Due to Trump’s maskless visit, medical supplier in Maine forced to toss out badly-needed swabs

on June 8, 2020 By Common Dreams


“Thanks, President Jackass.”

Puritan Medical Products in Guilford, Maine will have to discard an untold number of medical swabs that were manufactured while President Donald Trump toured its facility on Friday, after the president flouted basic sanitary precautions during his visit to the company’s production line.

As with most of the president’s public appearances during the coronavirus pandemic, Trump did not wear a face mask or any other personal protective equipment during his visit to Puritan, which is one of just two companies in the world that make the cotton swabs needed for coronavirus tests.

In contrast with Trump, the Puritan employees seen in photos and footage of the event wore masks, gloves, goggles, and plastic coverings over their shoes.

At one point during the visit, the president put his arm around an employee before saying, “I’m not supposed to do that.”

Maine House Speaker Sara Gideon, a Democrat who is challenging Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) for her Senate seat, slammed the president for coming to Maine for a photo-op at all in the middle of a public health and economic crisis as well as unrest over racial injustice—especially considering his visit may have worsened swab shortages across the country.

President Trump shouldn’t have come to Maine for a photo op, but that’s exactly what he did. Now Maine frontline workers have to throw away crucial testing supplies that states across the country desperately need as they combat coronavirus. #mepolitics https://t.co/wFCEUs6mwD
— Sara Gideon (@SaraGideon) June 5, 2020

Former Senate candidate Ross LaJeunesse was more succinct in a tweet directed at the president:
thanks, president jackass https://t.co/X4vyVzJzff
— Ross LaJeunesse (@RossforMaine) June 6, 2020

Slow production of swabs has been identified as a key reason behind the U.S. government’s delays in manufacturing coronavirus tests. As NPR reported last month, Trump did not invoke the Defense Production Act to order scaled-up swab production at Puritan until April 19, more than a month after state officials including Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo raised alarm over the lack of swabs.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said in mid-April that weeks prior, he had written to the president and urged him to “mobilize the incredible supply chains that the Department of Defense has and to ask them to convert some of their production from other hardware and software to swabs and contact vials and machines that can do analysis. And he did not agree with that assessment, and we lost weeks, frankly.”

Last month, the Portland Press Herald reported that 61% of Maine’s nursing homes, where many of its coronavirus cases have been confirmed, had seven or fewer swabs on hand to conduct tests. Nearly a third of the nursing homes had no swabs.

Historian: Robert E. Lee wasn’t a hero — he was a traitor


June 8, 2020 By History News Network


There’s a fabled moment from the Battle of Fredericksburg, a gruesome Civil War battle that extinguished several thousand lives, when the commander of a rebel army looked down upon the carnage and said, “It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.” That commander, of course, was Robert Lee.

The moment is the stuff of legend. It captures Lee’s humility (he won the battle), compassion, and thoughtfulness. It casts Lee as a reluctant leader who had no choice but to serve his people, and who might have had second thoughts about doing so given the conflict’s tremendous amount of violence and bloodshed. The quote, however, is misleading. Lee was no hero. He was neither noble nor wise. Lee was a traitor who killed United States soldiers, fought for human enslavement, vastly increased the bloodshed of the Civil War, and made embarrassing tactical mistakes.

      THE BASE OF THE LEE STATUE AFTER THE BLM PROTESTS THIS WEEKEND

1) Lee was a traitor

Robert Lee was the nation’s most notable traitor since Benedict Arnold. Like Arnold, Robert Lee had an exceptional record of military service before his downfall. Lee was a hero of the Mexican-American War and played a crucial role in its final, decisive campaign to take Mexico City. But when he was called on to serve again—this time against violent rebels who were occupying and attacking federal forts—Lee failed to honor his oath to defend the Constitution. He resigned from the United States Army and quickly accepted a commission in a rebel army based in Virginia. Lee could have chosen to abstain from the conflict—it was reasonable to have qualms about leading United States soldiers against American citizens—but he did not abstain. He turned against his nation and took up arms against it. How could Lee, a lifelong soldier of the United States, so quickly betray it?

