Crooked Media - What A Day: Oregon, trailed

The United States now confirms roughly as many coronavirus cases each day as China did over the course of its entire outbreak, and the daily death toll is higher here than it’s been since May, but your government has its eyes on something even worse: graffiti in America’s 26th largest city!
 

• After lagging the infection curve for several weeks, COVID-19 deaths across the country have climbed every day for 10 days and appear poised to continue climbing in the near term, just as experts and most sentient people predicted they would. If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the fatality curve in this phase of the pandemic may not be as steep as it was when coronavirus ravaged New York: Between testing capacity, which has allowed health professionals to detect more infections earlier, a younger pool of patients, and improved treatment regiments, the case-fatality rate will likely be lower now than it was in the spring. 
   
• Nevertheless, the spread of coronavirus has become so severe, particularly across the south, that its very prevalence has begun to interfere with efforts to track, mitigate, and suppress it. Officials in Tallahassee, FL, had to shutter the state’s emergency operations center on Thursday for several days of deep cleaning after 12 employees tested positive for COVID-19. That center has been active since Florida first detected cases in March, tracking need for and disbursing supplies and medical professionals across the state. 
   
• You might think states’ inability to keep first-responders safe from a rampant plague would have some bearing on the federal government’s position on shoving teachers and children back into school classrooms in just a few weeks—but you’d be wrong. (Bless your heart.) Instead, CDC has delayed the additional reopening guidance it promised to deliver schools this week until the end of the month, just days before some school years begin, and Vice President Mike Pence, the nominal leader of the government’s coronavirus response, has said the administration “[doesn’t] want CDC guidance to be a reason why people don't reopen their schools.” Hear that? Don't let science get in the way of Trump's plan to infect your kids with contagious disease!

So maybe communities can’t count on the feds to keep families and educators safe, but they may have better luck if they happen to find paint on government buildings. 
 

• For weeks now, the Trump administration has deployed a paramilitary force of secret federal police to Portland, OR, in response to—we shit you not—graffiti on a federal courthouse. These law-enforcement officers wear no badges, do not identify which agency they work for, and had already shot one peaceful protester in the head before beginning a campaign of snatching “suspected” vandals off the street and driving them off blindfolded in unmarked vehicles into the night. You know, like a nightmare.
   
• The Department of Homeland Security, which nominally oversees these unidentified officers, issued this insane, fascistic justification for these actions, scoffing at local control over petty crime, and describing any citizens they arrest as “violent anarchists.” DHS has no confirmed secretary, and its acting leader, Chad Wolf seems happy to ignore the demands of Oregon’s elected leaders, including both of its senators, who have insisted that these secret police pack up and leave. 

The worse and worse America’s coronavirus epidemic becomes, the more and more desperate the Trump administration becomes to abuse its power to change the subject. The good news is, the tactic has been an abysmal failure politically so far—refusing to do your job in the middle of a historic emergency turns out not to be popular! The bad news is we don’t know how far Trump will go as he becomes more desperate, or whether it will be possible to recover from the damage he does along the way.

Looking for a fresh summer update to your Friend of the Pod merch? Or a wearable way to support your adopted swing state? We gotchu. Restocked Adopt A State shirts and brand new Friend of the Pod gear are available now at the Crooked Store! They're going fast and you don't want to miss them (there's even some fun 'n' flirty tanks), so get them while they last → crooked.com/store

Orange County’s plan to reopen schools without mandatory masks or social distancing has ties to a pro-charter school group. On Monday, the country’s Board of Education approved a set of guidelines that had been commissioned by board President Ken Williams and Vice President Mari Barke, two vocal proponents of public charter schools and school choice. One of the medical experts they invited to a panel to help develop the guidelines also happens to be the board chair for a charter school that plans to open next month. The guidelines aren’t binding, and the board members hope that when some public school districts mandate safety measures to protect teachers and children, indignant freedom-loving parents will send their kids to charter schools instead. Meanwhile, Orange County and other suburban counties that rescinded mask orders are now reporting higher coronavirus case rates than Los Angeles County.

• Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced that her cancer has returned, but that chemotherapy is working, and she has no plans to retire. “I have often said I would remain a member of the Court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that.” Deep breaths everybody.
   
• Joe Biden rolled out a school-reopening plan, urged school districts to cautiously make decisions based on local conditions, and called on Congress to pass new emergency funding to help schools reopen safely.
   
• The Pentagon has banned the Confederate flag on military installations, in a carefully worded policy that doesn’t specifically mention the flag, so as not to anger the racist president. 
   
• Progressive Jamaal Bowman officially defeated 16-term incumbent Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) in their New York congressional primary and you know what that means. 
   
• The Washington NFL team has launched an internal investigation after 15 women accused former team officials of sexual harassment and verbal abuse. 
   
• Former CFPB officials Mick Mulvaney and Eric Blankenstein helpfully wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed advising Trump on how best to corrupt the bureau with the new authority the Supreme Court granted him last month. 
   
• A Hollywood open secret is a secret no more: Ellen Degeneres is not, in fact, nice.
   
• Joanna Cole, author of the Magic School Bus series, has died at 75. An emotional rollercoaster of a week for the PBS millennials. 

The Saudi government appears to be threatening another U.S.-based critic of the regime. Former FBI agent Ali Soufan has become the target of an Al Qaeda plot and a menacing social media campaign, which cybersecurity experts traced (at least in part) to an official in the Saudi government. The threats against him echo those made against Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before the Saudi regime murdered him, and the campaign seems to involve some of the same people. Soufan spent his FBI career pursuing Al Qaeda militants, and has pissed off Saudi Arabia by running a training academy for police and intelligence forces in Qatar, and by pointing out that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. It would be pretty nuts for MBS to be plotting against another critic on American soil, if the Trump administration’s limp response to Khashoggi’s killing hadn’t given him tacit permission.

Cereal was one of the best parts of being a kid, but lots of us had to give it up when we realized it was full of sugar and junk that you really shouldn’t eat. Enter Magic Spoon, healthy cereal that honestly tastes too good to be true. Each serving contains 0 grams of sugar, 11 grams of protein, and only 3 net grams of carbs. Magic Spoon comes in four delicious flavors—Cocoa, Fruity, Frosted, and Blueberry—and there's nothing to regret: it's keto-friendly, gluten-free, grain-free, soy-free, low carb, and GMO-free.

Magic Spoon is so confident in their product, it’s backed with a 100% happiness guarantee: if you don’t like it for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Head to magicspoon.com/PSA to grab a variety pack and try it today! And be sure to use the promo code PSA at checkout to get free shipping.

Recent studies have found mounting evidence that T cells may play a more important role in fighting off the coronavirus than antibodies, a key finding for vaccine and treatment development.

Cook Political Report shifted its outlook for 20 House races toward Democrats.