The Commentariat -- May 27, 2020

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I'm back and none the worse for wear. Thanks so much to safari for keeping Reality Chex going.

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of coronavirus developments Wednesday are here. The Washington Post's live updates for Wednesday are here.

Maggie Fox of CNN: "Antibody tests used to determine if people have been infected in the past with Covid-19 might be wrong up to half the time, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in new guidance posted on its website. Antibody tests, often called serologic tests, look for evidence of an immune response to infection. 'Antibodies in some persons can be detected within the first week of illness onset,' the CDC says." Mrs. McC: So, um, useless.

Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: “A growing chorus of Republicans are pushing back against President Trump's suggestion that wearing cloth masks to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus is a sign of personal weakness or political correctness. They include governors seeking to prevent a rebound in coronavirus cases and federal lawmakers who face tough reelection fights this fall, as national polling shows lopsided support for wearing masks in public. 'Wearing a face covering is not about politics -- it's about helping other people,' Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said Tuesday in a plea over Twitter, echoing comments by North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R) last week. 'This is one time when we truly are all in this together.' Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) posted a photograph on Instagram of himself in a mask Tuesday night. Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), who faces a tough reelection fight, has added '#wearyourmask' to his Twitter handle.... The comments come as Trump continues to treat face masks as something to mock, refusing to wear one in public and joining his staff and family in ridiculing his Democratic rival Joe Biden for doing otherwise.... For Biden, the debate with the president over masks is a stand-in for their deeper disagreements over Trump's handling of the pandemic.... On Tuesday Biden made his Twitter avatar a picture nearly identical to the one Trump mocked." ~~~

~~~ Eric Bradner of CNN: "Joe Biden called ... Donald Trump 'an absolute fool' on Tuesday for sharing a tweet that mocked the former vice president for wearing a mask Monday at a Memorial Day ceremony. In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash in Delaware -- Biden's first in-person interview since being knocked off the campaign trail by the coronavirus pandemic -- the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said Trump is fueling a cultural opposition to wearing masks when 'every leading doc in the world is saying we should wear a mask when you're in a crowd.... This macho stuff, for a guy -- I shouldn't get going, but it just, it costs people's lives. It's costing people's lives,' Biden said. Trump's position amounts to 'stoking deaths,' he said. He added: 'Presidents are supposed to lead, not engage in folly and be falsely masculine.'"

Michael Grynbaum & Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "Even President Trump's most stalwart media defenders have recoiled at his baseless smears against the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, whom Mr. Trump has all but accused of killing a former staff member two decades ago despite a total lack of evidence. The president ... is now facing an unusual chorus of reproach from the media platforms he relies on for comfort. The New York Post, Mr. Trump's first read in the mornings, lamented in an editorial on Tuesday that the president 'decided to suggest that a TV morning-show host committed murder. That is a depressing sentence to type.'... And the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, a bellwether of establishment conservative thought, called Mr. Trump's unfounded accusation against Mr. Scarborough 'ugly even for him.'... If this week's blowback affected Mr. Trump, the president has not shown it: He taunted Mr. Scarborough again on Wednesday in a tweet that referred to a 'Cold Case.'" ~~~

~~~ After whacking lefties for spreading the conspiracy story that Joe Scarborough murdered an intern, the right-wing Washington Examiner Editors write: "... it is ... unfortunate that the latest person to trumpet and repeat this vile slander is the president supposedly leading this nation through a time of crisis. Whatever his issues with Scarborough, President Trump's crazed Twitter rant on this subject was vile and unworthy of his office. Some will undoubtedly shrug it off as Trump being Trump, but one could hardly be blamed for reading it and doubting his fitness to lead.... Observers might even someday look back at this incident as the instant when things began to unravel."

