Tag: protests

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Racial & Social Issues, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 11 Minutes

Protests/Racial & Social Issues

  • Protests erupted in Los Angeles after a Black man was fatally shot by sheriff’s deputies in the city’s Westmont area.

The man was seen riding a bicycle Monday afternoon and allegedly violated a vehicle code.

The sheriff’s office reported that the man was holding some “clothing items” in his hand as deputies made contact. He allegedly punched one officer in the face before dropping the bundle, and deputies said that a black semi-automatic handgun was among the items he dropped.

Two deputies opened fire and the man, who was in his 30s, was struck multiple times. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

  • Authorities in Oklahoma are investigating the arrest of two black teenagers who were accused by white police officers of jaywalking.

Tulsa police released two body camera videos of the officers who handcuffed two black teenagers for allegedly jaywalking after a video of their arrest went viral on social media.

  • Charles McMillon Jr., his son, and a friend were dropping off a U-Haul van in Tallahassee, Florida when they were shot at. An older couple came toward them, both pointed guns in their direction and yelled “Don’t move!”

The group sped off in a panic as they heard more gunfire as they fled. A police officer who happened to be in the parking lot intervened after the shooting began.

The two shooters, Wallace Fountain, 77, and his wife, Beverly Fountain, 72, own the strip mall and were staking it out inside a U-Haul of their own. They said they were having problems with people stealing gas and wanted to scare off any culprits.

Tallahassee Police Department officers arrested the Fountains on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill. They were found carrying several pistols, including a .357-caliber Magnum and a Glock 19. Officers also found a shotgun in their U-Haul.

  • A Florida man, Daniel McMahon, 32, who called himself “the Antifa hunter” was sentenced to more than three years in prison for using social media to threaten a Black activist. McMahon also admitted that he threatened to sexually assault the young autistic daughter of a North Carolina woman who protested against white nationalists.
  • President Trump offered up a vague and unsupported conspiracy theory during an interview with Fox News, claiming nefarious unidentified individuals are controlling Democratic nominee Joe Biden from “the dark shadows.”

“They’re people that are on the streets, they’re people that are controlling the streets,” Trump said, before appearing to reference a false viral post from earlier this summer about alleged Antifa protesters.

  • Kenosha police said they arrested a total of 175 people between last Monday, when protests erupted after the police shooting of Jacob Blake, and this Sunday. Of the 175 arrests, 102 listed addresses from outside of Kenosha and spread across 44 different cities.
  • President Trump criticized Democratic leaders and asserted that his visit to Kenosha, Wisconsin would help mend racial divisions.

Trump criticized the recent unrest in Portland, Oregon and took credit for the ease in violence in Kenosha after the state’s Democratic governor called up the National Guard.

“I think a lot of people are looking [at] what is happening to these Democrat-run cities and they are disgusted,” Trump told reporters;

“One of the reasons I am making the trip today in going to Wisconsin is we have had such a big success in shutting down what would be right now … a city that would have been burned to the ground right now,” Trump said.

  • President Trump refused to answer whether he thought systemic racism is a problem.

“You just keep getting back to the opposite subject,” Trump said when a reporter asked if he thought systemic racism was a problem. “We should talk about the kind of violence that we’ve seen in Portland and here and other places, it’s tremendous violence.”

The president also dismissed the notion that police brutality was systemic, pointing to “some bad apples” and the idea that police officers “choke sometimes” while under the pressure of their jobs.

  • The Portland, Oregon Fire Department clapped back after President Trump railed against the city, declaring “the entire city is ablaze all the time” due to protests, saying “WE ARE NOT ABLAZE IN PORTLAND,” adding no recent incident has even required more than 1 fire engine.
  • Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said that “citizen soldiers” should mobilize to “overwhelm rioters” on the streets of America.

Johnson declared that “the way you stop the violence, the way you stop the rioting, is you surge manpower and resources, citizen soldiers, National Guard, and you overwhelm the number of rioters.”

  • Brookhaven Fire Department officials apologized amid the uproar caused by a viral social media post showing a Confederate flag draped on the side of a department fire truck. 

A photograph of the truck decorated with a Confederate flag, went viral on Sunday and led Chief of Department Peter Di Pinto Jr. to apologize to the community, EMS workers and firefighters for the flag that was draped on the side of the fire truck. 

Di Pinto Jr. said in a letter posted on Facebook. “The unauthorized action was done without the knowledge of the leadership team and is condemned in the strongest terms. 

Di Pinto added, “We can assure our community that Racism has no place in our Firehouse.”

  • The district attorney for Bronx County, New York announced that her office would recommend that charges be dropped for more than 300 protesters who were arrested during a protest in the borough for violating the curfew.
  • New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) has signed a bill that makes it a crime to call 911 or file a false police report to solely intimidate someone because of race, ethnicity, religion or gender. The law went into effect immediately.

California lawmakers also passed similar legislation.

  • New Orleans Pelicans guard Josh Hart mocked President Trump after he railed against the NBA and claimed that player protests caused the league’s ratings to slump: “What a dumbass”
  • Naomi Osaka, the highest-paid female athlete, wore a face mask with the words “Breonna Taylor” during her victorious first-round match at the U.S. Open.
  • Virginia’s Commission on African American History Education recommended this week that students be required to obtain a credit in African American history in order to graduate and also recommended that all teachers licensed in the state obtain certification in the subject.
  • The NFL will be installing messages against social injustice in the end zones of every stadium when the season begins. The end zones are set to include “End racism” and “It takes all of us.”

Trump Administration

  • President Trump denied having “a series of mini-strokes” as he sought to respond to a bombshell new report that he was poised to hand over power to Vice President Mike Pence during a mysterious visit to Walter Reed Hospital last year

“Never happened to THIS candidate – FAKE NEWS,” Trump tweeted.

Trump was responding to excerpts from a forthcoming book by New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt that shed new light on the extraordinary measures taken during the still-unexplained trip to the hospital.

Curiously, the report never claims that Trump suffered a “mini-stroke” or any other specific medical condition.

  • President Trump blasted Matt Drudge, owner of the right-leaning Drudge Report website, for the site’s coverage of his remarks from earlier in the day denying that a series of “mini-strokes” had sent him to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

“Drudge didn’t support me in 2016, and I hear he doesn’t support me now. Maybe that’s why he is doing poorly. His Fake News report on Mini-Strokes is incorrect. Possibly thinking about himself, or the other party’s ‘candidate,'” the president tweeted.

  • White House physician Sean Conley maintained that the president has not had any heart issues after Trump himself denied having a series of “mini-strokes.”

“I can confirm that President Trump has not experienced nor been evaluated for a cerebrovascular accident (stroke), transient ischemic attack (mini stroke), or any acute cardiovascular emergencies,” Conley said in a statement issued at Trump’s direction.

  • A federal appeals panel has temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that would have forced President Trump to comply with a subpoena from Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance for eight years of his financial records.
  • The federal government will pay South Carolina $600 million and clean up weapons-grade plutonium to settle a long-running dispute with the state.

The agreement, announced Monday by Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, calls for the removal of 9.5 metric tons of plutonium and resolves years of litigation over the issue.

  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents lack the training to take over the initial processing of asylum claims, a federal judge ruled.

For nearly 20 years, officers from Citizenship and Immigration Services have conducted all interviews with asylum-seekers and made what are called “credible fear determinations” for those who arrive at the nation’s borders while fleeing to the U.S. to escape persecution.

But in January, Department of Homeland Security officials issued a memorandum delegating authority from CIS to Customs and Border Protection to allow CBP agents to handle the early screenings, arguing that their training was comparable to that of CIS. 

“Poppycock!” U.S. District Judge Richard Leon wrote in his opinion blocking CBP from conducting the interviews of asylum-seekers.

  • Top Interior Department officials misled Congress when they claimed high office rent in Washington, D.C., was a factor in the need to move the Bureau of Land Management to a new headquarters in Colorado, according to a new report from a top government watchdog.
  • The Trump administration finalized a rule that gives the Bureau of Land Management permission to issue massive widespread cuts to critical fees that companies pay the government in exchange for permission to mine on public lands. Critics argue that the move will help industries that are harmful to the environment at taxpayer expense.
  • The Trump administration is seeking to end endangered species protections for gray wolves throughout the nation by the end of the year, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  • Army leadership has removed the commander of Fort Hood from his role and barred him from a planned position at another Texas base following multiple high-profile deaths under his tenure including Sgt. Elder Fernandes, 23, who was found hanging in a tree last week, and Pfc. Vanessa Guillen, 20, who went missing in April before her body was discovered.

Presidential Campaign

  • Democratic nominee Joe Biden has received the endorsement of an interfaith collective of Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Sikh spiritual leaders ahead of November’s US election, with the group calling on the candidate to “restore the soul of this nation”.

Faith 2020 said America had lost its “moral clarity” under Donald Trump and that its 350 members are “seeking change”.

  • Joe Biden’s campaign is expected to have raised more than $300 million in August, surpassing the Democratic presidential nominee’s previous monthly record for fundraising, which is believed to be $193 million collected for former President Obama’s campaign in September 2008.
  • Animal Crossing users will now be able to add Joe Biden campaign yard signs to their villages. The campaign released four styles of campaign signs: the official Biden-Harris logo, the “Team Joe” logo, the “Joe” Pride logo, and an image of aviator sunglasses shaded in red, white, and blue.
  • A group of Republicans who want to rid their party of President Trump is making a hefty investment to turn Florida blue.

Officials with Republican Voters Against Trump said they would begin a campaign dubbed “Project Orange Crush” aimed at persuading politically moderate Floridians to back Joe Biden, hopeful that the support of those voters can swing the battleground state — and possibly the presidency — toward the Democratic presidential candidate this fall.

The effort is expected to spend $8M to $10M over the next two months and will include TV, social media, and digital ads. It will target nearly a half-million voters in the state, including independents and moderate Republicans who are wary of Trump but have not yet committed to voting for Biden.

  • The Lincoln Project announced nearly two dozen veterans, advocates, Blue Star and Gold Star family members and others who will serve on a leadership coalition for the Republican anti-Trump group: “Our veterans, service members, and their families know what a leader should be and have seen first hand how Donald Trump has failed his sacred duty as Commander-in-Chief.”
  • The infamous St. Petersburg troll group that was part of Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election are trying to target Americans again, Facebook announced Tuesday after receiving a tip from the FBI.

The disrupted operation used fake personas including realistic-looking computer-generated photos of people, a network of Facebook accounts and pages that had only a small amount of engagement and influence at the time it was taken down, and a website that was set up to look and operate like a left-wing news outlet.

  • A majority of Americans said in a new poll that they plan to vote early, including 19 percent who plan to vote in person and 33 percent who plan to vote by mail. About one in three adults say they plan to vote in person on Election Day.
  • President Trump reiterated his call for both candidates to take a drug test ahead of the presidential debates, claiming without evidence that Democratic nominee Joe Biden is “on some kind of an enhancement.”
  • Twitter removed a video from one of President Trump’s tweets that featured Eddy Grant’s hit song “Electric Avenue” after the musician sued the president’s reelection campaign, alleging it amounted to an infringement of his copyrights.
  • Nate Lucas, a sports radio host in Missouri, was taken off the air for using an offensive, sexist slur to describe Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

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

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Racial & Social Issues and Trump Administration Updates

Read Time: 4 Minutes

Protests/Racial & Social Issues

  • President Trump compared police officers using excessive force inappropriately to a golfer missing a short putt, saying sometimes “they choke.”

“They choke. Just like in a golf tournament, they miss a three-foot putt,” Trump said.

  • President Trump decried Black Lives Matter as a “discriminatory” organization that is “bad for Black people” as part of a broader diatribe against protests in response to racial injustice.

“Black Lives Matter is a Marxist organization,” Trump claimed. “The first time I ever heard of Black Lives Matter, I said, ‘That’s a terrible name.’ It’s so discriminatory. It’s bad for Black people. It’s bad for everybody.”

  • President Trump says that he is not planning to meet with members of Jacob Blake’s family while in Kenosha, Wisconsin because he claimed they wanted to have “lawyers involved” which he called “inappropriate.”

“They wanted me to speak but they wanted to have lawyers involved and I thought that was inappropriate so I didn’t do that,” Trump said.

  • Jacob Blake’s father said that the family does not have a pastor after President Trump said during his press briefing that he spoke with the family’s pastor.

“We don’t have a family pastor,” Jacob Blake Sr. said. “I don’t know who he talked to. I don’t care who he talked to.”

  • An uncle of Jacob Blake accused Trump of “drumming” up violence in the country and said the Blake family doesn’t want “anything to do with him.” 

“How could they not be feeding on violence when the man in the White House is steady drumming it up? Did you not think it would not trickle down to the streets? It has.”

  • President Trump defended the actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, a teenager accused of killing two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, saying during a new press briefing that Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense and was “very violently attacked” by demonstrators and would have been killed if he didn’t open fire. Trump also refused to condemn his supporters who were accused of using paintball guns on protesters in Portland, instead lashing out at what he said were leftist protesters.
  • Republican Wisconsin lawmakers did not participate in a special session by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers to address police training and criminal justice reforms in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake in the state.
  • Republican Rep. Jim Banks has introduced legislation that would bar individuals from receiving federal unemployment assistance if they are convicted of a crime during a protest, and suggested protesters are being paid by far-left groups to violently protest.
  • President Trump does not want to invoke the Insurrection Act to quell protests in U.S. cities, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Monday, after he had previously floated the possibility amid persistent demonstrations against racial injustice that have at times grown violent.
  • Sgt. Chad Walker, a police officer in Columbia, South Carolina was suspended without pay after video emerged of him using a racist slur multiple times outside of a crowded bar.

In a video, Walker could be seen and heard Saturday outside of Bar None in the city’s Five Points neighborhood using the N-word multiple times after a Black man who is not seen on video yelled the word at the officer who was leaving the bar. Walker, who is white, appears to be arguing with patrons in the video, asserting that he can say the N-word because a Black patron had just referred to him by the term.

  • Hundreds of University of Alabama athletes marched on campus on Monday to protest against racial injustice, with football coach Nick Saban appearing to lead the crowd. 

Trump Administration

  • Vice President Mike Pence was told to be on standby to assume presidential powers during President Trump’s abrupt visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last year, according to New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt’s upcoming book, “Donald Trump v. The United States.”

Schmidt wrote that he learned “in the hours leading up to Trump’s trip to the hospital, word went out in the West Wing for the vice president to be on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized.”

  • President Trump offered the position of FBI director to then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly in exchange for a guarantee of personal loyalty, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt writes in his book.

“Kelly immediately realized the problem with Trump’s request for loyalty, and he pushed back on the president’s demand,” Schmidt writes, according to an excerpt obtained by Axios. “Kelly said that he would be loyal to the Constitution and the rule of law, but he refused to pledge his loyalty to Trump.”

  • EPA has finalized a rollback of wastewater regulations from coal-fired power plants, which critics say will allow dangerous substances including arsenic and mercury to leach into waterways.
  • President Trump’s lawyers warned in a court filing that they will take the fight over the subpoena for his tax returns back to the Supreme Court if they lose the current round at a New York-based federal appeals court.
  • House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney announced a subpoena Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for documents related to recent reforms to the U.S.Postal Service that have prompted nationwide concerns and fears ballots may go uncounted in the November election.
  • A court has, for the second time, struck down a Trump administration attempt to limit the penalties faced by automakers who do not meet mileage standards.

“Once again, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that the Trump Administration cannot give away polluting passes to automakers who lag behind on meeting standards required by law,” an environmental group said celebrating the ruling.

  • A federal appeals court has just rejected Michael Flynn’s effort to force a judge to immediately dismiss the charges against him, overturning an earlier decision that would have allowed Trump’s Department of Justice to drop its case against the former national security adviser.

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

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Racial & Social Issues, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Protests/Racial & Social Issues

  • Former NFL wide receiver Brandon Marshall shared an emotional video of him facing the security guards who called the police on him while he and his family were trying to move into their new home in Florida: “There was no threat for you to call the cops. This is what we’re seeing every single day. This is what we’re seeing every single day. I got two kids in the car right now.”
  • Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden condemned violence in Portland, Oregon after police said one person was fatally shot amid clashes between Black Lives Matter protesters and counterprotesters.

“I condemn this violence unequivocally. I condemn violence of every kind by anyone, whether on the left or the right. And I challenge Donald Trump to do the same,” Biden said in a statement Sunday.

  • President Trump and Portland, Oregon Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) traded jabs over who was responsible for the rise in violence in the city between Black Lives Matter protesters and counterprotesters. 

Wheeler placed the blame on Trump during a press conference, Trump fired back on Twitter while the press conference was ongoing, and Wheeler responded to the tweets.

“Do you seriously wonder, Mr. President, why this is the first time in decades that America has seen this level of violence?” Wheeler said. “It’s you who have created the hate and the division. It’s you who have not found a way to say the names of Black people people killed by police officers even as people in law enforcement have, and it’s you who claimed that white supremacists are good people.”

“He has an opportunity to uplift us and bring us together and help us move through this difficult situation in our nation’s history, and instead he chooses to play petty politics and divide us. That’s my reaction,” Wheeler said. “So I’m going to do the work I need to do here in my local community with my local officials to take accountability for what’s happening on our streets.”

“I’d appreciate either the president support us or he stay the hell out of the way,” the mayor added. 

Trump tweeted a response almost immediately.

“Ted Wheeler, the wacky Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Mayor of Portland, who has watched great death and destruction of his City during his tenure, thinks this lawless situation should go on forever. Wrong! Portland will never recover with a fool for a Mayor,” Trump tweeted. 

“He tried mixing with the Agitators and Anarchists and they mocked him. He would like to blame me and the Federal Government for going in, but he hasn’t seen anything yet,” the president added. 

“We have only been there with a small group to defend our U.S. Courthouse, because he couldn’t do it,” Trump continued, seemingly referring to when the Trump administration sent federal law enforcement officials to Portland amid protests. 

“The people of Portland, like all other cities &  parts of our great Country, want Law & Order. The Radical Left Democrat Mayors, like the dummy running Portland, or the guy right now in his basement unwilling to lead or even speak out against crime, will never be able to do it!” Trump said.

  • President Trump will visit Kenosha, Wisconsin on Tuesday following days of unrest in the city in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Trump “will meet with law enforcement and survey damage from recent riots,” a White House spokesperson told reporters

  • Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) urged President Trump on Sunday to “reconsider” his plans to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin which has been rocked by unrest for the past several nights following the shooting of Jacob Blake by police.

In a letter to the White House, the governor warned that Trump’s presence could “hinder” the state’s attempts to heal after a video of Kenosha police shooting Blake seven times in the back sparked a week of protests that in some cases descended into violence.

Trump Administration

  • Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe on Sunday defended his announcement that in-person election security briefings to Congress will end, saying the move was necessary to prevent leaks.
  • Former White House counsel Don McGahn raised concerns about the security clearance of the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, in a memo to then-White House chief of staff John Kelly in early 2018, according to a new book.

In a memo, McGahn reportedly warned Kelly that Kushner should not receive a top-level security clearance. “The information you were briefed on one week ago and subsequently relayed to me, raises serious additional concerns about whether this individual ought to retain a top security clearance until such issues can be investigated and resolved,” the memo reportedly stated.

The memo is the most direct evidence yet reported pointing to significant security issues raised during Kushner’s FBI background check. It had previously been reported that McGahn’s office had recommended against Kushner receiving a top-secret clearance and that Kelly had authored a memo noting at the time that he had been “ordered” by President Trump to override that recommendation and grant the clearance to Kushner anyway.

  • Former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney is launching a hedge fund named Exegis Capital that aims to bet on financial services stocks.
  • U.S. Defense officials said two Russian planes conducted an “unsafe” intercept of a U.S. bomber over international waters Friday.
  • Energy industry owners and operators are growing increasingly nervous about new rules proposed by the Trump administration in an effort to limit foreign threats to the grid.

The rules, proposed by an executive order to protect the bulk power system signed by President Trump in March, could severely restrict the ability for grid equipment and other critical technology to be manufactured in countries deemed threats

Presidential Campaign

  • Joe Biden (D) will campaign in the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Monday to deliver remarks that will serve as his first major campaign address following this month’s Democratic National Convention (DNC) and marks a return to the campaign trail after the coronavirus shuttered in-person events months ago.
  • Joe Biden pledged that he would re-launch “PREDICT,” a program launched after the 2005 H1N1 virus that was designed to help detect and combat potential pandemic threats like Covid-19 if elected.
  • Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Sunday that he didn’t know the naturalization ceremony that he conducted last week would be featured during the Republican National Convention.

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

The Past 24 Hours or So

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

Read Time: 9 Minutes

Protests/Racial & Social Issues

  • On the anniversary of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech, thousands took part in the “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” march in Washington, D.C. to denounce racism 
  • Two police officers deployed tasers in failed attempts to stop Jacob Blake before one of the officers shot him multiple times in the back with a gun, the Wisconsin Department of Justice said, unveiling new details of its probe into the shooting.
  • Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth is facing renewed criticism for controversial comments he made in 2018 amid protests over the police shooting of Jacob Blake and the fatal shooting of two protesters. 

“I’m to the point where I think society has to come to a threshold where there are some people that aren’t worth saving,” Beth said after five people were arrested for shoplifting and leading police on a chase. “We need to build warehouses to put these people into it and lock them away for the rest of their lives.”