2) Lee fought for slavery

Robert Lee understood as well as any other contemporary the issue that ignited the secession crisis. Wealthy white plantation owners in the South had spent the better part of a century slowly taking over the United States government. With each new political victory, they expanded human enslavement further and further until the oligarchs of the Cotton South were the wealthiest single group of people on the planet. It was a kind of power and wealth they were willing to kill and die to protect.

According to Northwest Ordinance of 1787, new lands and territories in the West were supposed to be free while largescale human enslavement remained in the South. In 1820, however, Southerners amended that rule by dividing new lands between a free North and slave South. In the 1830s, Southerners used their inflated representation in Congress to pass the Indian Removal Act, an obvious and ultimately successful effort to take fertile Indian land and transform it into productive slave plantations. The Compromise of 1850 forced Northern states to enforce fugitive slave laws, a blatant assault on the rights of Northern states to legislate against human enslavement. In 1854, Southerners moved the goal posts again and decided that residents in new states and territories could decide the slave question for themselves. Violent clashes between pro- and anti-slavery forces soon followed in Kansas.

The South’s plans to expand slavery reached a crescendo in 1857 with the Dred Scott Decision. In the decision, the Supreme Court ruled that since the Constitution protected property and enslaved humans were considered property, territories could not make laws against slavery.

The details are less important than the overall trend: in the seventy years after the Constitution was written, a small group of Southerner oligarchs took over the government and transformed the United States into a pro-slavery nation. As one young politician put it, “We shall lie pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State.”

The ensuing fury over the expansion of slave power in the federal government prompted a historic backlash. Previously divided Americans rallied behind a new political party and the young, brilliant politician quoted above. Abraham Lincoln presented a clear message: should he be elected, the federal government would no longer legislate in favor of enslavement, and would work to stop its expansion into the West

Lincoln’s election in 1860 was not simply a single political loss for slaveholding Southerners. It represented a collapse of their minority political dominance of the federal government, without which they could not maintain and expand slavery to full extent of their desires. Foiled by democracy, Southern oligarchs disavowed it and declared independence from the United States.

Their rebel organization—the “Confederate States of America,” a cheap imitation of the United States government stripped of its language of equality, freedom, and justice—did not care much for states’ rights. States in the Confederacy forfeited both the right to secede from it and the right to limit or eliminate slavery. What really motivated the new CSA was not only obvious, but repeatedly declared. In their articles of secession, which explained their motivations for violent insurrection, rebel leaders in the South cited slavery. Georgia cited slavery. Mississippi cited slavery. South Carolina cited the “increasing hostility… to the institution of slavery.” Texas cited slavery. Virginia cited the “oppression of… Southern slaveholding.” Alexander Stephens, the second in command of the rebel cabal, declared in his Cornerstone Speech that they had launched the entire enterprise because the Founding Fathers had made a mistake in declaring that all people are made equal. “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea,” he said. People of African descent were supposed to be enslaved.

Despite making a few cryptic comments about how he refused to fight his fellow Virginians, Lee would have understood exactly what the war was about and how it served wealthy white men like him. Lee was a slave-holding aristocrat with ties to George Washington. He was the face of Southern gentry, a kind of pseudo royalty in a land that had theoretically extinguished it. The triumph of the South would have meant the triumph not only of Lee, but everything he represented: that tiny, self-defined perfect portion at the top of a violently unequal pyramid.

