Stranger Than Fiction

A brief daily note on things you might find interesting or useful

August 26, 2020

You can support the newsletter that you’re reading right now using PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, or purchase a subscription on Substack.Don’t forget to join us in the Stranger Slack for access to source documents and a running feed of news throughout the day. (this link was broken for awhile and has now been fixed)TOP NEWS

  • Hurricane Laura Bears Down on Texas and Louisiana, Forecast to Grow “The hurricane, a Category 1 storm with 80 mile-an-hour winds as of Tuesday evening, is forecast to unleash a storm surge as high as 13 feet, causing life-threatening flooding, according to the National Hurricane Center. Officials in Texas and Louisiana issued mandatory evacuation orders in a dozen coastal cities and counties and voluntary evacuation orders in numerous others.”

  • Two Dead in Kenosha Shooting, Police Say “Police said they were investigating the fatal shooting of two people and the wounding of another after a third night of protests over a shooting by police that brought armed citizens into the streets.”

  • Anti-government activist Ammon Bundy arrested after maskless protesters storm Idaho capitol “The gallery had been cordoned off, Rubel said, to allow state lawmakers to remain socially distanced rather than have members gather in large groups on the House floor. But now the protesters had broken down the gallery door, ripped up signs and pulled down the rope that was meant to reserve distanced seats for legislators.”

  • Canceled GOP convention speaker had promoted anti-Semitic tweet “Mary Ann Mendoza, who is on the Women for Trump campaign board, encouraged her Twitter followers to read a QAnon believer’s conspiracy theory.”

  • Cities, states fear they may lose critical FEMA dollars for virus response “Government leaders expressed fresh fears that the Trump administration may stop reimbursing some of their purchases of masks, gloves and other personal protective equipment. In calls throughout August, FEMA signaled that it may soon seek to rethink the criteria by which it doles out those dollars.”

WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO

THE COMMENT

“Just as Trump used “The Apprentice” franchise to burnish his image as a hard-nosed businessman, he and his team used some of the functions and trappings of his office to recast him as a man of compassion, instead of a callous jailer of children or a TV addict who spends all day tossing racist bombs on Twitter. Issuing a full pardon and conducting a naturalization ceremony in the White House might have been effective stunts if Trump was merely playing the president on a television drama. As an effort to spin his record, which ranges from warning White suburban women that Black criminals are coming for them to trying to lie away a pandemic that has killed more than 170,000 Americans, it was grotesque.” - Alyssa Rosenberg

THE STRANGEST

THE AV ROOM