June 26, 2020

Florida Smirked at New York's Virus Crisis. Now It Has Its Own.

With infections surging in Florida while they retreat in New York, the two states and their governors reflect the shifting course of the pandemic.

In late April, as new coronavirus cases in Florida were steadily decreasing, Gov. Ron DeSantis began crowing how his state had tamed the pandemic.

He credited his decision to impose a state-specific quarantine on New York, then the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak. The move earned him praise in the White House and the ire of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York.

Months later, Mr. Cuomo has clearly not forgotten.

“You played politics with this virus and you lost,” Mr. Cuomo said on Thursday when asked in an interview about Mr. DeSantis’s earlier boasts.

With infections now rapidly spreading in Florida while they retreat in New York, the two states have come to reflect the rapidly shifting course of the coronavirus pandemic.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/nyregion/florida-coronavirus-ny.html

June 26, 2020

The recklessness of Tucker Carlson

On his highly rated prime-time program, Fox News host Tucker Carlson commonly faults others for not properly loving America — for not sufficiently adoring its freedoms, opportunities and promise. He even goes as far as to say that Democrats “hate” the place.

Among the reasons Carlson should indeed appreciate this country: His brand of tendentious broadcasting enjoys generous protection under the First Amendment. A case now making its way through federal courts, though, may test that proposition.
In a complaint filed in December, former Playboy model Karen McDougal sued Fox News over a “Tucker Carlson Tonight” segment in which the host accused her of “extortion” in her dealings with Donald Trump. “Two women approach Donald Trump and threaten to ruin his career and humiliate his family if he doesn’t give them money,” argued Carlson in a December 2018 segment. “Now that sounds like a classic case of extortion. Yet for whatever reason, Trump caves to it, and he directs Michael Cohen to pay the ransom. Now, more than two years later, Trump is a felon for doing this. It doesn’t seem to make any sense.”

One of the reasons that the sequence outlined by Carlson doesn’t make any sense is that it’s false. Those “two women” are Stephanie Clifford (a.k.a. Stormy Daniels) and McDougal, both of whom received hush money for keeping quiet about alleged affairs with Trump. In McDougal’s case, she didn’t “approach Donald Trump”; through an attorney, she approached American Media Inc., whose holdings included the National Enquirer; AMI paid McDougal $150,000 for the rights to the story as well as columns on fitness. Then the company essentially buried the story. Trump and his then-attorney, Michael Cohen, were coordinating the whole “catch and kill” operation with AMI executive David Pecker.

In her lawsuit, McDougal alleged that Carlson’s representations were “intentionally false and made with reckless disregard for the truth.” Those words are deliberate: Under First Amendment law, there’s a high bar for defaming a public figure such as McDougal. The “actual malice” standard requires proof that the offending, false statement was made knowingly or with “reckless disregard" for the truth.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/26/recklessness-tucker-carlson/

June 26, 2020

Trump's new reelection strategy reveals his contempt for his voters

President Trump’s base gets a lot of outsize media attention — another feature on Trump voters in their Trump hats talking about how they’ll never abandon Trump, anyone? — but one thing that hasn’t gotten due media treatment is Trump’s own view of his base.

Trump has concluded, variously, that his base would salute his winking at white supremacists; that his base would rally to his corrupt pardoning of Joe Arpaio, a racist who cruelly abused immigrant inmates; and that his base would thrill over forced separation of migrant families (“my people love it,” he reportedly mused).

Now we’re learning that the Trump campaign wants to galvanize his base in part by continuing to urge the country to reopen faster. That’s not surprising, except for one thing: This will be happening even as the numbers of people getting infected with the novel coronavirus are spiking dangerously in numerous states that voted for him, something that will get worse in coming weeks.

What, exactly, does this say about Trump’s view of his own base voters?

