spirituality by learning how faith plays a role in other people’s lives. Listen & subscribe wherever you get your podcasts →
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One America News Network appears to have made itself a venue for Russian interference in the 2020 election. President Trump’s new favorite cable channel, which has been peddling anti-Biden conspiracy theories for months, said it has obtained several hours of secret recordings from then-Vice President Joe Biden’s meetings with Ukranian officials. OAN hasn’t revealed what’s on the tapes, but if they exist they’re likely sourced from Russian intelligence, and probably doctored. A few weeks ago a Trump-friendly Ukrainian lawmaker released selectively edited phone calls between Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (which lined up with everything Biden has said publicly). OAN’s involvement marks a major escalation in Russian interference since 2016, which comparatively was just an experimental dry run. U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul likened what he’s seeing now to tactics the Kremlin has used against its domestic political enemies: “It’s not to convince you of a different point of view. It’s to convince you that there is no truth.”
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- The Biden campaign has released a video warning that Facebook’s refusal to take action against President Trump’s use of the platform to spread misinformation threatens to subvert the election. Anywho, patron saint of unfettered free speech Mark Zuckerberg just complained in a company Q&A session about past leaks from company Q&A sessions.
- A federal appeals court panel, including two GOP-appointed judges, appeared reluctant to force Judge Emmet Sullivan to immediately dismiss Michael Flynn’s guilty plea, suggesting Sullivan has the authority to hold a hearing on the Justice Department’s shady-as-hell decision to drop charges against him.
- The Trump administration has finalized a rule that rolls back nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people in health care and health insurance, putting transgender people at particular risk for being denied care in the middle of a pandemic.
- Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who argues for the Trump administration before the Supreme Court, has told the Justice Department that he plans to step down. On Monday the head of DOJ’s criminal division announced that he will leave in July. Both of those positions will likely remain occupied by unaccountable, acting officials through whatever Bill Barr has in store for the election and [knock on wood] transition.
- The GOP majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee has authorized Chairman Lindsey Graham to issue subpoenas targeting Obama administration officials for the committee’s baseless investigations. Meanwhile, in Subpoenas That Might Have Been, former national security adviser John Bolton’s forthcoming book evidently documents “Trump’s Ukraine-like transgressions” which existed “across the full range of his foreign policy.”
- Thirteen on-duty Chicago police officers were caught on camera hanging out in a congressman’s campaign office on June 1, helping themselves to his coffee and popcorn while businesses were being looted blocks away.
- Progressive groups Stand Up America and Indivisible have launched “Protect the Results,” an initiative to mobilize Americans in the event that Trump loses the election and refuses to leave the White House. Okey-dokey, everyone have a relaxing weekend!
- In Sideshow-Bob-stepping-on-rakes news, there is already a black blues singer who goes by Lady A, as she had for decades before the band Lady Antebellum stole her name, without contacting her first, in order to rid itself of racist associations.
- Melania Trump’s delayed arrival at the White House in 2017 was in part a maneuver to renegotiate her prenup, according to Washington Post reporter Mary Jordan’s new book. Excuse us while we steal some popcorn from an Illinois congressman’s unattended office. (And then lose our appetite as we remember that we all paid for that to happen.)
- Dave Chappelle unexpectedly released a free half-hour special called 8:46, about George Floyd and the current protest movement.
- Margaret Holloway, a street performer known as the “Shakespeare Lady” of New Haven, CT, has died of COVID-19 at age 68.
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Filmmaker and journalist Daniel Lombroso spent nearly four years embedded with the alt-right to make the documentary White Noise, in an effort to understand why the white-nationalist movement appeals to many younger Americans. Both of Lombroso’s grandmothers are Holocaust survivors, making the project deeply personal. In spending hundreds of hours with conspiracy theorists, far-right influencers, and white-nationalist-leaning politicians, Lombroso found the movement’s leaders to be well-educated and wealthy, with a message of historical grandeur and a(n empty) promise of a better future for their followers. It’s tempting to chalk racist extremism up to ignorance, but the reality is more complicated, and defeating hate movements will require understanding how they gained a foothold in the first place.
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The Louisville, KY, Metro Council has passed Breonna’s Law, a ban on no-knock warrants named for Breonna Taylor. (Good, but not a substitute for arresting the police officers who killed her.)
New York lawmakers have passed the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act, which criminalizes the use of chokeholds that result in injury or death.
Chicago’s Semicolon Bookstore has raised over $120,000 for an initiative to give away free books to local kids.
The NFL, Twitter, Square, and Nike have announced plans to make Juneteenth a company holiday.
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