James.galbraith

Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum is cracking down in anticipation of protests of Donald Trump’s first campaign rally in months. Bynum imposed a curfew for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights because law enforcement told him “individuals from organized groups who have been involved in destructive and violent behavior in other states are planning to travel to the City of Tulsa for purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally.”

So … Trump-supporting Boogaloo Boys? They’re the ones who’ve been shooting law enforcement officers and traveling to protests with Molotov cocktails. And in fact, Bynum's order does mention Molotov cocktails—but it also links protests “planned in response to the rally” and general “civil unrest” in Tulsa and throughout the United States. Trump himself definitely anticipates Bynum to brutalize anyone protesting his rally, tweeting “Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis. It will be a much different scene!”

The Washington Post reports a hilarious subplot to the curfew, noting that “It’s unclear whether the Trump supporters who have camped out for days to secure a prime spot to see the president on Saturday will be cleared out as well, but some videos posted on social media appeared to show people leaving the area carrying tents and lawn chairs.”

The much less hilarious aspect of the rally can be seen in the Oklahoman headline "New COVID-19 cases blow past previous record, hospitalizations rise.” The Trump campaign plans to make masks and hand sanitizer available, but won’t require their use, and social distancing will definitely not be a thing.

All this for a rally in a state Trump will win easily in a city where Black residents are trying to celebrate Juneteenth on the 99th anniversary of a major race massacre. And here’s Trump cheering for police to attack anyone who protests his KKK-lite rally.

Police officers in Atlanta are to receive a $500 bonus Thursday, according to a report by WSB-TV Atlanta. According to the local news outlet, the bonuses come from about $2 million in funds raised by the Atlanta Police Foundation. The foundation plans to not only pay each officer a $500 bonus, but replace 20 police cars that were damaged during city protests. The foundation told WSB-TV that the bonuses serve as a thank you for the hours and the work law enforcement officers have done over the past three months.

The announcement of the distribution of these bonuses comes after several news outlets reported that Atlanta officers were walking off shifts and calling out of work following the press conference announcing the charges made against a former Atlanta officer, Garrett Rolfe, for the death of Rayshard Brooks. Rolfe was fired after fatally shooting Brooks, a Black man, twice in the back on Friday. In total, 11 charges were brought against Rolfe by Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard on Wednesday, including felony murder, five counts of aggravated assault, four counts of violating his oath of office, and one count of criminal damage to property.

Several Atlanta police officers called in sick or were unresponsive hours after the fired officer was charged with felony murder, sources within the Atlanta Police Department said, according to CNN. While the department released a statement Wednesday denying allegations that officers walked off the job, it confirmed that the department was experiencing “higher than usual” call-outs.

Social media users on Twitter dubbed the rumors of officers refusing to work due to the charges being faced by a former colleague the #BlueFlu. The department stressed on Wednesday—and again on Thursday—that despite a higher number of call-outs than usual, enough resources are available to respond to calls.

"The Atlanta Police Department is able to respond effectively to 911 calls. Please don’t hesitate to call if you have an emergency," the statement said.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms supported the police department’s statement, reiterating that the city would still be safe. "We do have enough officers to cover us through the night," she said. "Our streets won't be any less safe because of the number of officers who called out, but it is just my hope again that our officers will remember the commitment that they made when they held up their hand and they were sworn in as police officers." Bottoms added that “a lot” is happening in the country, with officers “receiving the brunt of it.” With a pay raise in force, officers can be expected to continue their commitment, CNN reported.

While it is unclear how many officers called in sick or did not show up for their shift following the announced charges Wednesday, the Atlanta Police Department said on Monday that eight of its officers have resigned since June 1, The Hill reported.

Brooks’ murder follows a number of cases against police brutality and comes amid nationwide protests against the brutal police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Activists and protestors are calling to defund the police and shift funds to community initiatives in an effort to end police brutality and excessive use of force.

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By Dan Duddy  Published: June 18th, 2020 

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Justin Walker, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the second most powerful court in the country.

In a 51-42 vote, Walker was confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was the only Republican to join Senate Democrats in voting against his nomination.

The 38-year old Walker is currently a district court judge for the Western District of Kentucky and is widely viewed as a protégé of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Prior to his confirmation vote, McConnell touted Walker’s his legal credentials as well as is Kentucky roots.

“When the Senate confirms Judge Walker to this vacancy, we will not just be promoting a widely-admired legal expert and proven judge to a role for which he is obviously qualified,” McConnell said. “We’ll also be adding to a time-honored tradition of finding men and women from all across the country to help ensure that this enormously consequential bench here in our nation’s capital is refreshed with talent from all parts of America.”

Senate Republicans and the conservative legal community lauded Trump’s decision to nominate Walker, who previously clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and for Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was on the D.C. Circuit. Walker also fiercely defended Kavanaugh during his contentious Supreme Court confirmation.

But Senate Democrats criticized the choice, describing Walker as unqualified and voicing concerns about his views of the Affordable Care Act, particularly amid a pandemic. Prior to becoming a federal judge, Walker wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the ACA was “indefensible.”

“I'd like Leader McConnell to go home to Kentucky and tell the citizens of Kentucky why he nominated someone who wants to repeal our health care law when the Covid crisis is hurting people there as it is everywhere else,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). “In the middle of a national public health crisis, the Republican Senate majority is poised to confirm a judge who opposes our country’s health care law.”

Democrats also questioned whether Walker could be objective as a judge given his remarks at his investiture. In a speech, Walker addressed Kavanaugh’s critics and vowed to “not surrender while you wage war on our work.”

Collins, who voted for Walker’s nomination to be district judge, cited those remarks as the reason for her opposition for his nomination to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“His ideological comments ... against those who hold views that are different from his own prevent me from supporting his elevation to the second highest court in the land,” Collins, who is facing reelection this year, said Wednesday.

The Senate previously confirmed Walker as a district judge for the Western District of Kentucky in October, along party lines in a 50-41 vote.

Impeached President Donald Trump is pushing health officials to speed up the timeline for a coronavirus vaccine in order to have it ready this fall. Administration sources tell The Washington Post that his "goal is to instill confidence among voters that the virus can be tamed and the economy fully reopened under Trump’s stewardship." In other words, he wants to look like a president solving a crisis ahead of the election.

It's sure as hell not about saving lives. If that mattered to him, we wouldn't be in a vicious resurgence of the disease. If saving lives mattered to him he wouldn't be risking thousands of his own supporters by having his rally in Tulsa this weekend. If saving lives was what it was about, there would be adequate PPE for every essential worker and we'd still all be home, financially and physically secure. But it's not about saving lives—not even down to the damned least thing he could have done: putting on a goddamned mask on television, in front of the nation. If he'd done that, who knows how many lives would have been saved.

Anyway, back to the dirt spilled to the Post. Last month, two senior White House officials say, Trump met with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper about the vaccine project, which they are insanely calling Operation Warp Speed. In this meeting, "Trump pushed Azar repeatedly to speed up the already unprecedented timeline. […] Trump wants some people to be able to get the vaccine sooner than the end of the year to demonstrate an end to the pandemic is within reach, according to those officials and two others." It's not clear who the "some people," other than him and Ivanka, are. If health officials are allowed a say, it will be the elderly and frontline essential workers, but health officials care about saving lives. In reality it would definitely be Trump's buddies who get a vaccine first—if they would be willing to take it.

That's another big issue here: The majority of people who have seen Trump's response to the crisis thus far would not trust a rushed vaccine. Which means that even if a vaccine is rushed out, it will probably do little to help Trump's prospects in November.

In terms of the ‘saving lives’ part of the deal, pumping all these resources into getting something, anything out the door this fall could hamper getting an effective vaccine developed. A botched effort could be downright dangerous to the people who get the vaccine and create more distrust for the next one that might come out. It would also, obviously, allow the coronavirus to keep sweeping through vulnerable populations unchecked. All of which compounds the basic issue: Trump doesn't give a damn about saving lives. He just wants to stay in power.

Florida GOP Congressman Matt Gaetz appeared Thursday night on Fox News with his newly revealed “son,” 19-year-old Nestor Galban.

Both Gaetz and Galban took the opportunity to slam Democratic Congressman Cedric Richmond of Louisiana for a heated exchange during a House Judiciary Committee meeting this week. During a markup of a policing reform bill, Gaetz and Richmond sparred after the Democrat suggested that Republicans don’t know what it’s like to worry about non-white children.

“You’re claiming you have more concern for my family than I do. Who the hell do you think you are?” Gaetz told Richmond during the exchange.

One day later, Gaetz claimed on Twitter that Nestor is his son — even though he has not formally adopted him, and he has previously referred to him in social media posts as a “helper,” a “House page,” and a “local student.”

“I believe everyone should be able to participate, if they are black, white or otherwise,” Gaetz told host Tucker Carlson. “It is certainly offensive to have someone tell you that you don’t know what a certain experience is like when they know nothing about you. Nestor is the light of my life. I couldn’t imagine loving him any more if he was my own flesh and blood. I have raised him for the last six years, and he is just the most remarkable young man.”

Galban defended Gaetz.

“I think it’s kind of unfair to tell someone that they don’t understand because of their racial color,” Galban said, calling Richmond a “hypocrite.”

Gaetz added: “I cannot believe that it’s acceptable in the United States Congress for someone to tell someone else that they are fighting for their children more than they are. So that’s why I got very upset. but for the sake of Nestor and my story, we’re a proud, happy family and we love each other very much, and Nestor’s on his way off to college in the fall, and I just couldn’t be happier and prouder of the young man he’s become, and the fact that he’s embracing these American values, that everyone should be treated fairly and equally.”

For what it’s worth, Gaetz receive a zero, the lowest possible score, on the Human Rights Campaign’s most recent Congressional Scorecard, which measures support for LGBT equality. Gaetz recently claimed he couldn’t support the LGBT Equality Act because it might allow Donald Trump to declare himself the “first female president.”

Roll Call reports that as recently as last July, Gaetz’s staff identified the congressman as single with no children for a biographical data survey. Gaetz confirmed to People magazine he has not formally adopted Galban.

“Detractors said Gaetz had turned the teenager into a prop; others called it a dismissive slight-of-hand — like shrugging off accusations of prejudice by pointing to personal friendships with people of color,” People reported. “Many pointed to his views on immigration more broadly. In a characteristic slam, one user tweeted: ‘Matt Gaetz using Nestor to score political points or to show he is not racist is disgusting.’ In other corners of social media, conspiratorial theories began tangling together about Nestor’s biography and his biological relatives.”

The post Rep. Matt Gaetz Appears on Fox News With His Newly Revealed Son: ‘Nestor is the Light of My Life’ (WATCH) appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

Donald Trump is no longer shuffling out to do the multiple-hour free association test that passed for a briefing on COVID-19. So he no longer has the cameras of every network focused on him as he explains how everything is “totally under control,” or how “it miraculously goes away,” or when he repeatedly insists that “this is just like flu.” We’re no longer getting a briefing on how good it would be to “clean out our insides” with an injection of bleach, and no longer being pushed to take a malaria drug without evidence of benefit. But just because the briefings have disappeared doesn’t mean that Donald Trump is sounding one bit more sensible.

In two new interviews—one with Sean Hannity, and another with the Wall Street Journal—Trump picks up the slack in distributing generic misinformation, absolute lies, and statements so irrational they’re actually painful. Did you know that World War I ended because the soldiers got too sick to fight? It’s true! Well, no. It’s not. But Trump did say it. Let’s get started ...

Trump’s phone interview with Hannity is, like all things Trump, shambling, rambling, and way too long. Fortunately, CNN has distilled the essence of the call into a series of statements that show just how other-side-of-looking-glass Trumpland really is.

Trump spends a good deal of time on the protests against police violence that followed the murder of George Floyd. And Trump points out the real problem … which is protests. Most of the protesters, according to Trump, “don't even know what they're protesting.” And they also don’t appreciate how much Trump has done for them to make everything “the best.” Trump also spends some time explaining how the police are not being treated fairly and are “under siege.” That was right before Trump explained how police were justified in shooting Rayshard Brooks because Trump “got a report that the police officer’s lawyer heard a sound like a gun.”

After all, what better source for accurate information can there be than the lawyer for the guy who shot a Black man twice in the back while that Black man was running away? The officer involved is being charged with felony murder, so it must be nice to have Trump on his defense team.

Eventually, Trump wandered in and out of talking about the COVID-19 crisis where, as you might expect, he’s done a fantastic job. Trump explained again that after “one person report[ed] it” he closed down flights from China. In the real world, Trump restricted some flights from China a full month after the World Health Organization reported the outbreak in China, and two weeks after the first identified case in the United States. It’s absolutely clear that Trump’s flight restriction did nothing to slow the spread of the disease, but since it’s the only thing he did for two months, he has to keep talking about it.

Trump then explains how the Spanish Flu happened in 1917 and how the flu "[p]robably ended World War I, because all the soldiers, they were—they were so sick." Which is a level of ignorance that would be staggering in a third grader. Trump missed the date, the order of events, and everything else about the last great pandemic. You might think that considering he’s now watched over the death of more Americans than the entire 1918-1919 flu season, he might be studying those events. You would be wrong.

However, you will be thrilled to learn that Q-conspiracy types have already incorporated Trump’s wild trampling of the facts as a series of clues letting the cognoscenti know that the United States is secretly at war with the Queen of England. And if you have to ask how that works, you’ll never understand. 

In addition to his history less-on the 1918 1917 pandemic, Trump also insists that kids have to go back to school because “their immune systems are so strong.” He, of course, ignored the fact that hundreds of kids across the country have either died or suffered long-term damage from COVID-19. He also displayed no concern for parents, teachers, coaches, or anyone else working with those kids.

And in the play-me-another-excuse department, Trump rolled out a claim that "nobody knew that it was going to be that contagious.” Nobody knew, except everybody, since the WHO had already published estimated transmission factors by the early part of January and the wildfire growth in China’s first weeks made the seriousness of the disease obvious to a stump.

That was far from all Trump had to say in his extended chat with Hannity, but he also made time to talk to the Wall Street Journal, where his interview was again peppered with statements that, in normal times,—or even highly abnormal times—should have brought on mentions of departing town on a rail.

In addition to inventing Juneteenth, Trump went to some lengths to explain how Confederate statues should make Black people “proud,” and how removing those statues would only further divide the country. By which Trump presumably means it will piss off white supremacists and divide them from everyone else—a measurable good. As with Hannity, Trump’s response to questions about police violence against the Black community resulted in a lot of statements about how Trump had created a bajillion jobs and done everything so well and Black people never had it so good. 

Then Trump got into more talk about the coronavirus and … it was all so far on the other side of reality that you could not see here from there.

Among other things, Trump revealed a conspiracy theory that the Q-crowd doesn’t even need to elaborate: Trump explained how China allowed COVID-19 to seep beyond their borders expressly to sink the U.S. economy since under Trump, America was doing so well and China was being taught a lesson. No. Seriously.

“There’s a chance it was intentional,” said Trump. Asked if China had loosed the virus to cause economic consequences, Trump eagerly agreed. “Correct. They’re saying, man, we’re in a mess. The United States is killing us. Don’t forget, my economy during the last year and a half was blowing them away. And the reason is the tariffs.” The tariffs … that were being paid by U.S. consumers, and costing U.S. farmers billions. That’s why China engaged in biological warfare by allowing thousands of their citizens to die so America would catch it.

Trump doesn’t explain the part of this where it requires China to understand that his response would be utterly incompetent, or how it was that China was able to halt the spread of the disease there, then sit back as it exploded across the United States. But it’s in the nature of a Trump conspiracy theory that it contains enough holes for a decade of Swiss cheese.

On the basis of what evidence did Trump accuse another nation of engaging in biological warfare to destroy the U.S. economy? None. Trump said that he “had no intelligence to support that claim, only an internal sense.” Then Trump appeared to back off a notch, saying that the epidemic in the United States was only “incompetence or a mistake” … on the part of China. Though he also made no effort to explain how that might work.

Trump then moved on to explaining how he had “created the greatest testing machine in history” before having a sad. “In many ways,” said Trump, “it makes us look bad.” If there was no testing, then COVID-19 would magically go away. And hospitals would magically fill. And hundreds of thousands of people would magically die. And wouldn’t that be much nicer?

And then there was stuff about John Bolton but … After learning that Spanish Flu had ended World War I in 1917, that China had sacrificed thousands to kill Trump’s superior economy, and that Trump’s testing machine was creating an image problem, whatever Trump said about Bolton just didn’t seem that important. 

