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The Trump administration is ramping up its efforts to force the country’s schools to open prematurely, through a wholesome combination of tampering with scientific health guidelines and some good, old-fashioned extortion.
- Pesident Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have each threatened to cut funding from schools that don’t resume in-person classes this fall. The president doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally withhold federal funding, and most education funding comes from states anyway, but Vice President Mike Pence helpfully clarified that the White House plans to use the next coronavirus relief bill to pressure states into compliance.
- In a world-class feat of projection, Trump has repeatedly claimed that Democratic state and local officials are keeping schools closed for political reasons, dangerously casting another public-health issue in partisan terms. In Trump’s framing of the argument over schools, the coronavirus doesn’t exist: This morning he tweeted, “In Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and many other countries, SCHOOLS ARE OPEN WITH NO PROBLEMS.” There’s something different about those countries, but we can’t quite put our finger on it; if only Americans weren’t banned from entering them, we could go sleuth it out.
- The goal of that framing becomes clear just one tweet later. In the alternate reality where the pandemic is no longer raging, who needs all these public-health recommendations? A few hours after Trump complained that the CDC’s guidelines to safely reopen schools are too cumbersome, Pence announced that the CDC will simply issue new guidelines. “We don’t want the guidance from CDC to be a reason why schools don’t open,” said the vice president, as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. surpassed three million.
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Betsy Devos, who’s currently being sued for trying to divert coronavirus relief funds from public schools to private schools, has happily taken a lead role in the administration’s efforts to force those public schools to reopen.
- DeVos told governors on a Tuesday conference call, “Ultimately, it’s not a matter of if schools need to open, it’s a matter of how. School must reopen, they must be fully operational. And how that happens is best left to education and community leaders.”
- Education and community leaders see their roles differently. The country’s largest teachers’ union has slammed Trump’s push to reopen schools without guaranteeing the safety of students and staff, New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio announced today that the nation’s largest public school system will only partially reopen in the fall, with classroom attendance limited to one to three days a week, and Harvard and MIT have sued the Trump administration over ICE’s order that international students leave the country unless enrolled in a school offering in-person classes.
The U.S. just confirmed a record 60,000 new coronavirus cases in a single day. At least 56 ICUs in Florida hospitals reached capacity on Tuesday, Texas alone reported 10,000 new cases, and Arizona has an astronomically high test-positivity rate, at more than 25 percent. The country is in a state of crisis as extreme as at any point during the pandemic, and the Trump administration hopes only to hide it behind a facade of normalcy.
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YouTuber Hank Green has a question: Can social media sites violate the first amendment? Join us as we search for an answer with Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao, author and activist Eli Pariser and ACLU attorney Mohammad Tasjar. Then, of course, smash that subscribe button → youtube.com/crookedmedia
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The Supreme Court has upheld a Trump administration rule that undercuts access to birth control under the Affordable Care Act. In a 7–2 decision (with Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting), the court ruled that employers with religious or moral objections can opt out of providing contraceptive coverage. An estimated 70,000 to 126,000 people could lose birth control coverage as a result.
Carving out another legal loophole under the banner of religious liberty, the court ruled in a separate decision (with the same dissenters) that federal employment-discrimination laws don’t apply to religious organizations, one week after deciding that states that fund private schools can’t exclude religious schools. So, states must provide taxpayer money to religious organizations, which then have carte blanche to discriminate against workers, and also deny them birth control coverage. Cross your fingers for a better day tomorrow, when we find out whether the Court will uphold Congress’s subpoenas of Trump’s tax and financial records.
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- Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman will retire from the military rather than face President Trump’s retaliation for his testimony in the House’s impeachment inquiry. Vindman’s lawyer said in a statement that he chose to leave the Army "after it has been made clear that his future within the institution he has dutifully served will forever be limited.”
- Chief Justice John Roberts was hospitalized last month for a head injury sustained in a fall, and decided not to disclose that.
- The Park Police didn’t record its radio transmissions from when its officers violently cleared protesters out of Lafayette Square on June 1. Sure, the Park Police repeatedly lied about not having used tear gas, but now it turns out the evidence about who ordered them to do that is missing, so there’s really no way to know if anything shady happened here.
- United Airlines will send layoff warnings to 36,000 employees, nearly half of its U.S. staff, as spiking infection rates wallop the airline industry once again.
- Progressive activist Ady Barkan endorsed Joe Biden for president, and urged him to select Elizabeth Warren as his running mate.
- Hold onto your butts: Tulsa Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said that Trump’s campaign rally in June “likely contributed” to a dramatic spike in new coronavirus cases. Meanwhile, Houston's Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner has blocked the Texas Republican party from holding an in-person convention next week.
- Central Park birdwatcher Chris Cooper has not cooperated with the Manhattan district attorney’s prosecution of Amy Cooper, who filed a false police report against him. Chris Cooper said he thinks Amy Cooper has already suffered sufficient consequences, sparking a larger conversation about the role of the criminal-justice system in addressing social problems.
- Kanye West announced he no longer supports Trump, while admitting he’s cool with potentially siphoning votes away from Joe Biden. Okey-dokey.
- Japan’s theme parks have reopened, but screaming on roller coasters is now banned. A promotional video of two theme park executives silently riding a roller coaster ends with the message, “Please scream inside your heart.” Way ahead of you, gentlemen.
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President Trump reportedly directed the CIA to share counterterrorism intelligence with the Kremlin, while ignoring reports that Russia was arming the Taliban. Several former intelligence officials told reporters that Trump opted not to confront Vladimir Putin about supplying arms to the Taliban between 2017 and 2018, and undercut military officials when they raised concerns about the program’s threat to U.S. forces. At the same time, Trump was pushing the CIA to supply Russia with intelligence despite getting nothing in return. That Russia-Taliban arms program was a precursor to Russia offering bounties to Taliban fighters for killing American troops, and Putin likely saw Trump’s inaction as a green light to take the aggression further.
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A new study suggests that a long-acting injectable drug is more effective at preventing HIV than the commonly used daily pills. The option of an injection may allow more at-risk people to remain on medication.
Washington, DC, is poised to abolish criminal disenfranchisement, with a bill that would immediately restore voting rights to over 4,000 incarcerated people.
Virginia has eliminated a backlog of 2,665 untested rape kits. The state passed a law in 2016 meant to prevent such a backlog from happening again, and victims can now track the progress of testing on their kits.
Atlanta, Savannah, and Athens have all issued ordinances requiring citizens to wear masks, revolting against Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), who refused to do so.
CORRECTION: Tuesday's What A Day mistakenly labeled Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker a Democrat. He is a Republican.
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