Calling it What it Is: Amidst a fiery debate yesterday about whether members of Congress are allowed by the rules to call the President racist, House Democrats yesterday voted to condemn President Trump’s recent declarations about four House members as racist.

  “I know racism when I see it, I know racism when I feel it, and at the highest level of government, there’s no room for racism,” said  Georgia Democrat John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights era.

  President Trump had said that four non-white female House freshmen who are at odds with their leadership, only one of whom is a naturalized citizen, should go back to the countries they came from.

  He wasn’t backing down this morning. The President tweeted, “In America, if you hate our Country, you are free to leave. The simple fact of the matter is, the four Congresswomen think that America is wicked in its origins, they think that America is even more wicked now, that we are all racist and evil.”

  He conflates criticism with hatred.The House resolution describes Trump’s pronouncements as  “racist comments that have legitimized increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.”

  “Every single member of this institution, Democratic and Republican, should join us in condemning the president’s racist tweets,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said during the debate. But the vote was 240 to 187 with only four Republicans and one independent voting with the Democrats. Basically the entire Republican wing of the House refused to condemn Trump’s racism. 

 President Trump, who was once sued by the federal government for banning black people from renting his apartments, tweeted that, “Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body!”

  Late night host Stephen Colbert said, “Trump spent all day having his friends tell everyone how not racist he is. You know, like nonracists do.”

Can’t Breathe:Under the orders of Attorney Gen. William Barr, the Justice Department yesterday dropped the case against a New York City police officer who choked to death a man named Eric Garner who had been illegally selling cigarettes on the street.

  Five years ago bystanders filmed the arrest on their cellphones as 

Off. Daniel Pantale put Garner in a choke hold and he gasped, “I can’t breathe.” Garner’s dying words became a slogan in the Black Lives Matter movement.

  The United States Attorney in Brooklyn, Richard Donoghue, said “the evidence does not support charging Police Officer Pantaleo with a federal civil rights violation.” Pantaleo is still a police officer.

Heat Wave:A massive heat wave is settling in over the eastern two-thirds of the country, bringing temperatures that could hit 100 in some areas. Cities including Chicago, St. Louis, Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Nashville, and Kansas City, Mo., are likely to have at least three days with temperatures between 95 and 100 degrees.

The Obit Page:Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who was appointed by Gerald Ford when he was a conservative fighter against antitrust laws and became one of the leading liberal voices on the Court, has died at age 99.

  When he retired in 2010, Stevens was the court’s second-oldest and second-longest-serving justice. 

  It took a long time, but over the course of his tenure Stevens drifted from conservative to liberal on such matters as civil rights and affirmative action in college admissions and the awarding of federal contracts. He came out against the death penalty.

 Explaining his changing views, Stevens merely said he learned on the job.

  Former NY Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse said Stevens retired in disappointment with the court after the infamous “Citizens United” case that gave corporations unlimited financial influence on elections under the protection of the First Amendment.

Where There’s Smoke:A story in The NY Timesdetails how close Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris came to being a complete loss. Fire and security employees originally went to the wrong building when the alarm went off. When someone finally climbed the 300 stairs to the attic, the maze of ancient wood beams known as “the forest” was fully involved in fire. 

  The first hour after the alarm was lost and in the second hour firefighters were beaten back by the flames.

  The Timesreports that, “Finally, a small group of firefighters was sent directly into the flames, as a last, desperate effort to save the cathedral.”

  The paper quotes Ariel Weil, the mayor of the city’s Fourth Arrondissement, saying,  “There was a feeling that there was something bigger than life at stake and that Notre-Dame could be lost.

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