Gotcha. Gotcha Again. Steve Contorno of the Tampa Bay Times: "For a week, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has defended ... Donald Trump's assault on vote-by-mail, insisting, like her boss, that it invites election fraud. But, also like her boss, McEnany has taken advantage of its convenience time and time again. In fact, the Tampa native has voted by mail in every Florida election she has participated in since 2010, according to a Tampa Bay Times review of her voting history. Most recently, she voted by mail in the state's March 2020 presidential primary, just as Trump did after he made Florida his new permanent home.... In a statement emailed after the story published, McEnany said: 'Absentee voting has the word absent in it for a reason. It means you're absent from the jurisdiction or unable to vote in person. President Trump is against the Democrat plan to politicize the coronavirus and expand mass mail-in voting without a reason, which has a high propensity for voter fraud....' However, Florida does not have absentee voting. Anyone can vote by mail here without a reason." ~~~

~~~ The Upside-down World of Donald J. Trump. Jerry Lambe of Law & Crime: "... Donald Trump got a reality check on Tuesday..., when Twitter began flagging the president's false or misleading tweets and providing links to factually accurate information.... The president responded by attacking the social media platform, claiming the privately owned company was 'stifling free speech,' a statement which many legal experts saw fit to fact-check as well.... The platform's new fact-checking mechanism appeared when Trump tweeted a series of false and unsubstantiated claims about the prevalence of voter fraud in relation to mail-in absentee ballots.... The link, which urged people to 'Get the facts about mail-in ballots,' directed readers to a brief statement explaining the untrue nature of the claims and a list of bullet points rebutting several individual falsehoods.... '... Twitter is completely stifling FREE SPEECH, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen!' [Trump tweeted.]... The First Amendment protects 'subjects and citizens from government action.' Twitter is not the government. The irony of the president complaining that a non-state actor was violating his right to free speech -- only to threaten to use his government position to prevent that non-state actor from continuing to operate in such a way (which would be a violation of Twitter's First Amendment rights) -- was not lost on legal experts. Anti-Trump Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe ... called Trump's tweet's 'insane.' [Actually 'INSANE.']" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Beyond the stupid, there's a double irony here. Trump is using the very platform he criticizes & threatens to criticize & threaten that platform. In addition, as Larry Tribe writes (and anyone who has read the Bill of Rights knows), a person does not have a First-Amendment right to express opinions on a private platform. It's true that governments can regulate these platforms, and the platforms could violate U.S. law, for instance by limiting access to white Christian men.

~~~ Zeke Miller of the AP: "The president can't unilaterally regulate or close the companies, and any effort would likely require action by Congress. His administration shelved a proposed executive order empowering the Federal Communications Commission to regulate technology companies, citing concerns it wouldn't pass legal muster. But that didn't stop Trump from angrily issuing strong warnings. [After his initial threats, Trump later] tweeted without elaboration, 'Big Action to follow.'... [Trump's] 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said Twitter's 'clear political bias' had led the campaign to pull 'all our advertising from Twitter months ago.' Twitter has banned all political advertising since last November."

The New York Times is live-updating the SpaceX launch. "With gray clouds above and choppy waves in the Atlantic, NASA called off a rocket launch that was to be the first to take American astronauts to orbit from American soil in nearly a decade. The next opportunities to launch are Saturday at 3:22 p.m. Eastern time and Sunday at 3 p.m. The launch of two NASA astronauts on a rocket built by SpaceX, the rocket company started by billionaire Elon Musk, would mark the start of an era of human spaceflight that extends beyond national space agencies."

Daniel Lewis of the New York Times: "Larry Kramer, the noted writer whose raucous, antagonistic campaign for an all-out response to the AIDS crisis helped shift national health policy in the 1980s and '90s, died on Wednesday morning in Manhattan. He was 84. His husband, David Webster, said the cause was pneumonia."