  • Jacob Blake, the 29-year-old Black man who was shot multiple times by a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer, is no longer handcuffed to his hospital bed, a detail that drew viral attention after Blake’s father revealed he was restrained.
  • Jacob Blake’s father said that he and his family have not heard from President Trump. However, he did speak to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, describing it as “speaking to my uncle and one of my sisters.”

“I appreciate everything that they’ve done and everything that they’re doing because they keep my son in mind, and President Biden kept telling me his own issues with his family, that he identifies with what I’m going through. I didn’t have to keep telling him, he knew. It felt like he knew … Vice President Harris felt like they knew what was going on.”

Blake said his calling of the candidates “President Biden” and “Vice President Harris,” was intentional as the November election approaches.

  • Dwindling numbers of anti-racism protesters milled about the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, as a tense calm prevailed for a second night following a wave of unrest.
  • Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell announced he is donating $45,000 raised from sales of his latest shoe release to help fund the education of the children of Jacob Blake, with Adidas announcing it would match his donation and bring the total to $90,000.
  • President Trump described protesters who surrounded the White House during the final night of the Republican National Convention as “thugs,” and suggested he was looking at invoking the Insurrection Act to send troops to quell protests in U.S. cities.
  • Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) fired back at President Trump after he suggested sending the National Guard to Oregon’s largest city to deal with protests saying “no thanks” and “stay away, please.”

In a scathing letter, Wheeler wrote, “We don’t need your politics of division and demagoguery. Portlanders are onto you. We have already seen your reckless disregard for human life in your bumbling response to the COVID pandemic. And we know you’ve reached the conclusion that images of violence or vandalism are your only ticket to reelection.”

  • Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg took responsibility and faulted his company for not removing the page and event for a militia group before two people were killed at a protest in Kenosha, saying it was “largely an operational mistake.”
  • The Baltimore Ravens in a statement demanded the arrests of the police officers who killed Breonna Taylor in March, as well as those involved in the shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday.

“With yet another example of racial discrimination with the shooting of Jacob Blake, and the unlawful abuse of peaceful protesters, we MUST unify as a society. It is imperative that all people — regardless of race, religion, creed or belief — come together to say, ‘Enough is enough!'” the NFL team said.

“This is bigger than sports,” they continued. “Racism is embedded in the fabric of our nation’s foundation and is a blemish on our country’s history. If we are to change course and make our world a better place, we must face this problem head-on and act now to enact positive change.”

  • NBA star, LeBron James, has become an increasingly influential political force as issues of racial justice and voter suppression move to the forefront in the November presidential election.

James, an outspoken activist and frequent critic of President Trump, helped form a group that will spend millions of dollars to battle voter disenfranchisement in predominantly Black communities ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

He also has helped push the National Basketball Association to recognize racial justice issues and the Black Lives Matter movement, including the decision to postpone playoff games this week after a player boycott to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake.

  • A New Jersey 18-year-old says she has been billed nearly $2,500 in police overtime costs after she organized a Black Lives Matter rally in her town over affordable housing, even though the protest only included no more than 40 people who were not disruptive and even cleaned up their trash after protesting. Police reportedly complained to the mayor about overtime costs and the “extensive preparation” required to respond to the protest.
  • The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association announced that the league will return to playoff games on Saturday and will commit to converting arenas into in-person voting locations during the November general election to “allow for a safe in-person voting option for communities vulnerable to COVID.”

Trump Administration

  • The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee announced contempt proceedings against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, citing his refusal to comply with a subpoena for records into his “transparently political misuse” of department resources.
  • U.S. consumer spending increased more than expected in July, boosting expectations for a sharp rebound in economic growth in the third quarter, though momentum is likely to ebb as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers and money from the government runs out.

The Commerce Department reported a rise in personal income after two straight monthly declines, but a large portion of the increase was from unemployment benefits, which were bolstered by a weekly $600 supplement from the government that expired on July 31. Both consumer spending and income remain well below their pre-pandemic levels.

  • The Boston Globe ripped Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in an editorial following his testimony on Capitol Hill, calling for his resignation and blaming him for a host of problems that have plagued the Postal Service in recent months.

“These supposedly cost-saving measures have resulted in slowing down mail delivery, potentially disenfranchising voters at a massive scale come November if their mail-in ballots are not processed or delivered on time,” the editorial stated.

  • The U.S. government warned Brian Kolfage. a co-defendant of Steve Bannon, chief executive of Donald Trump’s 2016 election, that he should not make social media posts that could undermine a fair trial on corruption charges tied to the U.S. president’s effort to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Kolfage’s online descriptions of their case as a “witch hunt,” an effort to take “political prisoners” and an “assault” on the freedom of donors to his “We Build the Wall” fundraising campaign created a substantial risk that pretrial publicity could make it hard to find an impartial jury.

  • Trump administration officials are reportedly interviewing to replace President Trump’s Federal Trade Commission Chair Joe Simons, who would be in charge of implementing Trump’s new executive order targeting social media companies but has reportedly resisted Trump’s crackdown. One of the replacements being considered is reportedly a Fox executive.
  • A coalition of 21 states sued the Trump administration for rolling back what they say is a “rule that is, at its heart, the gutting” of America’s bedrock environmental law.

The White House in July finalized a rollback of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which for 50 years has required the government to weigh environmental and community concerns before approving pipelines, highways, drilling permits, new factories or any major action on federal lands.

Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) called the law the Magna Carta of environmental law.

  • A University of Pennsylvania professor is asking the school to launch a probe into the allegations that President Trump faked his admission exam. 

When six faculty members asked the school’s provost to investigate the claims in mid-July, the provost said that although they found the allegations concerning, “this situation occurred too far in the past to make a useful or probative factual inquiry possible.”

Presidential Campaign

  • In another example of how President Trump has deployed government resources to further his political ambitions, the head of the New York office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Lynne Patton, told a leader of a tenants’ group at the New York City Housing Authority that she was interested in speaking with residents about conditions in the authority’s buildings, which have long been in poor repair.

Four tenants were interviewed by Ms. Patton. Three of the tenants said they were never told that their interviews would be edited into a two-minute video clip that would air prominently on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention and be used to bash Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“I am not a Trump supporter,” said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. “I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.”

  • President Trump’s convention speech drew fewer views than former Vice President Joe Biden’s, according to preliminary numbers released by Nielsen Media Research.

An estimated 19.9 million Americans watched Trump’s speech on television, while Democratic nominee Joe Biden drew 21.7 million viewers.

  • The estate of Leonard Cohen said it was considering legal action over the use of the Canadian singer’s “Hallelujah” at the Republican National Convention, calling it a brazen attempt to politicize the song.
  • A California gas station reportedly purchased six pro-Trump billboards just months after securing a coronavirus relief loan between $150,000 and $350,000  from the Paycheck Protection Program, which is meant to help struggling businesses avoid layoffs during the pandemic.

The total cost of the billboards was $120,000.

  • Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told lawmakers that he did not foresee the military playing a role in the election process or resolving disputes that may come during the November presidential election

President Trump has made unsubstantiated allegations that voting will be rigged and has refused to say whether he would accept official election results if he lost.

