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Stranger Than Fiction
A brief daily note of things you might find interesting or useful
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TOP NEWS
Derek Chauvin and three other ex-officers face new charges in George Floyd’s killing. “Minnesota’s attorney general added an upgraded charge of second-degree murder against one former police officer and charged three others in the death of George Floyd, in a fast-moving investigation of the killing that has sparked nationwide protests.” - WSJ
These are not the 1992 riots. “The new unrest has been more organized, more peaceful, and largely centered in the city’s wealthier areas, as well as downtown, where the government of America’s second-most-populous city is based” - WSJ
The number of new COVID-19 cases is growing faster than ever worldwide, with more than 100,000 reported each day. “Twice as many countries have reported a rise in new cases over the past two weeks as have reported declines, according to a New York Times database. On May 30, more new cases were reported in a single day worldwide than ever before: 134,064. The increase has been driven by emerging hot spots in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.” - NYTimes
Pentagon chief balks at Trump’s call for active-duty military force on U.S. citizens, and former Defense secretary Mattis rips president. “Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper distanced himself from President Trump on Wednesday, saying the use of active-duty forces to quash unrest across the nation is unnecessary at this stage, hours before his predecessor, Jim Mattis, excoriated the president for working to divide the country.” - WaPo
WHAT I’M READING + WATCHING + LISTENING TO
When D.C. resident Rahul Dubey saw protesters cornered by police, facing pepper spray and arrest for violating curfew, he did what he says anyone else would do: He invited about 70 strangers to take shelter in his home overnight.
When did you first realize race mattered and would be used to judge you?
THE COMMENT
“You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” - John Ehrlichman, Richard Nixon’s domestic policy advisor and Watergate co-conspirator
THE STRANGEST
THE AV ROOM