     ~~~ Update of a story linked below. Sarah Nir of the New York Times: "... the encounter [between Christian Cooper & Amy Cooper (not related) in Central Park's Ramble], which was recorded on video, took an ugly turn. As the man, Christian Cooper, filmed on his phone, the woman, clutching her thrashing dog, called the police, her voice rising in hysteria. 'I'm going to tell them there's an African-American man threatening my life,' she said to him while dialing, then repeated to the operator, twice, 'African-American.' The video, posted to Twitter on Memorial Day by Mr. Cooper's sister, has been viewed more than 30 million times.... Within 24 hours, the woman, identified as Amy Cooper..., had given up her dog, publicly apologized and been fired from her job. Mr. Cooper, 57, a Harvard graduate who works in communications, has long been a prominent birder in the city and is on the board of the New York City Audubon Society.... Ms. Cooper had been a head of insurance portfolio management at Franklin Templeton, according to her LinkedIn page, and graduated from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. On Tuesday afternoon, Franklin Templeton announced that she had been fired."

~~~~~~~~~~

** Julia Carrie Wong & Sam Levine of the Guardian: "Twitter for the first time took action against a series of tweets by Donald Trump, labeling them with a warning sign and providing a link to further information. Since ascending to the US presidency, Trump has used his Twitter account to threaten a world leader with war, amplify racist misinformation by British hate figures and, as recently as Tuesday morning, spread a lie about the 2001 death of a congressional aide in order to smear a cable news pundit. Throughout it all, Twitter has remained steadfast in its refusal to censor the head of state.... Trump responded on Tuesday evening with a pair of tweets that repeated his false claims about voting and accused Twitter of 'interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election'.... Federal law protects the rights of internet platforms to moderate the third-party speech they publish." --s ~~~

~~~ Maggie Astor & Davey Alba of the New York Times: "The widower of Lori Klausutis, whose death President Trump has used to smear the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, is asking Twitter to remove the president's tweets on the subject. Twitter said on Tuesday that it would not. In a letter to Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter, last week, Timothy Klausutis said Mr. Trump had violated Twitter's terms of service by falsely suggesting that Mr. Scarborough murdered Ms. Klausutis in 2001 when he was a congressman and she was an intern in his office. Ms. Klausutis, 28, actually died as a result of a heart condition that caused her to collapse at work and hit her head on her desk. 'An ordinary user like me would be banished from the platform for such a tweet,' Mr. Klausutis wrote in the letter..., 'but I am only asking that these tweets be removed.' Mr. Trump has repeatedly promoted the conspiracy theory against Mr. Scarborough.... In a series of tweets over the past several weeks, Mr. Trump has urged law enforcement in Florida to 'open a cold case' and suggested falsely that Mr. Scarborough 'got away with murder.' He had tweeted about the same false conspiracy as far back as 2017.... Nick Pacilio, said in a statement in response to Mr. Klausutis's letter[,] 'We've been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward....' Mr. Pacilio did not elaborate on what changes the company would make...."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Kara Swisher of the New York Times: "The real issue is the very serious collateral damage of this fight, which is the post-mortem libel of Ms. Klausutis and the ensuing suffering of her husband and family. They are the victims, of Mr. Trump and of Twitter's inability to manage its troubled relationship with him." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: "The president of the United States has no decency. It is time for the social media platform he uses to spread vile conspiracy theories to show some -- or at the very least, to follow what it claims to be its policies and the rules that it enforces where others are concerned.... To Trump, suggesting that [Joe] Scarborough had something to do with [Lori Klausutis's] death is just another way of stoking his political base, which feasts on his lies. But the real pain has fallen on the late woman's family, and especially her widower, Timothy J. Klausutis.... Twitter ... is a private company that regularly blocks or bans users for abuses far less offensive than the ones Trump commits on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.... By taking one small step in the interest of decency -- removing those tweets that soil the memory of Lori Klausutis -- Twitter has an opportunity to show that its supposed standards actually mean something." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ (Right-wing) National Review Editors: "... Trump's series of tweets the last two weeks about MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has been grotesque even by his standards.... It's unworthy of a partisan blogger, let alone the president of the United States." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

** Aaron Rupar of Vox: "President Donald Trump's impromptu news conference late on Tuesday afternoon began with him musing about taking insulin just for fun and ended with him explaining his opposition to mail-in voting by characterizing voting as 'an honor' (it's actually a right). The stuff he said in between wasn't any less wacky.... The first question Trump fielded was from Jeff Mason of Reuters, who asked him to explain a retweet he posted on Monday seemingly mocking ... Joe Biden for wearing a mask during a public appearance earlier in the day.... 'He was standing outside with his wife, perfect conditions, perfect weather -- when they're inside they don't wear masks,' Trump said. 'And so I thought it was very unusual he had one on.'... Then, as Mason tried to ask a follow-up question, Trump cut him off and asked him to remove his mask. Mason refused, prompting Trump to dismiss mask-wearing as an effort to be 'politically correct.' 'You want to be politically correct,' Trump said. 'No sir, I just want to wear the mask,' Mason responded." --s

Brian Mann of NPR: "When President Trump took office in 2017, his team stopped work on new federal regulations that would have forced the healthcare industry to prepare for an airborne infectious disease pandemic like COVID-19. That decision is documented in federal records reviewed by NPR. 'If that rule had gone into effect, then every hospital, every nursing home would essentially have to have a plan where they made sure they had enough respirators and they were prepared for this sort of pandemic,' said David Michaels, who at the time served as head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. There are still no specific federal regulations protecting healthcare workers from deadly airborne pathogens like influenza, tuberculosis or the coronavirus." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Alex Ward of Vox: "Trump has framed the fight against the coronavirus as a war against an 'invisible enemy.' But if this is a war, Trump has been a disastrous commander in chief.... Americans must not only suffer the indignity of being drafted into Trump's war, then, but also suffer the indignity of losing it.... It's as outrageous as if Trump had sent actual troops into an actual war with no war plan.... On top of that, Trump is already declaring victory despite the war being far from over." --s

Jesse Byrnes of The Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)& late Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit from House Republicans seeking to block the chamber from holding proxy voting, in which members vote for colleagues remotely on the House floor. Pelosi issued a statement calling the lawsuit a 'sad stunt' aimed at distracting from new efforts for an additional relief bill amid the coronavirus pandemic.... The House is slated to hold its first remote votes on Wednesday afternoon." --s

Alyssa Fowers & William Wen of the Washington Post: "A third of Americans are showing signs of clinical anxiety or depression, Census Bureau data shows, the most definitive and alarming sign yet of the psychological toll exacted by the coronavirus pandemic.... The findings suggest a huge jump from before the pandemic. For example, on one question about depressed mood, the percentage reporting such symptoms was double that found in a 2014 national survey.... Th[e]se answers provide a real-time window into the country's collective mental health after three months of fear, isolation, soaring unemployment and continuing uncertainty." --s

Robin Respaut & Deborah Nelson of Reuters: "New diagnoses of one of the deadliest cancers fell by one-third in March and April as U.S. physicians and patients halted appointments and screenings during the COVID-19 outbreak.... The findings are particularly alarming because colorectal cancer is the nation's second-leading cause of cancer deaths, according to the American Cancer Society." --s

Morgan Chalfant & Jordan Chainey of The Hill: "President Trump on Tuesday evening urged House Republicans to vote against a surveillance bill that will be brought to the floor this week after lawmakers reached an agreement to vote on a key provision." --s

Bloomberg: "Three years after Donald Trump campaigned for president pledging a factory renaissance, the opposite appears to be happening. Manufacturing made up 11% of gross domestic product in the second quarter, the smallest share in data going back to 1947 and down from 11.1% in the prior period, a Commerce Department report showed Tuesday." --s

Heather Vogell of TPM: "A decade ago, loan filings showed Trump Towerin New York City had a reported profit of about $13.3 million. But when the tower refinanced its debt soon after, the profits for the same year -- 2010 -- somehow appeared higher. A new lender listed the profits as $16.1 million, or 21% more than they had been recorded previously. The next year's earnings for the building also 'improved' between the two filings. Profits for 2011 were listed as 12% higher under the new loan than the old, according to reports by loan servicers and data provider Trepp.... The discrepancies in the tower profits match a pattern described in a whistleblower complaint filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which ProPublica revealed this month.... The SEC has not taken any public action in response to [the] complaint; the agency declined to comment. Altering past profits without providing an explanation is 'highly questionable,' [said] John Coffee, a professor at Columbia Law School and an expert in securities regulation[.]" --s

Sara Morrison of Vox: "Elon Musk is about to send humans into space. The billionaire's rocket ship company SpaceX is scheduled to launch its first crewed spaceflight on Wednesday. If all goes as planned, Crew Dragon Demo-2 will be the first time humans have taken off for space from American soil since the NASA Space Shuttle program's final mission in 2011. It will also be the first crewed spaceflight from a private company, ever. The stakes are high. A successful mission may begin a new era of space exploration, taking it out of the hands of governments ... and into the hands of private businesses. If Demo-2 fails, it could be a long time before crewed spaceflights return to the United States." --s

Kathryn Watson of CBS: "Top Senate Republican Chuck Grassley said Tuesday that he isn't satisfied with the White House's explanation for the president's recent dismissal of multiple inspectors general. In a span of six weeks, the president removed five officials from posts leading their respective agencies' inspector general offices. Grassley had demanded the White House provide reasoning for the president's decision to fire or replace the inspectors general, beyond the explanation that the president has the prerogative to do so. But in a letter to Grassley on Tuesday, White House counsel Pat Cipollone simply underlined the president's authority to oust inspectors general without providing novel information about why the watchdogs were removed." --s

Summer Concepcion of TPM: "The Justice Department's investigation into Sen. Richard Burr's (R-NC) pre-coronavirus stock trading activity continues, despite dropping similar stock sale probes into three other senators. According to a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday, federal prosecutors are informing attorneys who represent Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), Jim Inhofe (R-OK) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) that the Justice Department is closing its investigations into their trading that began two months ago." --s ~~~

~~~ Joel Elbert of the Nashville Tennessean: "With a global pandemic threatening to hit the United States earlier this year, U.S. Rep. Phil Roe made hundreds of financial transactions, buying stocks in companies now working on vaccines and selling other shares before a historic market plunge in March, according to a review of his financial records by The Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network.... Roe ... announced in January he is not seeking reelection[.]" --s

Presidential Race/Elections 2020

Matthew Yglesias of Vox: "Former Vice President Joe Biden ... is a mainstream Democrat, and as the Democratic Party has grown broadly more progressive in recent years, he is now running on arguably the most progressive policy platform of any Democratic nominee in history.... It's a detailed and aggressive agenda that includes doubling the minimum wage and tripling funding for schools with low-income students. He is proposing the most sweeping overhaul of immigration policy in a generation, the biggest pro-union push in three generations, and the most ambitious environmental agenda of all time. If Democrats take back the Senate in the fall, Biden could make his agenda happen." --s

Alabama. Kim Chandler of the AP : "Alabama's requirement to have witnesses sign an absentee ballot is not a violation of the Voting Rights Act, the U.S. Department of Justice argued in a brief Monday. The [Bill Barr] Justice Department filed the statement of interest in a lawsuit that contends Alabama's election procedures jeopardize the health of voters -- especially older and black voters and those with disabilities -- during the coronavirus outbreak. The Justice Department said Alabama's absentee witness requirement does not violate the Voting Rights Act." --s

California. William Cummings of USA Today: "The Republican Party launched a legal battle to block California Gov. Gavin Newsom from sending all voters in his state mail-in ballots for the general election, arguing the move is unconstitutional and invites voter fraud. The Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and California Republican Party filed a lawsuit Sunday against Newsom and Secretary of State Alex Padilla in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Florida. Mark Stern of Slate: "The first thing you need to understand about Florida's poll tax -- which U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle sharply limited on Sunday -- is that the state has no idea how to implement it.... The scheme might function properly if Florida could identify residents with unpaid court charges and calculate how much they owe.... [T]he state ... does not know who owes courts money or how much they owe.... This chaos gives people with felony convictions two choices. They can register to vote and hope that state prosecutors do not later dig up court debts and bring criminal charges against them. Or, to avoid risking jail time, they can surrender their constitutional right to vote. On Sunday, in a 125-page decision, Hinkle ruled this predicament unconstitutional." --s ~~~

