The Covid Corner: President Trump is scheduled to speak today to the graduating class at West Point, which was brought back from coronavirus furlough at the president’s orders. All the cadets were put into a two-week quarantine leading to today.  Family and friends will not be allowed to attend. 

  Large gatherings are the nightmare of epidemiologists. The Centers for Disease Control predicts that the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States will reach somewhere between 124,000 and 140,000 by the Fourth of July. President Trump promised to make the US #1 in the world and it is. It’s #1 in virus deaths with 114,669 as of this morning.

  Hotspot states with rising cases are Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and North and South Carolina. States with falling cases are the former epicenters of New York and New Jersey.

  Around the world, twice as many countries have reported a rise in new cases over the past two weeks as have reported declines. Brazil is now second in the word with over 42,000 deaths followed by the UK with over 42,000 and Italy with more than 34,000 deaths.

  Despite the continuing global health crisis, the President and his lieutenants continue to dismiss the warnings of healthcare experts for the sake of restoring the economy. Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told “Fox & Friends,” “There is no emergency. There is no second wave. I don’t know where that got started on Wall Street.” 

Defund da Police: New York yesterday became the first state to take major steps to reign in the police after the killing of George Floyd, banning the use of choke holds and repealing a 50-year-old law that keeps police disciplinary records a secret. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a package of bills into law less than three weeks after the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police. 

  The City Council has also identified $1 billion in cuts from the $6 billion police budget, but Mayor Bill de Blasio quickly rejected the idea.  The mayor’s press secretary Freddi Goldstein said,  “The mayor has said we’re committed to reprioritizing funding and looking for savings, but he does not believe a $1 billion cut is the way to maintain safety.”

What Goes Up: The Dow Jones regained 477 points yesterday after losing 1,800 the day before. Whatever scared the hell out of investors on Thursday was less than a third as scary yesterday.

Bookbeat: President Donald Trump repeatedly endangered national security, and committed a series of potentially impeachable offenses, to boost his reelection prospects, former national security adviser John Bolton argues in a memoir soon to hit mail order.

  Despite what he claims to be damning information about the President’s conduct, Bolton refused to testify in the House impeachment proceedings. He’s getting slammed for trying to profit from knowledge he should have offered up for the sake of the country. 

Thought Fodder: In these strange and troubled times, journalist Matt Taibbi writes that, “Our president, Donald Trump, is a clown who makes a great reality-show villain but is uniquely toolless as the leader of a superpower nation.”

  Taibbi says, “On the other side of the political aisle, among self-described liberals, we’re watching an intellectual revolution. It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

 Taibbi says, “The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation.” 

Ad Weak: Television news, like all of television, is paid for with advertising and when advertisers don’t like what they see, they stop advertising. Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the man with the perpetually puppy-dog perplexed look on his face, has lost more advertisers this week after dumping on the Black Lives Matter movement.

  Papa John’s Pizza and T-Mobile cellphone say they’re done with Tucker. Carlson’s show is one of the most popular on cable, but some advertisers are embarrassed.

  Carlson said on air, “This may be a lot of things, this moment we’re living through, but it is definitely not about black lives. Remember that when they come for you, and at this rate, they will.” 

  To be charitable to Carlson, and being charitable to him is a charity in itself, what he meant was not clear. A lot of people took it to mean that he was telling his virtually all-white audience that, “Black people are coming for you.”

  It’s not the black people coming for Carlson, it’s the advertisers.

The Bulletin Board: The Trump administration yesterday eliminated the Obama era rule that protected trans-gender patients from discrimination in health care. What that means is that devout Christian healthcare workers don’t have to treat transgender people if they think it’s contrary to their religious beliefs. — President Trump is re-scheduling his Tulsa rally which was to be held on June 19^th,the date that is known as “Juneteenth” marking the day in 1865 when Texas was the last Confederate state informed of the Emancipation Proclamation. — The Starbucks coffee chain formerly banned “Black Lives Matter” t-shirts for employees and now they are making shirts with slogans on them. We’ll have a double half-cap with a shot of “Speak Up.”

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