The Weekly List

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Week 198 - Republican Nepotism Convention Aug 31, 2020

Show notes

This week, the Republican Party held its convention — which was likened to a Trump convention — a four-day span of shattered norms, and possibly multiple violations of the law. Gone were names familiar to the Grand Old Party, replaced by Trump loyalists and his family members. Republicans, for the first time 1856, didn’t even produce a platform! Instead, the convention was akin to a reality television show, starring Trump every night, full of lies, misinformation, and an alternative reality in which the pandemic was over.

As the election approaches, the Trump regime continues to be increasingly brazen and lawless. This week, the regime threatened a Post reporter by telling him they were building a dossier on him and others, mail continued to pile-up as Trump’s Postmaster General continued to obfuscate, and by week’s end, the director of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said his agency would no longer brief Congress in person on foreign interference.

Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, setting off protests, and later killings by an armed militia member who came from out of state. Disturbing videos from Kenosha, as well as Portland, Oregon, seemed to show police officers in cahoots with far-right hate groups and armed militants. Major league teams protested Blake’s shooting and systemic racism by canceling games, while Trump stoked division and hate.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-198/

Week 197 - Bannon Charged Aug 24, 2020

Show notes

This was the longest weekly list, and it was simply exhausting. The Democrats held a very successful first virtual Democratic National Convention, while Trump spent the week advancing lies and conspiracy theories about voting to undermine the election. Polls continue to show he will lose by a wide margin.

In a break from tradition, both former First Lady Michelle and President Barack Obama gave historic speeches, focused on warning the American people that Trump is a danger to our democracy, and is not capable of doing the job. The emotional speeches were a call to action, from the former first family who had largely has given Trump a chance to grow into the position. Barack in particular portrayed Trump as a grave threat. Meanwhile, nominee Joe Biden gave what was widely heralded as the best speech of his career, in a moving, emotional, optimistic speech of unity, promising light, hope, and competence.

This week, the U.S. Postal Service was front and center, as Postmaster General Louis DeJoy faced public outcry for the slowing mail, and Congressional hearings got underway. Trump tried to gaslight, suggesting the slowing mail was, ironically, a conspiracy theory by Democrats. This week a nearly 1,000 page shocking Senate Intelligence Committee report was released, revealing a deep connection between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

Trump largely abandoned his so-called daily coronavirus briefings, instead holding campaign rallies and some Q&A sessions with the media. Dr. Deborah Birx has largely disappeared from the public, as Trump switched to a radiologist who frequently appeared on Fox News for advice and shares his point-of-view. College reopening, like K-12 openings the week before, got off to a rocky start, with outbreaks on several campuses — again a result of a patchwork strategy, with inadequate testing and few guidelines.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-197/

Week 196 - Post Office Under Attack Aug 17, 2020

Show notes

This week, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden chose his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, the first Black and Asian American vice presidential candidate. An oddly unprepared Trump campaign and Republican Party reacted with a deluge of sexist and racist attacks, including shameful accusations of “birtherism.” Trump also threw his support behind a House candidate who espouses the QAnon conspiracy theory and is openly racist, raising serious concerns again about the future of the Republican Party.

This week, as polls continued to show Trump down to Biden nationally and in key battleground states, and despite the pandemic continuing to impact much of the country, Trump openly said he would block needed funding for the U.S. Post Office in an effort to thwart mail-in voting for the November election. An incredible admission, but yet Republicans seemed largely unwilling to call him out, or band with Democrats to protect this basic tenet not only of American democracy, but of everyday life. As democracies around the world looked on in horror at a stolen election in Belarus, Americans were left to wonder if we were next — with Trump’s efforts to compromise the upcoming election.

This was another week full of stories of corruption, kleptocracy, and division, as an exhausted America, that couldn’t even agree on a scientifically proven measure like wearing masks, faced an uncertain election in 80 days. Even as tens of millions of Americans were still without a weekly unemployment payment, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell adjourned the Senate until mid-September, and Trump headed back to the golf course.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-196/

Week 195 - Back to School Aug 10, 2020

Show notes

This week U.S. intelligence revealed Russia is actively interfering in the 2020 presidential election, with a goal of harming presumptive Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Democratic leaders pressed NCSC Director William Evanina to inform the American people, while Republicans, reminiscent of 2016, tried to obfuscate intelligence by publicly claiming it was unclear Russia was helping Trump, and using the whataboutism that other countries, China and Iran, were also interfering.