~~~ New York Times Editors: "The opinion, by Judge Robert L. Hinkle of U.S. District Court, is 125 pages long, but nearly everything you need to know is summed up in its opening sentence: 'The State of Florida has adopted a system under which nearly a million otherwise-eligible citizens will be allowed to vote only if they pay an amount of money.' That system violates at least two provisions of the Constitution, Judge Hinkle ruled: the Equal Protection Clause and the 24th Amendment, which bans poll taxes.... In the 2018 midterms, when Floridians overwhelmingly voted to amend the State Constitution to eliminate a lifetime ban on voting by people with a criminal conviction who had completed their sentences.... It was one of the biggest one-time enfranchisements in American history and part of a decades-long trend in dozens of states to make it easier for people with criminal records to get their voting rights back.... [Republican legislators responded by passing] S.B. 7066, on the grounds that the amendment restored voting rights upon the completion of 'all terms of sentence, including parole and probation.'... Floridians who believe in a fair and open democracy must spread the word, help their fellow citizens register and ensure as many of them as possible get to the polls, both in November and in the years to come."

Beyond the Beltway

California. Scott Stedman of Forensic News: "Forensic News can exclusively report that a District Attorney's office in Central California is considering a slew of charges against a businessman, Yorai Benzeevi, and his associates who hired the Israeli intelligence company Psy Group to intervene in a 2017 local hospital board election, according to multiple sources directly involved. Psy Group itself is under criminal investigation as well, and the sources say that charges may be filed in the coming weeks.... To date, more than 50 search warrants have been executed." --s

