Music: Matthieu Saglio — ‘L’appel Du Muezzin’
The silent majority stands against Trump
Jamelle Bouie writes: President Trump believes he represents the “silent majority” of the country against a dangerous, radical minority. He says as much on Twitter, frequently yelling “SILENT MAJORITY” at his followers. Accordingly, his campaign for re-election has tried to appeal to this “majority” with displays tailored to its perceived interests. Because Trump believes that this silent majority is protective of Confederate statues and other monuments, he marked Independence Day with a speech on July 3 denouncing “angry mobs” for…
Portland, polarization, and the crisis of the Republican Party
Vox reports: Late on Wednesday evening, Portland, Oregon, Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) was tear-gassed in his own city. Wheeler was visiting the main site of the city’s ongoing protests, which have devolved into violent clashes with the police for weeks, to try to understand their grievances. Seemingly out of nowhere, as-yet-unidentified law enforcement personnel unleashed gas on the crowd — while the mayor was still in it. “I saw nothing that provoked this response,” Wheeler told a New York Times…
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez denounces the abuse faced by women in Congress and across the nation
The New York Times reports: Ever since Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came to Congress as the youngest woman elected to the House, she has upended traditions, harnessing the power of social media and challenging leaders, including President Trump, who are 50 years her senior. On Thursday, she had her most norm-shattering moment yet when she took to the House floor to read into the Congressional Record a sexist vulgarity that Representative Ted Yoho, a Florida Republican, had used to refer…
The wealthy Republicans who want to oust Trump in November’s election
Reuters reports: Jimmy Tosh, who runs a multi-million dollar hog and grain farm in Tennessee, is a lifelong Republican. He is pro-gun, supports lower taxes and agrees with most of Republican President Donald Trump’s agenda. He is also spending his money to help defeat Trump in November’s election. “I agree with 80% of the things he does; I just cannot stand a liar,” Tosh, 70, said of Trump. Tosh is one of a growing number of wealthy conservative Americans who…
A vaccine reality check
The Atlantic reports: Nearly five months into the pandemic, all hopes of extinguishing COVID-19 are riding on a still-hypothetical vaccine. And so a refrain has caught on: We might have to stay home—until we have a vaccine. Close schools—until we have a vaccine. Wear masks—but only until we have a vaccine. During these months of misery, this mantra has offered a small glimmer of hope. Normal life is on the other side, and we just have to wait—until we have…
A ragtag group of Ukrainian operatives say they’re still working with Giuliani
Christopher Miller reports: Andriy Telizhenko, his eyes concealed by dark sunglasses, gabbed away between sips of iced tea and puffs of a fat Nicaraguan cigar on the terrace of a glitzy Kyiv hotel in the July heat. A fan blew cool mist in his direction. As smoke rolled out of his mouth, so did conspiracy theories. He paused only briefly to greet some of the VIP guests who sauntered in for lunchtime espressos or champagne; their bodyguards watched conspicuously from…
A new solution to climate science’s biggest mystery
Robinson Meyer writes: The project began, in one telling, five years ago, in a castle that overlooks the Bavarian Alps, where three dozen of the world’s most successful and rivalrous earth scientists came together for a week of cloistered meetings. They gathered, in part, out of embarrassment. For the past four decades, their field—the study of Earth’s natural phenomena, including its land, ocean, and climate—had boomed. Generations of young researchers who once would have become nuclear physicists or oil geologists…
Music: Pat Metheny Group — ‘To The End Of The World’
The federal response to protests extends far beyond Portland
Ken Klippenstein reports: In a conspicuous show of force, armed Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers were recently seen in Portland carrying out surveillance and arrests. Agency director Mark Morgan has defended the deployment as measured and restrained. “I will not send any resource out anywhere to confront American citizens,” he told Time. But CBP’s support to local law enforcement has extended far beyond its controversial Portland deployment, and includes not just thousands of personnel but also drones and dozens…
Trump is putting on a show in Portland
Anne Applebaum writes: The very idea seems, on the face of it, sheer madness. In Portland, Oregon, federal security officers dressed for combat—wearing jungle-camouflage uniforms with unclear markings, carrying heavy weapons, using batons and tear gas—are patrolling the streets, making random arrests, throwing people into unmarked vans. The officers do not come from institutions that specialize in political crowd control. Instead, they come from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, and the Coast Guard….
Why is Trump using little green men in American cities?
Daniel W. Drezner writes: This is not actually about anarchy in Portland because the city seems both ordered and copacetic with what’s happening. This is about something else. What political gain does Trump see from escalating and nationalizing this situation? One possibility is that he believes this kind of law-and-order “performative authoritarianism” as a winning move because it a) is not about covid-19 and b) plays into old partisan divisions. According to my Post colleagues Nick Miroff and Mark Berman,…
We’re police officers. You should know our names. That goes for Portland, too
Patrick Skinner writes: My name is Patrick Skinner, and I’m a local police officer. I love that I can say that. For me, one of the best things about being a local police officer is the openness of the job. On patrol my name is on my uniform; as a detective my name is on my business cards. Either way, it’s always on my tongue: I introduce myself to literally every single neighbor I meet while on duty. By definition…
New antibody mix could form ‘very potent’ Covid-19 treatment, say scientists
The Guardian reports: Researchers have identified a potent cocktail of antibodies that may help doctors treat Covid-19 infections and protect people at risk from falling ill with the disease. The antibodies were collected from patients hospitalised with severe Covid-19, and they could be manufactured at scale by pharmaceutical firms and transfused into the blood to fight the virus or prevent it from taking hold. Scientists at Columbia University in New York screened antibodies from 40 Covid-19 patients and identified 61…
The November election is going to be a mess
Norm Ornstein writes: American voters face a nightmare in November. The recent stretch of primary elections has raised a slew of red flags of glitches, missteps, incompetence, and worse that could plague the national elections in November. In Wisconsin, the failure of election officials to send out absentee ballots requested by voters and the failure of the United States Postal Service to deliver them in time forced those voters to physically go to the polls during the pandemic. Once there,…
An arms race for space has begun
Time reports: American intelligence analysts have been watching a pair of Russian satellites, identified as Cosmos 2542 and 2543, for months. Or rather, they have been watching them since they were one satellite, deployed by a Soyuz rocket that took off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Nov. 26, 2019. It was 11 days after that launch that the first satellite split in two, the second somehow “birthed” from the other, and no one in the U.S. military was happy about…