No DeJoy in Washington
The Democratic National Convention begins tonight, though pandemic restrictions have compelled major changes to the usual pageantry. Perhaps that's a good thing. A convention stripped of the balloons, signs, and outlandish gear may be less of a spectacle, but it gives us more time to focus on the very critical issues facing our country. That's the goal of the Convention on Founding Principles as well, during which a cross-partisan coalition of Americans will build a positive movement for the future, centered on key American principles. CFP starts in just a week from today. Are you registered yet? If not, please register now at cfp2020.us. Hope you'll join us! —Evan McMullin
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1. Neither snow nor rain nor White House interference...
Protesters gathered over the weekend in the wealthy Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Kalorama, outside the apartment complex of one Louis DeJoy. Why? DeJoy, a Republican megadonor who was appointed postmaster general by President Trump in May, now finds himself at the center of a scandal within the U.S. Postal Service. At the behest of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the USPS's inspector general is reviewing policy changes put in place by DeJoy that lawmakers say are slowing mail delivery and could impact mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic—a practice Trump has repeatedly assailed. They want to know why. —The Hill
— Back to the House. Vacation's over for Congress. Speaker Nancy Pelosi will summon the House back in session this week to confront the Trump Administration's plan for overhauling the USPS. The House Oversight Committee also will hold an emergency hearing on mail delays and potential White House interference in the USPS on Aug 24. DeJoy and USPS Board of Governors Chair Robert Duncan will testify. —The Washington Post
— What the...? White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows made a combative appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday. While denying that Trump is undercutting the USPS and claiming that he is open to additional funding for the struggling agency, Meadows said universal mail-in voting would leave voters "disenfranchised." When host Jake Tapper said, "There's no evidence of widespread voter fraud," Meadows responded, "There's no evidence that there's not either. That's the definition of fraud, Jake." Huh? —The Daily Beast
— New Jersey takes action. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr., has made a criminal referral to New Jersey's attorney general to probe potential electoral subversion by Trump, DeJoy, and other administration officials via the USPS. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy also issued an executive order on Friday to make the state's election a mostly vote-by-mail ballot. —Insider NJ
MORE: Postal Service warns 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised by delayed mail-in ballots —The Washington Post
2. McRaven: Undermining American institutions
"As Trump seeks to undermine the U.S. Postal Service and stop mail-in voting, he is taking away our voice to decide who will lead America. It is not hyperbole to say that the future of the country could depend on those remarkable men and women who brave the elements to bring us our mail and deliver our vote." —The Washington Post
Ed. Note: William McRaven, a retired Navy admiral, was commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command from 2011 to 2014.
3. From MyPillow to MyCoronaCure
President Trump has urged the Food and Drug Administration to permit an extract from the oleander plant to be approved as a drug to cure COVID-19, despite lack of proof that it works. The experimental botanical extract was promoted to Trump in July during an Oval Office meeting with Housing and Urban Development Sec. Ben Carson and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a big Trump backer, who recently took a financial stake in the company that develops the product. It's part of a pattern in which entrepreneurs, often without rigorous vetting, push unproven products to Trump, who then urges the FDA to "look at" them or speed up their approval. —Axios
— Jared says it's all good. White House senior adviser Jared Kushner defended the Trump Administration's response to the pandemic on Sunday, saying the current death rate is "still below" the May peak of 2,500 per day. Over the past several weeks, COVID-19 has killed Americans at six times the average rate in other rich countries, and the U.S. is recording about eight times more infections. —Axios
— So long, CDC. Two senior Trump appointees departed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday. Kyle McGowan, the chief of staff, and Amanda Campbell, the deputy chief of staff, voluntarily resigned, effective immediately. The pair had been criticized by administration officials for not being "loyal enough" amid a rift between the White House and the CDC on pandemic messaging. —CNN
— Wait, what? Leaders at the CDC were reportedly blindsided when the president announced last week that the agency could deploy teams to assist schools with safely reopening in the fall. The question of what to do about schools remains a major concern, as new CDC data suggests that cases of COVID-19 are "steadily increasing" in children and adolescents. —CNN
MORE: Prescott: The virus, risk assessment, and what we can learn from tornadoes —The Oklahoman
4. NYT Ed Board: What's next for Belarus?
"Belarusians do not need more indignant statements from the West; they need the West to join them in declaring that the official election results are fraudulent, in demanding an unconditional release of all detained demonstrators and in calling for new elections." —The New York Times
MORE: One week after election, Belarus sees giant protests against 'Europe's last dictator' —NPR
5. Iran is paying bounties too
— "Bounties" were paid by Iran to the Haqqani network—a terrorist group led by the second highest-ranking leader of the Taliban—for its attack on Bagram Air Base on Dec. 11, which killed two civilians and injured more than 70 others, including four U.S. personnel, according to a Pentagon briefing document.
— While the Trump Administration did not take specific action after establishing the link between Iran and the Taliban, officials say it was part of the argument for conducting the strike that killed top Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in January. —CNN
6. ICYMI: Quick takes from the weekend
If you were too busy with summer activities this weekend to check on the news, good for you. Here's a roundup of stories you may have missed...
— Durham scores a plea. Former FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith will plead guilty to making a false statement in the first criminal case arising from U.S. Attorney John Durham's probe of the origins of the Mueller Investigation. Clinesmith is accused of altering a government email about a former Trump campaign adviser who was a target of FBI surveillance. —Associated Press
— Senate was probing Bannon. In July 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee sent a bipartisan letter to the Justice Dept. asking federal prosecutors to investigate former Trump confidant Stephen Bannon for potentially lying to lawmakers during the Mueller Investigation. It is not clear what action, if any, the DOJ took on the referral. —Los Angeles Times
— New Zealand delays election. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has decided to delay her country's election by four weeks, until Oct. 17, due to the re-emergence of COVID-19 in the community. While the Electoral Commission said voting could safely happen under alert level 2, Ardern said she also factored in participation, fairness, and certainty. —NZ Herald
— Puerto Rico primary. After a chaotic primary in which ballots went missing, forcing a second round of voting, thousands of Puerto Ricans got a second chance to vote yesterday. Gov. Wanda Vázquez lost the primary of her pro-statehood party to Pedro Pierluisi, who briefly served as governor last year amid political turmoil. —Politico
— RIP. President Trump's younger brother, Robert, died Saturday night after being hospitalized in New York. He was 71. The president visited his brother at a New York City hospital on Friday after he became seriously ill. Officials have not released a cause of death. —Associated Press
7. Hart: 'Blueprint for dictatorship'
"This goes to the core of our country and our founding. And if there is what amounts to the capability to suspend our Constitution, that's not just another issue. That's serious. Keep in mind, the current, incumbent president has declared seven national emergencies. And he has stated repeatedly that he has more power than most people know about." —CBS News
Ed. Note: Gary Hart is a former U.S. senator from Colorado and a former Democratic presidential candidate.
MORE: Limits of power? [video] —CBS Sunday Morning
8. A weekend of violent protests
Far-right militia, pro-Confederacy groups, and anti-fascist counter-protesters faced off on Saturday in tense scenes at Stone Mountain, Ga., home of the largest monument to the Confederacy. Armed protesters from both sides descended on the city at 9 a.m. Videos on social media showed far-right protesters attacking anti-fascism protesters with pepper spray, and anti-fascism protesters grabbing Confederate flags and setting them alight. The protest dispersed when police in riot gear moved in on the crowd around 1 p.m., ordering demonstrators to leave or be arrested. —The Daily Beast
— Kalamazoo. Protesters swung pieces of wood and turned street signs into bats on Saturday as the far-right group the Proud Boys marched through downtown Kalamazoo, Mich., and clashed with opposing groups. Police used pepper spray to disperse crowds and made multiple arrests. Several people were injured before peace was restored. —WWMT
— Portland. A protest outside a sheriff's office in Portland, Ore., on Saturday night was declared a riot. Two officers were treated at a hospital after people in the crowd threw rocks and mortars at them, according to law enforcement officials. Portland has experienced sustained unrest for more than two months.
— Chicago. Peaceful demonstrations in downtown Chicago ended in a violent clash on Saturday, leaving 17 police officers injured and two dozen people arrested. Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown said, "Multiple agitators hijacked this peaceful protest. This group deployed large black umbrellas, changed their appearance, and began pushing and eventually assaulting officers." —The Wall Street Journal
MORE: ACLU of Tennessee calls for Gov Lee to veto bill cracking down on protesters —WBIR-TV
9. Abramson: The duties of an American
"Some of this nation's proudest moments came when patriots understood that citizens have obligations as well as rights. Think about colonial Americans who put aside their differences to fight tyranny and win the War for Independence; the hundreds of thousands of young men who volunteered to fight fascism during World War II; the 1963 march on Washington that prodded a president finally to introduce a civil rights bill before Congress; and the moment in 1965 when John Lewis risked death at the Edmund Pettus Bridge to lead a nonviolent protest against voting discrimination." —Statesman
Ed. Note: Jeffrey Abramson teaches civil liberties and constitutional law at the University of Texas.
10. An American Story: Memorialized through art
— Funderburk started making the cranes three months ago, stringing together the paper swans in pink, blue, yellow, and many other colors and hanging them in her art gallery.
— She tried making 10 cranes each night, but when the number of deaths ticked to 88,000, she realized it would take her 24 years to complete them. So she asked for help. Now, volunteers drop off scores of the elegantly made paper swans daily.
— "I was feeling the loss and one way to process that was I started folding cranes. Cranes are a traditional Japanese symbol of carrying the soul to heaven," she said. "I feel like this space is holding the place for the remembrances of the souls we are losing." —ABC News (via Karunavirus)
Ed. Note: Would you like to suggest "An American Story" from your local news? If so, please forward a link to the story to editor@thetopline.com. Thank you!
In this wonderful continuation of the American experiment with democracy and individual rights, the founding fathers—those who dedicated decades of their lives and their fortunes to create a society wherein they could then create the Declaration of Independence and later the U.S. Constitution and finally the country and government founded thereon—come under attack. There are some who would discredit them and their accomplishments because the world at the time they were born included slavery, and some of them (not all—John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and others from the north colonies did not) owned slaves. That was the culture they were born into.
The history of the world for thousands of years is characterized by conquerors, task masters, kings, and rulers who subjected and exploited others. The miracle and marvel of these great individuals is that they could see the wrongness of those thousands of years of exploitation and abuse, and could act to create a document that even suggested "that all men were created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights." They were creating freedom from subjection: they were making gold from lead.
Don't demonize them because they died before they could fully achieve their dream. How truly great and marvelous are those who can imagine things that don't exist, and then have the courage to fight off those who would stop them from realizing their vision. Two hundred fifty years later, America has yet to fulfill their vision. And there are way too many, even today, who actively and openly undermine this vision. Looking back, it is easy to see the founders' incompleteness, and fail to see how historically remarkable their accomplishments were. Far better it is to realize that there now appears to be the will and a way to significantly advance their vision. I'm proud to be an American at a time when maybe I can make some small contribution to this great experiment. —Lee B., Utah
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