Wednesday News: “Trump’s Conspiracy-Addled Brain”; “White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again across the U.S.”; “Georgia Needs U.N. Elections Monitors”; “Black Lives Matter Is Winning”; “Richmond protesters topple Columbus statue, throw it in lake”

by Lowell

Here are a few national and Virginia news headlines, political and otherwise, for Wednesday, June 10.

Indecent and untethered, the whole thing. The wild lies from the president and the elected officials unwilling to stand up for basic human decency. https://t.co/NlkwlHwaUD

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 10, 2020

• The World Reopens, Despite Skyrocketing Coronavirus Cases (“The number of infections is rising faster than ever, but many countries have decided that this is the moment to ease lockdown restrictions.”)
• OECD Paints Grim Picture for Economy and Warns of Second Virus Wave
• Using a mask in public all the time could prevent a second wave, British study says
• Trump Undermines Angela Merkel Just as She Confronts Putin (Trump is treasonous.)
• The World Health Organization Didn’t Actually Mean Asymptomatic Spread Is “Very Rare” (“Here’s what went wrong at that press conference.”)
• Donald Trump’s Corruption Is Killing Americans
• Vaccine Makers Hedge Bets On Which One Will Emerge As Effective And Safe
• Coronavirus Live Updates: Fauci Delivers Grim Assessment, Saying, ‘It Isn’t Over Yet’
• America Fails the Marshmallow Test (“America Fails the Marshmallow Test”)
• More businesses were lost in the last 3 months than all of the Great Recession
• Trump’s Task Force Warns Governors of COVID Spike Tied to Protests
• A $22 Trillion Stock Rally Now Hinges on Rapid Economic Recovery
• Presidents Lose When There’s an Election-Year Recession
• White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again across the U.S.
• McConnell: We won’t ‘quit doing things just because there’s an election’ (“The Senate majority leader famously spent a year blocking Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, citing the 2016 election.”)
• 90% Clean Grid by 2035 Is Not Just Feasible, But Cheaper, Study Says (“Clean energy costs have fallen so rapidly that previously unthinkable scenarios now look like a good deal for the U.S., a new study contends.”)
• Coronavirus hospitalizations rise sharply in several states following Memorial Day (“Data from states that are now reporting some of their highest seven-day averages of new cases is disproving the notion that the country is seeing such a spike in cases solely because of the continued increase in testing, according to data tracked by The Washington Post.”)
• Trump May Compare Himself to Nixon in 1968, but He Really Resembles Wallace (“The president has employed the same kind of inflammatory language as George Wallace did in the 1968 campaign. Richard Nixon ran that year seeking the middle between the Alabama governor and Hubert Humphrey.”)
• Trump Pukes Out More Lurid Conspiracies as the People Steal His Spotlight (“He’d rather focus on what happened in Buffalo than on the outrage of Bill Barr’s hodgepodge army attacking citizens in a public park to clear the way for his limp-dick photo-op.”)
• Trump Falsely Targets Buffalo Protester, 75, as ‘Antifa Provocateur’ (Note the word FALSELY in the headline? That’s what the media needs to do all the time.)
• Trump’s Conspiracy-Addled Brain Sees Elderly Protester as a Potential Terrorist
• Trump promotes unhinged OAN conspiracy theory about battered 75-year-old Buffalo protester
• The Supreme Court Has to Choose Between Trump and the Rule of Law
• Donald Trump makes baseless claim about man, 75, shoved by police: ‘Could be a set-up?’ (Yeah, let’s ditch the word “baseless” when “lies” or “false” are more accurate.)
• How Antifa Became The Bogeyman Of Small-Town Protests (Does anyone know a single person who is in this supposed group? Had anyone even heard of it before right wingers started talking about it?)
• Air Force general confirmed as first black chief of a U.S. military service (Nice.)
• At George Floyd’s funeral, Sharpton calls out Trump in eulogy
• George Floyd has become the Emmett Till of this moment
• That Trump Tweet? Republicans Prefer Not to See It (Fragile “snowflakes”)
• ‘Ugh’: Republicans cringe after Trump’s attack on 75-year-old protester (As usual, the question is what – if anything – Republicans are going to DO about Trump?)
• Trump’s public standing sags after Floyd protests
• Trump Wanted to Fire Esper Over Troops Dispute (“After talks with the advisers, who cautioned against the move, Mr. Trump set aside the plans to immediately fire Mr. Esper.”)
