The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

Never forget that Rand Paul is just as much of a hateful old Southern racist as Mitch McConnell is.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) acknowledged Wednesday that he is holding up a bill with broad bipartisan support that would make lynching a federal hate crime, saying he fears it could allow enhanced penalties for altercations that result in only “minor bruising.”

Paul’s objection halted a measure that appeared on the verge of getting to the president’s desk earlier this year after more than a century of stymied attempts by Congress to pass anti-lynching legislation. And it comes amid a nationwide convulsion over the treatment of black Americans by law enforcement officers.

“We think that lynching is an awful thing that should be roundly condemned, that should be universally condemned,” Paul told reporters at the Capitol.

But he claimed that the bill might “conflate lesser crimes with lynching,” which he said would be a “disservice to those who were lynched in our history” and result in “a new 10-year penalty for people who have minor bruising.”

“We don’t think that’s appropriate, and someone has to read these bills and make sure they do what they say they’re going to do rather than it be just a big PR effort, and then everybody gets up in arms and wants to beat up anybody who wants to read the bill, and actually make the bill strong,” he said.

Paul’s office did not immediately respond to a request for elaboration on how the bill could apply to altercations that result in “minor bruising.”
The hold on the legislation was reported Tuesday night by the National Journal.

In late February, during Black History Month, the House passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act on a 410-to-4 vote after oftentimes emotional floor debate.

Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.), who sponsored the legislation, said the bill will “send a strong message that violence, and race-based violence in particular, has no place in American society.”

Supporters had hoped that the Senate would quickly take up the bill and pass it by unanimous consent — a procedure that would demonstrate widespread support but one that can be derailed by the objections of a single senator.

A separate version of the measure, the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act, passed the Senate last year. It was introduced by the chamber’s three black senators: Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). But it did not pass in the House.

Asked Wednesday what the status of the latest bill is, Paul said he is continuing to talk to its authors but said reporters should inquire with them as to where it stands.

Rand Paul's been blocking federal hate crime legislation against lynching for months now, because he's more worried about the rights of people who hang black people by a rope. Legislation that was passed by the House and held up by...Rand Paul.

Because he's a racist asshole.

Never forget that.

StupidiNews!

• The US Senate passed by unanimous consent the House legislation to reform the Paycheck Protection Program, extending the loan period from eight to 24 weeks for most business loans.
• The World Health Organization says it will resume drug trials for hydroxycholroquine as a COVID-19 treatment after concluding that the trials are designed safely for patients.
• All four former Minneapolis police officers involved in the death of George Floyd have now been arrested and charged, state AG Keith Ellison has increased the main charge to second degree murder.
• Virginia Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam will announce plans today to remove the state's statue of Robert E. Lee from state capital Richmond's Monument Avenue.
• Apple confirms they are tracking stolen phones from stores involved in looting, Apple says the iPhones will automatically signal to Apple and local law enforcement their location if turned on.

Last Call For Biden, His Time, Con't

The weird world of international internet betting markets seems to believe Donald Trump won't be president in 2021.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has surged past President Donald Trump in online betting markets tied to the outcome of the 2020 presidential race as the U.S. continues to grapple with a deepening financial crisis, spreading pandemic and historic protests over police brutality.

Biden, the apparent Democratic nominee, has taken his biggest lead over Trump to date in Smarkets, a U.K.-based online gambling platform, as well as PredictIt, an online betting platform established by researchers in New Zealand.

As recently as last week, Trump was favored to win on both platforms. Biden’s chances have risen to 50%-43% on Smarkets and 53%-46% on PredictIt.

Spokespeople for both companies confirmed that trading volume has risen to levels unseen since March, when the U.S. began shutting down major portions of its economy to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

Betting markets are distinct from polls, which have for months consistently shown Biden leading Trump and currently show Trump behind by about 8 percentage points.

While polls typically ask voters which candidate they support, betting markets allow users to wager on whom they think will ultimately win November’s election, taking into account factors such as the Electoral College. Trump, who won the Electoral College in 2016 despite losing the popular vote, has typically performed better in betting markets than polls.

Representatives for the campaigns did not respond to requests for comment.

With easy victories in last night's primaries in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Indiana and five other states (plus DC), Biden wrapped up the nomination with the delegates he needed.

Hopefully we can move on.

You know, after the total chaos.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Defense Secretary Mark Esper doesn't have the balls to resign after the catastrophe of Trump saying he'll use the military against Americans on US soil on Monday, but apparently he's at least going to complain about the knife Trump put in his back.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Wednesday that he does not support using active duty troops to quell the large-scale protests across the United States triggered by the death of George Floyd and those forces should only be used in a law enforcement role as a last resort, comments that came after President Donald Trump recently threatened to deploy the military to enforce order. 

Esper's attempt to distance himself from Trump's view on using the military to restore order went over poorly at the White House, where he was already viewed to be on shaky ground, multiple people familiar with the matter said. 

"The option to use active duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort, and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act," Esper said during a briefing at the Pentagon. 

Esper also addressed the killing of Floyd, calling it a "horrible crime" and said "racism is real in America, and we must all do our very best to recognize it, to confront it, and to eradicate it." 

"The officers on the scene that day should be held accountable for his murder. It is a tragedy that we have seen repeat itself too many times. With great sympathy, I want to extend the deepest of condolences to the family and friends of George Floyd from me and the Department. Racism is real in America, and we must all do our very best to recognize it, to confront it, and to eradicate it," he said.

It's going to be a moot point anyway.  As with Jeff Sessions and Jim Mattis, Trump will simply replace a cabinet member with somebody who will obey him, and Mitch McConnell will rubber stamp the transaction.

Trump and other top officials, including national security adviser Robert O'Brien, are "not happy" with Esper after his Wednesday remarks, three people familiar with the White House's thinking said. 

In the press conference, Esper also distanced himself from a maligned photo-op outside St. John's Church. 

One White House official said aides there did not get a heads up about the content of Esper's remarks, including most notably Esper's decision to publicly break with the President on the use of the military to address unrest in US cities.

The countdown until Esper is replaced begins in earnest, which may slow down Trump for a moment, but as soon as he finds somebody willing to carry out his orders as Acting SecDef, things could get ugly in a New York minute. Look at the havoc Richard Grenell wreaked as Acting DNI in just a couple of months.

Don't feel bad for Esper, however.  He made the decision to work for Donald Trump, and that makes you just as morally repugnant as Trump is, if not more so.

The King Is Gone, Long Live The Joker

The Republicans in Iowa, tired of being represented by racist Rep. Steve King for two decades, have decided that they need an all new racist to represent them in the House in last night's Iowa primary.

State Sen. Randy Feenstra defeated incumbent Rep. Steve King in Tuesday's Republican primary for Iowa's 4th congressional district, according to the Cook Political Report.

Why it matters: King's history of racist remarks has made him one of the most controversial politicians in the country and a pariah within the Republican Party. 

House Republican leadership stripped the nine-term congressman of his committee assignments in 2019 after he questioned in an interview with the New York Times how the terms "white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization" became offensive.

The big picture: The Republican establishment coalesced around Feenstra beginning in January, when the Republican Main Street Partnership PAC became the first national GOP organization to publicly endorse and financially support him. 

Feenstra, who has consistently dominated King in fundraising, had sought to paint King as an ineffective ally to President Trump, rather than campaign on his history of white nationalist rhetoric. 

Feenstra's victory will likely move the seat into safe Republican territory for the general election in November.

Unfortunately, this does make things significantly tougher for Democratic challenger J.D. Scholten, who came close to beating King in 2018.  On the other hand, things went so badly for Republicans in Iowa in 2018 that they lost all the other districts in the state.

I'm thinking Feenstra might not be so safe after all.

Last Call for Republican Conventional Warfare

North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is not going to allow the GOP to hold their convention in Charlotte in August without COVID-19 precautions, including limited capacity and social distancing.

North Carolina's Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, on Tuesday rejected the GOP’s plans for a full-fledged convention in Charlotte, telling Republican officials the only way the event would move forward is with proper health protocols in place.