This week Trump continued to push for schools to reopen, falsely claiming on Fox News that children are “almost immune” — a clip of which was then pulled by Twitter and Facebook over it being false information on Covid-19. Schools that reopened however, had a shaky start with unclear guidance and patchwork approach. Trump also had another disastrous interview with Axios’s Jonathan Swan, revealing a lack of basic knowledge about the pandemic, and raising concerns about his mental acuity and competency.

This week with the virus spreading and Trump regurgitating the same disinformation, tens of millions of unemployed Americans were without an essential $600 weekly payment to help make ends meet. Trump left town for a long weekend at his Bedminster club, and Republican leaders also skipped town.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-195/

Week 194 - Delay the Election? Aug 03, 2020

Show notes

This week, for the first time, Trump publicly floated the idea of delaying the November election, drawing swift condemnation from Democrats and a mild rebuke from Republican leadership. The co-founder of conservative Federalist Society said in an op-ed that Trump should be removed if he tries to follow through. Undeterred, Trump spent the week continuing to sow doubt about the results of the “rigged” and “most fraudulent” upcoming election. His U.S. Postal Service appointee meanwhile took steps to slow the flow of mail ahead of the expected surge of mail-in and absentee ballots in less than 100 days.

This week, the pace of coronavirus deaths started to increase as the U.S. passed another grim milestone of 150,000 deaths, and while Trump outwardly suggested that large areas of the country were “corona-free,” an internal White House document showed the exact opposite: a virus spreading to new states and out of control.

Portland was front and center this week, as Trump’s stormtroopers tear-gassed and shot non-lethal bullets in the faces of largely peaceful protestors. Trump continued to invoke decades-old racist tropes about suburbia in a failed effort to win over white suburban voters, especially women, who largely disapproved of his handling of the social unrest. By week’s end, Trump pulled out the troops, leaving the city to peaceful protests and calm. Attorney General William Barr finally testified in a cantankerous bad-and-forth with Congressional Democrats, filled with disinformation and gaslighting.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-194/

Week 193 - Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. Jul 27, 2020

Show notes

This week, as the coronavirus raged out of control, passing 4 million U.S. cases and 145,000 deaths, Trump resurrected his daily coronavirus briefings — by himself, with no health officials. He also sought to divert attention to Portland, Oregon, where alarming images of unmarked federal law enforcement were seen shoving and tear-gassing growing crowds of Black Lives Matter protestors. Reporting indicated Trump has purposefully picked Portland to create imagery and video content of a culture war, which he continues to flame.

This week a series of stories came out about the corruption of the Trump regime, but in the chaos, got little attention. Reporting indicated Attorney General William Barr was behind Michael Cohen being sent back to prison, and Barr’s rationale for pushing out U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman was related to the Cohen investigation, and Barr potentially outed a F.B.I. source on Russia. The Department of Homeland Security was also under fire for admitting the agency had provided false information to justify Trump retaliating against New York.

Meanwhile, Trump was forced this week to retreat on several issues, as his poll numbers continued their plummet, and even some Republicans turned on him or refused to do his bidding. Trump abruptly canceled the Republican National Convention, amid his already imperiled re-election campaign.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-193/

Week 192 - Secret Police Jul 20, 2020

Show notes

This week, as the coronavirus raged out of control in many states, Trump sought to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci, with several members of the regime publicly attacking Fauci’s credibility. Reporting indicated Trump had lost interest in the pandemic, with an adviser telling the Post, Trump’s “not really working this anymore. He doesn’t want to be distracted by it” — as the country hit a daily record 77,000 new cases.

As Trump continued his fall in the polls, he fired his campaign manager, but stuck with his strategy of us vs. them: this week repeatedly invoking the white “suburbs” and stoking not-so-well disguised racist tropes of integration. He turned a Rose Garden speech meant to address deregulation into a bizarre, meandering, hour-long campaign speech — drawing ire from even Fox News.

In new tests of authoritarian boundaries, Trump sent federal law enforcement to Portland, Oregon — uninvited and unwelcome — to quell protests. In what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described as “unidentified stormtroopers” and “Trump’s secret police,” law enforcement in unmarked cars were seen grabbing protestors off the streets and whisking them away. Trump also sought to hide the extent of the pandemic, by ordering hospitalization data to be sent to Washington rather than the CDC, and threatening to block funding for testing in the upcoming coronavirus relief bill.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-192/

Week 191 - Daily Records Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

This week, the pandemic continued to worsen, with many states seeing new highs and the death toll starting to rise. By week’s end, the U.S. registered an unthinkable nearly 70,000 new daily coronavirus cases. Amid the surge, issues that plagued the April wave of cases in New York and elsewhere, like shortages of PPE and testing, reappeared, making it clear the federal government had done nothing to address or plan for a new surge. Trump continued to deny the severity of the virus, falsely claiming “99 percent of [cases] are totally harmless,” and then pushing for schools to reopen.

This week Trump lost a landmark case, with the Supreme Court ruling 7-2 that Trump cannot keep his tax returns and financial records from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney; however, the ruling would likely mean the public will not see the documents ahead of the election. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman retired from the Army, citing bullying by Trump after he testified in the impeachment inquiry. Days later, Trump commuted Roger Stone’s sentence days before his former associate was set to serve 40 months in prison. Republican Sen. Mitt Romney called the commuting of Stone’s sentence “unprecedented, historic corruption,” but he was — as would be typical — the lone GOP voice to criticize Trump, as an exhausted, outraged country had dejectedly grown accustomed and normalized to such lawlessness from our budding authoritarian leader.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-191/

Week 190 - Russian Bounties Jul 06, 2020

Show notes

This week the coronavirus spread further out of control, topping 50,000 daily cases for three consecutive days — more than 10,000 higher than the early peak in April. Trump continued to largely ignore the pandemic, refuse to wear a mask, and make the most trusted source of information, Dr. Anthony Fauci, less accessible, leading to confusion in the patchwork of state responses.

This week reporting indicated Trump knew as early as 2019 that Russia had put bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and several U.S. Marines were killed as a result. Trump pretended he had not been briefed, and after he officially was briefed Tuesday, continued to call the matter a “hoax” repeatedly, and took no steps to hold Russia accountable.

Trump continued to stoke an us vs. them divide in America, invoking a straw man “new far-left fascism” in a divisive, dystopian July Fourth speech at Mount Rushmore, claiming to be the savior of law enforcement and our “heritage.” Even as Trump continued to fall in the polls, and the mood of the nation continued to darken, Trump seemed unable to rise to the occasion, and do anything other than revert to racism and divisiveness — moving in the opposite direction of the country’s mood amid what the New York Times coined the broadest social movement in history. By week’s end, even Republican lawmakers worried Trump would forever associate their party with racial animus.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-190/

Week 189 - Out of Control Jun 29, 2020

Show notes

This week started with a humiliating return to the campaign trail for Trump, as a mere 6,200 supporters showed up for his rally in Tulsa, after the campaign bragged more than one million had registered. Trump’s poll numbers continue to sag amid his mishandling of the pandemic and racial justice protests. Instead of rising to the challenge, Trump reverted to drumming up racism and division — resulting in even the conservative Wall Street Journal Editorial Board warning he was in danger of not only losing to Democrat Joe Biden, but also taking the Republican Senate down with him.

This week the coronavirus pandemic got out of control in several states that reopened without proper precautions. Trump ignored the record number of daily cases, repeatedly lying that the increase was due to an increase in testing. The White House Coronavirus Task Force returned after a two month hiatus, and Vice President Mike Pence likewise used it as an opportunity to lie to the American people that the curve was flattened and states were reopening safely. The Trump regime refused to take any leadership in testing or contact tracing, leaving states on their own, as the death toll passed 125,000 Americans in just four months’ time.

As the week came to a close, shocking reporting indicated that Russia had put a bounty on U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, and that Trump had been informed months ago, yet took no action, raising renewed questions and concerns about his strange relationship with President Vladimir Putin.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-189/

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