The Associated Press reports that Trump’s campaign advisers, recognizing that his position against Joe Biden is deteriorating, are “sharpening his focus on his most ardent base of supporters.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/26/trumps-new-reelection-strategy-reveals-his-contempt-his-voters/

June 26, 2020

Here's what a second term of Trump would look like

Presidential campaigns are often characterized as an extended job interview, an imperfect analogy at best. But imagine you were interviewing a candidate for a job, you asked him what he wanted to accomplish in the position, and he answered you the way President Trump did when Sean Hannity asked him on Thursday, “What are your top priority items for a second term?”:

“Thanks for coming,” you’d say to this job applicant. “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

Through this inarticulate stream of consciousness, there isn’t even the slightest attempt to answer the question: What does Trump want to do with a second term? Does anyone have any idea?

Because the president himself doesn’t appear to, let’s see if we can figure it out for ourselves.

While the president himself may not have much of a clue what he would do in a second term, the ideologues and grifters he has surrounded himself with certainly do. For instance, on the same day Trump held his “town hall” with Hannity, his administration filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to nullify the Affordable Care Act, an action that would snatch health coverage away from 23 million people, strip away everyone’s protections for preexisting conditions and throw the entire American health-care system into chaos. In the midst of a pandemic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/26/heres-what-second-term-trump-would-look-like/

June 26, 2020

Mountain lion is captured after spending the night under Monrovia home

Crawl spaces are often filled with strange critters. Still, the sight of a mountain lion climbing beneath Silvia Escobar’s Monrovia home shocked her.

The cougar had been prowling around the neighborhood for the past week. Once it was cornered Thursday, officials with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife tranquilized and removed the big cat from below Escobar’s residence.

“We did dart a mountain lion this morning,” Tim Daly, a Fish and Wildlife information officer, said Thursday morning. “The goal is to check its health and then release it as long as it’s healthy enough to be back in the wild.”

The male cougar has “pretty substantial” neck injuries and is heading to a veterinarian to be examined, Daly said.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-25/mountain-lion-tranquilized-captured-in-monrovia

June 26, 2020

White House intensifies effort to install Pentagon personnel seen as loyal to Trump

The White House is intensifying an effort to hire Pentagon personnel with an undisputed allegiance to President Trump at a moment when his relationship with Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper has become strained, current and former officials said.

The changes in mid-level leadership are poised to create a more avowedly political Defense Department and could erode the influence of Esper, who spoke out against Trump’s proposed deployment of active-duty troops to quell unrest in U.S. cities after the killing of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

White House officials are now redoubling efforts as Trump complains to aides that he has never had a defense secretary who is fully aligned with his foreign policy views and accuses Pentagon officials of trying to undermine him, according to a senior administration official.

The selection of candidates with connections to the president or White House is a sign of an increasingly assertive approach to personnel matters across the administration, with Trump purging confirmed and acting inspectors general at five Cabinet agencies, sending more-provocative nominees to the Senate for confirmation and sidelining officials he saw as betraying him during the impeachment process.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/white-house-intensifies-effort-to-install-pentagon-personnel-seen-as-loyal-to-trump/2020/06/25/1bfeee3a-9f86-11ea-9d96-c3f7c755fd6e_story.html

June 26, 2020

Trump lashes out at Black Lives Matter, accuses one member of 'treason'

Source: Washington Post

President Trump lashed out at the Black Lives Matter movement in twin tweets Thursday, accusing one of its members of treason and lamenting reported plans for a new mural in front of Trump Tower in Manhattan that honors the cause.

Trump, who has said he supports peaceful protesters, has increasingly articulated disdain for the protests that continue across the country after the death of George Floyd. His comments Thursday were among his most aggressive attacks on the movement that rose up in recent years against racial profiling and police violence.

“Black Lives Matter leader states, ‘If U.S. doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.’ This is Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!” Trump tweeted.

A minute later he wrote: “Told that @NYCMayor Bill de Blasio wants to paint the fabled & beautiful Fifth Avenue, right in front of Trump Tower/Tiffany, with a big yellow Black Lives Matter sign. ‘Pigs in a Blanket, Fry ‘Em Like Bacon,’ referring to killing Police, is their chant. NYC Police are furious.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-lashes-out-at-black-lives-matter-accuses-one-member-of-treason/2020/06/25/45667ec8-b70f-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html

June 26, 2020

It's almost as if Trump is determined to destroy the Republican Party

Let me summarize the Republican platform for the coming election:

We are the party of white racial grievance. We believe those marching in Black Lives Matter protests are “thugs.” We see the term “systemic racism” as an unfair attack on white people. We support keeping Confederate monuments on their pedestals, and we have no idea why anyone would consider Confederate flags a problem. We are equal-opportunity racists. We see Latino immigrants as “bad hombres.” And we believe that using the racist term “kung flu” to describe covid-19 is hilarious, not least because we are convinced the covid-19 pandemic is basically over, anyway. Who cares what pointy-headed “experts” might say — we know in our hearts that patriotic Americans don’t wear masks.

