A federal judge just ruled that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers are prohibited, “from arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force” against journalists and legal observers in cities like Portland, Oregon. The ruling was in response to an ACLU lawsuit and the organization’s interim executive director Jann Carson celebrated it as a victory saying, “Federal agents from Trump’s Departments of Homeland Security and Justice are terrorizing the community, threatening lives, and relentlessly attacking journalists and legal observers documenting protests.” Early Friday morning DHS officers once more fired tear gas at protesters in the downtown area of the city and Reuters explained that, “Journalists were clearly identifiable in the crowd” being targeted. Now, as officers are also being deployed to Kansas City, Missouri, Chicago, Illinois, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, in what the White House has dubbed “Operation Legend,” Attorney General William Barr erroneously claimed that the FBI had already arrested 200 people in Kansas City, as justification for more officers. The Inspectors General of the Justice Department and Homeland Security have announced an investigation into the officers’ use of force, their arrests, and how they have conducted themselves. Even the United Nations has warned against abuses. 

The protests in Portland that federal officers are targeting, have centered around police brutality. Now, the state where this chapter of American protest began in May—Minnesota—has adopted a broad set of reforms intended to prevent killings at the hands of police. Gov. Tim Walz signed the Minnesota Police Accountability Act on Thursday banning chokeholds like the one that Officer Derek Chauvin used to kill George Floyd. It also requires officers to report their colleagues that they witness breaking the law. Gov. Walz assured protesters, “This is only a beginning.” Meanwhile an investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has found a shocking use of excessive force in Alabama state prisons. The 30-page document concluded that corrections officers, “use force as a form of retribution and for the sole purpose of inflicting pain.”

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot ordered the removal of a Christopher Columbus statue from a downtown park early Friday after protesters tried to topple it. School board members in Springfield, Virginia just renamed Robert E.

FEATURING JOSH BIVENS – With the number of Covid-19 infections and deaths rising precipitously over the past few weeks, it is no surprise that Thursday’s Labor Department data showed the number of unemployment benefit seekers also increasing. About 1.4 million Americans filed for jobless benefits last week even as the $600 a week of Covid-related relief is set to expire in days. Senate Republicans and the White House appear to be unprepared and disorganized as ideas are being tossed around, rejected, raised in piece-meal fashion, and rejected again.

Josh Bivens, director of  research at the Economic Policy Institute. He has regularly testified before the U.S. Congress on fiscal and monetary policy, the economic impact of regulations, and other issues. He is the author of numerous books including Failure by Design: The Story behind America’s Broken Economy.

FEATURING MICHAEL A. OLIVAS – The US Supreme Court in June 2020 voted against the Trump Administration’s cancelation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The 5-4 ruling had a typical liberal to conservative split with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the deciding vote in joining with the 4 liberal justices. The ruling impacts the fate of about 650,000 undocumented immigrants who obtained a deferment of deportation after meeting stringent criteria, and who have been able to work in the US legally. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her opinion that “an executive decision [to cancel DACA] disproportionately harms the same racial group that the President branded as less desirable mere months earlier.”

How the DACA program came about, what became of the original DREAM Act that it was based on, and what the grassroots movement for dignity was all about is told in a new history book about the so-called “Dreamers” movement. 

Michael A. Olivas, the William B. Bates Distinguished Chair in Law at the University of Houston and author of sixteen books including No Undocumented Child Left Behind, Suing Alma Mater, and more. His newest book is called Perchance to Dream: A Legal and Political History of the DREAM Act and DACA.

The US Labor Department released its latest figures showing that 1.4 million people filed for unemployment benefits last week, marking a turnaround in the downward trend. For the first time in months, more people applied for the benefits than the week before signaling that the pandemic-related economic collapse is not close to ending. The Labor Department also announced that an additional 975,000 people filed for benefits from a federal emergency program intended to help freelancers, gig workers and part-time workers who have lost income. The news adds urgency to Congress’ main task this week: to extend existing unemployment benefits before they officially expire on July 30th. Currently out-of-work Americans have been eligible for up to $600 a week in benefits but Republicans have said they want to cut that down to a mere $100 a week. In a victory for proponents of a strong social safety net, the GOP on Thursday reportedly backed down on their demand to include a payroll tax cut into the bill. President Donald Trump had insisted on pushing a payroll tax cuts, which directly impacts Social Security and Medicare even though he has publicly insisted to his base that he would never cut those. Lawmakers are so disorganized over unveiling a comprehensive bill that the Washington Post described it saying, “the entire effort appeared to teeter chaotically on the brink of failure.”