Yet even if Lee disavowed slavery and fought only for some vague notion of states’ rights, would that have made a difference? War is a political tool that serves a political purpose. If the purpose of the rebellion was to create a powerful, endless slave empire (it was), then do the opinions of its soldiers and commanders really matter? Each victory of Lee’s, each rebel bullet that felled a United States soldier, advanced the political cause of the CSA. Had Lee somehow defeated the United States Army, marched to the capital, killed the President, and won independence for the South, the result would have been the preservation of slavery in North America. There would have been no Thirteenth Amendment. Lincoln would not have overseen the emancipation of four million people, the largest single emancipation event in human history. Lee’s successes were the successes of the Slave South, personal feelings be damned.

If you need more evidence of Lee’s personal feelings on enslavement, however, note that when his rebel forces marched into Pennsylvania, they kidnapped black people and sold them into bondage. Contemporaries referred to these kidnappings as “slave hunts.”




3) Lee was not a military genius

Despite a mythology around Lee being the Napoleon of America, Lee blundered his way to a surrender. To be fair to Lee, his early victories were impressive. Lee earned command of the largest rebel army in 1862 and quickly put his experience to work. His interventions at the end of the Peninsula Campaign and his aggressive flanking movements at the Battle of Second Manassas ensured that the United States Army could not achieve a quick victory over rebel forces. At Fredericksburg, Lee also demonstrated a keen understanding of how to establish a strong defensive position, and foiled another US offensive. Lee’s shining moment came later at Chancellorsville, when he again maneuvered his smaller but more mobile force to flank and rout the US Army. Yet Lee’s broader strategy was deeply flawed, and ended with his most infamous blunder.

Lee should have recognized that the objective of his army was not to defeat the larger United States forces that he faced. Rather, he needed to simply prevent those armies from taking Richmond, the city that housed the rebel government, until the United States government lost support for the war and sued for peace. New military technology that greatly favored defenders would have bolstered this strategy. But Lee opted for a different strategy, taking his army and striking northward into areas that the United States government still controlled.

It’s tempting to think that Lee’s strategy was sound and could have delivered a decisive blow, but it’s far more likely that he was starting to believe that his men truly were superior and that his army was essentially unstoppable, as many supporters in the South were openly speculating. Even the Battle of Antietam, an aggressive invasion that ended in a terrible rebel loss, did not dissuade Lee from this thinking. After Chancellorsville, Lee marched his army into Pennsylvania where he ran into the United States Army at the town of Gettysburg. After a few days of fighting into a stalemate, Lee decided against withdrawing as he had done at Antietam. Instead, he doubled down on his aggressive strategy and ordered a direct assault over open terrain straight into the heart of the US Army’s lines. The result—several thousand casualties—was devastating. It was a crushing blow and a terrible military decision from which Lee and his men never fully recovered. The loss also bolstered support for the war effort and Lincoln in the North, almost guaranteeing that the United States would not stop short of a total victory.

4) Lee, not Grant, was responsible for the staggering losses of the Civil War

The Civil War dragged on even after Lee’s horrific loss at Gettysburg. Even after it was clear that the rebels were in trouble, with white women in the South rioting for bread, conscripted men deserting, and thousands of enslaved people self-emancipating, Lee and his men dug in and continued to fight. Only after going back on the defensive—that is, digging in on hills and building massive networks of trenches and fortifications—did Lee start to achieve lopsided results again. Civil War enthusiasts often point to the resulting carnage as evidence that Ulysses S. Grant, the new General of the entire United States Army, did not care about the terrible losses and should be criticized for how he threw wave after wave of men at entrenched rebel positions. In reality, however, the situation was completely of Lee’s making.

As Grant doggedly pursued Lee’s forces, he did his best to flush Lee into an open field for a decisive battle, like at Antietam or Gettysburg. Lee refused to accept, however, knowing that a crushing loss likely awaited him. Lee also could have abandoned the area around the rebel capital and allowed the United States to achieve a moral and political victory. Both of these options would have drastically reduced the loss of life on both sides and ended the war earlier. Lee chose neither option. Rather, he maneuvered his forces in such a way that they always had a secure, defensive position, daring Grant to sacrifice more men. When Grant did this and overran the rebel positions, Lee pulled back and repeated the process. The result was the most gruesome period of the war. It was not uncommon for dead bodies to be stacked upon each other after waves of attacks and counterattacks clashed at the same position. At the Wilderness, the forest caught fire, trapping wounded men from both sides in the inferno. Their comrades listened helplessly to the screams as the men in the forest burned alive.

