Music: Tigran Hamasyan — ‘New Maps’
The U.S. is the accidental Sweden, which could make the fall ‘catastrophic’ for Covid-19
STAT reports: With the Covid-19 pandemic rampaging across the U.S. in April and 20 million people filing for unemployment in that month alone, libertarians thought there was a better way. The Heritage Foundation praised Sweden for “preserving economic freedom.” The Cato Institute said Sweden’s response to Covid-19 “may prove to be superior from a public health perspective.” In early May, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said at a committee hearing that the U.S. “ought to look at the Swedish approach.” The…
As Trump ignores virus crisis, Republicans start to contradict him
The New York Times reports: President Trump’s failure to contain the coronavirus outbreak and his refusal to promote clear public-health guidelines have left many senior Republicans despairing that he will ever play a constructive role in addressing the crisis, with some concluding they must work around Mr. Trump and ignore or even contradict his pronouncements. In recent days, some of the most prominent figures in the G.O.P. outside the White House have broken with Mr. Trump over issues like the…
Trump administration pushing to block new money for testing, tracing and CDC in upcoming coronavirus relief bill
The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration is trying to block billions of dollars for states to conduct testing and contact tracing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill, people involved in the talks said Saturday. The administration is also trying to block billions of dollars that GOP senators want to allocate for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and billions more for the Pentagon and State Department to address the pandemic at home and abroad, the people said. The…
Inside the race to create a coronavirus vaccine
The New York Times reports: Each workday morning in March, Noe Mercado drove through the desolate streets of Boston to a tall glass building on Blackfan Circle, in the heart of the city’s biotech hub. Most residents had gone into hiding from the coronavirus, but Mr. Mercado had an essential job: searching for a vaccine against this new, devastating pathogen. Parking in the underground lot, he put on a mask and rode the empty elevator to the tenth floor, joining…
Older children spread the coronavirus just as much as adults, large study finds
The New York Times reports: In the heated debate over reopening schools, one burning question has been whether and how efficiently children can spread the virus to others. A large new study from South Korea offers an answer: Children younger than 10 transmit to others much less often than adults do, but the risk is not zero. And those between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do. The findings suggest…
Trumpism is the new McCarthyism
Peter Beinart writes: When some presidents leave office, politicians and political thinkers jockey to be their intellectual heirs. Even Ronald Reagan, a Republican, claimed the legacy of John F. Kennedy. Even Barack Obama, a Democrat, claimed the legacy of Reagan. If Donald Trump loses this fall, few will be in a hurry to claim his legacy. Commentators on the left and in the center—and even some on the right—will compete instead to tar their foes with it. For people across…
States reject tens of thousands of mail ballots in this year’s primaries, setting off alarm bells for November
NBC News reports: New Yorker Sasha Aickin, 43, has no idea if his vote counted. It took weeks for his absentee ballot to arrive — appearing in his mailbox just three days before the election on June 23. It came with two sets of instructions in very fine print. Neither set, Aickin said, told him to sign the envelope or had complete information about his options for returning the ballot. He saw the city’s Board of Elections account tweet confirming…
Music: Snarky Puppy — ‘Flood’
Trump’s rush to abandon a leadership role in confronting the pandemic
The New York Times reports: Each morning at 8 as the coronavirus crisis was raging in April, Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, convened a small group of aides to steer the administration through what had become a public health, economic and political disaster. Seated around Mr. Meadows’s conference table and on a couch in his office down the hall from the Oval Office, they saw their immediate role as practical problem solvers. Produce more ventilators. Find more…
‘Invictus’ was among John Lewis’s favorite poems. It captures his indomitable spirit
David Greenberg writes: Some children have an uncanny sense of their destiny. As a boy, John Lewis loved William Ernest Henley’s poem “Invictus.” His sister Ethel Mae Tyner once told an interviewer that she remembered her big brother reciting it around the house. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Could the boy reciting those lines have imagined that he would famously endure…
How to fix the Covid-19 dumpster fire in the U.S.
STAT reports: There’s no point in sugar-coating this. The U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic is a raging dumpster fire. Where a number of countries in Asia and Europe have managed to dampen spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to the point where they can consider returning to a semblance of normalcy — friends from Paris just emailed me pictures from their Sicilian vacation — many international borders remain closed to Americans. On Sunday, Florida reported more than 15,000 cases —…
Rancor between scientists and Trump allies threatens pandemic response as cases surge
The Washington Post reports: This week’s remarkable character assault by some top White House advisers on Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, signified President Trump’s hostility toward medical expertise and has produced a chilling effect among the government scientists and public health professionals laboring to end the pandemic, according to administration officials and health experts. As novel coronavirus cases surge out of control coast to coast, the open rancor between the scientific community and a White House determined…
Portland officials decry aggressive tactics of federal agents in their city
The Washington Post reports: City officials on Friday demanded the Trump administration remove what they called a heavy-handed army of federal agents who have been grabbing protesters off the streets — tactics that federal officials defended as legal and necessary to quell ongoing unrest. The fight between the White House and the left-leaning city government intensified Friday amid videos and firsthand accounts of mysterious federal agents driving around in unmarked rental minivans and detaining protesters. Friday night saw additional clashes,…
Federal officers deployed in Portland didn’t have proper training, DHS memo said
The New York Times reports: The heavily armed federal agents facing a growing backlash for their militarized approach to weeks of unrest in Portland were not specifically trained in riot control or mass demonstrations, an internal Department of Homeland Security memo warned this week. The message dated Thursday was prepared by the agency for Chad F. Wolf, the acting secretary of Homeland Security, as he arrived in Portland to view the scene in person, according to a copy of the…
Social media and the death of good-faith debate
Lili Loofbourow writes: A number of public thinkers are pining for a culture capable of hosting spirited debate in a neutral “marketplace” of ideas. In this vision, intellectual exchange is unencumbered by personal attacks or harsh judgment or, indeed—to preserve freedom of inquiry—the risk of professional consequences. And at the moment, many intellectuals seem most focused on curbing these “illiberal” tendencies on the left. The left, they say, have declared certain ideas off-limits for debate, dismissing those who want to…