There was a good article about how incredibly well Democratic fundraising efforts are going this year in the Senate. There was one exception – Michigan where it isn’t so much that the Democratic incumbent is doing badly but that the Republican challenger is raising even more. Gary Peters, the Democratic incumbent, is a a great Senator. But because he’s running against a guy raising tons of money and who did really well against an incumbent Senator in 2018 (losing by only six points), the race is only listed as “Leans Democrat”.

Peters is the kind of Senator we need to support. Let’s raise a little money for him.

The post Don’t forget the Motor City appeared first on Balloon Juice.

Senate Republicans are panicking. Not only did Democratic candidates crush the fundraising of Senate GOP incumbents and challengers by a collective $30 million in the first quarter of 2020, but Democrats' fundraising advantage has accelerated since then, according to Politico.

A slideshow prepared last month by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) for GOP chiefs of staff and obtained by Politico ended on an image depicting a man on train tracks watching an oncoming freight train bear down on him.

Joe Kernen, a Trump supporting co-host of CNBC's Squawk Box, cut off a guest and ended the segment when she illustrated Trump's ignorance and bullying on reopening the nation's schools.

Lily Eskelsen Garcia is president of the National Education Association and came on to discuss Trump's push to reopen schools during the pandemic.

After asking Garcia where and how much money the school system needs, Kernen claimed many people "for a lot of reasons' want the schools back in session.

Garcia said that parents and teachers really want to reopen schools and then criticized Mitch McConnell for refusing to take up the House bill that would send billions of dollars to your local schools while Shack Shack was granted millions in PPP funds.

And then she set her sights on Trump.

“And I have to say this," Garcia said. "I have seen Donald Trump bully generals, and senators, and governors into doing things they knew they shouldn’t do. He knows nothing about American educators. He doesn’t know the school nurse, the lunch lady, the school custodians, the school board members who were elected to make these decisions.”

Kerne began to cut her off.

The CNBC host who is never at a loss for defending Trump said, “Okay, all right, thank you. We, we ...”

Garcia continued, “He will not bully us into doing something to hurt our students and that’s the bottom line.”

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In The Washington Post, Eli Rosenberg gives a broad overview of where the nation is on filling unemployment claims. You know, during a global pandemic. A pandemic that requires temporarily closing many, many businesses to avoid spreading a new and deadly virus. That pandemic.

The only possible takeaway is that once again, we're screwed, and we're going to be screwed for a while. We're screwed in part because a worldwide pandemic is too large a thing for our systems to process as business-as-usual, and in another part because small-government zealots have both blocked modernizations and relentlessly cut access to unemployment insurance under the conservative claim that people who cannot find jobs that might not exist have only laziness to blame, and the only way out of Great Depression-level mass poverty by the end of the year is to do something that is emphatically Not This.

If you're paying attention to the news you've probably heard by now that the Trump gang has begun openly attacking Dr. Tony Fauci, America's top expert on infectious diseases. This CNN clip does a good job of showing how misleading the garbage coming from the White House is, but it's also yet another example of a news media that plays dumb, and acts as if every day is a brand new world in which nothing ever happened before.

Because CNN's Alisyn Camerota begins by asking, "I just want to ask you about this 'tension' or whatever's happening with Dr. Fauci?"

"Whatever's happening?" Seriously? They haven't noticed yet that Trump is deliberately ignoring and attacking scientific and medical experts because he thinks he can deny the pandemic out of existence?

As coronavirus cases surge in the United States, the White House is taking aim at the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports.
#CNN #News

For more than three weeks since the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, officials have refused to allow for new applications. The “law and order” administration is now defying the court by not fully reopening the program to thousands of new enrollees, policy experts with the Center for American Progress (CAP) write.

“Today, 25 days after the decision, the Supreme Court will certify its judgement in the case, and—under the law—the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will have an unambiguous obligation to fully reinstate DACA,” they wrote. “As of the date of publication, the Trump administration is in open defiance of the law.”

An Arizona teacher died after returning to the classroom during the coronavirus pandemic, but that’s not stopping Education Sec. Betsy DeVos from blindly championing reopening schools. Arizona teachers Kimberley Chavez Lopez Byrd, Jena Martinez, and Angela Skillings shared a classroom with each other in a rural community to lead remote learning sessions, according to CNN. They wore gloves and masks, used hand sanitizer, and practiced social distancing, but that didn't stop all three teachers from contracting COVID-19, and Byrd, 61, died of the virus June 26, the news network reported.

