COVID-19 Update

120,000 dead Americans

WaPo:

As coronavirus cases surge in states across the South and West of the United States, health experts in countries with falling case numbers are watching with a growing sense of alarm and disbelief, with many wondering why virus-stricken U.S. states continue to reopen and why the advice of scientists is often ignored.

“It really does feel like the U.S. has given up,” said Siouxsie Wiles, an infectious-diseases specialist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand — a country that has confirmed only three new cases over the last three weeks and where citizens have now largely returned to their pre-coronavirus routines.

“I can’t imagine what it must be like having to go to work knowing it’s unsafe,” Wiles said of the U.S.-wide economic reopening. “It’s hard to see how this ends. There are just going to be more and more people infected, and more and more deaths. It’s heartbreaking.”

A Video

"Dumb" animals

Today's Today

Happy Juneteenth, kids.

A Self Parody

Karen McDougal, former Playboy model (and alleged paramour of President Stoopid),  filed a defamation suit against DumFux News.

In court, the defending attorney made the argument that there's no basis to sue since no one has a reasonable expectation that DumFux News has anything to do with the dissemination of factual information.

Law & Crime:

“Would a reasonable viewer be coming here and thinking this is where I’m going to be hearing the news of the day?” Fox News attorney Erin Murphy asked U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil during a hearing conducted via telephone on Wednesday.

- and -

Under New York State defamation law, the entire case essentially hinges upon whether or not a reasonable viewer would have thought that Carlson was actually accusing McDougal of a crime.

Fox News attempted to argue exactly the opposite in court on Wednesday–insisting the controversial host was simply employing First Amendment-protected hyperbole and that a reasonable viewer would have, in fact, clearly understood the host’s rhetorical device.

You're in a hole. Stop digging

“There’s no statement that a reasonable viewer would understand in this context to state something provably false,” Murphy added–explicitly invoking the word “hyperbolic” to make her client’s case.

Stop.

“It’s not the front page of the New York Times,” Murphy continued. “It’s Tucker Carlson Tonight.

And there ya go.  Do I have to remind anyone that all the Journalism Awards have been handed out for this year, and DumFux News went oh-fer again - for the 25th year in a row?

COVID-19 Update

WaPo:

As the rest of Arizona followed a stay-at-home order imposed by the governor in May, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb proclaimed that the state’s attempt to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus was unconstitutional.

“The numbers don’t justify the actions anymore,” the defiant Republican sheriff told the Arizona Republic at the time, vowing not to arrest people or shut down businesses that violated the order. “Three hundred deaths is not a significant enough number to continue to ruin the economy.”

On Wednesday, less than two months after publicly challenging the state’s efforts to slow the spread of a virus that has now spiked in Arizona, Lamb announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus before a scheduled meeting with President Trump.

In a Facebook post, Lamb wrote he was invited on Tuesday to the White House as part of Trump’s meeting with law enforcement officials and the signing of his executive action on policing. As part of a mandatory coronavirus screening for all White House visitors, he learned he had the virus.

I don't see anything in the piece to indicate whether or not Sheriff Lamb was allowed to attend the dog-n-pony show in the White House.

But wait just a dang minute - if you don't test, then you don't have cases. So if they hadn't tested Mr Lamb, then he wouldn't be sick now, right?

On Being That Friend

Julie Nolke

On Bolton's Book

First, lemma just say - FUCK JOHN BOLTON.

Now then - David Ignatius, WaPo:

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord,” reads a famous passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. John Bolton has provided a secular version of that cosmic payback in his account of Donald Trump’s presidency, “The Room Where It Happened.”

As much as you think you know about the arrogance, vanity and sheer incompetence of Trump’s years in the White House, Bolton’s account will still astonish you. He narrates his 17 months as national security adviser in remarkable detail. He seems to have collated every Trump rant, reckless phone call, and muttered aside. No wonder the White House was so determined to block this book: It eviscerates Trump’s foreign policy record and exposes him, in Bolton’s words, as “stunningly uninformed.”

Bolton offers new tidbits about Ukraine, the issue on which Trump was impeached and where Democrats desperately sought Bolton’s testimony. He confirms an aide’s account that Bolton viewed Trump’s Ukraine machinations as a “drug deal,” provides new evidence that “Ukraine security assistance was at risk of being swallowed by the Ukraine fantasy conspiracy theories.” In sum, he says, “the whole affair was bad policy, questionable legally, and unacceptable as presidential behavior.” This account should deeply embarrass Republican senators who offered unblinking defenses of Trump’s Ukraine actions during the impeachment trial.

The litany of fuckups Bolton recounts oughta be more than enough to put 45* and every GOP enabler out of business.

But it isn't, and I fear nothing is or will be. Ever.

The Whims Of The Wealthy

NYT:

In the Manhattan restaurants around Lincoln Center, the tips often rose and fell with the changing playbill. A popular classic musical could mean more preshow diners, and more income. A more famous actress as Eliza Doolittle could do the same. The end of a big run, like “My Fair Lady,” meant the opposite: Tips would be down for a while.

“We were dependent on how well shows were doing at Lincoln Center, and we really did pay attention,” said Emma Craig, who was a server at the Atlantic Grill a block away before the coronavirus crisis. She has not returned to that job yet, or to another singing at a private supper club downtown. In both jobs, she said, “I am dependent on the trickle down.”

The recession has crushed this kind of work in particular: service jobs that depend directly on the spending — and the whims — of the well-off.

Too much money (which means too much power) is in the hands of too few people.

Truth In Government

Let's go see what doin' in Puerto Rico.

Say Their Names

              WALTER SCOTT
         GEORGE FLOYD

      TAMIR RICE
         AIYANA JONES
        STEPHON CLARK
      BREONNA TAYLOR

       SANDRA BLAND
ATATIANA JEFFERSON
            EZELL FORD
       AHMAUD ARBERY
       ALTON STERLING
           BOTHAM JEAN
              ERIC GARNER