  • At a campaign stop in New Hampshire, President Trump said he would support seeing a female president, but not Sen. Kamala Harris, adding that people tell him they want his daughter Ivanka Trump to be president, prompting cheers from the crowd.
  • The campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has purchased the web domain for President Trump’s reelection slogan “Keep America Great,” using it to list campaign promises they say Trump broke. Inexplicably, no one on the Trump campaign team had acquired the address. 
  • The president of University of Notre Dame said that the school does not endorse any candidate, political party or the views of Lou Holtz after the former football coach participated in the Republican National Convention and accused Joe Biden of being “Catholic in name only.”

“We Catholics should remind ourselves that while we may judge the objective moral quality of another’s actions, we must never question the sincerity of another’s faith.”

  • A coalition of more than 350 faith leaders endorsed Joe Biden for president, citing a “need of moral leadership” and “hope for a better future.”

“This election presents a stark moral contrast between the common good values of the Biden-Harris agenda and the divisiveness of the current administration.”

  • Battleground states are seeing a drop in the number of likely voters planning to vote by mail, according to a newly released poll that follows reports of the U.S. Postal Service instituting changes that have delayed mail, including the removal of mail sorting machines and mailboxes.

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

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

The Past 24 Hours or So – Trump Administration, Protests/Racial & Social Issues, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Trump Administration

  • In a bombshell report, the GOP-led Senate Select Committee on Intelligence concluded that Trump campaign contacts with Russian spies amounted to “a grave counterintelligence threat.” Over the course of nearly 1,000 pages, the Senate report pulverizes President Trump’s endless claims that the “Russia collusion hoax is the greatest political scandal in the history of this country.”

New evidence makes it abundantly clear: Not investigating the vast number of “alarming” Trump connections to Russian intelligence operatives would have amounted to a “dereliction of duty and responsibility” by America’s law enforcement agencies.

More importantly, the Senate report shows that the FBI’s probe of the Trump campaign and special counsel Robert Mueller did not go nearly far enough.

  • The president of the U.N. Security Council, Indonesia, said on Tuesday it was “not in the position to take further action” on a U.S. bid to trigger a return of all U.N. sanctions on Iran because there is no consensus in the 15-member body.
  • U.S. consumer confidence fell for the second straight month in August as households worried about the economic outlook.

The Conference Board said on Tuesday its consumer confidence index dropped to a reading of 84.8 this month from 91.7 in July. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index edging up to a reading of 93 in August.

  • A federal court has struck down a Pentagon policy requiring immigrant troops to serve for six months to a year before they are eligible for expedited citizenship, calling it “arbitrary and capricious” and violates the Administrative Procedure Act.
  • Miles Taylor, the former Trump administration official who has endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, says that President Trump offered to pardon Homeland Security officials who broke the law to carry out illegal tasks he wanted, allegedly saying “do it. If you get in trouble, I’ll pardon you.”
  • President Trump tweeted that he plans to nominate acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to take on the role in a full-time capacity after the agency has gone more than a year without a Senate-confirmed leader.
  • On July 24, President Trump held a highly-touted signing ceremony for four executive orders aimed at lowering drug prices and gave pharmaceutical companies until Aug. 24 to make a deal. 

That deadline passed at midnight on Tuesday without the announcement of any deal with drug companies. The White House has not moved forward with the order and is not saying if it will.

  • New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Trump administration aimed at stopping what she said was an effort to disrupt operations at the U.S. Postal Service at a time when a pandemic has prompted millions more people than usual to plan to vote by mail.

Hawaii, New Jersey, New York City and the City and County of San Francisco joined the suit. 

Protests/Racial and Social Issues

  • Jacob Blake’s father told the Chicago Sun-Times that his son is now paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by police over the weekend.
  • A GoFundMe to support Jacob Blake and his family has raised over $1 million just one day after the fundraising campaign was launched. 
  • Lawyers representing the family of Jacob Blake, the Black man shot in the back at point-blank range by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin announced that a civil suit would be launched against the Kenosha Police Department.
  • Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) will increase the National Guard presence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, after the second night of unrest following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
  • The Gwinnett County Police Department fired the police officer who was shown on video using a Taser in the arrest of a Black woman on her front porch, the authorities said.

“One of our core values is courtesy,” the department said in a statement. “We strive to conduct ourselves in a manner that promotes mutual respect with the community and our peers. The investigation in this case has shown that Officer Oxford violated our policy and did not meet our core values.”

  • Protesters reportedly began gathering Monday afternoon at an event titled “Resist RNC 2020” near the site of the Republican National Convention, with the group later growing to more than 100 demonstrators marching peacefully. 

But seven were ultimately arrested and 2 were hospitalized after police confronted the crowd with pepper spray. Video also depicts police using bikes to knock down demonstrators, with one woman getting her legs run over.

  • For the third consecutive night, unrest unfolded in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Nearly two hours after the 8 p.m. curfew took effect, police were heard on a bullhorn telling a group of protesters at the Kenosha Courthouse that they were taking part in an “unlawful assembly.” 

The police fired tear gas into the crowd of protesters. 

A CNN team saw either officers or guardsmen perched on the roof of the courthouse shooting pellets down at rowdy protesters.

  • At least 64 people were arrested in Louisville, Kentucky, as crowds marched Tuesday over the death of Breonna Taylor.

The protests were largely peaceful but a large group of demonstrators “crossed several intersections, creating dangerous situations as traffic continued to try to make its way in the area,” Robert Schroeder, interim chief for the Louisville Metro Police Department, told reporters.

Officers gave directions to stay on the sidewalk and those who did not were eventually arrested.

  • A federal grand jury has indicted four men on arson charges in connection to the burning of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct building at the end of May amid protests over the death of George Floyd.
  • Fabiana Pierre-Louis is set to become the first Black woman on the New Jersey Supreme Court, The New York Times reported.

Pierre-Louis, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, will also be the court’s only Black judge and, at 39, its youngest.

  • The Detroit Lions canceled practice on Tuesday. Players and coaches addressed the media with “The World Can’t Go On” and “We Won’t Be Silent” signs. The team’s message: Football is not important today after what happened over the weekend to Jacob Blake.

Presidential Campaign

  • The former cast of “The West Wing” plans to reunite for the first time in 17 years to promote When We All Vote, the voter registration initiative co-chaired by former first lady Michelle Obama.
  • Donald Trump continued to shift money from his donors to his business last month, as his reelection campaign paid his private companies for rent, food, lodging and other expenses, according to a review of the latest Federal Election Commission filings. The richest president in American history, who has yet to donate to his 2020 campaign, has now moved $2.3 million of contributions from other people into his private companies.
  • The Supreme Court has declined to take up an emergency petition from Montana Secretary of State Cory Stapleton (R) to allow candidates for the Green party to appear on the state’s ballots this fall.

Democrats had convinced people to disavow their support for the third party candidates after it was revealed that the Republican Party funded the signature-gathering effort to get the contenders’ names on the ballot under the Green Party and that the Green Party itself did not support the effort. 

  • Georgia congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is a supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory and has expressed racist and anti-Muslim views, said she was invited and plans to be in attendance when President Trump accepts the Republican presidential nomination from the White House later this week.
  • House Democrats are launching an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s expected speech to the Republican National Convention, raising concerns that the move is an illegal violation of the Hatch Act and a breach of State Department regulations.