"I think that's really the message or the concern that our staff has is we can't even keep our staff safe by themselves ... how are we going to keep 20 kids in a classroom safe,” Jeff Gregorich, the superintendent of Hayden Winkelman Unifed School District, asked. “I just don't see how that's possible to do that," he said.

The Democratic and Republican national committees have warned their staffs about using the Chinese-owned app TikTok. From a report: The Democratic National Committee warned Democratic campaigns, committees and state parties Friday to take additional security precautions when using TikTok. In the email, the DNC security team wrote, "We continue to advise campaign staff to refrain from using TikTok on personal devices. If you are using TikTok for campaign work, we recommend using a separate phone and account." Republican National Committee national press secretary Mandi Merritt said Saturday the RNC had longstanding guidance on TikTok. "The RNC has advised employees and stakeholders to not download the TikTok app on their personal devices," she said, citing "security concerns." The DNC had suggested to campaigns in a memo in December not to use TikTok, citing concerns about the app's "Chinese ties and potentially sending data back to the Chinese government."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has been collaborating with Google to ensure that their tools interoperate and can help developers get their Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) into the Play Store. From a report: "We're glad to announce a new collaboration between Microsoft and Google for the benefit of the web developer community," Microsoft's Judah Gabriel Himango announced. "Microsoft's PWABuilder and Google's Bubblewrap are now working together to help developers publish PWAs in the Google Play Store." As Himango explains, PWABuilder is a Microsoft tool that helps developers build PWAs from existing websites and publish them in app stores, while Bubblewrap is a Google tool and library used to generate and sign Google Play Store packages from PWAs. After months of collaboration, the two firms have made some interesting progress towards integrating the tools. Now, PWABuilder utilizes Bubblewrap "under the hood," as Himango puts it, allowing developers to package PWAs for the Play Store with PWABuilder that support the new web shortcuts standard. (On Windows 10, web shortcuts appear as jump lists.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has released a new short film starring The Underdogs, but this time it's all about working from home.

In case you want to know what a rational school re-opening plan looks like, here’s the one Cuomo announced today.

• The region must be in Phase 4 of re-opening (right now, NYC is 3, the rest of the state is 4).
• The 14 day rolling average of positive tests must be below 5%. (Currently, every region is under 2% on the rolling average, most closer to 1%)
• If the regional positive rate is over 9% using a 7 day rolling average, schools will close.
• Specifics are up to the school districts, but the State Departments of Health and Education are publishing guidelines that were developed through collaboration between teachers, administrators and health professionals.
  • Guidelines include recommendation for distancing, prioritizing in-person education for kids who need it most, and universal masking, with regular mask breaks.
  • Guidelines recommend using cohorts, screening for temperature and symptoms daily, and the availability of contact tracing.

The key point about all of this is the screencap above – if the virus is out of control, nothing else matters. Also, a few minutes of Cuomo banging on Trump is classic Cuomo.

“Nobody died in the Watergate scandal.” I like the framing as a “scandal,” because it is.

Also, he announced that every out-of-state traveler from 18 states where the virus is out of control who arrives at an airport will have to fill out a form detailing where they’re from and where they’re going. If they don’t provide that information they can be be fined $2,000, issued a summons, and subject to mandatory quarantine. (These people are already subject to 14 day quarantine.)

This is what not fucking around looks like.

The post ‘We’re Not Going to Use Our Children as Guinea Pigs’ appeared first on Balloon Juice.

On Sunday, a Twitter account posted an image showing Republican senator and failed presidential candidate Ted Cruz sitting on a plane, looking at his phone, and not wearing a mask. According to the original poster, this was an American Airlines commercial flight around 10:45 AM. On Thursday, days before the photo was taken, American Airlines announced that it would require passengers to wear masks in flight. This makes a ton of sense in places like Texas, where COVID-19 infection rates are growing.

Some people argued that Sen. Cruz had his mask off because he was enjoying a morning coffee, and American Airlines does not require people to wear a mask while they are eating or drinking. However, the original poster was then able to provide an image reportedly showing Cruz waiting, maskless, outside the gate of the flight—sans food items. Sen. Cruz did not respond right away to these reports and American Airlines told The Daily News that the senator was flying on a “partner airline,” and they were still looking into whether or not Cruz had violated the airline’s rules.

Cities and states, scrambling again for adequate personal protective equipment and medical supplies to meet the resurgent coronavirus, are also having to scrap for dwindling federal funds. The $150 billion passed in the CARES Act back in March was not large enough and had too many restrictions, and since April, Sen. Mitch McConnell has refused to consider any further aid, blocking the follow-up HEROES Act the House passed in May. So states and localities, which have experienced massive declines in revenue with shutdown economies, are fighting with each other for what's left over from March.

State and local leaders say they need a minimum of $500 billion and as much as $1 trillion to operate without the restrictions put on the first round of funds. The $150 billion passed in the spring was limited to spending on coronavirus-related expenses, so it couldn't be used to help fill funding gaps. The formula used to allocate spending also limited aid to smaller cities, not providing them adequate funds. The scarcity of funds has led to states hoarding, and about $18 billion has been put aside by state officials for the smallest localities—an inadequate pot even for those entities. "They've sat on this for months. They've cut it into pieces so there's only a third left coming to local government," said Brad Cole, the executive director of the Illinois Municipal League. "How do you think we feel about it?"

Florida just might have the worst outbreak of COVID-19 on the planet, but that didn't stop Disney World from reopening. Their 'Welcome Home' video was widely ridiculed online over the weekend, with parodies popping up everywhere.

Source: Market Watch

Florida on Sunday broke the national record for the biggest single-day number of positive coronavirus cases in any state since the beginning of the pandemic, following a week in which the Sunshine State saw 514 people die of the disease, or 73 each day, on average.

Also, Disney World is now open!

The idea that the park would open in the face of a raging outbreak in the area sparked backlash across social media. The critiques really began to pile up after the company’s official “Disney Parks Job” account posted this short video promoting the big event on Instagram.

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As Donald Trump sags in the polls and his campaign conducts triage in states no one imagined would be in play, many Democrats are lobbying the Biden campaign to seize on what they see as an historic opportunity.

Lawmakers from Texas, Georgia, and Ohio are hardcore pressing Joe Biden and his aides to expand beyond the six battleground states they are focusing on: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida. 

Ron DeSantis "governs" to stroke Trump's ego instead of caring for his constituents.

After declaring everything was great in Florida weeks ago, Florida has become a raging hot bed of coronavirus cases.

News reports blared Sunday and Monday, as The Orlando Sentinel writes, "Florida reported 15,300 new COVID-19 cases, the highest-single day total in the U.S. since the pandemic began. In all, the state now has reported 269,811 cases."

DeSantis, like many Trump sycophants, fudges statistics to defend his lack of action.

The median age has dropped from the 60s to the 30s as more people have been tested, and younger people are much less likely to die from the disease, DeSantis said. The amount of testing has surged as well, contributing to the increase in overall cases, although the positivity rate has risen as well.

Florida’s per capita death rate of 19 for every 100,000 in population is 25th among states. Moreover, reverting back to shutdown orders would bring its own negative consequences, for the economy and mental health of residents, he said.

Instead of trying to contain the outbreak of the pandemic he's fueling this latest explosion.

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Apple announced Monday that it is allocating $400 million toward affordable housing and homeowner assistance programs in California this year, as part of the $2.5 billion commitment announced in November. From a report: The housing crisis has worsened in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, forcing states and cities to pause spending on affordable housing projects. Big Tech's wealth has been blamed by some for driving up housing prices in the San Francisco Bay Area and making it unaffordable for teachers, firefighters and other workers who support the region. Apple, along with Facebook, Google and Microsoft, committed a collective $5 billion to support affordable housing initiatives, but it ran into the reality that money alone can't solve the problem without changes to zoning and financing restrictions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With two weeks left until the Phase 3 coronavirus rescue package ends, the White House is still dithering over Phase 4:

Kudlow today on some key WH priorities for phase 4:

— Payroll tax holiday

— “Unemployment reforms” (WH wants to knock down $600 plus-up)

— Return to work bonuses

— PPP extension (?)

— Targeted/direct form of stimulus checks

— Capital gains holiday

— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) July 13, 2020

Return to work bonuses? As COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing? That’s insane. But perhaps not quite as insane as a capital gains holiday, which would—

Do what? Literally nothing except help rich people. Do Republicans just pick this stuff out of a hat every time there’s some opportunity, regardless of what problem they happen to be facing? What else could explain this?

Out of this whole list, the only thing that would directly help the 17 million unemployed is the $600 bonus UI payments, so naturally that’s the one thing Trump wants to cut back. Naturally.