The Past 24 Hours or So

Protests/Racial & Social Issues, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Protests/Racial & Social Issues

• The father of Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man shot seven times by a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer in front of his children, says Blake was handcuffed to the hospital bed where he is recovering and has been told he is at least temporarily paralyzed from the waist down.

• The NBA’s players have decided to resume the postseason. Discussions on when the postseason will begin again are ongoing, but for now, both sides are aiming for Friday.

• President Trump derisively referred to the NBA as a “political organization” after players have been outspoken on social justice issues and skipped playoff games in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

• Vice President Pence’s chief of staff dismissed NBA teams’ refusal to play Wednesday night’s playoff games in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake, calling it “absurd” and “silly.”

• The WNBA postponed its scheduled games for a second straight night in a protest over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

• The NHL postponed its playoff games for Thursday and Friday 

• White House Adviser Jared Kushner on Thursday said he would reach out to basketball superstar LeBron James following an NBA player boycott to protest racial injustice in the wake of a police shooting that paralyzed a Black man in Wisconsin.

• Vice President Pence will be replaced as the commencement speaker at an upcoming graduation for Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, the school announced, citing the protests in Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. 

• White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany accused the media and Democrats of “aiding and abetting the violence” in US cities, as protests persist in Wisconsin following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

“It’s a real travesty that it took the Democrats this long to mention the violence in our streets, that it was ignored. When they had the biggest platform, it was entirely ignored.”

• Fox News host Tucker Carlson sparked vehement backlash online after saying it was not surprising that the white teen accused of fatally shooting two protesters “decided they had to maintain order when no one else would” during Black Lives Matter protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

• Just two weeks after the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana voted to keep a Confederate monument standing, Hurricane Laura brought it down on Thursday with 150 mph winds as it made landfall along the state’s coast.

The Daily Advertiser reported that the statue, The South’s Defenders Monument, was the subject of a contentious debate, which ended in a vote on Aug. 13. The Calcasieu Parish Police Jury ultimately voted 10-4 to keep the statue in place.

Trump Administration

• Another 1 million American workers filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reports.

• North Carolina is suing the federal government over its decision to try to locate oil and gas off the state’s coast despite objections from the state. 

In June, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration allowed a company to move ahead with seismic testing, which uses blasts from air guns to try to detect oil and gas deposits in the ocean.

• Environmentalists won their battle challenging the EPA’s regulation of Pennsylvania’s air quality, with the court ruling the agency used a “pernicious loophole” when greenlighting laxer standards for coal-fired power plants.

• The EPA is facing another suit over its rule that limits states’ ability to block pipelines and other controversial projects that cross their waterways.

The Clean Water Act previously allowed states to halt projects that risk hurting their water quality, but that power was scaled back by the EPA in June

• The U.S. is officially participating in a global program that aims to plant 1 trillion trees worldwide, something that Republicans, including President Trump, have latched on to as a way to combat climate change.

• The Pentagon called out China over test launches of ballistic missiles in the South China Sea, a move that the United States views as “counterproductive” to quelling tensions in the region.

• The U.S. Embassy in Ottawa issued a rare statement praising Canada’s military service in Afghanistan after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro sharply criticized Canadian policies in a new book.

Presidential Campaign

• Dept of Homeland Security employees received an email reminding them to not to engage in “partisan political activity” just days after Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf participated in a naturalization ceremony that was broadcast at the Republican National Convention.

• Officials launched an investigation Thursday into what they said was an erroneous, racist robocall aimed at discouraging voters in battleground states from casting their ballots by mail.

The recorded message features a woman who says she works for “Project 1599,” founded by the right-wing operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, and falsely warns that personal information of those who vote by mail will be shared with police tracking down warrants and credit card companies collecting outstanding debt, according to recordings of the call reviewed by The Washington Post. Wohl and Burkman denied their involvement in the call, blaming “leftist pranksters.”

• “Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man,” the recording says. “Stay safe and beware of vote-by-mail.”

• “Well, QAnon is batshit crazy,” GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham said. “Crazy stuff. Inspiring people to violence. I think it is a platform that plays off people’s fears, that compels them to do things they normally wouldn’t do. And it’s very much a threat.”

• “The violence you’re seeing in Donald Trump’s America,” Joe Biden said in a statement. “Is Donald Trump even aware he’s president? These are not images from some imagined ‘Joe Biden’s America’ in the future. These are images from Donald Trump’s America today. The violence we’re witnessing is happening under Donald Trump. Not me. It’s getting worse, and we know why.”

• A Tennessee judge this week ordered state election officials to clearly note on absentee ballot applications that voters can opt for mail-in ballots if they or someone in their care believe they are at higher risk for contracting COVID-19, ruling that the forms as they currently are read deceptively and don’t inform voters that the state Supreme Court said it is a valid reason to obtain an absentee ballot.

• Vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris denounced the looting and acts of violence that followed the police shooting of a Black man, as Republicans sought to paint the two Democrats as weak on crime.

• More than 300 LGBT leaders threw their support behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president, stating that the former vice president and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), together make “the most pro-equality ticket in American history.”

Sources:  ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Financial Times, Forbes,  Fox News,The Hill, Independent, MSNBC, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post