Daily Kos Recommended
- As Trump tanks, many Democrats press Biden to aim for an electoral rout beyond the battlegrounds
- Law enforcement is still brutally punishing Black Lives Matter protesters. Donate to civil rights orgs working to provide assistance, report the stories, and change policies.
- Sign the petition: Urge key oversight bodies to investigate Facebook -- and stop the company from profiting off of vote-suppressing ads.
- Trump's team launches new effort to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci after he angers Trump yet again
Even as the COVID-19 pandemic spirals out of control, mostly in Republican-led states that were contemptuous of basic pandemic precautions even as New York showed how vital they were, Donald Trump continues to obsess over punishing his perceived enemies, using corrupt means to reward allied criminals, and making new declarations of imaginary victory even as 130,000 Americans lie dead. His White House aides, sycophantic suck-ups one and all, continue to do their very best to assist.Team Trump's latest declared target is therefore Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government infectious disease expert now known for Publicly Disagreeing with a delusional shitposting idiot even as other members of the White House coronavirus "task force" muddy their own public stances to avoid angering the orange incompetent. On Sunday the Trump team mounted a full assault on Fauci, one conducted both anonymously and fully aided by a political press corps still incapable of dealing with the moment. As usual, it is apparently based solely on appeasing a crabby and pouting Trump.The new Team Trump attack on Fauci is premised on a Trump declaration to, also as usual, Fox News meathead Sean Hannity. During a Fox News interview with Hannity, Trump dismissed Fauci as making "a lot of mistakes." By Sunday Dear Leader's White House team had thus assembled a talking point list about all of Fauci's "mistakes" in the outbreak, and shopped it vigorously to the press.The notion of the Trump-Pence White House team assembling a list of somebody else's purported pandemic missteps, and for the sole sake of propping up Dear Leader's own delusional claims (yet again), ought to be a rich source of shame, but the White House has been purged of it. The sea of supposedly top-class political reporters eager to grant anonymity to "an official" releasing "a statement" declaring that other "officials" have things to say about Fauci, all of them from behind a curtain, is pathetic.The Washington Post was, however, at least willing to provide some insight on how this attack likely came to be. Last week the White House's continued efforts to limit public appearances by Fauci and other government experts publicly erupted again after CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan told viewers that "we have not been able to get our requests for Dr. Fauci approved by the Trump administration in the last three months, and the CDC not at all."According to the Post, this public revelation led to the White House approving Fauci appearances on PBS, CNN, and NBC. But after Fauci appeared on a Facebook Live event last Tuesday with Democratic Sen. Doug Jones, in which Fauci called the Trump-pushed notion that declining death rates showed that the nation's pandemic response was improving a "false narrative" and "false complacency," the White House again cancelled all those appearances. Within two days, Trump himself was nipping at Fauci from inside Hannity’s welcoming swamp.Short version? The pandemic is now taking off throughout the country, but the Trump team's top priority remains coddling an unstable ever-raging incompetent through each day rather than taking obvious steps to control it. Again. Still. The U.S. death toll is now all but assured to reach a quarter million, and may grow far beyond even that, but Trump, Pence, and their top advisers remain obsessed with retaliating against anyone who might warn Americans what the reality of the situation truly is.- Kick-butt ad by thriller author celebrates Democratic military patriotism
- Those right-wingers who praised Sweden's response to COVID-19 are looking pretty stupid now
- Watch what happens when Houston cops work with a man recording them instead of brutally retaliating
- American Airlines 'investigating' Ted Cruz after maskless flight images go viral
- On Sunday, a Twitter account posted an image showing Republican senator and failed presidential candidate Ted Cruz sitting on a plane, looking at his phone, and not wearing a mask. According to the original poster, this was an American Airlines commercial flight around 10:45 AM. On Thursday, days before the photo was taken, American Airlines announced that it would require passengers to wear masks in flight. This makes a ton of sense in places like Texas, where COVID-19 infection rates are growing.Some people argued that Sen. Cruz had his mask off because he was enjoying a morning coffee, and American Airlines does not require people to wear a mask while they are eating or drinking. However, the original poster was then able to provide an image reportedly showing Cruz waiting, maskless, outside the gate of the flight—sans food items. Sen. Cruz did not respond right away to these reports and American Airlines told The Daily News that the senator was flying on a “partner airline,” and they were still looking into whether or not Cruz had violated the airline’s rules.To put this all into context, Texas is seeing record numbers of infection, and while they can pretend things aren’t that bad, the truth is that the mortality rate from COVID-19 hasn’t magically decreased. It’s simply that conservative-led states like Florida, Texas, and Georgia are hiding the true nature of the virus.Ted Cruz is a deplorable person. Ted’s mask-free display of “leadership” elicited the kind of responses one might expect as more rational-minded and less sociopathic people try and find equilibrium during these incredibly stressful and frustrating times.Cruz also seems to be someone who could potentially spread the virus far and wide and has already shown a lot of bad judgement in his social interactions recently.Another Texas politician with world’s more empathy for humanity also gave his opinion on the matter.Here’s a point on the psychology of Republican leadership.And a memento of Cruz’s idiocy.And no Ted Cruz social media response run-down would be complete without … well …
- Retired! Washington NFL team leaves racist name behind
- Trump administration's F-You to Teachers summer tour continues
- Pennsylvania cop relies on neck restraint that looks eerily similar to one in George Floyd's arrest
