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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Donald Trump is a menace to public health and also to school district budgets. Federal funding could be at stake for districts that don’t hold in-person classes in the fall, pandemic be damned.

Meanwhile, a Supreme Court ruling revokes birth control coverage for thousands of women. Employers can now claim a religious exemption under the Affordable Care Act.

And lastly, Washington, DC, is set to restore voting rights for incarcerated citizens. In forty- eight states, people who are or have been in prison for a felony still can’t vote.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Trump threatened yesterday to cut off federal funding for school districts that don’t fully reopen with in-person classes in the fall. Luckily, in the US, most school districts don’t rely completely on federal funding, instead raising money through local property taxes. But Trump’s threats do unfortunately put emergency pandemic funds at risk everywhere. Many if school districts started rolling out their reopening plans this week, and many are on course to defy Trump’s wishes. The country’s largest school district, New York City Public Schools, plans as of yesterday to send students back for in-person classes only two or three days each week, in order to maintain social distancing. At more crowded schools, the New York Times reports, students might receive only one day per week of in-person instruction. And there is still no plan to provide families with childcare on days when the kids are doing their lessons online. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the plan will influence how the rest of the city reopens. As in many states, the governor also has authority over when and how schools reopen. Andrew Cuomo has yet to comment on de Blasio’s plan. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom wants to leave many details of reopening up to local districts. But in a leaked recording obtained by the Los Angeles Times, LA County’s top public health official told district superintendents that they needed to be ready to hold all classes online come fall. Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer told the superintendants it would be irresponsible not to have a backup plan that included all distance learning, all the time.

If that’s irresponsible, what can one say about Trump’s threats? That they’re outrageously reckless? Borderline homicidal? Mike Pence announced yesterday that the Centers for Disease Control would be release new guidance for schools next week. He made it clear the new guidelines will favor in-person classes, just like Trump wants. Sure seems like health experts have different ideas. But when is the last time this government listened to them?

The public health director in Tusla, Oklahoma, said a surge in coronavirus cases followed Trump’s rally there two and a half weeks ago. Separately, Johns Hopkins University reported that US coronavirus cases passed the three million mark. That’s one case for every a hundred people in the country. The virus is out of control, and it seems like the White House is determined to make sure every American gets exposed. It’s just nuts.

Supreme Court Upholds Patriarchy

More than a hundred thousand women, and millions more in the future, stand to lose their health insurance coverage for birth control, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling yesterday. With a seven-to-two vote, the Court upheld a Trump administration regulation that grants employers a religious exemption to providing birth control coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor dissented. Justice Elena Kagan voted with the patriarchy, I mean the majority. Which is technically a patriarchy. But still.

The case stemmed from a challenge by the states to the Trump rule creating a religious exemption for birth control. Pennsylvania and New Jersey argued that the state treasuries would be left to pick up the tab for health care that should fall to employers. A federal appeals judge granted an injunction last year that preserved health care for many women – but the Supreme Court’s word is now final. I guess we’ll just need to find a better Supreme Court.

DC Enfranchises 4,000 Voters

City leaders in the District of Columbia are preparing to end voter disenfranchisement for felons, at least locally. If Mayor Muriel Bowser signs an emergency bill put forward by Councilmember Charles Allen, more than four thousand people will regain their right to vote. The emergency measure is expected to pass. And Councilmember Allen told The Appeal, a news website covering justice issues, that the Council could make the measure permanent as

part of its budgeting process later this month. The emergency bill will let convicts and incarcerated felons vote in the November election, by request. Beginning next January, DC will be obliged to provide voter information and ballot access to people in prison. The bill also includes some limited police reform, including bans on chokeholds, tear gas, and rubber bullets. DC will join Maine and Vermont in allowing all incarcerated people to vote. According to The Appeal, DC has a higher incarceration rate than any state – and over ninety percent of its incarcerated population are Black. It’s nice to see a win for voting rights, for a change.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Newly released transcripts based on body camera footage show that George Floyd told Minneapolis cops more than twenty times that he couldn’t breathe, before he finally died under Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee. The transcripts were contained in court filings. According to the New York Times, which reviewed the texts, Chauvin told Floyd to stop talking after Floyd said officers were going to kill him. He added, QUOTE it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk ENDQUOTE. Chauvin faces second-degree murder charges and up to forty years in prison.

A new study by a former Google worker revealed thousands of previously unreported contracts between Silicon Valley companies and the US military. The researcher, Jack Poulson, protested Google’s work with Chinese censors and the US security state, before quitting the company in 2018. Per NBC News, he analyzed thirty million government contracts and subcontracts from the Defense Department and federal law enforcement going back five years. He found that Amazon had more than three-hundred fifty subcontracts since 2016, and Google had two-hundred fifty. Microsoft had more than five thousand, most of which, I’m guessing, involve asking the feds if rebooting their computers solves the problem.

Torrential rains and severe flooding in Japan have killed at least fifty-eight people, according to the Washington Post. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called on lawmakers to declare an extreme disaster. Landslides are also reportedly wreaking havoc in affected areas, mostly southern and central Japan. Those parts of the country still face another foot of rainfall in the forecast this week.

A new DNA study claims to have proven once and for all that people from the Polynesian islands share an ancestral connection to Native Americans from Mexico down to Chile. The study appeared in the Journal Nature. The findings confirm that Polynesian sailors traversed more than forty-two hundred miles of open ocean to travel to South America some eight hundred years ago. That’s several hundred years before that enormous poseur, Colombus. And not only did the Polynesians bring sweet potatoes to the New World, they managed to avoid waging a murderous religious crusade across two continents. Give them a statue, for chrissake.

July 9, 2020 - AM Quickie

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn