Tuesday, July 28, 2020

Bill Barr to Testify Before Congress. Here’s How I’d Cross-Examine Him.


Chris Hayes Puts The Scale Of Coronavirus Deaths In Perspective | All In | MSNBC


Trump Pushes Fake COVID Cure From Fringe Doctors, Banned by Facebook

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-pushes-fake-covid-cure-from-fringe-doctors-banned-by-facebook


At least one of the accounts the president retweeted on Monday night was from a follower of QAnon, the conspiracy theory that alleges a “deep state” cabal of pedophiles is plotting against Trump.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube scrub platforms of viral video making false coronavirus claims

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/28/tech/facebook-youtube-coronavirus/index.html

 A video featuring a group of doctors making false and dubious claims related to the coronavirus was removed by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube after going viral online Monday.
The video, published by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart News, featured a group of people wearing white lab coats calling themselves "America's Frontline Doctors" staging a press conference in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC.
President Trump shared multiple versions of the video with his 84 million Twitter followers Monday night despite the dubious claims running counter to his administration's own public health experts. Spokespersons for the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Donald Trump says Dr. Fauci misled the public on hydroxychloroquine and shares a video of a doctor saying the drug can prevent the virus in Twitter spree

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8566907/Donald-Trump-goes-Twitter-binge-retweets-posts-praising-hydroxychloroquine.html

  • President Donald Trump retweeted a slew of posts praising controversial drug hydroxychloroquine for treating COVID-19 on Monday night
  • He shared a retweeted that slammed Dr. Anthony Fauci for 'misleading' the country by dismissing hydroxychloroquine, and supporting drug Remdesivir
  • He shared video of Dr. Stella Immanuel's speech outside Capitol Hill on Friday where she claimed the anti-malaria drug is a 'cure' for the virus
  • She slammed 'fake doctors' who doubt the efficacy of the drug and said to the public 'you don’t need a mask'
  • Trump shared videos of her speech twice, and both were removed

Seattle Mayor: Looks Like Trump Is Rehearsing For Martial Law | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC


Trump Ditches 'New Tone' On COVID-19, Pushes States To Reopen | The 11th Hour | MSNBC


Georgia Republican senator removes ad that made Jewish opponent’s nose bigger

https://www.timesofisrael.com/georgia-republican-senator-removes-ad-that-made-jewish-opponents-nose-bigger/

Republican Sen. David Perdue of Georgia has taken down a digital campaign ad featuring a manipulated picture of his Democratic opponent Jon Ossoff, who is Jewish, with an enlarged nose. Before being removed, the Facebook ad showed grainy pictures of Ossoff and Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, who is also Jewish, above a banner reading “DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO BUY GEORGIA! HELP DAVID PERDUE FIGHT BACK.”  


A spokeswoman for Perdue said in a statement Monday that the image has been removed from Facebook, calling it an “unintentional error” by an outside vendor, without naming the vendor.
“Anybody who implies that this was anything other than an inadvertent error is intentionally misrepresenting Senator Perdue’s strong and consistent record of standing firmly against anti-Semitism and all forms of hate,” the spokeswoman said.
 
 

How Tom Cotton accidentally told an appalling truth

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/27/opinions/tom-cotton-slavery-comments-1619-project-bailey/index.html


It's a belief likely held by millions of White Americans and also by a number of white historians. It's just that Cotton said it more plainly and directly than most. It's that ability -- White Americans' penchant for compartmentalizing and rationalizing when it comes to issues of race -- that has made it possible for a president as inept and racist as Donald Trump to have any chance of being re-elected.

How the 1619 Project slandered America



No one challenges the proposition that US history is bound up in a history of repression and exploitation of minorities, from the slaughter and dispossession of Native Americans to slavery and Jim Crow laws. But to assert, on the basis of zero historical evidence, that its very foundational motivation was the persecution of those minorities is a conscious effort not to provoke academic debate but to inculcate the entire country, its people and its institutions in a continuing crime against humanity.

I Helped Fact-Check the 1619 Project. The Times Ignored Me.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/03/06/1619-project-new-york-times-mistake-122248


But the debates playing out now on social media and in op-eds between supporters and detractors of the 1619 Project misrepresent both the historical record and the historical profession. The United States was not, in fact, founded to protect slavery—but the Times is right that slavery was central to its story. And the argument among historians, while real, is hardly black and white. Over the past half-century, important foundational work on the history and legacy of slavery has been done by a multiracial group of scholars who are committed to a broad understanding of U.S. history—one that centers on race without denying the roles of other influences or erasing the contributions of white elites. An accurate understanding of our history must present a comprehensive picture, and it’s by paying attention to these scholars that we’ll get there.


Here is the complicated picture of the Revolutionary era that the New York Times missed: White Southerners might have wanted to preserve slavery in their territory, but white Northerners were much more conflicted, with many opposing the ownership of enslaved people in the North even as they continued to benefit from investments in the slave trade and slave colonies. More importantly for Hannah-Jones’ argument, slavery in the Colonies faced no immediate threat from Great Britain, so colonists wouldn’t have needed to secede to protect it. It’s true that in 1772, the famous Somerset case ended slavery in England and Wales, but it had no impact on Britain’s Caribbean colonies, where the vast majority of black people enslaved by the British labored and died, or in the North American Colonies. It took 60 more years for the British government to finally end slavery in its Caribbean colonies, and when it happened, it was in part because a series of slave rebellions in the British Caribbean in the early 19th century made protecting slavery there an increasingly expensive proposition.

 

Tom Cotton describes slavery as a 'necessary evil' in bid to keep schools from teaching 1619 Project

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/27/politics/tom-cotton-slavery-necessary-evil-1619-project/index.html


Though the founding fathers were divided on the issue of slavery, with some of them having owned slaves and others being opposed to it, there doesn't appear to be a record of any of them arguing slavery in the US was a "necessary evil."
 

Republicans Are FURIOUS With Jared Kushner For Hiding RNC Money


Texas law gives no simple answer in Garrett Foster killing at Austin protest

https://www.statesman.com/news/20200727/texas-law-gives-no-simple-answer-in-garrett-foster-killing-at-austin-protest


“It strikes me that in a state where there’s legal conceal carry and open carry, it’s an interesting question how a jury — if it comes before a jury — thinks about the question of when it’s reasonable to think someone walking up to you with a gun in their hand is threatening you,” she said.
She said she would be skeptical about drawing any conclusions about the lack of charges in the case thus far.
“The police haven’t forfeited any option,” she said.