STATNews:
How many needless Covid-19 deaths were caused by delays in responding? Most of them
Due to exponential viral spread, our delay in action was devastating. In the wake of the U.S. response, 117,858 Americans died in the four months following the first 15 confirmed cases. After an equivalent period, Germany suffered only 8,863 casualties. Scaling up the German population of 83.7 million to America’s 331 million, a U.S.-sized Germany would have suffered 35,049 Covid-19 deaths. So if the U.S. had acted as effectively as Germany, 70% of U.S. coronavirus deaths might have been prevented.
That means they were infected two weeks ago, or so. And could spread disease. And now we wait. Fortunately, only 6200 showed in Tulsa.
Tim Miller/Bulwark:
Make Arenas Empty Again
In Tulsa, the Trump campaign transitions to farce.
The Trump on display in Tulsa was not a strong man steeling himself for a crackdown against protesters while standing astride a silent majority of mask-eschewing followers with a death wish.
Instead, out from behind the curtain came a weak and whiny D-list Rodney Dangerfield, obsessed with minor slights and not getting enough respect from the Fake News Media that he claims to hate but seems to be kind of super into.
I’m reading news reports of the rally like reading The Boston Globe after a Yankees win for the Schadenfreude.
Harry Enten/CNN:
There's no sign of 'hidden' Trump voters
Even though the national polls
were accurate in 2016, one of the complaints I
hear most often about the polls is that Trump's supporters are either lying or won't talk to pollsters. Polls like Ipsos get around that argument because they use machines (e.g. they're done online) to conduct the interviews. There's no reason to lie to a machine. If Trump was doing significantly better in these non-live interview polls, then these critics of the polls may have a point.
The evidence indicates these detractors are, at least in this moment, wrong. There's no sign of shy Trump voters. Trump doesn't do any better in polls without a live interviewer.
The average of national surveys (accounting for the fact that some pollsters survey more often) this week from pollsters
who didn't have a live interviewer put Biden up over Trump 50% to 39% (10 points unrounded). That's a huge advantage and very similar to the latest
live interview poll average that has Biden up 51% to 41%.
Are you a K-pop stan? Read this and this:
- WaPo: Trump rallies in red-state America — and faces a sea of empty blue seats
- AP: Trump comeback rally features empty seats, staff infections
- NY Times: Trump Rally Fizzles as Attendance Falls Short of Campaign’s Expectations
- CNN: Sick staff and empty seats: How Trump's triumphant return to the campaign trail went from bad to worse
- Jonathan Allen/NBC: Trump's deflating Tulsa turnout reveals a deeper problem for him
- Politico: Trump campaign blames protesters for disappointing turnout at Tulsa rally
- Bloomberg: Trump’s Tulsa Rally Adds to Week of Warning Signs for Campaign
The headlines Trump was hoping for, amirite?
The visuals Trump was hoping for, amirite?
WaPo:
The battle over masks in a pandemic: An all-American story
Mask-wearing for some people is an identifier of broader beliefs and political leanings. Like so many issues rooted in science and medicine, the pandemic is now fully entangled with ideological tribalism. This has played out before: helmets for motorcyclists, seat belts in cars, smoking bans in restaurants. All of those measures provoked battles over personal liberty.
Now it’s masks and the coronavirus, with face coverings emerging as an emblem for what cleaves the nation. A flurry of recent studies supports wearing cloth face coverings as a means to limit transmission of the novel coronavirus, which causes the illness covid-19. To many people, masks represent adherence to civic duty and a willingness to make individual sacrifices for the greater good of public health. To others, masks symbolize government overreach and a violation of personal liberty.
President Trump does not wear a mask, even when in the company of staffers and other officials who do. His press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said Friday that she will not wear a mask at the Trump rally Saturday in Tulsa.
The thing about Tulsa is that it’s part of chaos theory: maybe nothing happens this time because you got lucky. But many more rallies are planned, and you can’t keep getting away with it.
Miami Herald:
Local governments should order people to wear masks in public, Florida doctors say
Mask-wearing for some people is an identifier of broader beliefs and political leanings. Like so many issues rooted in science and medicine, the pandemic is now fully entangled with ideological tribalism. This has played out before: helmets for motorcyclists, seat belts in cars, smoking bans in restaurants. All of those measures provoked battles over personal liberty.
Now it’s masks and the coronavirus, with face coverings emerging as an emblem for what cleaves the nation. A flurry of recent studies supports wearing cloth face coverings as a means to limit transmission of the novel coronavirus, which causes the illness covid-19. To many people, masks represent adherence to civic duty and a willingness to make individual sacrifices for the greater good of public health. To others, masks symbolize government overreach and a violation of personal liberty.
President Trump does not wear a mask, even when in the company of staffers and other officials who do. His press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said Friday that she will not wear a mask at the Trump rally Saturday in Tulsa.
This is the Louisiana DPH:
Michelle Norris/WaPo:
Why did it take so long to set Aunt Jemima free?
Her name should have fallen off boxes and bottles years ago, and the fact that it didn’t suggests that the companies that controlled the brand for more than a century have all been slaves to profit — holding onto a valuable trademark that’s internationally known and historically offensive.
I admit to having a complicated relationship with Aunt Jemima. She occupies a secret branch of my family tree. For a period of time in the late 1940s and early 1950s, my grandmother, Ione Brown, was part of an army of women who worked as traveling Aunt Jemimas, visiting small-town fairs and rotary-club breakfasts to conduct pancake-making demonstrations at a time when the notion of ready-mix convenience cooking was new.
I never knew about my grandmother’s work until long after she died. It was one of those things my family never really talked about. I learned about it while researching a family memoir called “The Grace of Silence.” I learned that she made good money and covered a region including Iowa, the Dakotas, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. She was often treated like a celebrity in small towns, but could not stay in local hotels. She kept an eye out for houses that had a small sign in the window that said “TOURIST,” a code for homes that provided lodging and meals to black people.
Complicated history, take a moment to learn about it.
Stephanie McCurry/Atlantic:
The Confederacy Was an Antidemocratic, Centralized State
The actual Confederate States of America was a repressive state devoted to white supremacy.
For the four years of its existence, until it was forced to surrender, the Confederate States of America was a pro-slavery nation at war against the United States. The C.S.A. was a big, centralized state, devoted to securing a society in which enslavement to white people was the permanent and inherited condition of all people of African descent.
Christine Emba/WaPo:
A monumental shift
Memorials to white supremacy are falling. What will replace them?
In Philadelphia, protesters vandalized a statue of former mayor and police commissioner Frank Rizzo. Known for his brutal policing of black and LGBTQ communities in the 1960s and ′70s, Rizzo opposed school integration and encouraged his constituents to “vote white.” The statue was later removed from its place of honor across from Philadelphia’s City Hall and is now in storage.
The above is a visual/photographic story, click for the full experience.
And then his big rally: