#4 - #5...

By the beginning of August the staggering numbers of daily infections and deaths are going to throw a wrench in anything Trump plans between then and November 3rd. Schools will be the least of his problems.

The virus has got him and nothing that he's going to do - and decidedly the things that he won't allow himself to do regardless - is an inescapable foe that he cannot demagogue nor defeat.

Death on such a massive unnecessary scale isn't spinnable, even for Trump.

There is nothing new left to know or learn. The world has already figured out covid and how to best stop or severely retard its march throughout the global population.

It's not about not wanting to reopen schools. Hell, everyone does. Just because covid happened didn't suddenly turn millions away from wanting their children going to freaking school everyday. We just want our children and ourselves to safely navigate our new covid reality and minimize the chances of catching the virus.

No politics, just common fripping sense. There are literally tons of things that need to be done physically in our schools if we expect children to be safe, this should have become obvious once the virus and our inability to therapeutically stop it was recognized as general knowledge. Schools are nowhere ready to safely handle kids and nothing between hell and high water is capable of making it happen comprehensively across America before Labor Day.

Maybe the spike that is occurring now and which will fuel high death totals likely by late July to early August. The public is not going to want to send their children out into an unprepared environment even if it brings hardship upon the entire household. Or at least I hope so. It would be one thing if we had effective mitigation efforts that were flattening the curve. Instead we've got the world's worst ongoing spike in infections.

Of course opening schools under these conditions makes no sense in most places seeing spikes in infections.

Fort Dodge, Iowa - Jayden Johnson was 8 years old the first time someone hurled a racial slur at her, a biracial girl frolicking on a playground in this overwhelmingly white town. She was about 15 years old when a Family Dollar clerk wrongly assumed her black father was on welfare. And she's been pulled over by police several times when in cars with black friends but rarely when with white friends, she says.

Those memories were swirling in Johnson's mind as she read about George Floyd's death in Minneapolis several weeks ago. She pulled out her phone and opened Snapchat. "Everybody meet at the square at 8 p.m.," wrote Johnson, 19. "Be there or be square."

As people arrived at the downtown park, Johnson was astonished by the turnout. Instead of the 15 people she expected, about 100 teenagers and young adults " African American, Latino, white and mixed race " gathered to march through this farming and factory town of 25,000 residents.

"Let's get justice," Johnson recalls saying as the group began the first public protest that anyone in town can remember. "I saw people who looked like me and didn't look like me, and I started thinking, Something really is different now,'" Johnson said.

The number of young people of color living in the Midwest has surged over the past decade, as the older white population has nearly stalled. Forty percent of the nation's counties are experiencing such demographic transformations " a phenomenon fueling the Black Lives Matter protests that have swept the country and forced racial reckonings in communities, colleges and corporations nationwide.

Snoofy, I don't think general concubines are analogous to slaves; ie. the property of their "partner's".

However Sally may have felt about TJ, she always understood first and foremost that she was beneath him in societal status (be it domestically or in France) - and absolutely in America nothing more the TJ's property, of which he could do or use her however he sees fit including ending her very life purely at his own whim without facing any criminal liability.

Can you imagine knowing that another human being actually has the right to end your life simply because of how he feels in any particular moment in time?

Actually you might be able to understand it better by reading George Floyd's police transcript as he narrates his own death under the knee of an alleged "peace officer."

Russia's actions were a threat to America's democracy. It was critical that they be investigated and understood. By late 2016, the FBI had evidence that the Russians had signaled to a Trump campaign adviser that they could assist the campaign through the anonymous release of information damaging to the Democratic candidate. And the FBI knew that the Russians had done just that: Beginning in July 2016, WikiLeaks released emails stolen by Russian military intelligence officers from the Clinton campaign. Other online personas using false names " fronts for Russian military intelligence " also released Clinton campaign emails.

Stone became a central figure in our investigation for two key reasons: He communicated in 2016 with individuals known to us to be Russian intelligence officers, and he claimed advance knowledge of WikiLeaks' release of emails stolen by those Russian intelligence officers.

We also identified numerous links between the Russian government and Trump campaign personnel " Stone among them. We did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired with the Russian government in its activities. The investigation did, however, establish that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome. It also established that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.

During the 2016 campaign, Mueller writes, Stone "made several attempts to contact WikiLeaks founder Assange, boasted of his access to Assange, and was in regular contact with Campaign officials about the releases that Assange made and was believed to be planning." He spoke repeatedly about his connections to Assange, witnesses told Mueller, and his ability to find out what new releases of information WikiLeaks was planning. Crucially, the unredacted information includes testimony from multiple witnesses who described Stone's conversations about upcoming WikiLeaks releases with high-level campaign officials"including Trump's campaign chairman, Paul Manafort"and even Trump himself.

