Crooked Media - What A Day: Full-tilt boogaloo

President Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about Antifa provocateurs and impassioned defenses of monuments to the Confederacy have, predictably, emboldened right-wing fringe elements to take matters into their own hands.
 

• With Black Lives Matter protesters toppling statues of Confederate leaders and colonizers around the country, a new cadre of armed counterprotesters has begun inciting violence without a word of condemnation from the president. They bear a striking resemblance to the armed anti-lockdown protesters whom Trump vocally supported, before vocally opposing racial-justice protesters for some mysterious, unfathomable reason.
   
• The false Antifa rumors Trump and his pet attorney general promoted have spread like wildfire online, prompting Idaho residents to storm the streets with assault rifles and inspiring paranoid attacks on families going camping and roofing-company employees. Meanwhile, it’s far-right groups that have actually instigated violence. On Monday evening, a man was shot and seriously wounded during a protest in Albuquerque, NM, as the crowd tried to pull down a statue of Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate. Police arrested several members of a far-right militia called the New Mexico Civil Guard who arrived at the protest armed to the teeth, and formed a protective circle around the gunman after he opened fire.   
   
• Then there are the far-right extremists trying to start a race war. Steven Carillo, a California man who allegedly killed two Bay Area police officers, was found to have ties to the Boogaloo movement, which believes a second Civil War is imminent and hopes to accelerate it. Carillo and a partner used the Black Lives Matter protests as cover to carry out the attacks. Three other Boogaloo followers were recently arrested in Las Vegas, NV, and charged with inciting violence at protests. None of this has elicited so much as a lazy admonition from Trump.

Trump has, however, found time to scold the media for pointing out that his plan to hold a huge indoor campaign rally this weekend is perhaps ill-advised. 
 

• Here’s the president on Monday, citing outdoor, Black Lives Matter protests, where mask usage was nearly universal, to justify packing a closed space with his vulnerable supporters in a coronavirus-stricken city: “The Far Left Fake News Media, which had no Covid problem with the Rioters & Looters destroying Democrat run cities, is trying to Covid Shame us on our big Rallies. Won’t work!” 
   
• Trump campaign officials said that rally attendees would be offered masks and hand sanitizer (which they are then free to proudly toss in the trash) and have their temperatures checked upon entry, a far cry from the rigorous screenings required for top Republican donors who attend Trump’s fundraisers. Tulsa officials, for their part, have warned that the rally is “a perfect storm that we can’t afford to have,” and are pleading with the Trump campaign to cancel the event, or move it outdoors. 

Trump willfully ignores both the escalation of right-wing, white-nationalist violence, and the accelerating coronavirus outbreaks around the country. (Yesterday: “If we stop testing right now, we’d have very few cases, if any.”) In fact, he frequently fans both. When Trump’s most ardent followers haul out assault rifles to protect a statue but refuse to wear masks to protect other people, they do so based on the example he sets, and with his tacit approval.

Need a news break? How about a little, "Jon Lovett and Judd Apatow recall their time writing jokes for President Obama, including the infamous 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner?" (You're welcome.) Watch and subscribe →

Two officials have been issued congressional subpoenas to testify about Attorney General Bill Barr’s politicization of the Department of Justice next week, including Aaron Zelinsky, the career prosecutor who resigned from Roger Stone’s case after Barr intervened to try to get Stone's sentence reduced. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler issued a statement explaining that he has sought testimony from whistleblowers in large part because Barr has refused to testify before the committee voluntarily, requiring the panel to conduct oversight of his actions without his input. In addition to hearing from Zelinsky about the handling of Stone’s case, the panel has also subpoenaed John Elias, acting chief of staff of DOJ’s Antitrust Division, about that office’s “improperly motivated activity.” Zelinsky has agreed to testify; Elias has yet to comment.

• In response to weeks of non-stop, nationwide protests against police brutality, President Trump signed an executive order for unaggressive, largely toothless police reforms that don’t address systemic racism or do much of anything about police violence. He did, however, spend most of his remarks praising the police. 
   
• North Korea blew up its joint-liaison office with South Korea, after severing all communications with South Korea last week. Tensions between the two countries have been escalating for weeks, prompted by defectors in the South sending anti-North leaflets across the border. 
   
• In other alarming new chapters of old conflicts, 20 Indian soldiers were killed in the worst border clash between India and China in over 40 years. Both countries and their nationalist leaders have taken increasingly aggressive stances, risking a war. 
   
• The Justice Department announced that it will resume federal executions next month after a 17-year hiatus. Just a huge day for “revisitations of the past that absolutely no one asked for.”
   
• The Justice Department also filed a lawsuit against former national security advisor John Bolton in an effort to delay the publication of his book, getting back to the department’s real business of protecting Donald Trump. 
   
• Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) father has died from coronavirus complications, marking the third member of Congress to have lost family to the illness.
   
• Two police unions falsely claimed that Shake Shack workers poisoned three NYPD officers’ milkshakes. Lactose is the anarchist rioter of the digestive system, easy to get confused. Anyway, here is a compendium of police claiming they were attacked by fast food.
   
• Jimmy Kimmel will host the 2021 Emmy Awards for the 840th consecutive year, but at least he’s pumped about it: “I don't know where we will do this or how we will do this or even why we are doing this, but we are doing it and I am hosting it.”
   
• A man in Vienna was fined €500 ($562) for farting “with full intent” in front of Austrian police. The police tweeted that “of course no one is reported for accidentally letting one go.” Ladies and gentlemen, we now live in a world with first-degree farting. 

A national mail-in election will need to be planned around the fact that the Postal Service is in decidedly rough shape. Postal delays and missteps have already caused problems in primary elections, and a national election with unprecedented numbers of voters voting by mail will put enormous pressure on the system. Years of budget cuts and plant closures have slowed down mail delivery times—even normal delays could affect hundreds of thousands, if not millions of votes. To complicate matters, many states are now setting up vote-by-mail systems on the fly, and others haven’t adjusted their ballot deadlines to allow for slower delivery. Election experts think the Postal Service has the capacity to handle a national election conducted mainly by mail, but it will require close coordination with state election officials, and voters who know to send their ballots in early.

Dexamethasone is the first COVID-19 therapy shown to be able to save lives, marking a major breakthrough. British researchers found that it reduced deaths by up to one third in severely ill, hospitalized patients, and it’s cheap and widely available.

The Southern Poverty Law Center announced it will make $30 million available in grants to help register and mobilize voters of color in five southern states. 

Over 1,000 bakers will participate in Bakers Against Racism, a virtual bake sale to raise money for Black Lives Matter and other racial justice organizations. 

A Cleveland man named Jett Croisant (!), whose downstairs neighbor has Trump banners displayed in the window, posted a sign in his window reading "Venmo @Jet513 and I will tapdance at midnight."  Croisant has raised over $10,000 and plans to donate the funds to the ACLU.