“The people of North Carolina do not know what the status of COVID-19 will be in August, so planning for a scaled-down convention with fewer people, social distancing and face coverings is a necessity," Cooper wrote in a letter to the Republican National Committee.

The letter is a rebuke of the fully-attended convention that the RNC and President Trump have been pushing for despite concerns about spread of the coronavirus. In previous meetings with the Democratic-led state administration, GOP officials made clear the president’s desire for a 50,000-person convention without social distancing or mask-wearing measures and full-capacity hotels, restaurants and bars.

In a tit-for-tat that has dragged on for weeks, each side has pressed the other for answers on how the convention would be carried out safely — to no avail.

North Carolina Health and Human Services secretary Mandy Cohen sent a letter to RNC officials on May 27 in response to a series of tweets from President Donald Trump that threatened to pull the convention out of North Carolina. She requested a contingency plan from Republicans for how they would carry out a safe convention in line with CDC guidelines, saying the Coca-Cola 600 race held in Charlotte in late May was required to provide the same guidance.

In a written response, GOP officials outlined their convention safety protocol that included a list of measures they planned to take, including extensive sanitation measures and daily temperature checks for all who enter the Spectrum Arena.

On Friday, RNC Chair McDaniel told former Republican North Carolina governor Pat McCrory that they would wait until Wednesday for Cooper to further outline health and safety measures complete enough to “guarantee” the convention’s path forward.

Cooper's latest letter is sure to disappoint national Republicans again. “As much as we want the conditions surrounding COVID-19 to be favorable enough for you to hold the Convention you describe in late August, it is very unlikely,” Cooper wrote. “Neither public health officials nor I will risk the health and safety of North Carolinians by providing the guarantee you seek.”

The Republican response is to continue to threaten to move the convention to friendlier confines of a state with a Republican governor who will bend the knee to King Donald the Orange.

Republican National Committee officials are considering Nashville and other locations as potential sites for the GOP convention amid a standoff with North Carolina over whether it will allow the party to hold it in Charlotte as planned.

Party officials are expected to make a trip to Nashville later this week, likely Thursday or Friday, according to a person familiar with the deliberations.

Nashville is one of several locations in which Republicans are expressing interest. Others include Las Vegas; Orlando, Fla.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Georgia. All of the prospective sites have directly expressed interest in hosting the convention, and party officials say it’s likely they will visit several of them in the coming days.

“The President and Chairwoman have been clear on our intent to hold our convention in Charlotte. We are awaiting confirmation from the governor that the originally contracted convention can still be held at the Spectrum Center,” said RNC spokesperson Mike Reed, referring to committee leader Ronna McDaniel.

I fully expect the convention to be moved before the end of the month.  Trump will demand it. He will not tolerate anyone standing up to his bullying and performative chaos, and Trump figures it will cost Cooper a second term in November against Cooper's Republican Lt. Governor, Dan Forest (Governor and Lieutenant Governor have always been separate elections in NC, which makes for some weird stuff like this.)

Of course, Cooper has a huge lead in the polls so far, ranging from anywhere from 14 to 27 points, mainly because Dan Forest is an unlikable idiot.

Good luck with that, Donny.

Our Little Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

Please keep in mind as you read and watch information about "rioters" that the FBI has clearly identified that white supremacist domestic terrorist groups have long been awaiting a moment exactly like this in order to magnify violence against black and brown folk.

A Twitter account claiming to belong to a national “antifa” organization and pushing violent rhetoric related to ongoing protests has been linked to the white nationalist group Identity Evropa, according to a Twitter spokesperson.
The spokesperson said the account violated the company's platform manipulation and spam policy, specifically the creation of fake accounts. Twitter suspended the account after a tweet that incited violence.

As protests were taking place in multiple states across the U.S. Sunday night, the newly created account, @ANTIFA_US, tweeted, “Tonight’s the night, Comrades,” with a brown raised fist emoji and “Tonight we say 'F--- The City' and we move into the residential areas... the white hoods.... and we take what's ours …”

This isn’t the first time Twitter has taken action against fake accounts engaged in hateful conduct linked to Identity Evropa, according to the spokesperson.

