Trump Is Letting Putin Murder U.S. Soldiers

Supreme Court Strikes Down Louisiana Abortion Law

The charts above are from the Gallup Poll. The poll was done between May 1st and 13th of a national sample of 1,028 adults with a 4 point margin of error.

The poll shows that a significant majority of the American public supports legal abortion (about 79%). About 50% supports abortion under certain circumstances (as the current law does) and 29% supports abortion under any circumstances. Only 20% would deny abortions under any circumstances.

I don't know if the public's wishes had anything to do with the Supreme Courts most recent decision on abortion, but the decision went along with the public's wishes.

The Supreme Court struck down the Louisiana law that would require doctors who perform abortions to have privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. It was identical to a Texas law that the Supreme Court had struck down about four years ago.

I think the conservatives thought they could get the court to change its mind now that there is a conservative majority on the court. It didn't work that way though. Chief Justice Roberts sided with the four liberals on the court to strike down the Louisiana law on a 5 to 4 vote. Roberts said the Texas law had established a precedent, and he voted to uphold that precedent.

This is a victory for women's rights, but just a small one. It does not mean Roberts might not vote with the conservatives next time -- especially if there is no established precedent.

Ignoring It Won't Make It Disappear

Political Cartoon is by Bill Day at Cagle.com.

New PPP Poll Has Biden Leading In Georgia

The charts above are from a new Public Policy Polling survey -- done on June 25th and 26th of 734 registered voters in Georgia, with a 3.6 point margin of error.

More bad news for Donald Trump. He can't just concentrate on swing states. He's going to have to spend money and time in red states like Georgia just to stop the bleeding.

Same Difference

Political Cartoon is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.

The Pandemic Has Exposed The U.S. Healthcare System

It's no secret that the United States has a broken heal care system. The U.S. is the only developed nation that does not consider healthcare to be a citizens right, and provide all citizens with decent healthcare or health insurance.

One reason it has been difficult to fix the system is that Republicans consider healthcare to be a product -- to be sold to those who can afford it. Another reason is because over 60% of Americans have health insurance provided by their employer -- and they are afraid of losing that "benefit" if the system is reformed.

The pandemic is now exposing the problems with an employer-based healthcare system. The biggest problem is when you lose your job (as millions have in this pandemic), you lose your health insurance. It is a system that must be changed.

Here is part of an excellent op-ed by Jeneen Interlandi in The New York Times about this issue:

In the early months of 2020, Americans were engaged in the perennial election-year debate over how best to reform the nation’s health care system. As usual, the electorate was torn and confused. Polling indicated that a small majority of likely voters favored a new universal system that would cover everyone. But that support evaporated when it was made clear that any such overhaul would involve abolishing the private insurance market. At the time, nearly 160 million Americans received their health benefits through an employer, and the vast majority of them liked that coverage just fine — maybe not enough to sing about it, but enough to be wary of a potential replacement.

Then came the pandemic of the century. And the highest level of unemployment since the Great Recession. And the most concentrated wave of job loss in the nation’s history — more than 40 million Americans filed new unemployment claims between mid-March and late May. It will take time to ascertain the full impact of those losses on the nation’s health insurance rate, but an early survey from the Commonwealth Fund is not encouraging: 41 percent of those who lost a job (or whose spouse lost a job) because of the pandemic relied on that job for health insurance; 20 percent of those people have not managed to secure alternative coverage.

Nothing illuminates the problems with an employer-based health care system quite like massive unemployment in the middle of a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease outbreak. For one thing, uninsured people are less likely to seek medical care, making this coronavirus that much more difficult to contain. Also, people with chronic or immune-compromising medical conditions are particularly susceptible to this new contagion — which means the people most in need of employer-sponsored health benefits are the same ones who can least afford to return to work at the moment.

“The pandemic has amplified all the vulnerabilities in our health care system,” says Drew Altman, president of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, including “the uninsured, racial disparities, the crisis of unmanaged chronic conditions and the general lack of national planning.”

As dire as the crisis is, though, it’s also an opportunity to look at health care reform with fresh eyes — and to maybe, finally, rebuild the nation’s health care system in a way that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy and the well employed.

The first step will be acknowledging the problems of our current system. If American health care were its own country, it would be the fourth largest in the world by gross domestic product. The nation spends an average of $3.5 trillion per year on health care — more than Japan, Germany, France, China, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia combined — and still loses more people to preventable and treatable medical conditions than any of those countries do.

In other words, America has created the most expensive, least effective health care system in the modern world, and the most vulnerable Americans have been paying for that failure with their lives since long before the coronavirus came to town.

In many ways, of course, that system is no system at all. It’s a patchwork in which access to care depends on a roster of factors, including age, employment status and state of residence. It’s a free-for-all in which the prices of life-or-death essentials like insulin and heart surgery are set at whatever the market will bear, and efforts to check those prices are routinely bludgeoned by interest groups that hold enormous sway over lawmakers. It’s a labyrinth in which consultants, billing clerks and administrators vastly outnumber medical professionals. And it’s a voracious beast that feeds American households with well-paying jobs, then devours them with insurmountable medical bills — often at their weakest moments. . . .

To change this system, Americans will have to change their thinking. There is a tendency among workers with good health insurance to see those benefits as something that’s purely earned, through work. But employer-based insurance is heavily subsidized by the federal government. Those subsidies are not much different than the ones granted to low-income Americans through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, but through the lens of American politics the latter are frequently derided as an outrageous form of welfare, while the former are accepted as par for the course.

That thinking may already be evolving. According to a 2019 poll, nearly 60 percent of Americans agree that health care is a human right and that the government should be responsible for ensuring that as many people as possible can access it when they need to. But to truly realize this ideal, the country will have to stop making employers the sole source of health care for so many people. America must create either a new health care system or offer significantly more options within the current one.

There’s no shortage of ideas for how to accomplish this goal. A single-payer system in which one entity (usually the federal government) covers every citizen regardless of age or employment status, could work. So could a new “public option” that makes federally guaranteed health insurance available to many more people. Any such choice will involve trade-offs and will need to be accompanied by other aggressive reforms, including price controls and checks on the influence of special interests over legislation.

Any of these reforms will be politically difficult. Even in the midst of a global pandemic, Republicans are still trying to gut the Affordable Care Act, and Democrats are still divided over how best to respond to that threat. But if there were ever a time to take bold steps — or to finally undo the mistakes of the past — it’s now.

It Won't Go Back In The Bottle

Political Cartoon is by John Branch in the Houston Chronicle.

Medgar Would Be Happy

Why Are Whites Willing To Accept Racism?

Public Doesn't Like Trump's Handing Of Protests / COVID-19

These charts reflect the results of a new CBS News / YouGov Poll -- done between June 23rd and 26th of a national sample of 2,009 adults, with a 2.6 point margin of error.

Trump numbers have never been very good, but they have fallen even further recently. That's because he has badly mishandled the two crisis situations he was recently faced with. The public disapproves of how he has handled the Coronavirus outbreak by 18 points, and they disapproves of how he has handled the recent nationwide protests by an equal 18 points.

Trump had the opportunity to redeem himself by properly handling both of these situations -- but he blew them both. He is simply incapable of being a competent leader.

Banning Americans

Political Cartoon is by Clay Jones at claytoonz.com.

Trump / GOP Are Out-Of-Step With Public Opinion

These charts reflect the results of the newest Yahoo / YouGov Poll -- done on June 24th and 25th of a national sample of 1,507 adults, with a 3.6 point margin of error.

It shows that Trump and the Republicans are once again out-of-step with the American public. The public sees there is systemic racism in policing in this country, and in fact, in the country in general. They want changes, and they don't think the changes will come with Trump (who 50% think is a racist himself).

Flaunting The Law

Political Cartoon is by Matt Davies in Newsday.

Who Are The Biggest "Looters"? (It Ain't The Protesters)

When the protests were happening after the murder of George Floyd, there was some looting that happened. It wasn't as much as some news sites (like Fox) would have you believe, and it was only a tiny portion of those who were demonstrating.

It shouldn't have happened, but there is a lot of looting going on in this country -- and the biggest looters, the ones taking the most, are not the demonstrators.

Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary, tells us who these looters are:

As hundreds of thousands take to the streets to protest ruthless police killings of Black Americans and centuries of systemic racism, Donald Trump and his enablers have been quick to cast the protesters as violent “looters” – and distract from the real looters of America. 

So far, over 10,000 Americans have been arrested during the wave of protests. Yet a decade ago, after Wall Street bankers looted America through predatory lending and securities fraud – often preying upon people of color and causing American households to lose roughly $19 trillion in total wealth – not a single top Wall Street executive went to prison. Instead, they received billions in taxpayer bailouts, and executives took home massive bonuses. 

Now, during the coronavirus pandemic and an unprecedented economic crisis, America’s billionaires have seen their wealth soar by $434 billion. How? Their corporations lobbied for and got $500 billion in bailouts and they got $135 billion in tax breaks. And the Treasury Department and the Fed are erasing the corporate debt they amassed over the last few years so their corporations could buy back their shares of stock. Meanwhile, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Walmart, and other corporate giants are using their vast market power to rack up record profits.

The corporate looting doesn’t stop there. Just look at the epidemic of wage theft through misclassifying employees as independent contractors and denying workers the overtime pay they are due. Every year, American employers steal a combined $15 billion in income from their workers, whether white, black or brown. 

The most profitable corporations in America are also looting America of billions in taxes through loopholes, write-offs, and special exemptions they’ve successfully lobbied for. Amazon paid just a 1.2 percent tax rate on $13 billion in profit in 2019. Other companies, including Chevron, Halliburton, and Netflix, haven’t paid a dime in federal taxes in recent years. The United States loses nearly $70 billion a year in tax revenue because corporations loot America by shifting their profits to tax havens overseas. 

Meanwhile, entire industries loot Black and brown communities. Predatory payday lenders, focusing on communities of color, offer loans with sky-high interest rates and hidden fees that trap borrowers in a never-ending cycle of poverty. The bail bond industry profits from mass incarceration and the failed war on drugs, as does America’s prison-industrial complex – keeping over 2 million Americans behind bars, disproportionately black and brown. All these corporations have platoons of lobbyists that keep their looting going.

Here’s what Donald Trump and his corporate cronies will never admit: The worst looting in America isn’t breaking windows at Target or Wells Fargo. It’s billions of dollars in wage theft, unjustifiable tax breaks for the top 1 percent, corporate tax havens, predatory loans, bail bonds, mass incarceration, and crooked Wall Street bankers who have never been accountable to anything but their bottom line. 

By pitting us against each other – blaming immigrants, blaming liberals, and especially blaming people of color, and Black people in particular – they’ve divided us, and gotten away with it.

This needs to end. Stand together, and know the truth about the real looters in America.

Running Free?

Political Cartoon is by Mike Stanfill at ragingpencils.com.

For Trump, All Roads Lead To Putin

Religious Freedom?

The Coronavirus Is Getting Out Of Control In Texas

The chart numbers are from The COVID Tracking Project. The top chart shows the number of new cases of COVID-19 each day in Texas for the last 15 days. The second chart shows the total number of COVID-19 cases there have been in Texas (for the last 15 days).

The virus is growing fast in Texas. For the last five days, there have been over 5,000 new cases each day. It has become obvious that Texas tried to reopen too soon.

Virusyphus

Political Cartoon is by Jeff Koterba in the Omaha World-Herald.

Growth Of COVID-19 Cases In Each State In The Last Week

These numbers are from The COVID Tracking Project.

The first number for each state is the number of cases they had on 6/20/20. The second number is the number of cases on 6/27/20 (one week later).

Alabama..........29549 -- 35083
Alaska..........743 -- 854
Arizona..........49798 -- 70051
Arkansas..........15142 -- 18740
California.........169309 -- 206433
Colorado..........30187 -- 31796
Connecticut.........45715 -- 46206
Delaware..........10681 -- 11091
District of Columbia..........9984 -- 10216
Florida..........93797 -- 132545
Georgia..........63809 -- 74985
Hawaii..........789 -- 866
Idaho..........3871 -- 5148
Illinois..........137104 -- 142130
Indiana..........42061 -- 44575
Iowa..........25496 -- 28012
Kansas..........12059 -- 13538
Kentucky..........13630 -- 14859
Louisiana..........49385 -- 54769
Maine..........2938 -- 3154
Maryland..........63956 -- 66450
Massachusetts..........106936 -- 108443
Michigan..........67545 -- 69679
Minnesota..........32467 -- 35033
Mississippi..........20641 -- 25531
Missouri..........17590 -- 20261
Montana..........698 -- 852
Nebraska..........17591 -- 18524
Nevada..........12931 -- 16339
New Hampshire..........5486 -- 5671
New Jersey..........168834 -- 170873
New Mexico..........10260 -- 11408
New York..........387272 -- 391923
North Carolina..........51389 -- 60537
North Dakota..........3251 -- 3458
Ohio..........44262 -- 49455
Oklahoma..........10037 -- 12642
Oregon..........6750 -- 7818
Pennsylvania..........81266 -- 84370
Rhode Island..........16337 -- 16661
South Carolina..........23786 -- 31939
South Dakota..........6225 -- 6626
Tennessee..........34446 -- 40172
Texas..........107735 -- 143371
Utah..........17068 -- 20628
Vermont..........1147 -- 1200
Virginia..........57443 -- 61247
Washington..........27601 -- 30855
West Virginia..........2486 -- 2761
Wisconsin..........24539 -- 30227
Wyoming..........1179 -- 1392

Virgin Islands..........74 -- 81
Puerto Rico..........6463 -- 7066
Guam..........222 -- 248

The 2020 Fight

Political Cartoon is by John Cole in the Scranton Times-Tribune.

How Can Anyone Not Rich Vote For Republicans?

I am continually amazed that working people in America can vote for the Republican Party -- especially considering the policies supported by that party. Consider the following:

Republicans want to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) -- throwing millions of Americans off health insurance rolls. They continue trying to do this even though, after years of trying, they have not come up with a viable alternative to provide insurance for all citizens.

Democrats want to enhance Obamacare with a public option that would insure that all Americans have decent health insurance coverage.

Republicans want to keep the minimum wage at $7.25 an hour (a poverty wage), and some of them would even like to eliminate it altogether (allowing businesses to pay even less).

Democrats want to raise the minimum wage to a livable wage.

Republicans want to cut funding for Social Security (and Medicare), and then cut benefits.

Democrats want to protect Social Security and Medicare -- and enhance Social Security benefits.

Republicans oppose labor unions, and are continually striving to weaken them.

Democrats know labor unions are the only option workers have to protect their wages, benefits, and working conditions. They strive to increase the bargaining power of unions.

Republicans believe that cutting taxes for the rich will benefit everyone (because they say the extra money will "trickle down").

Democrats know that money doesn't trickle down in a capitalist economy -- it flows upward. Cutting taxes for those making the least is better for the economy that cutting taxes for the rich.

Republicans want to suppress the number of people who can vote, in the hope they have a better chance of staying in power when fewer people vote.

Democrats believe in making voting easier for all American citizens.

Republicans have passed laws giving corporations a tax break for exporting American jobs, and allowing them to hide money overseas to avoid taxation.

Democrats want to eliminate those tax breaks, and make sure corporations pay their fair share of taxes.

Republicans continue to have policies to insure the white patriarchy survives and remains in power.

Democrats want to insure equal rights and opportunity for everyone -- regardless of race, color, creed, gender, or sexual orientation.

Those who say there is no difference between the two political parties are wrong. There is a big difference. The Republicans are the party of the rich and corporations. Democrats are the party of everyone. Unless you are rich, voting Republican is voting against your own interests.

For Friends Of Trump

Political Cartoon is by Dave Granlund at davegranlund.com.

Russia Puts Bounty On U.S. Soldiers - Trump Does NOTHING!

For three years we have been wondering why Donald Trump has been pandering to Vladimir Putin of Russia. Immediately after taking office, Trump tried to remove sanctions against Russia (and only action by Congress stopped that). Then he was cowed by Putin at the Helsinki conference, where he said he didn't believe Russia had interfered in the 2016 election (even though all of the U.S. intelligence agencies have offered proof that it happened). And since then, he has supported Putin and followed policies that hurt our European partners.