Turns out the so-called "law and order" president isn't all that hot on law and order when it applies to him. Sure, when police give a 75-year-old protester a concussion, that guy was likely a left-wing plant designed to ensnare the officers, as Trump preposterously claimed.

But hey, when you get caught up in a counter-intelligence probe that shows your campaign had more than 100 contacts with a foreign adversary that did everything possible to help elect you, well, those nasty police are spies!

“For the first time in history, Police Organizations & National Security Organizations were used to SPY on a Campaign, & there was no basis for it," Trump tweeted on June 10, just one day after he baselessly identified the injured elderly protester as an "ANTIFA provocateur." That tweet, by the way, got nearly 160,000 retweets.  

For Trump, it's all about who the police are policing, as Peter Baker wrote for The New York Times. When they're going after his political enemies or people he doesn't like, they're the great heroes and saviors of our nation. But if they're probing Trump's countless instances of lawless transgressions, they're a contemptuous lot of "dirty cops" and SPIES.

For instance, the four cops who presided over the killing of George Floyd for almost nine minutes as he pleaded for his life were just a few bad apples in Trump's view, a "very tiny" minority. “The vast majority of police officers are selfless, courageous public servants,” Trump said Tuesday, as he signed an executive order on police reform. “They’re great men and women.”

But any law enforcement officials engaged in investigations related to him or his associates are the lowest of lowlifes, such as those who handled the Michael Flynn case. 

"These were crooked people. These are bad people. These are very dangerous people. You know what they are though? They’re scum. They’re human scum," Trump charged during a coronavirus task force meeting at the White House on April 19.

Baker writes, "In the past 18 months, the president has tweeted the phrases 'dirty cop' or 'dirty cops' at least 20 times and used it on camera at least 25 other times, always in reference to investigators looking into him or his campaign or his allies.”

In other words, Trump's rule of law is really just the rule of Trump. It has nothing to do with justice; "law and order" is simply coded language designed to appeal to racists, as it ever was.

What Trump's angling for is totalitarianism, where everything he does is above the law while everyone else is subject to punishment—especially the people Trump doesn't like. 

["If officials are now exempting protesters, how can they justify continuing to restrict worshippers? The answer is that they can’t."]

Yesterday I flagged a Corona-related decision by Judge Easterbrook. He upheld a lockdown on a house of worship, even as governments allow protestors to mass in the thousands. Today, the Fifth Circuit decided another Corona-related decision from Louisiana. This case became moot, because the relevant order expired. Judge Jim Ho wrote a four page concurrence, highlighting this inconsistency. It begins:

At the outset of the pandemic, public officials declared that the only way to prevent the spread of the virus was for everyone to stay home and away from each other. They ordered citizens to cease all public activities to the maximum possible extent—even the right to assemble to worship or to protest.

But circumstances have changed. In recent weeks, officials have not only tolerated protests—they have encouraged them as necessary and important expressions of outrage over abuses of government power.

For people of faith demoralized by coercive shutdown policies, that raises a question: If officials are now exempting protesters, how can they justify continuing to restrict worshippers? The answer is that they can't. Government does not have carte blanche, even in a pandemic, to pick and choose which First Amendment rights are "open" and which remain "closed."

Judge Ho questions how protests are exempt, but not worship services:

If protests are exempt from social distancing requirements, then worship must be too. As the United States recently observed, "California's political leaders have expressed support for such peaceful protests and, from all appearances, have not required them to adhere to the now operative 100-person limit. . . . [I]t could raise First Amendment concerns if California were to hold other protests . . . to a different standard." Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae at 24, Givens v. Newsom, No. 20-15949 (9th Cir. June 10, 2020). The same principle should apply to people of faith. See, e.g., Lukumi, 508 U.S. at 537 ("[Where] individualized exemptions from a general requirement are available, the government may not refuse to extend that system to cases of religious hardship without compelling reason.") (quotations omitted).

Finally, Judge Ho also heavily criticizes Employment Division v. Smith:

Smith has been derided by "[c]ivil rights leaders and scholars . . . as 'the Dred Scott of First Amendment law,'" criticized by "[a]t least ten members of the Supreme Court," and "widely panned as contrary to the Free Exercise Clause and our Founders' belief in religion as a cornerstone of civil society." Horvath, 946 F.3d at 794–95 (Ho, J., concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part) (quoting other sources). Smith is troubling because it is of "little solace to the person of faith that a non-believer might be equally inconvenienced." Id. at 796. "For it is the person of faith whose faith is uniquely burdened—the non-believer, by definition, suffers no such crisis of conscience. This recalls Anatole France's mordant remark about 'the majestic quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from stealing bread.'" Id. (quoting ANATOLE FRANCE, THE RED LILY 87 (1910)).

Soon, I expect Judge Easterbrook's decision to be appealed to the Supreme Court. And Chief Justice will find a way to justify the differential treatment.

Most Americans last heard of Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman when Donald Trump had both him and his uninvolved twin brother forcibly escorted out of the White House in overt retaliation for Vindman's testimony to House impeachment investigators. Vindman spoke of what he personally witnessed in the Trump White House's effort to extort the Ukrainian government into producing "dirt" on Trump's election opponent before releasing congressionally mandated aid for the war-torn country. It was one of Trump's first acts of vengeance against those that testified against him, after being immunized from lawbreaking by the Republican-led Senate.

Now Lt. Col. Vindman is up for promotion, to full colonel, and according to The Washington Post the question hanging over the Pentagon is whether Trump will once again reach down to retaliate against Vindman, turning the usual promotion process into yet another example of the fascist man-child's use of government as a tool to protect and enable his own lawbreaking.

The Post's article is mostly speculative, with senior officials and the Pentagon expressing concern that once the normally noncontroversial list of hundreds of promotions hits the White House and Senate for confirmation, Trump will create new military controversy by making the move. Nobody believes Trump to be above it. Nobody is seriously pretending, at this point, that Trump has not been using his office to personally retaliate against impeachment witnesses, whistleblowers, investigators, and anyone else who he believes has improperly challenged his absolute authority to do crimes.

Everybody knows Trump is a sack of crap. Everybody knows he has no impulse control to call on, even if it would be in his interest to not do the overly corrupt thing. It's a given. The question, then, is whether his staff can perhaps jingle some keys or whatnot for long enough for the promotion process to go by as it normally does, unimpeded. Perhaps show him a new “antifa" mug, get him riled about that. Perhaps tell him that a fictitious world leader from a fictitious country called him a “poopyhead,” something sure to set him off for two weeks and render him unable to function as anything but short-thumbed tweet machine.

But this seems unlikely, and the subtext of the Post's speculation and sources is that all involved are so dreading having this battle that the promotion roster itself miiiight have been delayed while everyone involved steeled themselves for it, or might have only been delayed for the more prosaic reason of, you know, Trump so f--king up the response to a worldwide pandemic that even the United States military is unable to perform its usual functions at full capacity, while a "senior defense official" tells the Post that actually there was no delay at all, which doesn't seem like the kind of assertion you'd normally insist on being anonymous to pipe up with.

So we'll see. Will Trump take the opportunity to avoid even one new clusterf--k, even as the military reels from what was very close to a direct order to attack American citizens in Washington, D.C. streets? The odds say ... no.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon leaves a courthouse in Washington, DC, on November 8, 2019. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

Michael Pack’s purge of the US Agency for Global Media, and his effort to produce tough-on-China journalism, explained.

Earlier this month, a Steve Bannon ally and conservative filmmaker appointed by President Donald Trump took over running the vast global network of news agencies funded and operated by the US government.

Within hours of introducing himself to employees, he’d purged four top officials — and critics are calling it a blatant effort to turn America’s state-run news organizations into Trump-friendly propaganda outlets.

But Steve Bannon, who was deeply involved with getting Trump to nominate his ally Michael Pack, sees the ousters as a reckoning for an agency that he believes has been too soft on covering China.

“We are going hard on the charge,” Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist and executive chairman of Breitbart, told me. “Pack’s over there to clean house.”

Michael Pack was confirmed this month as the new CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, a government department that oversees five media organizations — Voice of America, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund — and is collectively one of the largest media networks in the world.

In an instant, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Open Technology Fund were leaderless. The two chiefs of Voice of America (VOA), the most prominent outlet in the agency, resigned on Monday over Pack’s appointment.

VOA, in particular, was founded in 1942 mainly to combat Nazi disinformation campaigns. In later years, particularly throughout the Cold War, VOA and the other US-funded multilingual broadcasters would grow to reach hundreds of millions of people around the globe. Their mission then, as now, was to disseminate factual, unbiased news to people who live in countries where freedom of the press is either strongly curtailed or nonexistent.

Though the news agencies are funded and overseen by the federal government, they operate independently when it comes to all editorial decisions like what stories to cover and how to cover them.

That “firewall,” enshrined in US law, “prohibits interference by any US government official in the objective, independent reporting of news, thereby safeguarding the ability of our journalists to develop content that reflects the highest professional standards of journalism, free of political interference,” according to the VOA website.

This serves a critical purpose in US diplomacy abroad: Showcasing America’s ability to report independently, without direct government interference in the editorial process, displays the US as a free society where freedom of the press is not only protected but valued.

It has also served more specific US foreign policy interests over the years, particularly during the Cold War. By beaming information into places where access to media is strictly controlled by repressive governments and where citizens’ views of both the US and their own leaders are heavily influenced by government propaganda, the US is able to combat misinformation about its actions and, ideally, help encourage democracy to grow.

Pack’s arrival, critics argue, threatens all of that.

That’s because it’s expected that Pack will replace the ousted chiefs with Trump administration loyalists — people whose allegiance is not to the principles of journalistic integrity and editorial independence but to Trump’s personal political interests and Bannon’s ideological agenda.

“This is the Breitbartization of U.S. government media,” Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics and a prominent Trump critic, tweeted on Thursday.

VOA and US government-funded media has long been a conservative target

Since even before Trump ran for president, Republicans have been trying to remake the US state-run media outlets less editorially independent and into more explicit propaganda arms of the US government.

As the New Republic notes, “In 2014, Rep. Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced legislation that would turn the agency into an explicit instrument of American ‘public diplomacy,’ with a mandate to promote U.S. foreign policy.”

But those efforts ramped up big time once Trump declared his candidacy.

During the 2016 presidential election, many conservatives believed VOA actively reported anti-Trump stories. There was some truth to this: “BBG Watch, a watchdog web site started by a former VOA staffer, highlighted news reports in which the agency compared Trump to Lenin and Mao, criticized his immigration policies, and poked fun at his speeches,” the New Republic reported in 2017. (BBG stands for the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the former name of the US Agency for Global Media.)

Amanda Bennett, VOA’s director at the time (and who just resigned this week), started anti-bias training soon afterward.

It’s no surprise, then, what happened after Trump won the election: In December 2016, just a month after his victory, Republicans in Congress changed the governance structure of VOA, replacing the bipartisan executive board with a CEO appointed by the president. And two young members of the administration in January 2017 were sent over to the news organization to monitor its operations.

“The priority is to make coverage fall in line with the president’s worldview,” said Brett Bruen, the director for global engagement on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council, who had these US-funded media outlets in his portfolio.

The main conservative gripe since Trump took over is that VOA and its sister outlets have been too soft on China. In 2018, Stanford University’s Hoover Institution claimed in a report on Chinese influence in the US that VOA had “a pattern of avoiding stories that could be perceived to be too tough on China.”

That still seems to be the main issue today. Bannon rattled off how VOA specifically hasn’t gone after the Chinese government’s human rights abuses aggressively enough, and hopes Pack — whom he has previously called his “mentor” in documentary filmmaking — can change that.

Voice of America’s China coverage sparked Trump’s ire and spurred Pack’s confirmation

Bannon helped put Pack up for Senate confirmation in June 2018.

Pack isn’t completely devoid of experience within the government agency. During the George W. Bush administration, he directed Worldnet, a television sector of VOA, and also worked as a top television executive at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

He cited his inside knowledge of government media organizations as a reason why he should get the job in the first place, though he vowed not to shake things up too much.

“I’m not sure about all the journalistic practices and techniques inside the agency right now to do that, but I would look at those and try to strengthen them,” he said during his confirmation hearing last year. “I guess it comes down to, we need to say no when you get a call from a political person telling journalists what to do.”

But concerns over Pack’s close ties to the former strategist and an investigation into his nonprofit compelled the Republican-led Senate to delay his appointment.

According to records seen by CNBC last year, about $1.6 million went from his nonprofit, Public Media Lab, into his production company, Manifold Productions. DC Attorney General Karl Racine is looking into the matter.

The stalemate over Pack’s nomination broke earlier this year for two reasons.

First, Trump and the White House complained — without evidence — that the Voice of America was parroting Chinese talking points during its coronavirus coverage. “Journalists should report the facts, but VOA has instead amplified Beijing’s propaganda,” read an April White House article titled “Amid a Pandemic, Voice of America Spends Your Money to Promote Foreign Propaganda.”

“This week, VOA called China’s Wuhan lockdown a successful ‘model’ copied by much of the world — and then tweeted out video of the Communist government’s celebratory light show marking the quarantine’s alleged end,” it continued.

However, the story in question wasn’t actually written by VOA — it was a piece from the Associated Press that VOA hosted on its site. Regardless, Trump soon after blasted VOA’s coverage of China and the coronavirus: “What things they say are disgusting toward our country. And Michael Pack would get in and do a great job.”

The president also privately complained during an April lunch with Senate Republicans that the VOA was really “the Voice of the Soviet Union,” according to the New York Times.

Out in the open, the administration started castigating the media outfit, such as threatening to bar a reporter from Vice President Mike Pence’s plane or having the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention blacklist VOA’s media requests.

Second, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, seemingly bowed under all that pressure. “This has been investigated back and forth,” he said in early June during a panel meeting to confirm Pack, referencing the DC investigation. “Keep in mind this is all politics. And if you see the kind of work that he’s done, he makes America proud when he makes a documentary.”

The full Senate confirmed Pack by a 53 to 38 vote on June 4 — and he’s wasted little time getting to work.

Pack could ruin one of America’s best foreign policy tools

Bannon said the new chief’s main goal is to produce harder-hitting news on the Chinese government. He claims the agency has softened its reporting on China over the years.

Under Pack, Bannon said taxpayer-funded news outlets will now forcefully highlight many of the regime’s human rights abuses, namely its detention of over a million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps.

Yet critics of Pack’s appointment, including Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, remain very worried about his partisan leanings.

“As feared, Michael Pack has confirmed he is on a political mission to destroy the [agency’s] independence and undermine its historic role,” he said in a Wednesday statement. “The wholesale firing of the Agency’s network heads, and disbanding of corporate boards to install President Trump’s political allies is an egregious breach of this organization’s history and mission from which it may never recover.”

A current VOA employee unauthorized to speak on the record told me “nothing that has occurred so far is a shock” and the state-funded news organization is waiting to see who Pack will appoint. Rumors have swirled that Trump ally and former White House official Sebastian Gorka may get the nod.

Regardless of who is in charge, the VOA employee told me that “if the firewall is breached, a number of VOA correspondents will speak out publicly. Until then we’re doing our jobs, so far unhindered.”

But it does appear the firewall — at VOA and other agency-based media organizations — may soon come crashing down.

If that’s the case, the risk won’t just be that millions of people around the world lose a vital, trusted source of information. It’ll be that those same people see the US as simply another country spewing skewed stories for the benefit of an ideologue in power.

“[Pack] has taken a rocket-propelled grenade and started shooting it off at various parts of the organizational chart,” said Bruen, and he’s turning into “something much more similar to the North Korean Ministry of Information.”

Any perceived campaign to disseminate Trump’s worldview “will stink up the place,” he continued, “and that stench is going to spread to anything that carries the label of a US international media agency.”

Pack’s play, then, could backfire and harm US foreign policy in the process.

Former VOA Director Geoffrey Cowen gave a 2015 speech in which he said the outlet and others like it are “a vital part of what is now known as public diplomacy or soft power — our non-military arsenal of democracy.”

“Part of the goal is to tell America’s story — in an accurate and balanced way — that will help people understand us better and hopefully learn from our experiences, institutions and values,” he continued. “In the process, we hope that listeners will also gain a greater understanding and respect for our people, our country, and our way of life” and “that listeners will learn that the press has the right and the responsibility to criticize its own government when the facts warrant it.”

Bruen, however, noted that US-funded media organizations need substantial reform, especially since they haven’t changed much since World War II and the Cold War. But the outlets have at least maintained a decent amount of independence over a “better part of a century to develop an audience and credible independent voice so people would listen to the information that the US wanted to share.”

Without that independence — or even the appearance of it — that powerful tool ceases being helpful to US foreign policy efforts.

