Music: Christoph Sietzen — ‘Attraction’
Trump’s history of racism and the reckoning it has forced
Ibram X. Kendi writes: Marine One waited for the president of the United States on the South Lawn of the White House. It was July 30, 2019, not long past 9 a.m. Donald Trump was headed to historic Jamestown to mark the 400th anniversary of the first representative assembly of European settlers in the Americas. But Black Virginia legislators were boycotting the visit. Over the preceding two weeks, the president had been engaged in one of the most racist political…
America tops 5 million confirmed virus cases, to Europe’s alarm
The Associated Press reports: With confirmed coronavirus cases in the U.S. hitting 5 million Sunday, by far the highest of any country, the failure of the most powerful nation in the world to contain the scourge has been met with astonishment and alarm in Europe. Perhaps nowhere outside the U.S. is America’s bungled virus response viewed with more consternation than in Italy, which was ground zero of Europe’s epidemic. Italians were unprepared when the outbreak exploded in February, and the…
Trump flouts coronavirus guidelines with golf club gathering, calling it a ‘peaceful protest’
The Washington Post reports: Just before 7 p.m. Friday evening, members of President Trump’s private golf club here began streaming into a gilded ballroom by the dozens. Some carried wine glasses — few wore masks. The happy hour scene just steps from the golf course was orchestrated by Trump, who decided late Friday to hold an impromptu news conference and invite his club members to gather indoors in defiance of state restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the novel…
Trump’s go-it-alone stimulus won’t do much to lift the recovery
Jim Tankersley writes: The executive actions President Trump took on Saturday were pitched as a unilateral jolt for an ailing economy. But there is only one group of workers that seems guaranteed to benefit from them, at least right away: lawyers. Mr. Trump’s measures include an eviction moratorium, a new benefit to supplement unemployment assistance for workers and a temporary delay in payroll tax liability for low- and middle-income workers. They could give renters a break and ease payments for…
How to beat populists when the facts don’t matter
Anne Applebaum writes: A few weeks ago, I went to a political rally in a farmyard. The Polish presidential candidate Rafał Trzaskowski was speaking; in the background, a golden wheat field shimmered in the late-afternoon sun. The audience was enthusiastic—the host, a local farmer, had spread news of the candidate’s visit only the day before—but the juxtaposition of Trzaskowski and the wheat field was odd. He is the mayor of Warsaw, speaks several languages, has degrees in economics, and belongs…
‘Christianity will have power,’ Trump promised
Elizabeth Dias writes: They walked to the sanctuary in the frozen silence before dawn, footsteps crunching over the snow. Soon, hundreds joined in line. It was January 2016, and the unlikely Republican front-runner, Donald J. Trump, had come to town. He was the boastful, thrice-married, foul-mouthed star of “The Apprentice.” They were one of the most conservative Christian communities in the nation, with 19 churches in a town of about 7,500 people. Many were skeptical, and came to witness the…
‘We’re not protesting churches. We’re protesting this church.’
BuzzFeed reports: The clip that was posted to Twitter — and subsequently viewed over 1.2 million times — purports to show protesters invading a church, screaming “Black Lives Matter” and even abusing parishioners. One demonstrator is filmed calling a church member “a dumb fuck.” The clip was uploaded by Charlie Kirk, one of the leading voices in the Trump Youth Movement, who added his own interpretation of events: “Christians have not been allowed to attend church for months,” Kirk tweeted,…
Music: Ricardo Grilli — ‘Arcturus’
Trump aides exploring executive actions to curb voting by mail
Politico reports: This past spring, President Donald Trump began a full-fledged assault on voting by mail, tweeting, retweeting and railing about massive fraud and rigged elections with scant evidence. Then the Republican apparatus got to work backing up the president. In the weeks since, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have taken to the courts dozens of times as part of a $20 million effort to challenge voting rules, including filing their own lawsuits in several battleground states, including…
Trump antagonizes GOP megadonor, casino boss Sheldon Adelson
Politico reports: When President Donald Trump connected by phone last week with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson — perhaps the only person in the party who can cut a nine-figure check to aid his reelection — the phone call unexpectedly turned contentious. The 87-year-old casino mogul had reached out to Trump to talk about the coronavirus relief bill and the economy. But then Trump brought the conversation around to the campaign and confronted Adelson about why he wasn’t doing more to…
Inside Trump’s battles with U.S. intelligence agencies
Robert Draper writes: In early July of last year, the first draft of a classified document known as a National Intelligence Estimate circulated among key members of the agencies making up the U.S. intelligence community. N.I.E.s are intended to be that community’s most authoritative class of top-secret document, reflecting its consensus judgment on national-security matters ranging from Iran’s nuclear capabilities to global terrorism. The draft of the July 2019 N.I.E. ran to about 15 pages, with another 10 pages of…
Bill Gates predicts pandemic will be over by the end of 2022
Wired: At this point, are you optimistic? Bill Gates: Yes. You have to admit there’s been trillions of dollars of economic damage done and a lot of debts, but the innovation pipeline on scaling up diagnostics, on new therapeutics, on vaccines is actually quite impressive. And that makes me feel like, for the rich world, we should largely be able to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end of 2022….
Dr. Anthony Fauci says chance of coronavirus vaccine being highly effective is ‘not great’
CNBC reports: White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that the chances of scientists creating a highly effective vaccine — one that provides 98% or more guaranteed protection — for the virus are slim. Scientists are hoping for a coronavirus vaccine that is at least 75% effective, but 50% or 60% effective would be acceptable, too, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a Q&A with the Brown University School of Public…
Three major scientific controversies about coronavirus
It is unclear how well masks work. People Image Studio/Shutterstock By Manal Mohammed, University of Westminster Although political leaders have closed borders in response to COVID-19, scientists are collaborating like never before. But the coronavirus (SARS-COV-2) is novel – and we don’t yet have all the facts about it. As a result, we may have to change our approach as new scientific data comes in. That doesn’t mean the science isn’t trustworthy – we will get the full picture over…
Can Minneapolis dismantle its police department?
Benjamin Wallace-Wells writes: Early in the afternoon of Sunday, June 7th, nine members of the Minneapolis City Council appeared together on a stage in Powderhorn Park, masked and socially distanced. Demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd had been unfurling for nearly two weeks, and though the police commissioner had fired all four of the officers present during his death, and though the district attorney had indicted the police officer Derek Chauvin for murder, the protests had only grown more…