Those are some of the views Republicans endorse by uncritically embracing and supporting President Trump. He is leading his party down a sewer of unabashed racism and willful ignorance, and all who follow him — and I mean all — deserve to feel the mighty wrath of voters in November.

I’m talking to you, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. And you, Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado. And you, Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Martha McSally of Arizona, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Steve Daines of Montana, Kelly Loeffler of Georgia and John Cornyn of Texas. And while those of you in deep-red states whose reelection ordinarily would be seen as a mere formality may not see the giant millstones you’ve hung around your necks as a real risk, think again. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina and even Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, you should look at the numbers and realize you are putting your Senate seats — and the slim GOP majority — in dire jeopardy.

You can run and hide from reporters asking you about Trump’s latest statements or tweets. You can pretend not to hear shouted questions as you hurry down Capitol hallways. You can take out your cellphones and feign being engrossed in a terribly important call. Ultimately, you’re going to have to answer to voters — and in the meantime you have decided to let Trump speak for you. Best of luck with that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-is-leading-the-republican-party-down-a-sewer-of-unabashed-racism/2020/06/25/44073be6-b71c-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html

Trump determined to destroy the Republican Party? Works for me!

June 26, 2020

Tearing down these statues will be history, too. Let's make it one we're proud of.

An image of George Floyd is projected on the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia. (Jay Paul/Reuters)

HONORING IS different from remembering. Reevaluating our country’s landscape of statues doesn’t have to mean erasing history — if that reevaluation is done lawfully, carefully and with an eye toward honestly preserving the past and forging a better future.

Recent weeks have seen protesters dismantling monuments across the country, yanking figures from their pedestals, setting them aflame and even tossing them into lakes. It is easy to understand why people racked by pain and anger at this nation’s endemic racism should want to cast out the iron and bronze glorifications of men who fought to keep men, women and children enslaved. Yet the questions these removals ask of us are often more complicated than whether Robert E. Lee should get to stand proudly outside courthouses and capitols.

Many of the memorials besieged today — tributes to Lee, or Stonewall Jackson, or Jefferson Davis — were erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy at the turn of the 20th century as civil rights for minorities advanced too far for the majority’s comfort. This was itself a rewriting of history: an attempt to compose a new mythology of the “lost cause” and vindicate the rebels.

Yet the traitors hailed as heroes of times gone by aren’t the only ones getting toppled. Ulysses S. Grant — the commanding general of the Union Army — has been torn down; protesters have aimed for Andrew Jackson; Thomas Jefferson and George Washington have been pulled to the ground. The pain and anger born of years of oppression, it seems, extend beyond the most obvious icons of the Confederacy to our Founding Fathers — who espoused freedom and equality even as they held human beings in chains.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/tearing-down-these-statues-will-be-history-too-lets-make-it-one-were-proud-of/2020/06/25/316b1aaa-b647-11ea-a510-55bf26485c93_story.html

June 26, 2020

California mandates big increase in zero-emission trucks

Source: LA Times

The nation’s toughest clean-air mandate on trucks was approved Thursday by the California Air Resources Board.

In effect, the board ordered manufacturers of medium-duty and heavy-duty commercial trucks to begin selling zero-emission versions in 2024, with 100,000 sold in California by 2030 and 300,000 by 2035.

“This is a bold step we’re taking today,” said air board member Judy Mitchell, adding it is a daunting challenge, given the public investment that will be necessary for buyer incentives and charging infrastructure.

The mandate is intended to cut air pollution and push the state toward ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals — 40% below 1990 levels by 2030 and 80% below by 2050.

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-06-25/new-california-truck-mandate-100-000-zero-emission-commercial-haulers-sold-annually-by-2030