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A "Wednesday night massacre" at the agency that oversees the Voice of America.

How Trump's efforts to dodge responsibility on the "dreamers" tripped him up.

Read 43 remaining paragraphs | Comments

On the immediate heels of scheduling a campaign rally in Tulsa—where Black Wall Street was burned to the ground—for Juneteenth and shifting the Republican National Convention to coincide with the 60th Jacksonville, Florida's infamous Klan-stoked Ax Handle Saturday riots, the Trump campaign has made a new symbolic move that cannot reasonably be brushed aside as coincidence.

In new Facebook ads and posts, the campaign is urging supporters to sign a new petition condemning antifa, an ideological lumping of anti-fascism activists held up by the party as the most recent enemy of Trump and Trump's nation. They are doing so, in part, by using one of the most notorious symbols of Nazi concentration camps: the inverted red triangle, the patch used by Nazi guards to designate those imprisoned as political enemies of the fascist state. The campaign is using the symbol not accidentally, but correctly: It was, indeed, the badge used by fascists to identify enemies of fascism.

While The Washington Post quotes an expert historian who says it is "hard to imagine it's done on purpose," due to the relative obscurity of the symbol, it is harder to imagine the dead-on use of that particular symbol to designate anti-fascist enemies was done by accident. The campaign has repeatedly adopted white nationalist and anti-Semitic imagery and themes, sometimes replacing them and sometimes not, after being confronted on their meaning. The campaign and White House both have also courted white nationalist reporters and lavished special attention on outlets, like OAN, that have promoted conspiracy theories pulled from white nationalist groups.

That the symbol was only one of many used for the ads is not a plausible counter. While the "Trump War Room" insisted that the symbol was "widely used by Antifa," notes Media Matters, that is transparently not true. Very, very not true.

Again, there is no remaining credibility for the campaign, for Trump, for Pence, or for the Republican Party to draw on here. Trump's own adaptation of fascist ideologies and declarations, especially in the past few months, is not plausibly in dispute. They have adopted white nationalist stances aggressively, continue to rely on an identified white nationalist as key White House strategist and speechwriter, have relentlessly engaged in propaganda and gaslighting. They have also directly encouraged a militant base to rise up against "antifascists"—which has resulted in exactly that—and, again, have made a series of recent symbolic moves that cannot be translated as anything but intentional nods to notorious acts of violence and racism.

This, in addition to committing actual violence themselves, for the purposes of demonstrating to Trump's followers that he can attack Americans for no greater purpose than the desire to go for a brief walk. If the f---ers want to claim incompetence or ignorance as the reason for each supposed error, then they would have taken steps to make those errors less prevalent, not more so.

For the record, there is no "antifa," as an organization, and Trump's own government has soundly dismissed all claims of supposed "antifa" actions during recent protests. While there has been astonishing violence during some recent rallies, the perpetrators have almost universally been on the fa side of the ideological spectrum.

It would be easier to believe that Trump's band of for-hire white nationalist deplorables stumbled on things like Nazi concentration camp symbols accidentally if they also did not run actual concentration camps, in this case for refugees, intentionally. Or demand the militarization of the streets, or promote anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, or declare, even in the Senate, that the law of the nation is now subservient to Dear Leader's personal agenda and interests. There is no subtlety here, however. The movement is both advocating for explicitly fascist things and declaring "anti-fascists," real or imagined, to be enemies of the state. There is no flowchart needed to get from A to B.

President Donald Trump made bizarre claims about Covid-19 tests and masks during a new Wall Street Journal interview. | Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images

Trump’s strange new claims perfectly encapsulates the US’s inadequate Covid-19 response.

President Donald Trump suggested in a new interview that some Americans may be wearing masks not to prevent the spread of Covid-19 but to spite him — and that testing for the deadly coronavirus is “overrated.”

That bewildering pair of comments, delivered during his wide-ranging Wall Street Journal interview that covered everything from Trump’s upcoming campaign rally on Juneteenth to newly reported details from former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s upcoming book, managed to both needlessly politicize basic health precautions and dismiss the importance of surveilling through testing a disease that has killed at least 118,000 Americans.

Trump said explicitly that, even if there is a worrying reemergence of the virus, he would not pursue the kind of dramatic increase in testing that China did when it tested an entire city after the coronavirus appeared to be spreading widely through the community again.

“I personally think testing is overrated, even though I created the greatest testing machine in history,” Trump said, arguing that more tests means more confirmed cases. “In many ways, it makes us look bad.”

Let’s take these three claims — testing is overrated, Trump created the greatest testing machine of all time, and testing makes us look bad — one at a time.

Whatever the president says, Covid-19 is not “overrated.” Here’s why.

First of all, public health experts say the opposite: Testing is essential to monitoring the spread of the disease and containing new outbreaks. As Vox’s Umair Irfan wrote in April:

Controlling the spread of the pandemic demands finding the infected and isolating them until they can no longer spread the disease, alongside broader measures like social distancing. With an untold number of asymptomatic carriers, the only option to find out who truly has the virus is to test.

Meanwhile, a lack of testing hampers the response to the virus. Health officials can’t preempt outbreaks in new regions. The threat then silently persists, infecting, killing, and draining resources.

You need tests to identify people with mild symptoms, so they can isolate and avoid spreading the virus to other people. You need tests to conduct contact tracing: the tedious work of interviewing people who test positive for Covid-19, finding out with whom they’ve been in close contact, and then informing those people of their potential exposure and asking them to self-isolate and — you guessed it — get tested.

With many essential workers unable to maintain social distancing, we would ideally test those people as often as possible.

“Health care professionals, police officers, EMTs — you may need to actually test them every single day to catch an infection early enough to make sure they are not spreading it to their colleagues,” Paul Romer, a New York University economist, told Irfan. “What I would say right now is a good target would be 35 million per day. You can test everybody every two weeks, and then you’ve got 10 million front-line occupations that you can test every single day.”

So testing is important. So is it true, as Trump claims despite dismissing the value of testing, that America has built a historically great testing regiment?

For starters, recall that federal health agencies bore much of the blame for America’s poor testing in the early weeks of the pandemic. Faulty kits were sent out to labs across the country, and regulatory hurdles slowed the expansion of testing as well. Researchers in Washington state quietly came up with their own test to circumvent the slow federal response.

The US testing numbers have dramatically improved, thankfully. But America’s testing capacity is merely “good’ by international standards — and may still be falling short of what is necessary given the scale of our outbreak.

The US has conducted about 72 tests per 1,000 people, according to Our World In Data. That’s a lower rate than Portugal or Russia or Iceland and about the same as Australia and Italy. Good but hardly warranting “greatest of all time” designations. The number of tests in the US that are coming back positive also suggests we are still not adequately surveilling Covid-19 compared to European countries.

Our World In Data

Which brings us to the last point: Trump says more testing makes the US (read: him) look bad. It is true that more testing means more cases will be found, adding to the total case numbers.

But that isn’t why experts are concerned right now. When you conduct more tests, you would expect the positive test rate to go down, because along with some more positive tests, you would get many more negative ones. So experts are concerned because in states like Arizona and Florida and Texas, the positive test rate is actually increasing. That is what suggests increased spread of Covid-19 is behind some of rising case numbers — not simply more tests being conducted.

Trump also baselessly claimed people are wearing masks to spite him, not to stop Covid-19

On the matter of masks, there is not much to say. This is what Trump told the Wall Street Journal:

The president ... allowed for the possibility that some Americans wore facial coverings not as a preventative measure but as a way to signal disapproval of him.

Mr. Trump said his bigger problem with masks was that many people fidget with the coverings, which he said made them more likely to be infected. The federal government guidelines stipulate that wearing cloth face coverings helps slow the spread of Covid-19 and recommends washing hands before putting on the mask.

“They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth,” Mr. Trump said. “And then they don’t know how they caught it?”

According to a recent AP/NORC survey, 90 percent of Americans said they have been wearing masks at least some of the time. There is no reason to believe, with widespread adoption, that there is any political motivation. Instead, most people seem to be following the advice of public health experts — which is to wear a mask to curb Covid-19’s spread. Trump, of course, has refused to wear a mask in public, introducing a political dynamic to what should have been nonpartisan public health guidance.

He is right, however, that people should be careful to not impede the effectiveness of masks by fiddling while wearing one. Trump managed to accidentally dispense a modicum of useful advice for WSJ readers.

