Stranger Than Fiction

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

June 29, 2020

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  • U.S. Coronavirus Cases Surge Amid Strains on Hospitals “Cases of COVID-19 continued to surge over the weekend in the U.S., while parts of the country pulled back reopenings and some faced strains on hospital and testing capacity.” - WSJ

  • Covid-19 Drug Remdesivir to Cost $3,120 for Typical Patient on Private Insurance “Gilead Sciences disclosed its pricing plans as it prepares to begin charging for the Covid-19 drug remdesivir in July. The U.S. has been distributing remdesivir donated by Gilead since the drug was authorized for emergency use in May.” - WSJ

  • Russian bounties to Taliban-linked militants resulted in deaths of U.S. troops, intelligence assessments say “The disturbing intelligence — which the CIA was tasked with reviewing, and later confirmed — emerged from U.S. military interrogations in recent months. The issue has generated disagreement within the Trump administration about how to confront the Russians.” - WaPo

  • Pence urges mask-wearing as cases soar ““It’s a good time to steer clear of senior citizens and to practice the kind of measures that will keep our most vulnerable safe,” Vice President Pence said at an event in Dallas.” - WaPo

  • The legislature in Mississippi, the last state with the Confederate battle emblem on its flag, voted by a wide margin Sunday to change the state’s flag after 126 years

WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO

THE COMMENT

“Far from adjusting to different times, Trump is betting — as he did in 2016 and as the tea party did in the Obama years — that the leftover right-wing slogans from the 1960s (see: “LAW AND ORDER!”) and a defense of Confederate “heritage” will win him the overwhelming majorities among older white voters that he needs to carry battleground states. But this isn’t working, and not only because former vice president Joe Biden is an older white guy who is rather hard to tar as an agent of the revolutionary left. It’s also failing because many older voters are petrified of what Trump’s astonishingly inept handling of the coronavirus pandemic means for their health and their very lives. But more importantly for the long run, the 2020 electorate is not the electorate of the tea party wave, or even of 2016. The new generations that Obama realignment enthusiasts acclaimed 12 years ago are, at long last, the dominant groups in the electorate.” - E.J. Dionne Jr.

THE STRANGEST

THE AV ROOM