The antifa movement — a network of loosely organized radical groups who use direct action to fight the far-right and fascism — has been targeted by President Donald Trump as the force behind some of the violence and property destruction seen at some protests, though little evidence has been provided for such claims.

Other misinformation and misleading claims spread across Twitter on Sunday night and into Monday related to the protests.

Two hashtags that trended worldwide on Twitter falsely claimed that there was a "cover-up" or a "blackout" of protests in Washington, D.C., overnight. Both appeared to insinuate that protesters have been silenced in some way, perhaps by a secret internet blackout.

Twitter says it has removed the trend from its "trending topics" section because of "coordinated attempts to disrupt the public conversation" around the protests.

Twitter said it suspended several hundred accounts and is investigating the viral spread of the hashtag, which it said was boosted by "hundreds of spammy accounts."

"We're taking action proactively on any coordinated attempts to disrupt the public conversation around this issue," a Twitter spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the company sometimes pulls down hashtags that violate the company's rules, like platform manipulation.

The entire point is that white supremacist domestic terrorists are trying to ignite a "race war" where they will be justified in rampant violence against black and brown people and have the backing of the Trump regime's police state while doing it.

They want looting and burning.

In some cases they are doing it themselves.

In all cases, the goal is to light the fuse on massive violence.

Trump Lives Matter (More Than Ours)

Donald Trump had quite the evening yesterday, holding a Rose Garden presser where he vowed to unleash the force of the US military on protesters, had Lafayette Park next to the White House tear gassed and cleared by a platoon of DC cops and the National Guard, and then strolled through the park to have a photo op at St. John's Episcopal Church a couple blocks away with his cabinet and White House staff.

The bishop of the church, Rev. Mariann Budde, was pissed.

The Right Rev. Mariann Budde, the Episcopal bishop of Washington, was seething.

President Trump had just visited St. John’s Episcopal Church, which sits across from the White House. It was a day after a fire was set in the basement of the historic building amid protests over the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.

Before heading to the church, where presidents have worshiped since the days of James Madison, Trump gave a speech at the White House emphasizing the importance of law and order. Federal officers then used force to clear a large crowd of peaceful demonstrators from the street between the White House and the church, apparently so Trump could make the visit.

“I am outraged,” Budde said in a telephone interview a short time later, pausing between words to emphasize her anger as her voice slightly trembled.

She said she had not been given any notice that Trump would be visiting the church and did not approve of the manner in which the area was secured for his appearance.

“I am the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington and was not given even a courtesy call, that they would be clearing [the area] with tear gas so they could use one of our churches as a prop,” Budde said.

She excoriated the president for standing in front of the church — its windows boarded up with plywood — holding up a Bible, which Budde said “declares that God is love.”

“Everything he has said and done is to inflame violence,” Budde of the president. “We need moral leadership, and he’s done everything to divide us.”

In a written statement, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, head of the Episcopal denomination, accused Trump of using “a church building and the Holy Bible for partisan political purposes.”

“This was done in a time of deep hurt and pain in our country, and his action did nothing to help us or to heal us,” Curry wrote.

“The prophet Micah taught that the Lord requires us to ‘do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God,’ ” he continued, calling on Trump and others in power to be moral. “For the sake of George Floyd, for all who have wrongly suffered, and for the sake of us all, we need leaders to help us to be ‘one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.’ ”

Trump wanted his photo op because he was mad that the press made fun of him for hiding in a bunker Sunday night.  Oh, and he threatened Americans with military force. The Pentagon is openly saying this is a bad idea.

Defense officials tell CNN there was deep and growing discomfort among some in the Pentagon even before President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is ready to deploy the military to enforce order inside the United States. 

As tear gas wafted through the air in Lafayette Park across from the White House, Trump announced from the Rose Garden that if state or city leaders refuse "to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents," he will invoke the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that allows a president to deploy the US military to suppress civil disorder. 

But some Pentagon officials are deeply wary, several defense officials tell CNN. They have tried to respond by making a strong case that the situation does not yet call for deploying active duty troops unless state governors make a clear argument such forces are needed. 

"There is an intense desire for local law enforcement to be in charge," a defense official said, alluding to the laws that forbid the military from performing law enforcement roles inside the United States. 

There is also discomfort with the civil order mission among some National Guard troops -- more of whom are now mobilized inside the US than at any previous time in history.

The Pentagon clearly doesn't want this, but what happens when Trump orders it anyway?

It may be the single most important answer in decades.  And yes, COVID-19 didn't just go away, folks. We still have that to deal with too.

StupidiNews!

• Official numbers from the CDC finds one-quarter of US nursing homes have reported at least one COVID-19 case.
• A federal judge has upheld Virginia's efforts to expand making absentee ballots available for all eligible voters who request them, stopping a right-wing effort to suppress votes in the state.
• Singapore is building housing for some 60,000 migrant workers amid the COVID-19 pandemic in order to reduce density to prevent further outbreaks.
• Despite security and health protests form Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Donald Trump says he will visit a nasal swab manufacturing facility in the state later this week.
• on top of a measles and CODI-19 outbreak, the Democratic Republic of Congo now has confirmed new cases of Ebola in the city of Mbandaka.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

Donald Trump has completely lost whatever humanity he had left, because he's now calling for a nationwide military crackdown.

President Trump lashed out at America’s governors on Monday, warning that they will look like “jerks” if they don’t order protesters arrested and imprisoned.

Speaking on a private conference call, audio of which was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Trump began the conversation with an extended, angry diatribe.

“You have to dominate,” he told governors on the call. “If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time — they’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.”

The president continued: “You have to arrest people, and you have to try people, and they have to go jail for long periods of time.”

Mr. Trump, who has not addressed the nation since the unrest began, said he was putting Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “in charge,” but did not immediately specify what that meant or if he would deploy the military to quell the violence in the nation’s cities.

“He hates to see the way it’s being handled in the various states,” Mr. Trump said of General Milley.

Alluding to television footage of violence and looting, Mr. Trump called the people committing those acts “scum” and demanded of the governors: “Why aren’t you prosecuting them?” Taking over a call that was supposed to feature Vice President Mike Pence, the president said Minnesota had become “a laughingstock all over the world.”

We went from "You have to end these tyrannical COVID-19 lockdowns!" to "SEND IN THE TANKS!" really quickly, didn't we?

It's almost like Trump is a deeply insecure malignant narcissist who wants to kill and destroy anyone who makes him look bad.

One participant on the call described the president's words and tone as "unhinged."

"You have to dominate, if you don't dominate you're wasting your time. They're going to run over you. You're going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to dominate," the president told governors.

The president said that the violence "is coming from the radical left — you know, it everybody knows it — but it's also looters, and it's people that figure they can get free stuff by running into stores and running out with television sets. I saw it — a kid has a lot of stuff, he puts it in the back of a brand new car and drives off. You have every one of these guys on tape. Why aren't you prosecuting them? Now, the harder you are, the tougher you are, the less likely you're going to be hit."

This kind of violence has happened before, Mr. Trump said. "It's happened numerous times. And the only time it's successful is when you're weak. And most of you are weak. I will say this, what's going on in Los Angeles — I have a friend lives in Los Angeles — they say all the storefronts are gone," the president continued. "They're all broken and gone. The merchandise is gone. It's a shame. It didn't look as bad to me — maybe it was the sunshine, I don't know. But in Los Angeles, the storefronts are gone. Philadelphia's a mess. What happened there is horrible."

On the call, the president also encouraged states to enact laws against flag burning.

It's Nixon 1974 in the bunker being Nixon in 1968. And no, this isn't just Trump saying something and then not following through.

A senior Department of Justice official says U.S. Attorney General William Barr has directed the Bureau of Prisons to send riot teams (Special Operation Response Teams) to Miami and Washington, D.C. to help with crowd control, a senior DOJ official said.

The team was already present in Miami over the weekend, this official said.

On Sunday night, Barr also dispatched the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team to help D.C. police.

All FBI field offices have been instructed to set up command posts to deal specifically with the protests in nearby communities, the official said.

Things are going to get very bad, very quickly.

Black Lives Still Matter, Even In Kentucky

Louisville Metro PD backed by the KY National Guard killed the owner of a BBQ joint last night.

Gov. Andy Beshear has ordered Kentucky State Police to investigate the early Monday incident that featured Louisville Metro Police and National Guard personnel fatally shooting the owner of a popular West End barbecue business at 26th Street and Broadway.

The victim was David McAtee, the popular owner of a barbecue business next to the Dino's Food Mart parking lot where the shooting occurred around 12:15 a.m. Monday, McAtee's nephew told The Courier Journal.

Louisville police and National Guard troops were breaking up a "large crowd" that had gathered in the parking lot outside Dino's Food Mart in the Russell neighborhood when someone shot at them, LMPD Chief Steve Conrad said this morning.

"Officers and soldiers began to clear the lot and at some point were shot at," Conrad said. "Both LMPD and National Guard members returned fire."

Conrad said it is unclear if the person who was shot was the person who also fired at the officers.

At a Monday morning news conference in Frankfort, Beshear said he has contacted Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and asked LMPD to release the "significant" amount of body camera footage from the incident "as soon as possible."

The governor added that he wants any video footage to be released Monday "before nightfall."

"I think it's really important for the truth to get out there," Beshear said. "But I think it's also really important in ensuring that we don't have violence if people can see (and) know that, bad or ugly, we're being absolutely transparent about it."

"I don't want people to have to wait several days," Beshear added. "I think it's very important to communicate with the public, especially with the tensions right now."

We're entering Week 11 since Breonna Taylor was murdered in her own home by Louisville Metro PD officers and nobody's been charged or arrested for it, but LMPD has rounded up dozens of protesters, fired at journalists on the street covering the protests, and now they've killed a person.

Andy Beshear, to his credit, seems to actually care what's going on with police violence. But he doesn't seem at all interested in actually uttering the words "Black Lives Matter".  Not in this state.

The moment he does, it costs him his career.

We matter.  We die without justice, but we will be heard.

Lowering The Barr, Con't

As Trump continues to throw gasoline on the fire, he's also taking advantage of the chaos to make his move to start rounding up dissidents by declaring people to be "Antifa" and declaring Antifa to be a domestic terrorist organization.

President Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that the United States would designate a group of far-left anti-fascism activists as a terrorist organization, a declaration that lacked any clear legal authority, as his administration sought to blame the group for violent protests across the nation over the weekend.
“The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization,” Mr. Trump wrote.

The president has periodically criticized antifa, a contraction of the word “anti-fascist” that has come to be associated with a diffuse movement of left-wing protesters who engage in more aggressive techniques like vandalism.

But it was not clear that Mr. Trump’s declaration would have any real meaning beyond his characteristic attempts to stir a culture-war controversy, attract attention and please his conservative base.

First, antifa is not an organization. It does not have a leader, membership roles or any defined, centralized structure. Rather, it is a vaguely defined movement of people who share common protest tactics and targets.

More important, even if antifa were a real organization, the laws that permit the federal government to deem entities terrorists and impose sanctions on them are limited to foreign groups. There is no domestic terrorism law, despite periodic proposals to create one.

“There is no authority under law to do that — and if such a statute were passed, it would face serious First Amendment challenges,” said Mary B. McCord, a former head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “But right now, the only terrorist authority is for foreign terrorist organizations.”

In dealing with effectively domestic terrorism investigations into neo-Nazi organizations like the Base and Atomwaffen Division, for example, the F.B.I. has treated them as criminal enterprises.

Nevertheless, in a statement after Mr. Trump’s tweet, Attorney General William P. Barr said the F.B.I. would use its partnerships with state and local police to identify violent protesters, whom he also called domestic terrorists.

“The violence instigated and carried out by antifa and other similar groups in connection with the rioting is domestic terrorism and will be treated accordingly,” Mr. Barr said.

Let's not forget Trump did this before, treating protesters at his inauguration as domestic terrorists, locking up dozens and charging them with federal rioting felonies before the courts acquitted multiple people and dismissed charges against everyone else.