But this latest thing is beyond the pale, and once again has me wondering what terrible secret Putin is holding over Trump to make him dance to Russia's tune. Trump has known since March that Russia is offering bounties to Afghans to kill coalition troops in that country -- including United States soldiers. And our intelligence agencies says some of those bounties have been paid by Russia for killing our soldiers.

A real U.S. president would have taken immediate action to stop this. What has Trump done? Nothing! In fact, it is worse than nothing. Since March, when he knew this was happening, he has helped Russia negotiate a lucrative oil deal, said he will invite Putin to attend the next G-7 meeting, and ordered the removal of half our troops from Germany -- all things to reward Putin!

Here is how The New York Times is reporting this story:

American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

The United States concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.

Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.

The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.

An operation to incentivize the killing of American and other NATO troops would be a significant and provocative escalation of what American and Afghan officials have said is Russian support for the Taliban, and it would be the first time the Russian spy unit was known to have orchestrated attacks on Western troops.

Any involvement with the Taliban that resulted in the deaths of American troops would also be a huge escalation of Russia’s so-called hybrid war against the United States, a strategy of destabilizing adversaries through a combination of such tactics as cyberattacks, the spread of fake news and covert and deniable military operations. . . .

Spokespeople at the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the State Department and the C.I.A. declined to comment.

The officials familiar with the intelligence did not explain the White House delay in deciding how to respond to the intelligence about Russia.

Tombstones For The Maskless

Political Cartoon is by David Fitzsimmons in the Arizona Daily Star.

Statues Don't Teach History

Trump Takes Mean To A New Level

Large Majority Of Public Supports Police Reform

The charts above are from the newest Kaiser Family Foundation Poll -- done between June 8th and 14th of a national sample of 1,296 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

It shows that 64% of the public supports the protests over police violence. And significant majorities back several reforms to policing.

Cutting Testing

Political Cartoon is by Marian Kamensky at marian@humor-kamensky.sk.

Trump's Job Disapproval Is At A Record 58% - Trails Biden

The charts above reflect the results of a new NPR / PBS NewsHour / Marist Poll -- done between June 22nd and 24th of a national sample of 1,640 adults (including 1,515 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3.3 points and for registered voters is 3.5 points.

The top chart shows Trump now has a negative net approval of 18 points (40% approval to 58% disapproval). That 58% disapproval is higher than this poll has shown for Trump at any time since his term of office -- a new record.

The second chart shows Trump trailing Biden by 8 points (52% Biden to 44% Trump).

His Platform

Political Cartoon is by Ed Hall at Artizans.com.

Fox Poll Shows Trouble For Trump In Four Red States

This Fox News Poll was done between June 20th and 23rd of 1,010 Florida voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

This Fox New Poll was done between June 20th and 23rd of 1,013 Georgia voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

This Fox News Poll was done between June 20th and 23rd of 1,012 North Carolina voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

This Fox News Poll was done between June 20th and 23rd of 1,001 Texas voters, with a 3 point margin of error.

Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas are all red states. Trump carried them all in 2016, and should easily carry them again in 2020. But that is not the case. The Fox News polls show him trailing Biden by 9 points in Florida, and by 1 or 2 points in the other three states (which is within the margin of error -- so he is virtually tied in those three).

This shows Trump is in deep electoral trouble.

Protecting Statues - Not People

Political Cartoon is by Chris Britt at Creators.com.

Instead Of Fighting COVID-19, Republicans Just Gave Up

A Pandemic requires people to come together and cooperate to control the disease. Americans did not do that, and now we are paying the price. Today's Republicans cannot cooperate with Democrats on anything -- even to save lives.

It was necessary to wear masks, socially distance, and do testing to control the Coronavirus. Democrats jumped on board quickly. But for Republicans, if Democrats wanted to do something, then they had to do the opposite. So they opposed closing businesses, social distancing, and wearing masks. This was nothing less than a surrender to the virus (since the virus cares nothing about politics).