• Chris Wallace Breaks Down ‘Very Bad Week’ For Trump’s Reelection Prospects (“When ‘even your own current Secretary of Defense Mark Esper breaks with you, that’s not a good week'”)
• G.O.P. Scrambles to Respond to Public Demands for Police Overhaul
• One America News, the Network That Spreads Conspiracies to the West Wing
• Trump’s MAGA base finds its own rallying cry: Defend the police
• Black Lives Matter Is Winning
• Black Lives Matter expands into movement embraced by the masses
• Washington, D.C., Deserves Statehood (Susan Rice: “Trump transformed my hometown into a war zone, underscoring the imperative that the capital should be the 51st state.”)
• ‘What I saw was just absolutely wrong’: National Guardsmen struggle with their role in controlling protests
• After 15 stunning days of anti-racist protests … what happens next? (“Can the phenomenal response to the police killing of George Floyd be channeled to secure lasting political change?”)
• Video evidence increasingly disproves police narratives
• No Sign Of Antifa So Far In Justice Department Cases Brought Over Unrest (Why would there be any sign of something that doesn’t even exist as a real organization, and is simply a made-up bogeyman by the Donald Trumps, Corey Stewarts, etc. of the world?)
• So this is why Bill Barr is such a bully (“The 1991 description of 1963 Barr’s harassment sounds eerily like the 2020 Barr. He “lived to make me miserable,” with a “vicious fixation on my little Jewish ‘commie’ ass,” Lohman alleged, because he wore peace and racial-equality pins. He said the four Barr brothers picketed the school’s “Junior Carnival” because proceeds went to the NAACP, and he alleged that Billy Barr, the “most fanatic rightist” of the four, later “teamed with the New York City riot police to attack anti-war protesters and ‘long hairs.’”)
• Primary results: Highlights from a messy election night in Georgia and 4 other states (“The new, $100 million-plus voting system had not worked well, resulting in long lines that brought fears of what would come in November. County officials blamed state officials, who blamed poll workers, who blamed the machines.”)
• ‘A hot, flaming mess’: Georgia primary beset by chaos, long lines (This is partly Chief Justice John Roberts’ fault, along with his far-right Supreme Court colleagues, who gutted the Voting Rights Act)
• “Georgia Was Not Ready for This Election” (“Poll closures, malfunctioning machines, and missing ballots forced voters to wait in line for hours—or forfeit their constitutional rights.”)
• Georgia election ‘catastrophe’ in largely minority areas sparks investigation (“Long lines, lack of voting machines and shortages of primary ballots plagued voters.”)
• Georgia Betrays Its Voters Again
• Major Problems With Voting in Atlanta as 5 States Hold Primaries
• Georgia Needs U.N. Elections Monitors
• Trump Jr.’s Mongolian sheep hunting trip cost taxpayers about $75,000, documents show (Trump Jr. is evil scum on every level.)
• Biden fundraiser with Harris raises $3.5 million
• Black Lives Matter protests extend into America’s suburbs and towns (Good!)
• Roger Goodell’s Black Lives Matter Moment Is a Sign of Trump’s Weakness
• The Parallel Universe of Ivanka Trump, America’s Disassociated Princess
• Rename the Rebel Forts (David Petraeus: “It is time to remove the names of traitors like Benning and Bragg from our country’s most important military bases.”)
• US police unions show lack of diversity in leadership, study finds (“Of the 15 large US cities in which a majority of officers are non-white, only one – Memphis – has a union leader who is black”)
• The Police Have Been Spying on Black Reporters and Activists for Years. I Know Because I’m One of Them.
• ‘He’ll change the world’: George Floyd’s family pays emotional tribute as crowds flock to funeral
• The Most Powerful Moments From the Funeral of George Floyd
• Angry White Counterprotesters in N.J. Mock George Floyd’s Killing (“One man yelled while kneeling on the neck of another who was facedown on the ground. The ugly display drew a fierce condemnation.” These sound like just lovely people, eh?)
• The Head Of CrossFit Told Staff On A Zoom Call, “We’re Not Mourning For George Floyd” (Yep, the head of CrossFit is a virulent racist.)
• Sen. Tim Kaine Cosponsors Reforms to Address Racial Inequality & Injustice
• Senator Tim Kaine discusses police reform and military force against peaceful protesters
• Sen. Tim Kaine proposes amendment to limit use of military force against peaceful protesters
• Six Virginia Democrats sign on to federal police reform bill
• Robert Winn, Janice Underwood and Abigail Spanberger column: America tests positive for our collective disease
• A Republican Congressman Steps Out with Peaceful Protesters (Note that Rob Wittman hasn’t signed on to this, or to many/most other bills that would actually improve the situation, demonstrating that he’s not at all serious.)
• Breaking: At 2 pm Press Conference Today, Gov. Ralph Northam to Announce Plans for Reopening Virginia Schools
• Governor Northam Shares Guidance for Phased Reopening of PreK-12 Schools
• Virginia governor allows reopening of K-12 schools as soon as this summer
• ‘We want to be there if it’s safe’: Virginia teachers still have questions about the state’s plan to reopen schools
• How Northam plans to reopen Virginia schools in the fall
• Tuesday (6/9) Virginia Data on COVID-19 Finds +487 Confirmed/Probable Cases (to 51,738), +60 Hospitalizations (to 5,203), +19 Deaths (to 1,496 From Yesterday)
• Sen. Chap Petersen (D?) Files Lawsuit Claiming Gov. Northam’s COVID-19 Emergency Constitutes “a continuing violation of the United States and Virginia Constitutions”
• Lawsuits claim Northam’s COVID-19 orders unconstitutional
• Media Misleadingly Reports that Falwell “Apologized” for His “Racist Tweet”, Except…Falwell Has Not Deleted Other Similarly Themed Tweets
• Northam vows to fight temporary injunction against removing Robert E. Lee statue
• Facing a Lawsuit, Governor says Lee Monument “Must Come Down”
• Jeffrey M. Bourne and Jay Jones column: Removing the shield to justice: reforming sovereign immunity
• Injunction blocking Lee Monument removal treads complex legal ground. ‘I wouldn’t be confident on either side.’ (“First, he said the court will have to decide whether the language in the deed is enforceable as written. On that front, he says some language in deeds can be read as precatory, meaning it merely expresses the donors’ wishes in giving the property but doesn’t otherwise carry any legal weight or obligation…Second, if the court does view the restrictions as enforceable, a doctrine called cy pres comes into play, which allows the court to change provisions in perpetual charitable gifts ‘due to essentially changed conditions since the gift was established.'”)
• Breaking: Richmond Judge Issues 10-Day Injunction Against Removing Lee Statue, Says Plaintiff “Likely to Prevail” (Judge says Virginia promised in March 1890 to “faithfully guard” and “affectionately protect” the “statue and pedestal and circle of ground”)
• Governor Northam Appoints Jehmal Hudson to Powerful State Corporation Commission
• Governor Northam Appoints Curtis Brown to Lead Virginia Department of Emergency Management
• Lamont Bagby, Mamie Locke & Jay Speer: New law will curb predatory lending in Virginia
• Fairfax moves to buy more police body cameras in wake of stun-gun incident captured on video
• JUST IN: Northern Virginia to Enter ‘Phase 2’ Reopening on Friday
• Loudoun, NOVA to Enter Phase 2 Reopening Friday
• Richmond moving into Phase Two on June 12
• Coming together in Powhatan with hope for change
• Fairfax County Looking to Speed Up Body-Worn Cameras for Police
• Protesters stand in solidarity with indigenous peoples at Byrd Park where Columbus statue is torn down, thrown in lake (Columbus and his men behaved absolutely horribly, there’s no question about it if you actually read the history of it. Also, what ended up happening – because of Columbus and others – to the indigenous Americans was absolutely genocide. So, bottom line, we should not celebrate Columbus in any way/shape/form, but should *study* what he did…)
• Protesters Bring Down Columbus Statue in Byrd Park After March
• Richmond protesters topple Columbus statue, throw it in lake (“After the figure was removed from its pedestal around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday by protesters using several ropes, a sign that reads, ‘Columbus represents genocide’ was placed on the spray-painted foundation that once held the statue.”)
• Virginia trooper resigns after text about coughing to spread COVID-19
• Hadwin: Roanoke Gas has chance to opt out of MVP
• Roanoke Valley COVID-19 cases rise, disproportionately affect Hispanic residents
• “A Mother’s March”: Local moms gather to talk about police and how they engage the community (“Tuesday night’s events in Virginia Beach and Newport News were about the mothers’ stories – and their children’s. But their messages were much bigger than that.”)
• Jody Wagner announces run for Virginia Beach Mayor
• Virginia Tech gives dorm namesake’s possible Klan link another look
• More than 1,000 march in Chesterfield to protest police brutality, voice support for Black Lives Matter
• Hot and extremely humid today; some showers and storms this evening into tomorrow