The masks riff was not the only unsubstantiated claim Trump made regarding the Covid-19 pandemic: He also suggested China might have allowed the coronavirus to spread as some kind of economic bioweapon, even as he admitted he had nothing but intuition to back the assertion:

The president said he had no intelligence to support that claim, only an internal sense. He said there was a better chance it was incompetence or a mistake. “I don’t think they would do that,” Mr. Trump said about the possibility of Beijing letting coronavirus spread beyond China. “But you never know. But it has had an impact.”

You might recall that Trump was very complimentary to China’s handling of the Covid-19 outbreak in the early days — and that, according to Bolton’s book, he has asked the Chinese government to help him win reelection by supporting his trade policies.

The smattering of non sequiturs, misleading spin, and baseless assertions was, oddly but appropriately enough, an excellent encapsulation of all the ways in which the US’s Covid-19 response has gone wrong. Whatever Trump might claim, America has categorically failed to contain its outbreak like its peers in Europe have.

Our World In Data

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Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday ordered all Californians to wear face coverings while in public or high-risk settings, including when shopping, taking public transit or seeking medical care, following growing concerns that an increase in coronavirus cases has been caused by residents failing to voluntarily take that precaution. From a report: Newsom's order comes a week after Orange County rescinded a requirement for residents to wear masks and as other counties across California are debating whether to join other local jurisdictions in mandating face coverings. The Newsom administration did not address how the new requirement will be enforced or if Californians who violate the order will be subject to citations or other penalties. "Simply put, we are seeing too many people with faces uncovered -- putting at risk the real progress we have made in fighting the disease," Newsom said in a statement. "California's strategy to restart the economy and get people back to work will only be successful if people act safely and follow health recommendations. That means wearing a face covering, washing your hands and practicing physical distancing." Until now, state public health officials had only recommended that Californians wear the face coverings which, if worn by someone with the virus, have been shown to decease chances of spreading it to others.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Hovertext:
The optimal form of hedonism is just to select whatever philosophical posture will get you through the week.

Today's News:

On Wednesday, Democratic officials on the House Judiciary Committee put forth legislation to reform policing practices. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is an attempt by elected officials to address the demands of citizens across the country to figure out a way to stop the racial injustices people of color—and specifically Black people—are facing on the streets of America. It is a life and death matter for millions of people. Senate Republicans have introduced their own toothless version of law enforcement reform legislation, which restates most of the existing practices without changing much of anything.

The differences between the two bills include how meaningful the definition of “chokehold” is, and whether or not law enforcement officers continue to have unchecked immunity against citizens seeking damages for police brutality. The Democratic plan asks to ban all chokeholds for any reason, while the Republican plan restates the same general guidelines being used by most law enforcement agencies that have not banned chokeholds. The Democratic plan would end no-knock warrants, while the Republican plan would call for more transparency in reporting no-knock warrants.

Democratic Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana was using some of his speaking time to call out the GOP’s attempts to slow down and sidetrack the reform legislation, introduce amendments to investigate antifa, and other such nonsense. Rep. Richmond told the committee he wanted everyone to stand up or shut up. He wanted to see where people stood. They could always amend the law later, but he was more interested in passing legislation that might help to save lives as soon as possible, and had very little time for the general Republican hemming and hawing around race and law enforcement.

REP. CEDRIC RICHMOND: To my colleagues, especially the ones that keep introducing amendments that are a tangent and a distraction from what we are talking about: You all are white males. You never lived in my shoes and you do not know what it is like to be an African American male. All I am saying is if you are opposed to this legislation, let's have a vote. But please do not come in this room and make a mockery of the pain that exists in my community. It reminds me of the argument about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, or the 1965 Voting Rights Act, where 126 people voted against the Civil Rights Act. 85 people against the Voting Rights Act. They had all these side issues. Either man up and say you don't believe in it, or let's talk about the real issue.

And yes, we are not interested in a watered down version of this bill. I am not interested in equality “with all deliberate speed.”* This is a crisis. People are losing their lives. So if we have other things we want to fix, fix them in another bill, but people are dying as we talk, so I am not interested in moving at a snail’s pace. I am not interested in a watered down bill that mandates nothing. I am not interested in studying antifa. I'm not even interested in studying sovereign citizens right now. That is not the imminent threat Black men face on a daily basis. Right now, too often, it is law enforcement. Those who were sworn to protect and serve. So all we are asking today is to deal with that. I don't mind dealing with other pieces of legislation. I don't mind dealing with other issues you all may have. What I don't want to leave this conversation with—why I am speaking now instead of later—is because I don't want you to leave here saying: “We did not know. We did not know that's how you felt.” I want to be crystal clear and I will give you the benefit of the doubt it is unconscious bias I'm hearing, because at worst, it is conscious bias and that, I would hate to assume from any of the people on the other side.

It was here that Grandstander General Matt Gaetz of Florida asked if Richmond would yield for a question. (Of course Matt Gaetz is never ever really asking any questions because he isn’t curious about anything that isn’t the sound of Matt Gaetz’s voice.) “Are you suggesting that you’re certain that none of us have non-white children?” Rep. Richmond very quickly attempted to stop Gaetz from sticking his foot into his mouth: “Matt, stop!” But Florida Man Gaetz loves the taste of his own shoe polish, and he continued: “Because you reflect on your Black son, and you said none of us could understand.”

REP. RICHMOND: I am not about to get sidetracked about the color of our children. I reclaim my time.

REP. Gaetz: You said—

REP. RICHMOND:—I reclaim my time.

It was here that Richmond decided to make things crystal clear for Mr. Gaetz. This is serious stuff for serious people to talk about and Matt Gaetz is not a serious person.

REP. RICHMOND: I know there are people on the other side that have Black grandchildren. It is not about the color of your kids. It is about Black males. Black people in the streets that are getting killed. If one of them happens to be your kid, I'm concerned about him too. Clearly, I am more concerned about him than you are. So let us be clear about that.

This dose of reality really messed with Gaetz’s head, and as is his way, Florida Man turned up the volume on his histrionics in the hope that a louder racist display would be perceived as being serious.

REP. GAETZ: You are claiming more concern for my family? Who in the hell do you think you are? You don't know— you should take those words back—

Order was restored quickly and Rep. Richmond asked, “Was that a nerve?”

Let us be clear here: Matt Gaetz has been given every opportunity to show the world that he is not a racist asshole rich kid with zero talents other than being unabashedly narcissistic. But time and time again, Rep. Gaetz has used his position of power to wonder aloud about whether or not Americans protesting for police reform and chanting Black Lives Matter should be lynched. Then, amid all of the calls for reform and with a never-ending stream of video evidence showing law enforcement attacking peaceful protesters, Rep. Gaetz offered up the idea of creating a law that would make it illegal for athletes to kneel during the playing of the national anthem at sporting events.

*Rep. Richmond is referencing the vagueness of language in the historic Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. It was the vagueness of “with all deliberate speed” that segregationists used to slow down the process of integration. 

UPDATE: Rep. Gaetz has decided to blow everyone’s mind once again, reacting clearly to the viral nature of his confrontation with Rep. Richmond.

This has brought out the obvious questions as to why this is the first anyone has ever heard of this.

When angrily saying "Are you calling ME a racist?" no longer stops the discussion.

Impeached president Donald Trump is wallowing in depths of narcissism this week that is astounding even for him. And the Wall Street Journal exposes it all in an interview released Thursday. For example, he "allowed for the possibility that some Americans wore facial coverings not as a preventative measure but as a way to signal disapproval of him." In the sense that we are all wearing masks to save our lives and have the side benefit of a greater chance of outliving him, perhaps. But where he really descends into profoundly stupid and racist pathology is on Juneteenth.

"I did something good: I made Juneteenth very famous," he said "It's actually an important event, an important time. But nobody had ever heard of it." Kinda like Frederick Douglass. Trump told the WSJ that he had polled many people in the White House after a Black Secret Service agent told him about the meaning of the date, and none of them had ever heard of it. He then interrupted the interview to ask an aide who was sitting in on it to ask if she'd ever heard of Juneteenth. She "pointed out that the White House had issued a statement last year commemorating the day," as it has every Juneteenth during his term. "Oh really? We put out a statement? The Trump White House put out a statement?" Mr. Trump said. "Okay, okay. Good."