According to Manafort, Trump personally told the chairman that he should keep in touch with Stone about WikiLeaks. Another campaign official, Rick Gates, recalled an incident during the campaign in which Trump spoke by phone with Stone and then told Gates that, as Mueller paraphrases, "more releases of damaging information would be coming." Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen told Mueller about overhearing a phone call in which Stone told Trump that "he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and in a couple of days WikiLeaks would release information." Then, Mueller writes, once WikiLeaks began dumping material damaging to Clinton in July 2016, Trump "said to Cohen something to the effect of, I guess Roger was right.'"

So Trump clearly knew about and encouraged Stone's outreach to WikiLeaks, the unredacted report shows. Yet in written answers the president provided to Mueller's office in the course of the special counsel's investigation, Trump insisted that he did not recall "the specifics of any call [he] had" with Stone during the campaign or any discussions with Stone of WikiLeaks. And shortly after he submitted those answers, the unredacted report states, Trump began tweeting publicly in support of Stone"calling him "brave" and congratulating his "guts" for refusing to testify.

Trump's tweets were always suspicious, to say the least. And his answers to Mueller seemed less than entirely credible even when the redacted report was first released. But the newly revealed text makes clear Mueller's suspicions that Trump lied in his written answers"and then pushed Stone not to testify in order to prevent Mueller from discovering that lie. As Mueller put it dryly: "[T]he President's conduct could also be viewed as reflecting his awareness that Stone could provide evidence that would run counter to the President's denials and would link the President to Stone's efforts to reach out to WikiLeaks." The special counsel also writes that Trump's tweets to Stone"along with his tweets criticizing Cohen, who was by then cooperating with investigators " "support the inference that the President intended to communicate a message that witnesses could be rewarded for refusing to provide testimony adverse to the President and disparaged if they chose to cooperate."

Stop acting like a toddler.

Post a link or STFU. Your word is worthless. You cannot post a link because there is no link to Steele saying what you allege.

Just post the link.

Christopher Steele in sworn testimony said Hillary Clinton was his sole client.

Stop lying Fishface. Steele was hired by Fusion GPS and only Fusion GPS. He never knew who was actually funding Fusion's efforts because he had no need to know. Steele was a contract employee, not an operator for the Clinton campaign.

You should be ashamed of blatantly lying about something everyone already knows with certainty.

Wake me when they prosecute Hillary for paying for the Steele Folder.

Would you like to cite the particular law that was broken? Fusion GPS was first hired by REPUBLICANS, so shouldn't they be charged first - if you can find what law was broken by simply gathering information?

Stone was persecuted for political crimes.

No,

She was no ordinary slave.

The women you referenced was Jefferson's deceased wife's half sister and he treated this women exceedingly well.

Did Sally Hemmings have the freedom to make her own decisions regarding her "relationship" with Jefferson or was she legally nothing more than his personal property, someone he could treat and act upon however his whims moved him during every single second of her servitude?

You're blind to the realities of slavery. "He treated this woman exceedingly well"(?) How the hell do you know? Because someone (or perhaps TJ himself) wrote those words while still in full understanding of the slave/master dynamic?

Every slave/master assignation was an abomination to every notion of individual freedom and liberty that this nation's Constitution was written to insure for all citizens.

There's the rub - slaves were not citizens, they were property and were treated as such. Sally Hemmings had no right to deny TJ anything that he requested from her. Maybe he didn't beat her or violently rape her based on his own momentary desires. But there was nothing honorable or "well" about their relationship.

There is no doubt about Mr. Stone's guilt. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he tried to play intermediary between WikiLeaks, which had become a front for the Kremlin, and the Trump campaign, which reaped the benefits of WikiLeaks's publication of stolen Democratic emails. A jury concluded that Mr. Stone obstructed Congress, lied to investigators and tampered with a witness in the investigations that followed the 2016 race " "covering up for the president," as the judge in his case noted.

The United States is supposed to be a place in which laws apply equally to all. And while it never has " and never will " live up to that ideal in full, no modern president before Mr. Trump has so clearly renounced it. The president seems to be doing his best, within the confines of the U.S. constitutional system, to emulate the gangster leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man whose ruinous reign Mr. Trump has always admired. If the country needed any more evidence, Friday confirmed that the greatest threat to the Republic is the president himself.

Good grief my eyes are bad:

Trump has no empathy, and he only sees the world through how things affect him personally. He's not there to govern. He's there to enrich himself, he's there to plunder the nation, and he's there to be world historical.

Trump often launches into a monologue placing himself at the center of the nation's turmoil. The president has cast himself in the starring role of the blameless victim " of a deadly pandemic, of a stalled economy, of deep-seated racial unrest, all of which happened to him rather than the country.

Barbara Res, a former executive at the Trump Organization, said that when she worked for Trump, he interpreted nearly everything in deeply personal terms. "Whatever bad happened, no matter what it was, it was always against him, always directed at him," Res said. "He would say, Why does everything always happen to me?'" She added: "It was as if the world revolved around him. Everything that happened had an effect on him, good or bad."

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University and author of the forthcoming book, "Strongmen," a history of authoritarian leaders, said Trump's victimization complex fits a pattern of authoritarian leaders past and present.

