Crooked Media - What A Day: Too Mooch information

Lawmakers are running out of time to extend a lifeline that millions of Americans still desperately need, major cities are bracing for an invasion by federal secret police, and someone gave President Trump the cursed idea that he can ramble his way to higher poll numbers. Is everybody having a nice summer?
 

• White House officials and lawmakers began formal negotiations over the next coronavirus stimulus bill today, with the stated goal of reaching an agreement by the end of next week. They’ve got a ways to go—the White House and GOP leaders are at odds with each other over Republicans’ proposed funding for testing and contact tracing and Trump’s demand for a payroll tax cut, to say nothing of the gulf between the Republican and Democratic proposals. 
   
• That timeline, as ambitious as some turtles senators find it, leaves no margin of error for renewing the enhanced federal unemployment insurance benefits set to expire at the end of the month. Congress is still at an impasse over whether and how to extend it, with Republicans arguing that the extra $600 per week deters people from going back to their jobs. You know, the ones that no longer exist. An analysis from the Economic Policy Institute found that 11.9 million workers (nearly 11 percent of the workforce) have no hope of returning to their prior jobs, though to be fair, that finding came out before Ivanka graced us with her game-changing idea to ~*~find something new <3.~*~
   
• Speaking of helpful rhetoric, Trump resumed his daily coronavirus briefings today with a warm extension of his well-wishes to recently arrested sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell. (You can tell the White House held this briefing in the interest of public health because Dr. Anthony Fauci had no idea it was happening.) Trump advised Americans to wear masks (good) a day after tweeting a photo of himself wearing a mask and calling it “Patriotic” (weird). In the last 24 hours he’s also attended a fundraiser sans mask and delusionally claimed that “by comparison to most other countries, who are suffering greatly, we are doing very well.” But by all means, let’s fire up the New Tone journalism machine. 

Just in case empathizing with human traffickers on television doesn’t magically boost Trump’s approval rating, he’s still got that “unconstitutionally fomenting chaos in American cities” side hustle.
 

• Thousands of protesters gathered in Portland on Monday night, and federal agents once again responded with violence. The Department of Homeland Security currently has about 2,000 federal agents on standby to be quickly deployed to cities with Democratic political leadership. State leaders and lawmakers have pledged to pursue legislation or lawsuits to shut down Trump’s use of force against protesters, starting with Oregon’s lawsuit against DHS and other federal agencies, and a House bill requiring federal law enforcement officials to clearly identify themselves. 
   
• Even as Democratic state and local leaders condemn the invasion of federal law enforcement, some of those cities’ police unions seem to be colluding with the feds. Last week the president of Portland’s police union met with the acting head of DHS to discuss the crackdown, and the president of Chicago’s union has asked Trump for federal intervention. Portland activists say local police have been working alongside the anonymous feds, and coordinating their attacks on protesters.  

With his poll numbers underwater, Trump is grasping at anything within reach to regain control of the election. Unfortunately for the country and world, the only things he keeps close at hand are “a memory of good TV ratings” and “fascism.” It’ll be up to state leaders and legislators—not to mention Democrats in Congress—to keep his most dangerous impulses in check, and it’s up to the rest of us to save the country from him. 

"I'd like to watch some campaign experts react to the latest 2020 ads," you say? We anticipated this. Join Dan Pfeiffer and Bernie Sanders's Campaign Manager Faiz Shakir as they react to a digital spot from Climate Power 2020, a positive spot from the Biden campaign, and a negative ad on the defund the police movement from the Trump campaign. Watch & subscribe → youtube.com/crookedmedia

President Trump has signed a memo that aims to prohibit the government from counting undocumented immigrants when it uses the 2020 Census to allocate political representation. The Constitution explicitly requires Census takers to count every person living in the country, regardless of their immigration status. Nevertheless, Trump has instructed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to exclude undocumented immigrants from the numbers when allocating seats in Congress, a strategy devised intentionally to enhance white, rural political power at the expense of diverse communities, and thus to consolidate Republian minority rule while starving Democratic-leaning areas of federal resources. Trump has no final authority over the Census and will be met with swift legal challenges, but the memo was timed to scare undocument immigrants out of participating in this year’s census, and in that Trump may succeed.

• The Justice Department has accused two Chinese hackers of targeting coronavirus vaccine research on China’s behalf, and of previously stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of intellectual property from companies around the world. 
   
• European Union leaders agreed to a 750 billion euro ($858 billion) stimulus package to fight the coronavirus recession. 
   
• Joe Biden unveiled a new policy proposal that would commit $775 billion to expand access to child care and elder care. The plan would emphasize tax credits and state funding subsidies to make caregiving more affordable, and increase pay for child care providers. 
   
• Ohio’s Republican House Speaker Larry Householder and four others were arrested in a $60 million federal bribery probe, which prosecutors called the largest bribery scheme in state history. 
   
• A former producer and frequent guest at Fox News have filed a lawsuit accusing former host Ed Henry of rape, and leveling sexual harassment allegations against current hosts including Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson. (Fun fact: Fox News knew about the lawsuit before Carlson embarked on his “long-planned” vacation that started on a Tuesday.)
   
• Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen has sued Attorney General Bill Barr, alleging he was re-imprisoned to stop him from finishing an unflattering tell-all book about Trump. A federal judge quickly granted Cohen a hearing. 
   
• Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) accosted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) outside the Capitol and called her a “fucking bitch.” Not sure we remember that part of the Schoolhouse Rock song about how a bill becomes a law.
   
• Dr. Anthony Fauci will throw out the first pitch at the Washington Nationals’ season opener on Thursday, which he will surely crush after months of throwing dire warnings into the impervious abyss. 

Joe Biden and Democratic leaders have issued stark new warnings about foreign election interference. On Monday, Biden released a statement warning that Russia has not halted its efforts to interfere on President Trump’s behalf, and promising to hold the Kremlin and other foreign governments accountable for any meddling, if elected. The same day, the four Democratic lawmakers who receive the highest-level classified information released a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting an urgent briefing over the concern that a foreign interference operation has ensnared members of Congress in an effort to seed disinformation about Biden. Both the Biden campaign and Democrats in Congress are watching a subversion campaign emerging from Russian-connected Ukrainians as the election draws closer, and raising a public alarm in an effort to pre-empt another 11th hour maneuver. 

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Minnesota lawmakers voted to ban police use of chokeholds and prohibit “warrior-style training.”

Los Angeles County leaders passed a sweeping plan to address systemic racism and bias throughout its bureaucracy. 

Quest Diagnostics has received authorization to use pool testing, a testing strategy that could help labs avoid backlogs and return results faster (not so much in outbreak hotspots, though). 

Greta Thunberg won a new humanitarian prize worth one-million Euro, and pledged to donate the prize money to projects fighting the climate crisis. She’ll also donate a portion to an organization working to fight the coronavirus in the Brazilian Amazon.