The same month a Pennsylvania police department released its policy banning chokeholds and “neck restraints” like the one that killed George Floyd, a police officer could be seen in viral video kneeling on a man's neck. The video shot from a witness' car shows three officers detaining the man, with one of them pressing his knee into the suspect's neck Saturday outside of St. Luke’s Sacred Heart Hospital, which is in Allentown, a city about 60 miles north of Philadelphia. “I thought we mattered,” someone could be heard screaming in the video of the encounter.The incident led to a protest that prompted more than 100 people to march to the Allentown Police Department to demand answers Saturday night, according to WFMZ-TV. Allentown Mayor Ray O’Connell told protesters: "When I look at it, I think it's disturbing. I think we have to gather all the facts and information before we go forward."Police Chief Glenn Granitz Jr. similarly responded to protesters. "We're going to take a look at it," he said. "We're going to go through everything and we're going to give you an update as soon as we can." The officers in the video haven’t been identified yet, and it’s unclear what prompted them to arrest the man held on the ground with his face on the pavement.”Just last week, the Allentown Police Department praised themselves for releasing their use of force policy,” the group Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley said in a Facebook post. “No sooner than a week after the APD released this policy, a police officer was viewed applying the same use of force, knee to the neck, procedure that killed George Floyd. At approximately 6:45 this evening, there was a situation in front of St Lukes Hospital, Sacred Heart campus. WE DEMAND ANSWERS! What good is a use of force policy if Allentown lives will still be disregarded?! It is clear and evident that black and brown lives DO NOT matter to the city of Allentown!”Civil rights attorney Ben Crump echoed the group’s call to action in a tweet Sunday. “We need this officer’s name and badge # NOW,” Crump said in the tweet.Justan Parker, an activist who leads Black Lives Matter to Lehigh Valley, told CBS Philly Allentown has a history with police brutality that he believes has inspired demonstrators to take to the streets in protest. "People think that it couldn't happen here, and it has been happening. And it has happened again yesterday, so enough is enough," he said.A county judge earlier criticized the Allentown Police Department after Officer Jose Lebron was seen on body-cam video brutalizing a man who complained to authorities about the language officers used to describe the community. Lehigh County Judge Maria Dantos acquitted the injured man, John Perez of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct charges Feb. 21, 2020. “You perjured yourselves. You escalated a situation without cause,” Dantos said to officers. “Stand at this jury, laughing at the defense attorney, high-fiving in the hallway after testimony as if there were something, anything, to be proud of here. Cops smirking on the--You, Officer Lebron, shoved Mr. Perez because you were mad, period.”- News outlets are shedding tens of thousands of jobs. Help keep progressive, independent media alive by starting a recurring donation of just $3 a month to Daily Kos.
- Sign the petition: Demand Congress save the U.S. Postal Service!
- Daughter slams governor after father dies of COVID-19 in state that reopened too early
As the nation continues to face the novel coronavirus pandemic with almost no guidance on the federal level, states grab at various approaches to keeping the public relatively safe and healthy. In some states, like Arizona, there is no statewide mandate requiring people to wear masks or other face coverings, and the state began reopening too early in the pandemic. That’s part of why Kristin Urquiza, who is grieving her late father, Mark Urquiza, slammed politicians in his obituary, which was published last Wednesday in Arizona Republic, as reported by CNN. Urquiza says her father died of COVID-19 after spending several weeks in the hospital, noting that, “like so many others, should not have died from Covid-19."In a letter to Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, Urquiza calls out politicians specifically, saying her dad “contracted the virus during the period when you forbade local governments from implementing their own safety measures, such as mandating the wearing of masks, to protect the public from the spread of COVID-19 through Executive Order 2020-36.” She added that she can ”attest that poor policy and terrible leadership was responsible for his death." Urquiza also invited Gov. Ducey to her father’s burial.Though the obituary includes heartwarming memories of her dad, perhaps the most breathtaking sentence is as follows: “His death is due to the carelessness of the politicians who continued to jeopardize the health of brown bodies through a clear lack of leadership, refusal to acknowledge the severity of this crisis and the inability and unwillingness to give clear and decisive direction on how to minimize risk.”In an interview with NPR, Urquiza noted, “I was one of the first people to publicly come out and point the finger, if you will, at the right individuals who are responsible for this.” She added that she hadn’t yet received a response from the governor regarding the funeral invite, though she says she confirmed receipt of the letter.In an interview with CNN, Urquiza told the news outlet that even in her grief, she’s focused on fighting for a better future, saying, “these deaths are preventable as long as we are focused on a coordinated response that minimizes risk and puts people first.”As The Washington Post reports, Urquiza’s daughter said her dad rarely left the house initially, except to do his job in manufacturing, which was deemed essential. But as the state reopened, Urquiza says her father believed it was safe to go out again. He died on June 30.Here is a photo of the obituary, which has gone viral on Twitter.And here is a copy of the letter sent to Gov. Ducey.Here is a video interview with Urquiza and other surviving relatives, courtesy of the Arizona Republic on YouTube.- The New York Times still doesn't get it
- Cartoon: Over the cliff
- A plasma injection could protect healthcare workers from COVID-19 ... so why aren't they getting it?
- Complaint alleges 'negligent' care at ICE jails as officials refuse to release families together
- Trump's 'occupying army' in Portland critically injure peaceful protester
- Throwing a sandwich ends in death for Black teen restrained until he lost consciousness
- Florida man loses job after Costco mask meltdown went viral amid coronavirus pandemic
- Proud Boys show up to support Pence, Philly police while harassing protesters
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