Burning: The death toll in California wildfires has reached 19 with thousands of homes and structures destroyed and more than 3.1 million acres burned. At least 19 more people are reported missing, but that’s not unusual in the chaos of mass evacuations.

  Gov. Gavin Newsom blames climate change for the severity of the fires. “This is a climate damn emergency,” he said. “This is real and it’s happening.”

  Six of the 20 largest fires on record in California have all occurred this year.  “People that want to roll back vehicle emission standards so you could spend more money at the pump and produce more greenhouse gas emissions, to create more of what you see around me — it’s beyond the pale of comprehension,” Newsom said. “We’re fighting against that and will prevail as long as more people come to this cause.”

  Dozens of people are reported missing also in Oregon, where at least four have been killed. The state’s emergency management director, Andrew Phelps, said officials are “preparing for a mass fatality event.”

Viral News: A reporter for The New York Times was kicked out of a Trump political rally in Freeland, Michigan, yesterday after posting on Twitter that few of  the crowd of supporters were wearing masks or keeping social distance despite the coronavirus pandemic. 

  Kathy Gray later posted, ““First for me: Trump campaign tracked me down from pics I tweeted and escorted me out.”

  Despite the US having the most cases and fatalities of any country in the world, Trump told his adoring and believing crowd, “You see how good we’re doing relative to other countries and other parts of the world, but the fake news doesn’t like saying that. They don’t like telling you that.”

  Another 1,214 Americans died of the virus in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 193,016. The US is well on track to have 200,000 or more deaths by the end of the month. 

Campaign of Fear: Donald Trump continued his re-election campaign of fabrications and fear to Freeland yesterday.

  Some samples of what he said: 

•  “If Biden wins, China wins. If Biden wins, the mob wins. If Biden wins, the rioters, anarchist, arsonist and flag burners win.”

• “First time in a long time, but now we’re up in the polls. We just saw polls. We’re up in Michigan.”

• “Not only does Joe Biden want to eliminate your jobs, he wants to eliminate your borders. He’s promised to flood your state with refugees.” 

• “Biden is waging war against the American middle class.

• “Michigan will decide whether we will quickly return to record prosperity, or whether we’ll allow Sleepy Joe to impose $4 trillion in tax hikes, ban American energy, confiscate your guns, shut down the economy, and tell your governor to open up your state.”

• They want to erase your borders and indoctrinate your children with poisonous anti-American lies in our schools. Not going to happen. Not going to happen. 

Voted Out: A federal appeals court ruled that hundreds of thousands of Florida felons who still owe fines and fees may not register to vote, making it unlikely that they will be able to vote in the November presidential election.

  Florida voters decided in 2018 to restore voting rights to felons. But the US Court of Appeals in Atlanta agreed with the state’s Republican  Gov. Ron DeSantis that the payment of fines and fees by ex-felons is part of their “terms of sentence” to be satisfied by law before they can vote.

  The felon voting law affects 1.4 million Floridians, the majority of whom are expected to tilt Democratic if they vote. 

Blood and Sand:  Israel and Bahrain have agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations, the second time in a month that Israel has done so with a former Arab enemy.

  Making the announcement President Trump said, “The sand was loaded up with blood and now you’re going to see that a lot of that sand is going to be loaded up with peace.”

Medal of Honor: President Trump yesterday awarded the Medal of Honor to Army Sgt. Major Thomas Payne, 36, a member of the Delta Force credited with being instrumental in the rescue of 70 hostages held by the Taliban in October 2015. Payne is described as having braved gunfire and suicide bombers to make sure every hostage got out.  

The Obit Page: Toots Hibbert, one of the founders of Reggae music and the voice of Toots and the Maytals, has died at age 77 in Kingston, Jamaica. Not quite as famous as Bob Marley, Toots was one of the best with his hits “Pressure Drop,” “Monkey Man” and “Sweet and Dandy.”

Drink Up: Despite having the third highest number of coronavirus cases in the country, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that bars will be allowed to reopen on Monday.