To his credit, when the war was truly lost—the rebel capital sacked (burned by retreating rebel soldiers), the infrastructure of the South in ruins, and Lee’s army chased one hundred miles into the west—Lee chose not to engage in guerrilla warfare and surrendered, though the decision was likely based on image more than a concern for human life. He showed up to Grant’s camp, after all, dressed in a new uniform and riding a white horse. So ended the military career of Robert Lee, a man responsible for the death of more United States soldiers than any single commander in history.

***

So why, after all of this, do some Americans still celebrate Lee? Well, many white Southerners refused to accept the outcome of the Civil War. After years of terrorism, local political coups, wholesale massacres, and lynchings, white Southerners were able to retake power in the South. While they erected monuments to war criminals like Nathan Bedford Forrest to send a clear message to would-be civil rights activists, white southerners also needed someone who represented the “greatness” of the Old South, someone of whom they could be proud. They turned to Robert Lee.

But Lee was not great. In fact, he represented the very worst of the Old South, a man willing to betray his republic and slaughter his countrymen to preserve a violent, unfree society that elevated him and just a handful of others like him. He was the gentle face of a brutal system. And for all his acclaim, Lee was not a military genius. He was a flawed aristocrat who fell in love with the mythology of his own invincibility.

After the war, Robert Lee lived out the remainder of his days. He was neither arrested nor hanged. But it is up to us how we remember him. Memory is often the trial that evil men never received. Perhaps we should take a page from the United States Army of the Civil War, which needed to decide what to do with the slave plantation it seized from the Lee family. Ultimately, the Army decided to use Lee’s land as a cemetery, transforming the land from a site of human enslavement to a final resting place for United States soldiers who died to make men free. You can visit that cemetery today. After all, who hasn’t heard of Arlington Cemetery?

Michael McLean is a PhD candidate in history at Boston College.

SMACK DOWN
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez swats down Kayleigh McEnany with a single tweet after being derided as a ‘Biden advisor’

 June 8, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


Republicans are keen to tie Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to former Vice President Joe Biden, believing that her Democratic Socialist platform will be a liability for the Democratic Party with moderate voters in November.

On Monday, during a White House briefing, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany attempted this in an unsubtle manner:
>@PressSec from the podium: “Biden adviser Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.” cc @AOC
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) June 8, 2020

McEnany is referring to the fact that Ocasio-Cortez is one of a number of people who sits on a panel advising the Biden campaign on climate change policy. Biden hasn’t endorsed Ocasio-Cortez’s entire Green New Deal proposal, but has hailed it as a positive step and adopted some elements from it.

Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t impressed with McEnany’s attempt to use her name for political points — and weighed in on the title she gave her.

.@PressSec wouldn’t be the first person to mistake a women of color for having a lower position or title than she does, but Kayleigh – in case you haven’t picked up a newspaper in two years, I’m a Congresswoman.  

https://t.co/3FRHo7dpTL — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) June 8, 2020

‘Tinyman Square’: Internet suggests names for new fencing complex around White House

June 8, 2020 By Matthew Chapman


On Monday, anti-Trump conservative and ex-GOP strategist Rick Wilson posed Twitter a question:

We need a name for the newly expanded White House Fence complex.
FOB Pussygrabber?
— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) June 8, 2020

Plenty of people were quick to respond with suggestions of their own.