No, Trump wants show trials to distract from the fact the country is burning itself to the ground under his "leadership" and he's most likely going to get them.

StupidiNews!

• NYC Mayor Bill DeBlasio's daughter Chiara was arrested while protesting Sunday, she was later released as Black Lives Matter demonstrations enter their seventh day across the US.
• Donald Trump reportedly left the White House last night for a bunker and turned off all the lights as demonstrators gathered around the White House grounds on Sunday.
• House Republicans are planning to introduce a bill preventing US companies from selling to or investing in China's military.
• The Trump campaign says Donald Trump will resume large-scale campaign rallies this month despite COVID-19 and nationwide protests.
• Sunday's SpaceX launch from Cape Canaveral successfully delivered two US astronauts to the International Space Station, the first US manned spaceflight mission in a decade.

Sunday Long Read: Shop Till You Drop

Grocery delivery services like Instacart aren't any better than Amazon or Uber when it comes to treating their employees like indentured servants, and utterly disposable ones at that.

Once people got too scared to leave the house, there was lots of money to be made as a shopper-for-hire. Rachel had been running groceries for Instacart since October, but the Las Vegas market had barely offered enough gigs to scrape by. After the company switched to the On Demand model in February, the good orders (or “batches,” as Instacart calls them) went to whoever clicked first — and even when Rachel was lucky, she often wasn’t fast enough. But one morning in March, she logged on to see order after order piled up, lucrative ones at $50, $70, $100, all ready for the taking.

“The demand was insane,” she says. “Things were great. You could make in one batch what a lot of people would be making in a day. But you could also be standing in line at Costco for an hour and a half just to get in.”

By then, Rachel was making most of her money off Instacart. She wanted to take precautions on the job but wasn’t sure how. At first, she was just wearing gloves, thinking that touching the groceries was the biggest risk. A few days in, the news from New York scared her into digging up a box of face masks. She started having an allergic reaction from the latex in the gloves, so after that, she was down to just the mask and hand sanitizer. Stores were getting smarter at the same time. Soon, there was a separate line for Instacart shoppers; later, there was a guy giving out hand wipes just inside the door.

After running down high-dollar batches for two weeks, she started to feel sick. It began as a bad cough, dry and deep in her lungs. At first, she thought it might just be the arid climate. Perhaps it would just get better? “I thought maybe it could be allergies or a seasonal change,” Rachel says. “It’s hard to tell out here with the weather.”

A few days later, she woke up with a weight on her chest that made it hard to breathe. Her doctor gave her a full chest X-ray and a bunch of medications to tide her over, promising a proper coronavirus test a few days later. They had set it up as a drive-through: she pulled into the lot behind the doctor’s office, rolled down her window, and reclined her seat to offer a good angle to the nurse, clad in scrubs and gloves, who proceeded to thread a six-inch cotton swab so deep through her nose that it scraped mucus from the back of her throat.

From the symptoms alone, the doctor believed Rachel had COVID-19, but it would be weeks before the results came back. The doctor told her to quarantine for 14 days — then, the standard recommendation for anyone with a low fever and a bad cough who wasn’t sick enough to be hospitalized. At that point in March, Nevada had fewer than 500 available ventilators, and hospitals were bracing for impact. The last thing anyone wanted was a sick worker making grocery deliveries.

In theory, Rachel could still get paid while she self-isolated. On March 10th, Instacart announced that it would be offering two weeks of extended pay to any shoppers “diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed in mandatory isolation or quarantine, as directed by a local, state, or public health authority.”

Rachel had been careful with the paperwork, too, alerting Instacart in advance and arriving for the test with a form from the company for the doctor to fill out. She scanned and submitted it the next day, then settled into quarantine. The first week was the hardest. She rested, prayed, and tried to drink as much water as she could, but the medicines didn’t seem to be helping. She started to panic. There was no money coming in, and she didn’t know when it would get easier to breathe. The week passed, and still no word from Instacart.

“I was emailing them, I don’t know, 20 times a day, just saying, ‘Hey I’m entitled to a response,’” she tells The Verge. “Every time I got the same automated response: submit your claim, submit your claim.”

After 12 days, the test came back negative — either a fluke illness or a fluke test result — but Rachel was still in a hole for the two weeks she’d spent in quarantine. Instacart finally wrote her back, rejecting Rachel’s claim. She needed a quarantine order from a government agency, the company said, not just a note from her doctor. She tried other outlets — her doctor again, then the state department of health, then the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, then the state department of labor — but none of them could satisfy Instacart or hold the company to account. She never got the money. Because of the nature of gig work, she didn’t even qualify for Nevada’s unemployment benefits.

“Every path I went down, I hit a dead end,” she says. “My thing is, you don’t have to offer this to anyone. Why offer it if you’re not going to pay it?”

It’s a common story. On forums and in Facebook groups, Instacart’s sick pay has become a kind of sour joke. There are lots of posts asking how to apply, but no one seems to think they’ll actually get the money. The Verge spoke to eight different workers who were placed under quarantine — each one falling prey to a different technicality. A worker based in Buffalo was quarantined by doctors in March but didn’t qualify for an official test, leaving him with no verification to send to reps. In western Illinois, a man received a quarantine order from the state health department, but without a test, he couldn’t break through. Others simply fell through the cracks, too discouraged to fight the claim for the weeks it would likely take to break through.

Only three of the eight workers actually got their money: one full-time staff employee got paid through HR channels, while another gig worker received a partial sum after weeks of haggling.

In a third case, a 50-year-old shopper named Alejo tested positive and was admitted to the ICU, but he had his claim denied while he was hospitalized. A gig workers group seized on the case to publicly pressure Instacart with a blistering Medium post, and the pressure worked: Instacart paid up, although the company noted that the circumstances were exceptional. But Alejo hasn’t improved. He’s been in the hospital for more than a month now and is still on a ventilator, with his doctors increasingly concerned about organ failure. In the meantime, his stepson Alejandro has gone back to making Instacart runs. With Alejo laid up, it’s the only way to keep the family afloat.

People are dying out there on the front lines of the COVID-19 war, and nobody in corporate America or the Trump regime really seems to give a damn.  No wonder the country is rapidly burning these days.

Retribution Execution, Con't

The first heads are rolling in the FBI over the Trump regime's retribution over Michael Flynn and a lot more will follow.

After a 38-year career with the Justice Department, the FBI's top lawyer Dana Boente was asked to resign on Friday. Two sources familiar with the decision to dismiss Boente said it came from high levels of the Justice Department rather than directly from FBI Director Christopher Wray.
His departure comes on the heels of recent criticism by Fox News for his role in the investigation of former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

A spokesman for the FBI confirmed to NBC News that Boente did in fact resign on Friday.

Fox News has recently criticized Boente's role in the investigation of Flynn, whose criminal charge for lying to the FBI was recently dropped by the Justice Department based in part on the argument that his lies were not material to an underlying investigation.

Boente also said in a recently leaked memo that material put into the public record about Flynn was not exculpatory for the former national security advisor. The memo undermines the Justice Department's latest position that material about Flynn was mishandled by prosecutors.

Fox Business host Lou Dobbs said on April 27 that, "Shocking new reports suggest F.B.I. General Counsel Dana Boente day was acting in coordination with F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray to block the release of that evidence that would have cleared General Flynn."

Wray formally asked for Boente's resignation, but the decision to end his tenure at the FBI came from Attorney General William Barr's Justice Department, which oversees the FBI, according to two sources.

A spokesman for the FBI said Boente announced on Friday his decision to retire, which will take effect June 30.

"Few people have served so well in so many critical, high-level roles at the Department," Wray said in a statement. "Throughout his long and distinguished career as a public servant, Dana has demonstrated a selfless determination to ensure that justice is always served on behalf of our citizens."

Boente has long been a target of Trump for his role in the Mueller probe, being involved in all stages of the investigation as both the FBI's top lawyer and as former assistant AG before Rod Rosenstein.  Barr cashiering him is a loud, unmistakable message that he is now officially collecting heads, and that nobody is safe.