No one had ever heard of Juneteenth, he says, so how could his original intent to "reopen" his political rallies on Juneteenth, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, (which is a whole other story) be so controversial? Nope, no megaphone to the white supremacist MAGA crowd in that one, not at all. Somebody in Team Trump knew how racist this move was and how racist he still is. He's still planning his official renomination to be held in Jacksonville, Florida, on the anniversary of that city's Ax Handle Saturday. That they could talk him out of postponing this one is a minor miracle.

For the record, Juneteenth has been a state holiday in Texas since 1980. The WSJ notes that 47 states and the District of Columbia, where Trump lives, commemorate the day, or observe it as a holiday. The last three holdouts are North Dakota, South Dakota, and Hawaii.

Like most racists, Trump is also an ignoramus. And like most racist ignoramuses, he believes everybody thinks like him and thus he is absolutely right. That's profoundly dangerous, made much more so by the fact that he's got the whole Republican Senate (minus Mitt Romney) backing him up.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is hitting the airwaves with a $15 million, five-week buy in ads in battleground states that went to Donald Trump in 2016: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. He'll be on the air, on the internet, and in print in those states with "his own voice," says Patrick Bonsignore, Biden's paid media director, "a voice of clarity and moral authority that the country desperately needs."

The ads will also run nationally on cable and have Spanish-language versions. The campaign is making a "six-figure investment in African American print, radio, and targeted digital programming." There are going to be three ads in total. In one, called "Unite Us," Biden promotes the message Trump fails to deliver every day: empathy. "I know so many Americans are suffering," he says in the opening, "suffering the loss of a loved one, suffering economic hardship. The country is crying out for leadership," he continues. "Leadership that can unite us, leadership that brings us together."

"I promise you this," he says in the ad. "I won't traffic in fear and division. I won't fan the flames of hate. I'll seek to heal the racial wounds that have long plagued our country, not use them for political gain." That's running over the video of Trump's infamous "very fine people both sides" comments and the tiki torch white supremacist parade Trump was lauding. "I'll do my job and I'll take responsibility for my action. I won't blame others," he says. "We're in the battle for the soul of this nation. What we believe, and maybe most importantly, who we want to be is all at stake."

In a second ad released Thursday, called "My Commitment," he talks about income inequality and sounds not a little like Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "If it weren't clear before, it's clear now—this country wasn't built by Wall Street bankers and CEOs," he says. "It was built by the great American middle class." Over video of doctors and nurses and grocery workers, he says: "We've come up for a new phrase for them: essential workers. We need to do more than praise them. We need to pay them."

"That's what the presidency is," Biden's narration continues. "The duty to care, to care for all of us, not just those who vote for us, but all of us. This job is not about me. It's about you." That's about as spot-on a definition of the opponent as you can get.

In recent ads attacking antifa, the Trump campaign displayed an inverted red triangle similar to the one Nazis used to designate political prisoners in concentration camps.

The symbol appeared in Facebook ads run by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, as well as the “Team Trump” page.

“Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups are running through our streets and causing absolute mayhem. They are DESTROYING our cities and rioting – it’s absolute madness,” the campaign wrote above the inverted red triangle in the ads. “It’s important that EVERY American comes together at a time like this to send a united message that we will not stand for their radical actions any longer. We’re calling on YOU to make a public statement and add your name to stand with President Trump against ANTIFA. Please add your name IMMEDIATELY to stand with your President and his decision to declare ANTIFA a Terrorist Organization.”

The Washington Post reports: A red inverted triangle was first used in the 1930s to identify Communists, and was applied as well to Social Democrats, liberals, Freemasons and other members of opposition parties. The badge forced on Jewish political prisoners, by contrast, featured a red inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow triangle. … Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, said, “The red triangle is an antifa symbol,” pointing to examples of iPhone cases and water bottles branded with the insignia. A more common emblem for the anti-fascist movement includes two flags, one red and one black, enclosed in a circle. Although certain symbols the Nazis deployed have been reclaimed, including the pink triangle used in concentration camps to label homosexual inmates, the red triangle has not been recast in a similar way, said Jacob S. Eder, a historian of modern Germany at the Barenboim–Said Akademie in Berlin.

More from Media Matters: On June 17, the campaign ran 88 ads on the Facebook pages for Trump, Pence, and Team Trump with an inverted red triangle. The red triangle was used for political prisoners in Nazi concentration camps. … Facebook has previously let Trump run thousands of ads fearmongering about an immigrant “invasion,” even though the ads violated Facebook’s standards. Facebook also let the Trump campaign publish at least 529 ads with false claims of voter fraud. The Trump campaign used anti-Semitic imagery in the previous election cycle as well. In 2016, Trump used a meme that featured the Star of David on a background of money to call Hillary Clinton the “most corrupt candidate ever.” Trump would eventually suggest that it was intended to be a sheriff’s star. The 2016 campaign also did significant outreach to neo-Nazi figures. Campaign surrogates Diamond and Silk did an interview with a Holocaust denier. The Trump campaign gave press credentials to a white nationalist radio program, Donald Trump Jr. appeared on the program, and a Trump adviser gave interviews to that program at the Republican National Committee convention in Cleveland.

An upside down red triangle is not a "widely used" antifa symbol https://t.co/dwxVMyzvKd pic.twitter.com/v6lNQi2K9D

— Brandy Zadrozny (@BrandyZadrozny) June 18, 2020

The President of the United States is campaigning for reelection using a Nazi concentration camp symbol.

Nazis used the red triangle to mark political prisoners and people who rescued Jews.

Trump & the RNC are using it to smear millions of protestors.

Their masks are off. pic.twitter.com/UzmzDaRBup

— Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) June 18, 2020

Graphic design is their passion. https://t.co/gMiVpMDTxd

— Lindsay Beyerstein (@beyerstein) June 18, 2020

Most Stephen Miller thing ever. https://t.co/Wl0etpD8i3

— Aaron Nagler (@AaronNagler) June 18, 2020

In case you don't know the significance of "88" it is a numeric code used by Nazis which stands for "HH" (eighth letter of the alphabet) or "Heil Hitler."

Nazis like to slip numeric and other codes into things in order to signify their Nazi politics to other Nazis. https://t.co/0O5bXgY1RG

— New York City Antifa (@NYCAntifa) June 18, 2020

The post Trump Campaign Uses Nazi Symbol in Ads Calling for Antifa to Be Declared a Terrorist Group appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is marking this Juneteenth, and the weeks of protest that have preceded it, by requesting the “immediate removal” from the U.S. Capitol of portraits of some very significant Confederate traitors—four of whom, in addition to serving in the Confederacy, were also speakers of the U.S. House.

Calling Juneteenth “a beautiful and proud celebration of freedom for African Americans” and noting that “this day comes during a moment of extraordinary national anguish, as we grieve for the hundreds of Black Americans killed by racial injustice and police brutality, including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others,” Pelosi set down a marker. “There is no room in the hallowed halls of Congress or in any place of honor for memorializing men who embody the violent bigotry and grotesque racism of the Confederacy,” Pelosi wrote in her letter to the clerk of the House.

“We cannot honor men such as James Orr, who swore on the House Floor to ‘preserve and perpetuate’ slavery in order to ‘enjoy our property in peace, quiet and security,’ or Robert Hunter, who served at nearly every level of the Confederacy, including in the Confederate Provincial Congress, as Confederate Secretary of State, in the Confederate Senate and in the Confederate Army,” she continued. “The portraits of these men are symbols that set back our nation’s work to confront and combat bigotry.”

The speakers whose portraits Pelosi is having removed are Robert Hunter of Virginia (1839-1841), Howell Cobb of Georgia (1849-1851), James Orr of South Carolina (1857-1859), and Charles Crisp of Georgia (1891-1895).

Pelosi’s move comes as protesters are removing Confederate statues on their own when authorities won’t do the right thing; after Defense Secretary Mark Esper said he’d be “open to a bipartisan discussion” of renaming military bases currently named after Confederates; and after the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to strip Confederate names from those bases. Despite the committee being controlled by Republicans and the measure having been offered by Sen. Elizabeth Warren. But it also comes after Donald Trump flatly rejected the possibility of removing the names of people who fought against the United States from its military bases, and after Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy whined that “I don't think we ought to just pick on the South.”

This is one of those moments when we can see the arc of the moral universe being bent, slowly, toward justice—and we see why it’s slowed because of all the powerful people kicking and screaming and acting as if justice would be a personal outrage against them. There’s a lot more work to be done.

WASHINGTON — The new chief of U.S.-funded international broadcasting on Wednesday fired the heads of at least three outlets he oversees and replaced their boards with allies, in a move likely to raise fears that he intends to turn the Voice of America and its sister outlets into Trump administration propaganda machines.

U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack informed those he dismissed in email notices sent late Wednesday just hours after he had sought to play down those concerns in an email to staff saying he is committed to ensuring the independence of the broadcasters who are charged with delivering independent news and information to audiences around the world.

Two congressional aides said that among those removed from their positions were the head of Radio Free Asia, Bay Fang, the head of Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, Jamie Fly, and the head of the Middle East Broadcasting Network, Alberto Fernandez. The director and deputy director of the Voice of America, Amanda Bennett and Sandy Sugawara, had resigned from their positions on Monday.

Pack, a conservative filmmaker and one-time associate of President Donald Trump’s former political adviser Steve Bannon, said in a notices to those fired that he was taking the step consistent with his authority as the new CEO of the overall agency. It gave no reason for his decisions.

He added in the notices that he expected the agency’s new board of directors, chaired by himself, to approve the decision. In a separate messages, Pack also announced that he had removed all the current members of the broadcasters’ respective boards and installed his own team, with officials from various agencies, including the Office of Management and Budget and Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The firings came after Pack had tried to allay mounting concerns about his intentions at the agency in an email to staff in which he said he is “committed to maintaining the agency’s independence and adhering to VOA’s charter and the principles.”

The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, denounced the firings as an “egregious breach” of the agency’s mission. Menendez had led an unsuccessful fight to block or at least delay Pack’s confirmation.

“As feared, Michael Pack has confirmed he is on a political mission to destroy the USAGM’s independence and undermine its historic role,” Menendez said. “The wholesale firing of the agency’s network heads, and disbanding of corporate boards to install President Trump’s political allies is an egregious breach of this organization’s history and mission from which it may never recover.”

VOA had come under severe criticism from Trump and his supporters for its reporting on China and the coronavirus pandemic, and the resignations came as Trump made clear he wanted a change in VOA’s leadership.

Pack began his role just last week after a contentious Senate confirmation process during which Democrats questioned his fitness for the post.

“I am fully committed to honoring VOA’s charter, the missions of the grantees, and the independence of our heroic journalists around the world,” Pack wrote in the email.

“I think we all agree the agency has an important mission, and we are being called on to perform it at an historically important time,” he said. “My goal is to provide leadership that will help each of you further that mission.”

That mission has been made more critical as “America’s adversaries have stepped up their propaganda and disinformation efforts. They are aggressively promoting their very different visions of the world,” he wrote.

Pack had previously worked for the agency under earlier incarnations as well as the PBS parent Corporation for Public Broadcasting and reminded his new employees of those experiences during which he said he had “learned the importance of building a team that works toward a common purpose.”

Pack said his first priority is to raise employee morale, which has taken a hit in recent months with attacks from the White House and came to a head on Monday when VOA Director Bennett and her deputy announced their resignations, saying that Pack is entitled to have people of his choice in important positions.

Trump and his supporters have been sharply critical of coronavirus reporting by the outlet that ran counter to the administration narrative on China’s response to the outbreak. The White House went so far as to blast VOA in a press statement and directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to not cooperate with its journalists, an unusual attack on a venerable organization that has sought to be an objective source of news despite its government ties.

While not unexpected, the departures of Bennett and Sugawara sparked fears of a significant purge of U.S. Agency for Global Media management. Late Tuesday, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., warned Pack publicly against targeting career officials.

“My fear is that USAGM’s role as an unbiased news organization is in jeopardy under (Pack’s) leadership,” Engel said in a statement. “USAGM’s mission is ‘to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy’ — not to be a mouthpiece for the president in the run up to an election ... And Mr. Pack needs to understand that USAGM is not the Ministry of Information.”

President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday after justices ruled that his administration cannot end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA).

The high court’s DACA decision came on the heels of its landmark ruling earlier this week in favor of LGBT employment rights.

“These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!” Trump wrote.

“Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?” he added.

These horrible & politically charged decisions coming out of the Supreme Court are shotgun blasts into the face of people that are proud to call themselves Republicans or Conservatives. We need more Justices or we will lose our 2nd. Amendment & everything else. Vote Trump 2020!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020

Do you get the impression that the Supreme Court doesn’t like me?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2020

More on Thursday’s DACA ruling from the Washington Post: The 5 to 4 decision was written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and joined by the court’s four liberals. It was the second defeat this week for the Trump administration, as the Supreme Court begins to unveil its decision in marquee cases. The administration has tried for more than two years to “wind down” the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, announced by President Barack Obama in 2012 to protect from deportation qualified young immigrants who had been brought illegally to the country. But, as lower courts had found, Roberts said the administration did not follow procedures required by law, and did not properly weigh how ending the program would affect those who had come to rely on its protections against deportation, and the ability to work legally.

A few reactions from Twitter below.

So Trump is attacking the LGBTQ equality decision here too.

But Gorsuch…his appointment, brought us that.

Doesn’t seem his base should trust his judgement — and maybe just see that the world is changing. https://t.co/dqVcS3WJYt

— Michelangelo Signorile, subscribe to my newsletter (@MSignorile) June 18, 2020

You appointed the last 2 justices https://t.co/iCGf8NDJLE

— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) June 18, 2020

Trump has more concern about rhetorical "shotgun blasts" at conservatives than real gun shots at black Americans. https://t.co/1wulcaf12I

— The Rude Pundit (@rudepundit) June 18, 2020

I mean, the Chief Justice’s decision today does basically come down to the fact that you couldn’t come up with a viable explanation for why you were ending #DACA. So maybe not “doesn’t like” and more “thinks you’re incompetent”. https://t.co/FzYdielabW

— Will McAvoy (@WillMcAvoyACN) June 18, 2020

Do these SCOTUS decisions make my butt look big https://t.co/oKOkf60YQE

— Laura Bassett (@LEBassett) June 18, 2020

The post Trump Reacts to ‘Horrible’ Supreme Court Rulings Upholding DACA, Gay Rights: ‘Shotgun Blasts Into the Face’ of Conservatives appeared first on Towleroad Gay News.

(786): His butt is perfect. Like a twelve on a scale of one to ten. No idea about his personality or anything but that ass... I'm keeping him.

An unknown number of Atlanta police called in sick Wednesday evening in apparent protest of the felony murder charges against the officer who shot Rayshard Brooks in the back, then kicked him as he lay on the ground “fighting for his life.” One of their own potentially facing justice, and not the murder, are what many Atlanta police object to, apparently.

The Atlanta Police Department isn’t saying how many officers called out sick, and is trying to downplay the absences, tweeting “Earlier suggestions that multiple officers from each zone had walked off the job were inaccurate. The department is experiencing a higher than usual number of call outs with the incoming shift. We have enough resources to maintain operations & remain able to respond to incidents.”

A police union spokesman told NBC News that the absences were a protest, but “This is not an organized thing, it's not a blue flu, it's not a strike, it's nothing like that. What it actually is is officers protesting that they've had enough and they don't want to deal with it any longer.”

Except the basic definition of “blue flu” is when a large number of police officers call out sick to make a point, so maybe that’s what this was after all, at least a small one.

Atlanta officials were at pains to tell the world that the lack of police would not pose a danger. “We do have enough officers to cover us through the night,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CNN. “Our streets won’t be any less safe because of the number of officers who called out.”

It’s entirely possible, though, that the streets would be more safe with less officers. After all, the whole issue here is that police shot an unarmed man in the back. And there’s precedent.

In late 2014 and early 2015, New York City police held a "slowdown" in which they didn’t go out seeking minor crimes (or, alternatively, they didn’t go out looking to harass Black and brown people as much). The slowdown was a response to protests over the killing of Eric Garner and the failure to charge his killer, then-officer Daniel Pantaleo, with police feeling butt-hurt by the public response and by Mayor Bill de Blasio not adequately supporting them in their violence (a lesson de Blasio has learned from). But whatever point the police were trying to make, they may have made the opposite one: major crime reports actually dropped slightly.

Either way, the Atlanta blue flu shows yet again how much police put their own interests—where their interests are defined as being allowed to kill unarmed people without ever facing consequences—above all. It’s not even the only recent example of police going to the mat for their right to brutality. In Buffalo, 57 officers quit a special team after two were suspended for knocking a 75-year-old protester down, leaving him with a fractured skull and unable to walk.

Can the walled-off reality created by Trump and Sean Hannity be breached?