Tinyman Square
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) June 8, 2020
The Assholamo
— Marco Murder Hornet Paradiso (@ParadisoReale) June 8, 2020

Alcatrash
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 8, 2020

How about the Turdcage?
— Nicholas Weaver (@ncweaver) June 8, 2020


Fort BoneSpurs
— RenoSparksCow (@RenoCow) June 8, 2020


Fort Coward!
— Mary (@onward22) June 8, 2020


The Great Wall of Narcissism
— Tom (@bluesfn2017) June 8, 2020

AREA 45
— Mickey Hines (@mickhines) June 8, 2020

How about the "Inferiority Complex"?
— Louise (@Louise44301601) June 8, 2020

Chicken Coup sums up situation AND has a nice “ring” to it.
— joyce stoer cordi (@joycecordi) June 8, 2020

The Golden-Shower Arches
— The Notorious ROY G BIV (@robwoodyard1) June 8, 2020

Shitmo
— CHARI

 

(@charito_lee) June 8, 2020

The Whiter House
— Ray the K (@raykeck14) June 8, 2020

Pre-Leavenworth.
— @JOURNOPIXS

(@journopixs) June 8, 2020


Furor Bunker
— Sid MacLeod- NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!

 

(@sidmacleod) June 8, 2020
pic.twitter.com/Zx1A1pzBqm
— Cheecierom@romano37 (@cheecierom) June 8, 2020

Trump ridiculed for meltdown on Gen. Colin Powell after CNN appearance: ‘Cadet Bone Spurs says what?’

June 7, 2020 By Tom Boggioni- Commentary


As might be expected, Donald Trump did not care for the comments made by former Secretary of State Colin Powell on CNN Sunday morning — including his endorsement of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States, so the president lashed out on Twitter.

With Powell calling out the president for his treatment of Gold Star families and accusing the president of being a “liar” Trump tweeted back,”Colin Powell, a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous Middle East Wars, just announced he will be voting for another stiff, Sleepy Joe Biden. Didn’t Powell say that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction?” They didn’t, but off we went to WAR!”

That received quite a bit of pushback from commenters with one bluntly stating, “You couldn’t shine Powell’s shoes.”


You can see some other responses below:
You couldn’t shine Powell’s shoes.
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) June 7, 2020


Whenever Trump attacks men with honour and integrity. Accomplished military officers that served their country honourable, it’s best to let the picture speak. pic.twitter.com/8MKpgl9RFp
— Chidi®️ (@ChidiNwatu) June 7, 2020

Admit it Donald, you just shit your pants, didn’t you?
— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) June 7, 2020

At least he went to war with another country, rather than his own.
— Parody Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson_MP) June 7, 2020

Colin Powell is more patriotic and more everything than you’ll ever be.
And the way you keep attacking generals and veterans? Keep it up. Americans will catch up.
You are digging your own political grave, and we love to see it. pic.twitter.com/KeCOainfkU
— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) June 7, 2020


Powell served in Vietnam (multiple tours) inc, and received countless medals, inc for saving 3 fellow soldiers from a helicopter crash.
You claimed you couldn’t fight the Commies bc your feet had a boo-boo.
— A.J. Delgado (@AJDelgado13) June 7, 2020

You have to talk louder, #BunkerBoy. We can’t hear you over the massive sound of Republicans changing their votes to support @JoeBiden.#GOPExit
— Liddle’ Savage (@littledeekay) June 7, 2020

It must be KILLING @realDonaldTrump that for 12 days now, the SIZE of the CROWDS of Peaceful Protesters have simply DWARFED his PITIFUL Inauguration#SizeMatters

— The Resistor Sister 

(@the_resistor) June 7, 2020


Right on schedule. pic.twitter.com/xY5XjS65Wk
— D Villella

(@dvillella) June 7, 2020


pic.twitter.com/X7kEX0evsr
— Mandrake (@readamagazeen) June 7, 2020

The only people supporting you now is Diamond and Silk, Scott Baio, Tomi Lahren, a Swastika, and a bag of shit. Fuck off impeached asshole.
— Tony Posnanski (@tonyposnanski) June 7, 2020