Here's how New York Times columnist and prize-winning economist Paul Krugman puts it:

Earlier this year much of America went through hell as the nation struggled to deal with Covid-19. More than 120,000 Americans have now died; more than 20 million have lost their jobs.

But it’s looking as if all those sacrifices were in vain. We never really got the coronavirus under control, and now infections, while they have fallen to a quite low level in the New York area, the pandemic’s original epicenter, are surging in much of the rest of the country.

And the bad news isn’t just a result of more testing. In new hot spots like Arizona — where testing capacity is being overwhelmed— and Houston the fraction of tests coming up positive is soaring, which shows that the disease is spreading rapidly.

It didn’t have to be this way. The European Union, a hugely diverse area with a larger population than the U.S., has been far more successful at limiting the spread of Covid-19 than we have. What went wrong?

The immediate answer is that many U.S. states ignored warnings from health experts and rushed to reopen their economies, and far too many people failed to follow basic precautions like wearing face masks and avoiding large groups. But why was there so much foolishness?

Well, I keep seeing statements to the effect that Americans were too impatient to stay the course, too unwilling to act responsibly. But this is deeply misleading, because it avoids confronting the essence of the problem. Americans didn’t fail the Covid-19 test; Republicans did.

After all, the Northeast, with its largely Democratic governors, has been appropriately cautious about reopening, and its numbers look like Europe’s. California and Washington are blue states that are seeing a rise in cases, but it’s from a relatively low base, and their Democratic governors are taking actions like requiring the use of face masks and seem ready to reverse their reopening.

So the really bad news is coming from Republican-controlled states, especially Arizona, Florida and Texas, which rushed to reopen and, while some are now pausing, haven’t reversed course. If the Northeast looks like Europe, the South is starting to look like Brazil.

Nor is it just Republican governors and state legislatures. According to the new New York Times/Siena poll, voters over all strongly favor giving control of the pandemic priority over reopening the economy — but Republican voters, presumably taking their cue from the White House and Fox News, take the opposite position.

And it’s not just about policy decisions. Partisanship seems to be driving individual behavior, too, with self-identified Democrats significantly more likely to wear face masks and engage in social distancing than self-identified Republicans.

The question, then, isn’t why “America” has failed to deal effectively with the pandemic. It’s why the G.O.P. has in effect allied itself with the coronavirus.

Part of the answer is short-term politics. At the beginning of this year Donald Trump’s re-election message was all about economic triumphalism: Unemployment was low, stocks were up, and he was counting on good numbers to carry him through November. He and his officials wasted crucial weeks refusing to acknowledge the viral threat because they didn’t want to hear any bad news.

And they pushed for premature reopening because they wanted things to return to what they seemed to be back in February. Indeed, just a few days ago the same Trump officials who initially assured us that Covid-19 was no big deal were out there dismissingthe risks of a second wave.

I’d suggest, however, that the G.O.P.’s coronavirus denial also has roots that go beyond Trump and his electoral prospects. The key point, I’d argue, is that Covid-19 is like climate change: It isn’t the kind of menace the party wants to acknowledge.

It’s not that the right is averse to fearmongering. But it doesn’t want you to fear impersonal threats that require an effective policy response, not to mention inconveniences like wearing face masks; it wants you to be afraid of people you can hate — people of a different race or supercilious liberals.

So instead of dealing with Covid-19, Republican leaders and right-wing media figures have tried to make the pandemic into the kind of threat they want to talk about. It’s “kung flu,” foisted on us by villainous Chinese. Or it’s a hoax perpetrated by the “medical deep state,” which is just looking for a way to hurt Trump.

The good news is that the politics of virus denial don’t seem to be working. Partly that’s because racism doesn’t play the way it used to: The Black Lives Matter protesters have received broad public support, despite the usual suspects’ efforts to portray them as rampaging hordes. Partly it’s because the surge in infections is becoming too obvious to deny; even Republican governors are admitting that there’s a problem, although they still don’t seem willing to act.

The bad news is that partisanship has crippled our Covid-19 response. The virus is winning, and all indications are that the next few months will be a terrifying nightmare of rampant disease and economic disruption.