"Johnson & Johnson announced Wednesday its early-stage human trial for a potential coronavirus vaccine will begin in the second half of July, earlier than its initial forecast of September." Ah, the race for market value.
"Three weeks after Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey lifted his stay-at-home order, the state has seen a big spike in the number of coronavirus cases… With nearly 1,100 dead and hospitalizations spiking rapidly, lawmakers and medical professionals are warning there might not be enough emergency room beds to handle what could be a big influx of new cases."
"Nursing homes with urgent needs for personal protective equipment say they're getting gowns that look more like large tarps -- with no holes for hands -- and surgical masks that are paper-thin as part of the administration's initiative to bolster supplies for vulnerable populations amid the pandemic… 'It would be funny if the stakes weren't so high,' a Washington state official told CNN."
"President Vladimir Putin's spokesperson has rejected suggestions that Russia is underreporting the number of coronavirus deaths in the country, as Moscow recorded a spike in additional mortality and the number of national cases passed 500,000."
"Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc on Thursday said it has begun human testing of its experimental antibody cocktail as a treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus." Gotta pump that stock.
"At least seven Los Angeles police officers were removed from their field duties after using excessive force during recent protests, the police department told CNN Wednesday… The move comes as police across the nation have come under fire for violent responses to demonstrators protesting police brutality. Critics have pointed to the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and in several cases, physical actions as examples of excessive force."
"A spokesperson for HBO Max, which like CNN is owned by WarnerMedia, told CNN Business that 'Gone with the Wind' is 'a product of its time and depicts some of the ethnic and racial prejudices that have, unfortunately, been commonplace in American society.'" Gee, ya think? when it returns, it will be shown unedited, unlike what the fuckers did to the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoons.
"It wasn’t the first time CBP got involved in the protests. A few days earlier, on May 29, a CBP Predator Drone mysteriously appeared in the skies over Minneapolis-St. Paul to monitor protests in the Twin Cities. The CBP said that it deployed the drone 'at the request of our federal law enforcement partners in Minneapolis,' but to date, no federal agency has come forward to admit to asking for the drone. 'Nothing says protecting free speech like a Predator,' quipped Stephen Colbert on 'The Late Night Show.'… For the many Americans watching and reading about the protests, the assortment of federal forces dispatched to the scene in Washington, DC, was dizzying—and, in the case of CBP, baffling. How did the CBP even have the authority to be there, on the streets of a city that feels far away from any border?"
"NASCAR announced Wednesday that it would ban the display of the Confederate flag at all its events and properties — a day after Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s first full-time Black driver, called for the American racing body to prohibit the controversial symbol." Now that is a cultural shift.
"Ray Ciccarelli, a NASCAR Truck Series driver, announced on social media Wednesday that he plans to quit the sport shortly after the release of new guidelines that include a ban on Confederate flags at races." Don't let the door kick… you know what, just get the fuck out of here.
"Zoom shut down the account of an activist who was holding an event on the video conferencing platform to commemorate China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown… The move has prompted accusations that Zoom, a U.S. company, has bowed to pressure from Beijing."
"A statue of a 17th-century slave trader that was toppled by anti-racism protesters in Bristol, England, has been fished out of the harbor by city authorities. Bristol City Council said the bronze statue of Edward Colston was recovered early Thursday morning to avoid drawing a crowd."
"Amazon is instituting a one-year moratorium on police use of Rekognition, its facial recognition software, the company announced on Wednesday." They expect us to forget in one year.
"Israel's Supreme Court struck down a law on Tuesday that had retroactively legalized about 4,000 settler homes built on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank."
"The Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled a proposal that would make it harder for immigrants to claim asylum in the U.S., even after the COVID-19 pandemic… If enacted after a public comment period, the rule would allow immigration judges to throw out asylum cases before holding a hearing." Well that'll clear up the backlog quickly.
"Hundreds of Russian polling station officials, citing the risk of spreading the coronavirus, say they won’t help organise a nationwide vote on reforms that could extend President Vladimir Putin’s rule until 2036." Here we go.
Good news, people! "The pace of unemployment claims declined again last week as the U.S. jobs market continued its plodding recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, Labor Department data showed Thursday… Initial claims totaled 1.54 million, compared with the 1.6 million expected from economists surveyed by Dow Jones and a plunge of 355,000 from the previous week’s total just shy of 1.9 million. The four-week moving average, which smooths volatility in the numbers fell by 286,250 to 2 million." This spin of how 1.3M new people filing claims in just one week is somehow "good news" is just mind boggling. Words mean nothing to these people. We have always been at war with Eastasia.
"The Trump administration has awarded energy companies hundreds of breaks on payments for oil and gas extraction from U.S. lands and the Gulf of Mexico during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a government database and federal officials." The Trump administration and conservative rape of the land and public coffers continues unabated.
"Senate Democrats are voicing deep skepticism toward the GOP’s newfound embrace of police reform. And they may soon have to decide whether they’ll accept incremental measures or nothing at all… Though careful not to pre-emptively dismiss South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott’s work designing a police reform package, Democrats said in interviews Wednesday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is unlikely to endorse the type of far-reaching legislation needed to respond to police killings of black people and nationwide unrest."
The Fresh Air podcast… "The events of the past 10 days are a painful reminder that police officers we count on to serve and protect our communities can sometimes abuse their authority and commit brutal acts whose victims are disproportionately people of color. Our guest today, journalist Doug Swanson, has a new book (Cult of Glory) about one of the oldest and most celebrated law enforcement agencies in America, the Texas Rangers."
The On the Media podcast on that Tom Cotton option piece. "Last week, however, the (NYT) invited Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to write an opinion piece arguing for the military to be sent to American streets to 'restore order.' Former Times opinion editor James Bennet (who has since resigned) also admitted that he had not read it before it was published. So, what does this latest episode tell us about the media's role in upholding America's values? This week, David Roberts once again wrote about the Times opinion section for Vox, in a post arguing that the Cotton op-ed 'revealed a pathology on the editorial side... an insistence on extending the presumption of good faith to the GOP, even in the face of its rising authoritarianism.'"
"Check it out: In the second half of 2019 alone, Trump used the words "socialist" or 'socialism' more than 100 times on Twitter or in speeches, according to the folks at Factbase. In January, he used the S-word 30 times -- in February, 34 times -- the equivalent of more than once a day… Then things fell off a cliff: Trump invoked the bogeyman of socialism only four times in March, one time in April and a grand total of zero times in May." Socialism seems so quaint these days.
"President Donald Trump called on Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan to 'take back' the city from protesters, whom he called 'domestic terrorists,' threatening to handle the demonstrators if they do not in a pair of late-night tweets Wednesday… 'Make us all safe. Go back to your bunker,' Durkan tweeted."
"A former judge selected to advise on a path forward in the criminal case against Michael Flynn is accusing the Justice Department of exercising a “gross abuse of prosecutorial power” to protect an ally of President Donald Trump, distorting known facts and legal principles to shield Flynn from a jail sentence… describing it as an 'irregular' effort that courts would 'scoff' at were the subject anyone other than an ally of Trump. The 82-page excoriation featured a painstaking reconstruction of the Flynn case and accused DOJ of contradicting its own arguments and precedents to justify dropping the case against Flynn." Conservatives no longer believe they even need to make a semblance of logical sense for their arguments.
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