Crooked Media - What A Day: Got a bad Abbott

Coronavirus outbreaks have spiked out of control in the south and west, and over one million people still lose their jobs each week, but other than that, President Trump’s master plan to boost the economy by putting Americans in mortal peril has gone off without a hitch.
 

• Another 1.48 million workers filed for first-time unemployment benefits over the past week, more than economists anticipated. That marks the 14th straight week that new unemployment claims have totaled over one million, and around 20 million people are receiving ongoing benefits, suggesting that forcing hair stylists back to work too early did not magically fix the economy. The Trump administration did at least send over $1.4 billion in stimulus checks to dead people, who famously make up the lowest-employed demographic.
   
• One small snag preventing jobs from returning might be the deadly virus the government got bored of containing. The three most populous states—Texas, California, and Florida—keep setting records for new coronavirus cases each day. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) has paused Texas’s reopening and suspended elective surgeries, as officials warned that some hospitals are near ICU capacity. Abbott urged Texans to stay home and finally cleared the way for local officials to require masks, but hasn’t issued a statewide mask mandate, and said shutting down businesses again would be a last resort. Houston is currently on track to become the hardest-hit city in the country. 
   
• Not only does increased testing not account for case spikes, contrary to Trump’s continued lies, it also doesn't convey the full picture. CDC Director Robert Redfield told reporters today that the number of Americans who have been infected may be 10 times higher than the 2.3 million confirmed cases. Infuriatingly, newly hard-hit states now face the same testing bottlenecks that bogged down early-state responses months ago: Arizona’s sudden surge has overwhelmed the state’s testing sites and labs, and there’s still no national coordination to help labs in hot spots locate extra capacity elsewhere. (Someone do the special hiss that summons Jared Kushner.)

As red-state outbreaks become unmanageable, Vice President Mike Pence advised Republican senators to look on the bright side. :)
 

• Spoiler: the bright side is made up. Pence told senators on Wednesday that only 12 states are experiencing case increases (it’s at least 20), and pointed out that the mortality rate isn’t rising, because more young people are getting tested now (the death curve has tended to lag behind the case curve, and also, weird brag—more young people are getting sick because the government told them it was safe to start partying). 
   
• Republican leaders could save tens of thousands of lives by simply not acting like dipshits when it comes to masks. New projections show that nearly 180,000 Americans will die by October if nothing changes. That number would drop to 146,000 if 95 percent of people wore masks in public. More states have begun implementing mask requirements, which is great, but there’s no path to universal mask usage that doesn’t involve Trump and his allies abandoning the culture war they started because Trump thought wearing a mask would make him look stupid. 
   

Trump’s poll numbers have plummeted, both nationally and in battleground states—somehow over 122,000 deaths and 13-plus percent unemployment haven’t been a recipe for popularity. A course correction now, even on mask-wearing alone, would still save untold lives, but if Trump insists on sinking his own re-election chances, the least we can do is help him out. 

The campaign experts are at it again, reacting to good and bad 2020 ads. This week Dan Pfeiffer and messaging expert Anat Shenker-Osorio discuss a positive spot from the Biden campaign, Republican Voters Against Trump's "Bunker" ad, and a Black Lives Matter ad from Black Visions Collective. Watch & subscribe→ youtube.com/crookedmedia

Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) announced that his administration will re-examine the case of Elijah McClain’s death, after millions of people demanded justice. McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, died in August after Aurora, CO, police officers put him in a chokehold and paramedics injected him with ketamine. McClain had been walking home from a grocery store, wearing a ski mask he used to stay warm because he had anemia. The officers involved were placed on administrative leave, but reinstated after a district attorney declined to file charges against them. His case has received renewed attention during the recent protests, and more than two million people signed a Change.org petition urging government officials to conduct a new investigation of his death.

• Dozens of Secret Service agents were ordered into quarantine following President Trump’s Tulsa rally. Nothing like signing up to potentially take a bullet for the president, only to wind up serving a president who insists on going to arenas full of invisible bullets.
   
• Kentucky state Rep. Charles Booker has taken the lead over Amy McGrath in Kentucky’s Democratic Senate primary. Completed absentee ballots are still arriving, and a full tally won’t be available until Tuesday.
   
• The House is set to pass Democrats’ Justice in Policing Act this evening, though the bill will almost certainly die in the Republican-controlled Senate.
   
• Trump reportedly personally directed Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to restore the only Confederate statue in Washington, DC, after protesters tore it down last week. Staying focused on the big stuff!
   
• An NYPD officer filmed choking a black man days after New York state banned the use of chokeholds has been arrested and charged with strangulation. In Wilmington, NC, three police officers were fired after a supervisor found a recording of them making horrendously racist, violent remarks.
   
• Former 2016 GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina said she plans to vote for Joe Biden. We won’t even point out how weird it was that she voted for Trump in 2016 after he publicly made fun of her face. Carly….welcome to the resistance, and consider adopting Florida, the state that looks like your name.
   
• A New York judge threw out Robert Trump’s lawsuit to block Mary Trump’s tell-all book, which Robert apparently filed immediately after being released from the ICU.
   
• Ben Shapiro’s success on Facebook is largely due to a coordinated network of right-wing accounts, all run by the same owner, that share Daily Wire posts constantly.
   
• The Dixie Chicks have changed their name to “The Chicks.” Great to see all these bands fixing their names to meet the moment, but it's gonna be sad when The Postal Service renames itself The Now-Defunct Postal Service.

The Supreme Court has ruled that rejected asylum seekers don’t have the right to challenge their expedited removal in court. The Court sided with the Trump administration in a 7-2 decision (Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented), with wide-reaching implications for the immigration enforcement system. The decision allows the Trump administration to move forward with deporting potentially tens of thousands of immigrants in the U.S. with very little oversight. The expedited removal process allows immigration officers to swiftly deport recent arrivals who don’t express fear of persecution in their home countries. Trump has vastly expanded ICE’s power to make use of that process, and has now successfully denied asylum-seekers the opportunity to challenge its hasty determinations.

IRRESISTIBLE, from Focus Features, written & directed by Jon Stewart, starring, Steve Carell, Chris Cooper, Mackenzie Davis and Rose Byrne. In Theaters and On Demand Friday.

Jon Stewart is back and he is bringing you the comedy event of the summer. Watch Steve Carell as Gary Zimmer, a Democratic political consultant who must face off against his Republican rival Faith Brewster played by Rose Byrne. The two compete in a small town mayoral race that garners national attention. Don’t miss Jon Stewart’s Irresistible. In Theaters and On Demand Friday. 

 Visit WatchIrresistible.com now to set a watch reminder.

Polling in Mississippi found that for the first time, a majority of the state’s voters are in favor of changing the state flag to remove its Confederate emblem.

NASA has named its Washington, DC, headquarters for Mary W. Jackson, the first Black woman engineer at the agency.

Jenny Slate and Kristen Bell each announced that they would no longer be voicing biracial cartoon characters.

Disney will overhaul its Splash Mountain ride, replacing its Song of the South theme with The Princess and the Frog.