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

The Past 24 Hours or So – Trump Administration, Protests/Racial and Social Issues, and Presidential Campaign Updates

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Trump Administration

  • U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy told lawmakers on Monday that he planned to resume some cost-cutting measures that have factored in widespread service delays, defying Democratic lawmakers who have sought to block his changes.
  • A KREX 5/Fox 4 viewer said she went to the USPS sorting annex on Patterson Road and Burkey Street Monday morning when she noticed a red dumpster by the loading docks.

When she asked what was being thrown out, a clerk said it was a brand new mail sorting machine.

The clerk added, “It took two months to set up and they were just about to do a test run when the postmaster general ordered us to take it out, now we’re sorting by hand. No wonder they say we’re losing money when they throw out expensive machines like that.”

  • New York Attorney General Letitia James is investigating whether President Trump illegally inflated his assets to attract investors and earn loans, her office revealed in court documents on Monday. James filed a lawsuit against the president’s son, Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization, accusing them of failing to comply with subpoenas as part of the investigation.
  • Manhattan’s top prosecutor, Cyrus Vance Jr., to delay enforcement of a subpoena for eight years of President Trump’s tax returns.

Though Vance had the legal right to enforce a subpoena to obtain Trump’s corporate and personal tax records, he agreed to temporarily shelve the subpoena against Trump’s accounting firm. The delay allows for another round of litigation, extending the nearly year long court battle over the subpoena in which Trump has lost every bout, including a landmark decision last month at the Supreme Court.

  • Canada largely won a case before the World Trade Organization on Monday in a long-running dispute with the United States over U.S. duties imposed on Canadian softwood lumber exports.

The panel found that duties, designed to counter Canadian subsidies, did not breach global trading rules because Washington had not shown that prices paid by Canadian firms for timber on government-owned lands were artificially low.

The Trump administration levied tariffs of up to 17.99% against what it saw as unfair subsidies for Canadian exporters of softwood lumber, which is used in home construction.

  • The Trump administration threw up major hurdles for a planned copper and gold mine in Alaska, a move that could kill the project that had drawn opposition from environmentalists, recreational groups and prominent Republicans.

The current proposal for the Pebble Mine at Bristol Bay “cannot be permitted,” the Army Corps of Engineers said, and it called for a series of strict conditions the project’s developers would need to meet to offset the environmental harms that the massive project would have on the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

  • Environmental groups wasted no time challenging the Trump administration’s attempt to allow oil and gas drilling in an Alaska refuge where polar bears and caribou roam.

Two lawsuits filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Anchorage sought to block the Interior Department’s plan to allow oil and gas lease sales on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — a 1.56 million-acre strip of land along Alaska’s northern Beaufort Sea coast, or about 8% of the 19.3 million-acre refuge.

  • A federal appeals court has narrowed an anti-riot law the Trump administration is wielding to bring federal charges against individuals accused of fueling civil unrest.

The three-judge appeals court panel unanimously concluded that language in the Anti-Riot Act that makes it a crime to “encourage,” “promote” or urge a riot is unconstitutionally overbroad because it encompasses speech protected by the First Amendment.

  • Social Security Chief Actuary Stephen C. Goss: Trump’s proposal to eliminate payroll taxes would deplete the Social Security Trust Fund by 2023, “with no ability to pay benefits thereafter.”

Protests/Racial and Social Issues

  • Police shot a Black man in the back multiple times in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as his three sons watched on Sunday, his family’s lawyer said, sparking a night of unrest during which protesters hurled firebombs and bricks at law enforcement officers.

A video circulating on social media showed Jacob Blake walking toward the driver’s side of a gray SUV followed by two officers with their guns drawn at his back. Seven gunshot sounds can be heard as Blake, who appears to be unarmed, opens the car door.

It was unknown whether the officer saw something inside the vehicle to justify deadly force. It was also not clear whether one or both officers fired their weapons.

  • The Kenosha County Sheriff’s Department announced an 8 p.m. curfew for the second night in a row Monday. The curfew follows unrest in Kenosha after the police shooting of Jacob Blake Sunday.
  • Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden called for an immediate investigation into the shooting of Jacob Blake.
  • Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) activated the National Guard to assist local law enforcement after protests in Kenosha turned violent following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.
  • Police in Kenosha deployed tear gas in an attempt to disperse protesters who converged on the county courthouse during a second night of protests. 
  • Angry, maskless spectators forced themselves into the Idaho House special session on the coronavirus pandemic, shattering a glass door, rushing into the gallery that had limited seating because of the virus and forcing lawmakers to ask for calm in a crowd that included a man carrying an assault-style weapon.

After some people shoved their way past Idaho State Police, Republican House Speaker Scott Bedke allowed the gallery to fully open as long as the crowd stopped chanting and was respectful.

“I want to always try to avoid violence,” he told The Associated Press later.

Presidential Campaign

  • President Trump on Monday claimed Democrats are using the coronavirus to “steal” the 2020 election, arguing closures of businesses and demands for mail-in voting are not driven by a pandemic that has killed nearly 180,000 Americans in five months, but to defeat him.

“They’re using COVID to defraud the American people, all of our people, of a fair and free election. We can’t do that.”

  • Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision to share a message with the Republican National Convention this week is a break from all sorts of norms and precedents designed to keep America’s chief diplomat out of the partisan fray. It may also be violating State Department policy he himself approved.
  • A progressive pro-immigration group is launching an ad targeting Asian American voters in battleground states by highlighting President Trump’s controversial rhetoric about the coronavirus. The 60-second ad intersperses clips of Trump calling the virus the “Chinese flu,” “Chinese virus” and “kung flu,” along with reports of rises in anti-Asian discrimination.
  • More Than a Vote, a group of athletes headlined by LeBron James is launching a campaign to increase the number of poll workers in Black electoral districts ahead of November’s general election.
  • The federal government has largely implemented the election security recommendations that the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and National Institute of Standards and Technology generated in 2016. 

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

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Coronavirus/COVID-19 

  • The U.S. reported 38,234 new cases and 572 additional deaths.
  • President Trump would be willing to sign a bill that included Postal Service funding and reform – but only if Democrats agreed to include other economic relief measures along with it, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday.
  • The FDA authorized the use of blood plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19 as a treatment for the disease.
  • The president began his announcement of the FDA issuance of emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma as potential treatment for COVID-19 with a xenophobic comment. 
  • FDA commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn said that his organization makes decisions “on data only,” denying he was pressured by the White House to issue an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma.
  • A federal judge in Washington state temporarily blocked Education Secretary Betsy DeVos from enforcing a controversial rule that directs states to give private schools a bigger share of federal coronavirus aid than Congress had intended.
  • East Carolina University Interim Chancellor Ron Mitchelson announced in a letter that they are moving to online classes, just two weeks after welcoming students back on campus.
  • The University of Kentucky began a second phase of Covid-19 testing Sunday, testing 5,500 students who belong to fraternities and sororities. 

University President Eli Capilouto wrote. “We believe a number of factors associated with communal living spaces likely contributed to the high positivity rates in these residences.”

  • University of Alabama President Stuart R. Bell asked students, faculty and staff to work together to follow safety protocols so the university can finish the fall semester with in-person classes. Bell said there will be consequences, including suspension, for not following the rules on and off campus.
  • Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said  that officials are staging helicopters, C-130 transport aircraft, high-profile vehicles, sheltering teams, disinfecting teams and mobile testing squads to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19 during Hurricane Marco and Tropical Storm Laura.
  • California surpassed 12,000 Covid-19-related fatalities as the state reported 146 new deaths Sunday, bringing the state’s total number of 12,134.

Trump Administration

  • White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday dodged questions about President Donald Trump’s embrace of QAnon days after the president said followers of the conspiracy theory “love our country.”

“We don’t even know what it is,” Meadows told “Fox News Sunday” after host Chris Wallace asked whether the president would denounce QAnon, which the FBI has labeled a potential domestic terror threat.

  • The impetus behind the president’s “FDA/Deep state” tweet seems to come from the president’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, who accused the FDA of being part of the “Deep State” during a meeting that was supposed to be about COVID-19 and the Strategic National Stockpile.

According to two sources in the meeting, Navarro had aggressively confronted FDA officials, saying, “You are all Deep State and you need to get on Trump Time.” (That’s the expression Navarro uses to describe the speed that he says Trump demands.)

Sources familiar with the situation said Navarro has been venting at the FDA for weeks at what he perceives as its slowness to approve therapeutics to fight COVID-19 and help the U.S. “bring our medical supply chain home.”

A third senior administration official said Navarro — a fervent proponent of hydroxychloroquine — remained angry at the FDA for saying the drug didn’t work against COVID-19.

  • White House counselor Kellyanne Conway will depart her position in the Trump administration at the end of the month to focus on family matters, she said in a statement late Sunday.

“This is completely my choice and my voice,” Conway said. “In time, I will announce future plans. For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.”

Conway’s husband, George, separately wrote on Twitter that he would be leaving his role with the Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans, for similar reasons.

Protests/Racial and Social Issues

  • Santa Clara University in California is conducting an investigation after a Black assistant professor at the school said she and her brother were harassed by campus security in a recent encounter.
  • Demonstrators in Detroit were back on the street in Detroit on Sunday to talk about the arrests by police of 42 people during a protest the night before over the presence of federal agents in the city.

“We were standing in the middle of the street and they arrested us,” Tristan Taylor, of Detroit Will Breathe, told a crowd of about 50 people. “The issue isn’t that they arrested us. The issue is the brutality. When you do something to get arrested you expect arrest, but not brutally beaten. We weren’t doing anything to get brutally beaten.”

Sgt. Nicole Kirkwood, a police spokeswoman, said protesters blocked all lanes of traffic early Sunday by standing in an intersection. “Dozen of warnings were given to them before any arrests were made,” Kirkwood said. “They were advised they were blocking traffic by blocking all four lanes of Woodward and John R and that they were assembling unlawfully.”

“DPD is not going to “tolerate people blocking the public streets,” she said.

Presidential Campaign

  • A federal judge in Pennsylvania halted the Trump campaign’s lawsuit against the state over how it sends and counts mail-in ballots.

Nicholas Ranjan of the U.S. District Court in the Western District of Pennsylvania, who was appointed by President Trump, ruled that Trump’s lawsuit against the secretary of state and 67 county election boards should be put on hold while state court cases about voting move forward.

  • Joe Biden told ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir that everybody should pay “their fair share.”

“I will raise taxes for anybody making over $400,000,” Biden told Muir, adding, “no new taxes” would be raised for anyone making under $400,000.

  • Trump tweeted that ballot drop-off boxes “are not Covid sanitized. A big fraud!”

After Trump sent the tweet, Twitter took action, saying, “We placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our Civic Integrity Policy for making misleading health claims that could potentially dissuade people from participation in voting.” 

  • Fifty-seven percent of Republicans believe the over 176,000 deaths from the coronavirus is “acceptable,” and hold positive views of the US response to the pandemic.

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

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Coronavirus/COVID-19 

  • The U.S. reported 46,295 new cases and 1,024 additional deaths. At least 6,913 Americans died this week as a result of COVID-19.
  • The number of people who have been infected with the novel coronavirus globally surpassed 23 million on Saturday, according to Johns Hopkins University. JHU is reporting more than 801,000 people have died from the virus.

The United States has the highest numbers of coronavirus infections and deaths in the world.

  • The World Health Organization said children aged 12 and over should wear masks to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic under the same conditions as adults, while children between six and 11 should wear them on a risk-based approach.
  • President Trump accused the FDA of making it difficult for drug companies to test possible coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics on people.

“The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!” Trump tweeted.

  • Schools across the U.S. are facing shortages and long delays, of up to several months, in getting this year’s most crucial back-to-school supplies: the laptops and other equipment needed for online learning, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The world’s three biggest computer companies, Lenovo, HP and Dell, have told school districts they have a shortage of nearly 5 million laptops, in some cases exacerbated by Trump administration sanctions on Chinese suppliers, according to interviews with over two dozen U.S. schools, districts in 15 states, suppliers, computer companies and industry analysts.

  • Rep. Dan Meuser (R-PA) announced on Saturday he has tested positive for COVID-19. 

The Pennsylvania Republican said that he is complying with health guidelines and postponing public events following his diagnosis.

  • Springfield, Massachusetts police are looking for a man who allegedly gave a Walmart shopper a “Covid hug.” 

The suspect, whom the victim had never seen before, took an item out of his hand and then gave him a hug.

“Just giving you a Covid hug. You now have Covid,” the suspect said before laughing and walking away, according to the Springfield Police Department.

The victim is a cancer survivor, the police department said, adding that the suspect did the same thing to several other customers.

  • New Jersey reported its lowest number of coronavirus-related hospitalizations since March 24.
  • Georgia surpassed 5,000 COVID-19 deaths since the start of the pandemic.
  • A 6-year-old girl from Hillsborough County became the youngest person to die from coronavirus complications in Florida.
  • The number of Covid-19 hospitalizations in Mississippi dropped below 1,000 for the first time in two months.
  • Covid-19 hospitalization rates in Los Angeles County are the lowest since April.

Trump Administration

  • Maryanne Trump Barry was serving as a federal judge when she heard her brother, President Trump, suggest on Fox News, “maybe I’ll have to put her at the border” amid a wave of refugees entering the United States. At the time, children were being separated from their parents and put in cramped quarters while court hearings dragged on.

“All he wants to do is appeal to his base,” Barry said in a conversation secretly recorded by her niece, Mary L. Trump. “He has no principles. None. None. And his base, I mean my God, if you were a religious person, you want to help people. Not do this.”

Barry, 83, was aghast at how her 74-year-old brother operated as president. “His goddamned tweet and lying, oh my God,” she said. “I’m talking too freely, but you know. The change of stories. The lack of preparation. The lying. Holy shit.”

Barry also said at one point, “It’s the phoniness of it all. It’s the phoniness and this cruelty. Donald is cruel,” according to the audio scripts and recordings.

According to the Washington Post, Barry said to Mary: “He went to Fordham for one year and then he got into University of Pennsylvania because he had somebody take the exams.” “No way!” Mary responded. “He had somebody take his entrance exams?”

Barry then replied, “SATs or whatever…I even remember the name. That person was Joe Shapiro,” Barry said.

  • The U.S. was further isolated over its bid to reimpose international sanctions on Iran with 13 countries on the 15-member U.N. Security Council expressing their opposition, arguing that Washington’s move is void given it is using a process agreed under a nuclear deal that it quit two years ago.
  • The House on Saturday passed legislation that would prevent the U.S. Postal Service from making any changes to its operations that could slow delivery of mailed-in ballots for this fall’s elections.