I’ve lost track but did Trump publicly bash the whites Generals? In just asking. He all over Collin Powell today
— NellyO3 (@DragonLuva3) June 7, 2020

Cadet Bone Spurs says what?
GTFOH pic.twitter.com/EjiUqEIqoB
— Louise (@clwtweet) June 7, 2020


Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “If you want to get into a debate with a 4 star general, I think that’s highly inappropriate”
— The Hardy Report Podcast (@EdwardTHardy) June 7, 202

Trump has now had over 10 US Generals/Admirals attack him. Joe Biden is the US Military’s top choice!
— Black Lives Matter (@HKrassenstein) June 7, 2020

A 5 times draft dodger calls a respected general who put his life on the line for our country “overrated”. SHAME ON YOU DONALD! #TrumpOrAmerica
— Republicans for Joe Biden (@RepsForBiden) June 7, 2020

Trump is a ‘downright moron’ who appears ‘too stupid to be president’: ex-Republican economist


 June 8, 2020
By Brad Reed 

President Donald Trump has described himself as a “very stable genius,” but economist and former Republican Bruce Bartlett believes that he’s anything but.

Writing on Twitter, Bartlett promotes a new piece he’s written for The New Republic that he says deeply examines the question of whether Trump is “too stupid to be president.”

In the piece itself, Bartlett notes that tales of Trump’s ignorance on policy matters have become legendary, and he says there is no evidence that things have improved over the last three-and-a-half years.

Defend democracy. Click to invest in courageous progressive journalism today.
“From the earliest days of his administration, it has been obvious to everyone who has come in direct contact with him that Trump knows very, very little about any policy issue or even how the federal government operates. Among those most alarmed by Trump’s ignorance and incompetence were those in the military and intelligence community,” he writes. “After a National Security Council meeting on January 19, 2018, Defense Secretary James Mattis told aides that Trump had the understanding of ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.'”

Bartlett then runs through a litany of both Trump advisers and foreign diplomats marveling at his colossal ignorance, including some aides who believe Trump doesn’t even understand that some foreign countries are in different time zones.

“With the Trump presidency, H.L. Mencken’s 1920 prediction that one day the White House ‘will be adorned by a downright moron’ has now come true,” Bartlett concludes.

Read the whole article here https://newrepublic.com/article/158069/donald-trump-not-smart-polls

Trump thinks he can restart the rallies because BLM protests inoculate him against criticism

June 8, 2020 By Sarah K. Burris


According to President Donald Trump’s campaign, the outbreak of outdoor public protests mean he can start holding rallies in large arenas again.

Politico reported Monday that the president will restart his “Make America Great Again” rallies in two weeks even if his older rally attendees run the risk of catching the coronavirus.

“Americans are ready to get back to action and so is President Trump. The great American comeback is real and the rallies will be tremendous,” campaign manager Brad Parscale said in a statement. “You’ll again see the kind of crowds and enthusiasm that sleepy Joe Biden can only dream of.”

He did not say whether the campaign would be requiring masks, temperature checks or masks to attend.

There are still states that are limiting gatherings, so it’s unclear where Trump will try to hold his rallies. At the same time, there are states that aren’t restricting crowds, like Texas, and are experiencing an uptick in cases and hospitalizations.

Trump is probably most needed in Colorado and Arizona for Sens. Martha McSally and Cory Gardner, both of whom are seen as likely losses for the GOP in November. While Arizona is open to anyone, Colorado’s order encourages outdoor recreation while prohibiting gatherings in groups larger than 10.

Florida has similarly reopened everything after refusing to lockdown. Still, however, Florida is restricting gatherings of 50 people or more.

The swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania limit large gatherings as well that would stop a large Trump rally. In Ohio it is 10 or more and in Pennsylvania, depending on the county, it is 250 or more banned. Michigan won’t allow crowds of over 100 people.

It’s unknown if Trump will do his rally outside at a field or place where people can social distance or if he’ll pack people into smaller locations.