"They have no empathy, and they only see the world through how things affect them personally," Ben-Ghiat said. "They're not there to govern. They're there to enrich themselves, they're there to plunder the nation, and they're there to be world historical."

[Trump] ha(s) no empathy, and (has) only see(s) the world through how things affect (him) personally," Ben-Ghiat said. "(He's) not there to govern. (He"s) there to enrich themselves, (he"s) there to plunder the nation, and (he's) there to be world historical."

It comes down to who you're going to accept your information from. Here's your choice: a worldwide community of dedicated men and women who are experts in epidemiology and who've spent their lives studying and working at the best clinics, medical schools and teaching hospitals in the country or a game show host. Do you really need the weekend to think about it? If so, you are much to be pitied. If not, and your knee-jerk answer is "Donald Trump," then I can only add that maybe there really is something to this natural selection stuff Darwin was forever banging on about.

Robert Harrington

There are certain factual realities that always accurately portray future events - IF the conditions of their existence remains unchanged until a date certain. Nothing upon our current horizon portends to forecast that the effects and influence of the now-re-raging coronavirus pandemic will wane before the upcoming election in less than 120 days.

Trump can invent insipid nicknames, blameshift, and portray himself as a victim, but it's more than clear almost 2/3rds of Americans are not buying his bs this time. And since the virus is not on the election slate, it will continue relatively unabated to do what it does, which is replicate in as many new hosts as it can be exposed to. Without instituting the known and successful mitigation protocols already proven to be effective in almost every other country not led by a totalitarian wanna-be, the virus is going to remain the Number 1 (with a proverbial bullet as it regards the hundreds of thousands fighting to survive its onslaught) and Trump's personal narcissism and intransigence pretty much guarantees his defeat at its hands.

When it comes down to the choice of life or death, even Trump's own cultish spell upon his minions cannot overpower their will to survive. Such will be a large part of his political epitaph barring something changing the current dynamics.

Doesn't matter. It's always the black guy's fault, some way or another.

Derek Chauvin : You guys all right, though?

Thomas Lane: Yeah

J Alexander Kueng: Good so far?

Thomas Lane: My knee might be a little scratched, but I'll survive.

Her show, "The ReidOut," succeeds "Hardball" and its host, Chris Matthews, who was forced to resign in March after a series of on-air gaffes and accusations of sexist behavior in the workplace.

Ms. Reid's promotion is a significant programming move by Cesar Conde, the new chairman of NBC's news networks. Black women, including Gayle King of CBS and Robin Roberts of ABC, hold leading roles in morning and daytime television, but none currently host a nightly evening show on a major network. The last to do so was Gwen Ifill, who co-anchored "PBS NewsHour" until shortly before her death in 2016.

Here are some significant developments:

* At least 82 campers, counselors and staff from an overnight summer camp in Missouri have tested positive for the virus. The outbreak at
K-2 appears to be the largest connected to a U.S. summer camp yet.

* Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa last month "more than likely" contributed to a surge in coronavirus cases, the city's health director said.

* World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday that "the pandemic is still accelerating," and noted
that the total number of cases worldwide has doubled in the last six weeks, to roughly 12 million.

George Floyd's dying moments have played on an endless loop, horrifying the world and prompting a spasm of street protests, but newly released evidence reveals an even more desperate scene than previously known in the moments before an officer pressed his knee into Mr. Floyd's neck.

Even before he was on the ground, Mr. Floyd said he was in physical distress, telling officers who were trying to get him into a squad car that he was claustrophobic and could not breathe.

At one point, according to one transcript, he said: "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."

(T)he body camera transcripts, and Mr. Lane's interview with investigators, provide more details about Mr. Floyd's exchange with officers, and how vociferously and persistently he had pleaded with them that he was having a medical emergency.

I've never heard of someone literally begging for their very life - repeatedly assuring the officer that they offered no threat whatsoever and that he was struggling to fully breathe - down to the multiple times of addressing his killer as 'sir'. The saddest part of this entire affair beyond George Floyd's murder is that almost every black American regardless of wealth, education, or status, viscerally understands that this same thing could happen to them at any time - and that they'd be equally helpless to change the outcome but for the humanity of the police that they've encountered.

To me the most interesting topic in Sherman's reporting is that Trump wants to commute Roger Stone's sentence before next week's incarceration date of the 14th - and that Barr and the White House counsel are strongly opposed - with Barr telling Trump that a major upheaval inside Justice will happen should he do so.

The right wing media machine reading the unmistakable tea leaves simply shows that at its core there are sage people running it who actually recognize the reality outside of their own created bubble they keep their believers in. They will simply create whatever new reality that they need to in order to keep the bucks rolling in and the eyeballs and ears glued to their programming.

People close to Trump fear he won't listen. "You can't underestimate how hard it is to get information through to him," a Republican close to the White House said. "When you talk to him, he just talks at you. He doesn't like to read memos, so there's not really a way to get through to him. Everyone agrees." (The White House declined to comment.)