It would also provide $25 billion for Postal Service operations, which is an amount originally recommended by the agency’s board of governors. House Democrats also included the funding in the $3.4 trillion coronavirus relief package that they passed in May.

  • A California Superior Court judge has ordered President Donald Trump to pay $44,100 to Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, to reimburse her attorneys’ fees in the legal battle surrounding her nondisclosure agreement.
  • TikTok plans to sue the Trump administration over its executive order banning transactions between U.S. companies and the popular video-sharing app as well as its Chinese parent company, ByteDance.

Protests/Racial and Social Issues

  • Federal authorities on Saturday forced demonstrators away from a plaza near a federal building as dueling demonstrations in Portland by right-wing and left-wing protesters turned violent. No arrests were reported.
  • A Kansas City police sergeant has been indicted on a felony charge of third-degree assault after he allegedly kneed a 15-year-old boy on his neck and head and forced his head into the pavement while the teenager repeatedly said “I can’t breathe,” a Missouri prosecutor announced Friday.
  • Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan (D) said she will veto City Council-approved proposals that would include reducing the police department by as many as 100 officers through layoffs and attrition.
  • Westerly, Rhode Island Police said Friday that they caught two people red-handed trying to vandalize a statue of Christopher Columbus.

Westerly Police Chief Shawn Lacey said the two had been among a group that tried to spray paint on the Columbus statue across from town hall at around 3:30 a.m. on Thursday.

  • Someone sprayed black paint on a giant mural of George Floyd at the Minneapolis intersection where he died in May. A Minneapolis police spokesman said the department hasn’t taken any reports about the vandalized mural.

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

The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Trump Administration

  • President Trump will hold a funeral service Friday for his late brother, Robert Trump, at the White House. The Trump family has invited 200 friends and family members to attend the private service that is expected to be held in the East Room. The costs of the service are being covered personally by the president.
  • Six states led by Pennsylvania on Friday sued the U.S. Postal Service and the new postmaster general, saying service changes in recent weeks have harmed the ability of states to conduct free and fair elections.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, was joined by California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina and the District of Columbia.

  • Louis DeJoy, the Trump campaign donor who has served as postmaster general since June, said that he was committed to ensuring mail-in ballots are delivered securely and on time for the November election. 
  • Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said board members for the U.S. Postal Service should fire Postmaster General Louis DeJoy or resign themselves amid controversy over planned changes he’s announced.
  • Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) accused Democrats of using a “false narrative” to carry out a “character assassination” of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. 
  • The White House says President Trump will likely veto a bill introduced by House Democrats to halt changes to U.S. Postal Service operations until after the coronavirus pandemic and provide billions in funding to the beleaguered agency, one day before lawmakers return to Washington to vote on the measure.

The lawmakers hope the bill helps the agency as it faces delays and says some mail-in votes are at risk of not being counted due to changes under President Trump.

  • Poultry farmers in Maine have complained of an increasing number of young chicks dying en route to their farms, blaming it on operational changes to the U.S. Postal Service.

Pauline Henderson, who owns Pine Tree Poultry in New Sharon, Maine, said all 800 chicks in a shipment from Pennsylvania were dead by the time they arrived last week.

  • Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon claimed he was the victim of a “political hit job” after he was charged with fraud relating to a fundraising campaign aimed at supporting the US-Mexico border wall.

“I’m in this for the long-haul. I’m in this for the fight. I’m going to continue to fight,” added Bannon, who pleaded not guilty.

  • A federal judge in New York on Friday denied President Trump’s request to temporarily halt a grand jury subpoena for his tax returns from taking effect.

The ruling by District Judge Victor Marrero comes a day after he dismissed Trump’s latest attempt to block a New York grand jury subpoena for eight years of Trump’s financial documents, including his personal and corporate tax returns.

  • Attorney General William Barr said that he “vehemently” opposes pardoning Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor charged with espionage after he released a trove of classified documents on surveillance programs, after President Trump said he was considering it.
  • A former Green Beret was arrested and faces charges related to conspiring with Russian intelligence operatives to provide them with U.S. national security defense information.
  • Vice President Pence dismissed QAnon, telling “CBS This Morning” that he doesn’t “know anything about that conspiracy theory,” adding when pressed: “I dismiss it out of hand.”

The theory, which posits that President Trump and his allies are working to expose an elite group of Democrats, media figures and celebrities who are running an international child trafficking ring.

Protests/Racial and Social Issues

  • Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) quietly signed a bill into law ramping up punishments for certain kinds of protests, including losing the right to vote. The new law also slaps a mandatory 45-day sentence for aggravated rioting, boosts the fine for blocking highway access to emergency vehicles and enhances the punishment for aggravated assault against a first responder to a Class C felony.
  • Cincinnati Reds play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman was suspended by the organization after uttering a homophobic slur on a live microphone. 

On Wednesday, referring to Kansas City where the game was being played, Brennaman could be heard saying, “One of the fag capitals of the world.”

  • The Gwinnett County, Georgia police department is investigating an officer’s use of force after a viral video showed a white officer tasing a Black woman on her own porch.

Presidential Campaign

  • Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) was asked by ABC News’s David Muir in a joint interview with Joe Biden about various names Trump has called her. 

“President Trump has referred to you as ‘nasty,’ ‘a sort of madwoman,’ ‘a disaster,’ ‘the meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate.’ How do you define what you hear from the president?” Muir asked.

Harris started to laugh halfway through the question.

“Listen, I really — I think there is so much about what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth that is designed to distract the American people from what he is doing every day that is about neglect, negligence and harm to the American people,” she said.

  • President Trump said at a private Trump Tower meeting days before his inauguration that lower turnout by Black voters helped him in the 2016 election, according to newly obtained audio first reported by The Independent.

“Many Blacks didn’t go out to vote for Hillary ‘cause they liked me. That was almost as good as getting the vote, you know, and it was great.”

Trump started the meeting by name-dropping his Black friends and celebrities and showcased a collection of memorabilia including a sneaker that belonged to NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, Mike Tyson’s belt and his chair from “The Apprentice.”

“The first thing that I can never forget was how when you walked in, [Trump] name-drops all these Black celebrities and tries to give the illusion that they’re his friends,” Tootsie Warhol told Politico.

  • Despite President Trump’s repeated attacks on mail-in voting, the Republican parties in Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania have sent mailings to registered GOP voters encouraging them to cast absentee ballots for November’s general election. The Arizona GOP mailer even includes a quote from President Trump about how he is an absentee voter.
  • President Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee have spent more than $1 billion combined since the beginning of 2017, according to FEC filings. Most of that spending — nearly $625 million — was spent since the beginning of the 2020 election cycle in 2019.
  • Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (R) said he will not be voting for President Trump in the 2020 White House race and would consider backing former Vice President Joe Biden.
  • NBA star LeBron James shut down a misleading ad that quotes him and uses his image while promoting the unfounded theory that voting by mail leads to widespread voter fraud.

“Everyone needs to know the kind of BS happening about this election and get organized,” James tweeted. “Secondly, Nobody should be able to use my name (or anyone else name) to lie and deceive about the election.”

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