‘The only thing Trump doesn’t want his name on’: President mocked after #TrumpRecession trends nationwide

 June 8, 2020

According to The New York Times this Monday, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the United States entered into a recession in February, long before the economic downturn that was triggered by the coronavirus lockdowns.

The news added a new dynamic to the debate over the economy, causing many of President Trump critics on Twitter to point out that the news contradicts Trump’s rosy proclamations about the economy before coronavirus hit.

Trump caused the recession even before the Corona hit? #TrumpRecession pic.twitter.com/0Buf2kr56K
— Isiah Whitlock Jr. (@IsiahWhitlockJr) June 8, 2020

10 months before economist’s predictions, the US economy entered into #Recession in February, BEFORE any US #COVID19 lockdown orders.

When will R’s learn that Democrats Grow the economy while the @GOP, @SenateGOP & @HouseGOP destroys it for their 1% donors.#TrumpRecession pic.twitter.com/SdaeUaLPnQ
— Trinity (@TrinityResists) June 8, 2020

In fact, the U.S. economy went into recession three months after Trump's boast – and before the country went into lockdown

This happened despite $1.5 trillion in tax cuts that created a massive deficit and failed to increase jobs, wages or business investment. #TrumpRecession pic.twitter.com/uxHd6jxJRV
— Chris Lu (@ChrisLu44) June 8, 2020

It would be nice if everyone could retweet a THANK YOU to @BarackObama & @JoeBiden for creating an economic recovery so strong & enduring that it lasted all the way from June 2009 to February 2020 when the #TrumpRecession began. #ThanksObama! #ThanksBiden! https://t.co/WyYtC6r9ht
— Richard Hine (@richardhine) June 8, 20

The only thing Trump doesn't want his name on: #TrumpRecession.
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) June 8, 2020

The fact that the #TrumpRecession began before the coronavirus shutdowns is another reminder that the GOP billionaire tax giveaway was a fraud. https://t.co/l9Xrx3ym2X
— Derek Cressman (@DerekCressman) June 8, 2020

Can we please all agree that this experiment of having a dumb TV host and shady real estate developer with no government knowledge, 5 kids from 3 marriages, 6 bankruptcies, 46 charges of sexual assault, and 35,000 lawsuits as president is not going well at all? #TrumpRecession
— Andrea Junker (@Strandjunker) June 8, 2020


BREAKING: "The U.S. economy entered a recession in February, a group of economists declared Monday," ending the Obama expansion — the longest expansion on record.
So you can't blame COVID-19 for the #TrumpRecession
— Black Lives Matter (@HKrassenstein) June 8, 2020


The National Bureau of Economic Research declared Monday that the recession began in February.
This means even without COVID-19, the economy would still tank due to Trump. #TrumpRecession
— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) June 8, 2020


Congrats to tRump, it took President Bush 7 years to get us into recession, it’s only took tRump 3 years #TrumpRecession https://t.co/njs0hZoHAU
— Mama Resister (@mama2agn) June 8, 2020


The Trump Recession is official. True, the virus was one source, but his ineptitude magnified it greatly. USA decline in GDP (4.8%) MUCH worse than S Korea (1.3%) because they had a leader and acted. They controlled the virus, death and the economy. #TrumpVirus #TrumpRecession
— Lee Leavitt (@LeavittLee) June 8, 2020

Pictures Show Just How Large The Protests Against Police Brutality Really Are

BUZZFEED PROTEST PHOTOS SEE MORE HERE https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/photos-protest-crowds-police-brutality

COMPTON COWBOYS 


BOSTON NFL PLAYERS JOIN THE PROTEST

Police Are Investigating After A Homeless Man In A Wheelchair Was Allegedly Shot In The Face With A Rubber Bullet

A photographer at the scene told BuzzFeed News the man was in between police and protesters. "And I saw him in the street, bleeding," she said.