Minnesota. Jared Goyette of the Guardian: "Hundreds of protesters gathered in the city [of Minneapolis] on Tuesday evening to demand justice after [George] Floyd, who was African American, was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck as he lay on the ground during an arrest. Footage of the incident showed Floyd shouting 'I cannot breathe' and 'Don't kill me!'...The FBI and authorities in Minnesota announced on Tuesday they had launched an investigation into Floyd's death, and the incident is being investigated by the FBI for possible civil rights violations. Four police officers involved in the incident have been fired." --s ~~~

~~~ Christine Hauser of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. and Minnesota law enforcement authorities are investigating the arrest of a black man who died after being handcuffed and pinned to the ground by an officer's knee, in an episode filmed by a bystander and denounced by the mayor on Tuesday. The arrest took place on Monday evening, the Minneapolis Police Department said in a statement, after officers responded to a call about a man suspected of forgery.... The bystander video that circulated widely on social media Monday night shows a white Minneapolis police officer pressing his knee into a black man's neck during an arrest, as the man repeatedly says 'I can't breathe' and 'please I can't breathe.'" An NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

New York. Amir Vera & Laura Ly of CNN: "A white woman has apologized for calling police on a black man bird-watching in Central Park on Monday morning after the two argued about her unleashed dog. Amy Cooper told CNN she wanted to 'publicly apologize to everyone.'... She was walking her dog Monday while Christian Cooper (no relation) was bird-watching at a wooded area of Central Park called the Ramble. They both told CNN the dispute began because her dog was not on a leash, contrary to the Ramble's rules, according to the park's website. Christian Cooper recorded video of part of their encounter and posted it on Facebook, where it has since been shared thousands of times and became a trending topic on Twitter. 'I'm taking a picture and calling the cops,' Amy Cooper is heard saying in the video. 'I'm going to tell them there's an African American man threatening my life.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond

Australia. Calla Wahlquist of the Guardian: "A sacred site in Western Australia that showed 46,000 years of continual occupation and provided a 4,000-year-old genetic link to present-day traditional owners has been destroyed in the expansion of an iron ore mine [by Rio Tinto]. The cave in Juukan Gorge in the Hammersley Ranges, about 60km from Mt Tom Price, is one of the oldest in the western Pilbara region and the only inland site in Australia to show signs of continual human occupation through the last Ice Age. It was blasted along with another sacred site on Sunday.

Hong Kong. Helen Davidson & Verna Yu of the Guardian: "Thousands of armed police have flooded the streets of Hong Kong in an unprecedented show of force to prevent protests against a law criminalising ridicule of China's national anthem.... Opponents say the anthem bill is another step towards authoritarianism, and could be weaponised against pro-democracy activists and legislators.... [T]he vote is scheduled for 4 June -- the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and another source of controversy given Hong Kong's vigil this year won't be allowed. On Sunday thousands joined an unauthorised protest against both the anthem bill and Beijing's plan to impose national security laws, which was quickly cracked down on by police." --s

U.K. Antony Cuthbertson of the Independent: "The UK now has the highest rate of confirmed deaths from Covid-19 worldwide, averaging close to 5 in every million people per day. Figures from the last seven days show that the average death rate in the UK is now more than that of France and Italy combined. The second highest death rate over the last seven days is in Sweden, where the government decided against imposing a lockdown to prevent the spread of the deadly virus." --s

Comments

[NiskyGuy]

Well, crap, on so many fronts. Best wishes.

[Jeanne]

Marie: I'm sorry they are putting you in the hospital--- please please please take the BEST care of yourself and come out with your wit and humor and analytic prowess intact, and with no extra baggage relative to the trumpvirus. I'm sure safari and AK will find some good stuff for us.
Thinking of you--

[Ken Winkes]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/26/trump-twitter-label-fact-check/

Too little, too late, but something.

Would think the pressure on Dorsey will build over the summer as November nears. Perhaps the fact checks will soon be longer than the tweets.

If not, Twitter will be acknowleging itself to be nothing more than a campaign arm of the Republican Party. Social media's Faux News.

And closer to my heart, best wishes to Bea.

[Ken Winkes]

Not my favorite columnist, but Friedman nails this one. I hadn't made the terrorist attack-CIA connection, but Friedman was kind enough to make it for me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/opinion/mike-pompeo.html?

[Hattie]

Mrs. Bea McC (and Romania’s Marie),

I’ve lately been far from the internets (while having gone absolutely nowhere) so this news first reaches me now at 2:32 AM EST.
Whatever may be going on, I’m confident your fortitude and smarts will carry you through.

with warm well-wishes ~

[Akhilleus]

Marie,

Best wishes. If the doctors don’t cooperate and send you home good as new, toot sweet, you can pull a Trump on them. Tell them you’ll cut off funding for their salaries then brag that you know more than any of them and proceed to remove someone’s liver using a dessert spoon and bread knife, just to see what it looks like, then put it back in upside down.

If I can post some things, I surely will.

[PD Pepe]

First off––thank you, safari, for carrying on the good work. Second–-re: Marie's hospitalization: since we don't know the details we can only hope it's for some testing that has to be done in the confines of the hospital and she will be out and about sooner than later. Ak's "toot sweet"––pulling a Trump on them is so funny and, I might add, needed.

And last––@Ken––so glad you brought Friedman's piece to our attention. I, for one, will never forget Pompeo's grilling of Hillary––his grandstanding performance was that of a man who wanted to be seen as a real big tough guy, a GOP player, an embedded burr in Hillary's craw. He was a man with a mission and Trump satisfied his desires. Good for Friedman to capture the deceptiveness and failure of this guy–-let's hope more eyes are zeroed in on him–-might just wipe that sickening smile off his face. Here's the link –-it's an important column.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/opinion/mike-pompeo.html?algo=top_conversion&fellback=false&imp_id=274466842&action=click&module=Most%20Popular&pgtype=Homepage

And re: the killing of George Floyd by–- once again–– a white officer of the law, resurfaces the blatant racism that still resides quite comfortably in this country. The cry of "I can't breathe" is exactly what these racist fuckers want to hear from a race they can't abide by. I once had hope that we would "overcome"–––I've given up––it ain't happening.

[citizen625]

I hope your day proves uneventful by its end.

I think Bea has a Florida connection: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/opinion/florida-felon-voting-court.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage. You know the Koch, Mercer, Cheney, Moscow Mitch network will study this to figure out how to never be rebuffed in their voter suppression efforts again. Let's hope Democrats, democrats, and liberals study on the mechanisms of success.

Signed,
Abandoned Fly-over State Citizen 2016

[Ken Winkes]

More picking on Pompeo (and David Ignatius, who for reasons known only to himself defended the lavish taxpayer funded Madison dinners)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pompeos-madison-dinners-arent-scandalous-i-went-to-one/2020/05/26/f6148580-9f95-11ea-81bb-c2f70f01034b_story.html

My comment to the WAPO.

But what was the dinner's point?

On behalf of the country, what business was conducted?

Why did I have to pay for it?

Beyond that critical question, the whole thing sounds very dull. Who cares about the puffed up Pompeos' family heirlooms?

Though I did pay for it and feel I am owed a cup of what I presume to be the fine coffee served, I'm glad I wasn't there to mix with that sad sounding group of self-satisfied self-aggrandizers.

[Ken Winkes]

Looks like Pretender lackey Barr is keeping Burr from regaining his Intelligence Committee chairmanship as long as (il?)legally possible.

[PD Pepe]

Dr. Deb Birx was on the Sunday shows urging people once again to social distance, wear masks, etc. But then she said this:

" Certainly we think you should get fresh air, you could actually play a game of tennis with someone as long as you don't touch each other's balls."

Smiles all around.

[Akhilleus]

Ken,

I suspect that Burr has been Barr-ed because he wasn’t the Trump kind of lackey. They need someone they can rely on to ratfuck with the best Russian hackers. One might think that a senator who uses inside information to enrich himself while telling his constituents “all is well” would be exactly Trump’s kinda guy. Or maybe Barr wants to remove that Burr under his saddle (sorry, too much lexical drollery to pass up here) in order to demonstrate that he isn’t—really, he isn’t!—the criminal, hyper-partisan hack he appears to be, and that he does too know legal-type stuff. If it’s not too hard. Or puts him in jail.

The takeaway with these people is that nothing is undertaken without they benefit in some way. If they do (or appear to do) the right thing, it’s because they’ve figured out a hack, scam, scheme, or skullduggerific bit of business that will make them look good, screw their enemies (law abiding persons), or pad their pockets.

There’s always something up their voluminous sleeves.

[Ken Winkes]

Welcome back, Bea. Very good news.

"None the worse for wear" would be good news for any of us.

[Victoria]

I'm sure all of us are now or will be aware of how the losses due to covid affect us personally. I have two good friends who have died of corona virus already. I expect more.
Every day I find myself dealing with my feelings about such loss of life, especially since we have passed the 100K Barrier. I make an effort not to weep.
But today something different reduced me to tears: in Australia a cave which contained evidence of cultures who have been present for more than 40,000 years were destroyed by the greed of coal mining.
I lost it completely, crying over 46,000 year old dust.

[Jeanne]

Awwww, Victoria—. It was probably a culmination of sadness you feel— not the dust. Too much terrible sorrow to bear. Hang in there, hon.

Marie—hurrah!

[NiskyGuy]

@Bea: Continued best wishes. And, one hopes, a good night’s sleep.

@Victoria: I’m with you on that one. Senseless. Just senseless.

For good news, the nursing home where my mother in law lives (upstate NY) completed testing, no residents infected ( they have hade several infected previously), six staff positives, home getting treatment. They clearly have been practicing safe hygiene in the residence.