Salvador Hernandez BuzzFeed News Reporter
Posted on June 6, 2020

Mario Tama / Getty Images

An LAPD officer aims a nonlethal weapon during a confrontation with protesters.

The Los Angeles Police Department has launched a personnel investigation after witnesses said a man who is homeless and uses a wheelchair was shot in the face by police with a rubber bullet.

Photos of the aftermath show the man bent over in the chair as blood drips from his forehead down his face. Police officers wearing riot helmets, some of them with armed, stand in the foreground.

"We are aware of the photo and the allegations and we are still trying to understand the context and circumstances around what happened," Josh Rubenstein, spokesperson for the LAPD told BuzzFeed News. "A personnel investigation has been initiated."

The incident happened Tuesday evening in downtown Los Angeles, according to witnesses, as police clashed with protesters after a curfew had gone into effect.

Police released no details about the incident, but a witness to the shooting told BuzzFeed News the unidentified man appeared to be in the line of fire as police fired at a crowd of protesters who were trying to evade police.

Sarah Reingewirtz/Southern California News Grou
A man using a wheelchair is seen bleeding from his face.



"He was in between protesters and police," Sarah Reingewirtz, a photographer with Southern California News Group who was covering the protests that day, told BuzzFeed News. "And I saw him in the street, bleeding."

The curfew had gone into effect at the time and police had blocked off several streets downtown, Reingewirtz said. Hundreds of protesters were still in the streets but, as police started moving in to make arrests, many started running away.

Reingewirtz saw police begin to take protesters into custody as she was walking down Broadway.

Trying to escape police, a large group of protesters tried to enter a building. Someone had opened the door to the building and people started rushing in. That's when Reingewirtz first saw the man, just ahead of the demonstrators.

"You could see him sitting in the street, looking at everyone and he was fine," she said.

Police then turned into the street from the other side, with the man sitting near the sidewalk between a group of uniformed police and the protesters.

"I heard one of the rubber bullets go off, and then [police] came up, and they told us to get back," Reingewirtz said. "He looked like he might have been screaming."


Reingewirtz started taking pictures of the scene, with the man bleeding in the chair and police aiming their weapons at protesters just outside the frame.


"He was just there," she recalled, adding that it took about 10 minutes before officers approached the man and took him away to receive treatment for the wound just above his eye. "It was horrifying and hard to look at."

When first contacted by BuzzFeed News about the incident Friday morning, LAPD said they had no information about the man or his injury.

"Unfortunately we can not speculate on what caused this individuals injury without further investigation," the spokesperson said. Asked if the department had an open investigation into the man's injuries, the spokesperson replied they had no information about him at the time.

Images of his injuries spread quickly online.

By Friday evening, Black Lives Matter and advocates for those experiencing homelessness filed a lawsuit against the LAPD's tactics during the protests that have taken place across the city, including their use of force, holding protesters for up to 12 hours, and arresting people who are unhoused for violating curfew even though they had no place to go.

In the suit, BLM alleges that LAPD has used force to end the protests, including using "less lethal" weapons.

The lawsuit also mentions the Tuesday incident involving the man experiencing homelessness, referring to him as "Cincinnati" in the complaint.

"He pleaded with police not to use force on him before being shot in the face," the suit reads. "But he was not the only disabled person in a wheelchair to be struck in the face by a rubber bullet as the LAPD enforced curfew laws and other misdemeanors in the last week."



The suit also accused officers from targeting people experiencing homelessness, charging that, "Most, if not all of these individuals, are unhoused and had no place they could go to avoid violating the curfew," being enforced by LAPD.


"They were all tightly handcuffed from the time they were arrested, transported across town to Brentwood, held for processing and then released, homeless on the streets of Los Angeles during a city-wide curfew," the suit reads.

After the suit was filed, LAPD confirmed a personnel investigation had been launched into the incident.

The man's identity has not been revealed, and it's still unclear what condition he is currently in.