Alongside jobless Americans waiting for Congress to do its job are small business owners—or at least those whose businesses have managed to survive the first 4 months of the pandemic. As infections and deaths continue to rise and states and cities shut down businesses, small business owners according to the Wall Street Journal are, “facing make-or-break challenges. Many may not last.” According to a new report by the online review company Yelp, the number of businesses that have permanently closed down now outnumber those that remain open. The report concludes that if a business has remained shut down it will likely never reopen.

Reports of the negotiations between the White House and Senate indicate that the GOP is unhappy about Trump’s idea to withhold federal funding from schools wanting to continue online instruction in the fall. The White House has now reportedly agreed to include $105 billion in Covid-related relief to schools. During his coronavirus task force press briefing which now only includes features him alone, Trump said he had no problem with his own children or grandchildren going to school in person in the fall. He also claimed he had a “national strategy” for reopening schools but failed to give any details. Trump’s

FEATURING CHRIS PATTERSON – After Portland, Oregon became the first test case of the limits to which Donald Trump is exercising his executive power, Chicago, Illinois appears to be the second test case for the deployment of federal officers. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has already denounced the idea. 

The US Department of Homeland Security is planning on sending 150 of its officers to Chicago to battle what Trump has claimed is rising violence amid anti-police protests. 

Chicago is a favorite target of rightwing media for its high levels of gun violence and this week 15 people were shot in a drive-by shooting outside a funeral home. If Chicago needs help with violence, ostensibly, gun violence would be the main issue. But it is not clear how armed federal officers would even address it. 

One organization in the city that has taken what it calls a “hyper local” “Kingian” response to violence is the Institute for Nonviolence. 

Chris Patterson, Senior Director of Program and Policy at the Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.

FEATURING ERIC CERVINI – Franklin Kameny was an American astronomer working for the US Army in the 1950s and fired for being gay. A full decade before the Stonewall Riots in New York ostensibly gave birth to the modern gay rights movement, Mr. Kameny led the charge for dignity and rights for LGBTQ Americans. 

Now, a young historian has written a biography of Kameny called The Deviant’s War, that casts a much-needed light on a figure who ought to be a household name. 

Eric Cervini, award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ culture and politics. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar. The Deviant’s War is his first book.

President Donald Trump during his first coronavirus task force briefing in months, admitted that the pandemic would get worse before it gets better. Appearing by himself and without any of the usual experts he had stood with in April, Trump read from pre-written remarks that the spread of the virus will, “probably, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better…Something I don’t like saying about things, but that’s the way it is.” The words were in stark contrast to his often-repeated claim that the virus would “simply disappear.” Trump repeated several other false claims saying that the US has done much better than most countries on the virus response and has also had a higher testing rate. He said, “our case fatality rate has continued to decline,” at the same time as the US daily death toll from Covid-19 this week surpassed 1,000 – the highest it has been since May. During Tuesday’s briefing Trump also reversed his position on mask-wearing saying, “We’re asking everybody that when you are not able to socially distance, wear a mask…Get a mask, whether you like the mask or not, they have an impact. They’ll have an effect, and we need everything we can get.” In April Trump had mocked a reporter wearing a face mask as, “politically correct,” and had said, “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it…Wearing a face mask as I greet presidents, prime ministers, dictators, kings, queens — I just don’t see it.” 

With more than 80,000 Americans dead from the virus, Peter Gaynor the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency testified in front of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday about the federal government’s response to the Covid crisis. Responding to questions about the availability of Personal Protective Equipment, Gaynor said this. Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein and Congressman Adam Schiff wrote a joint op-ed in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday making the case for a 9/11 commission style inquiry into the federal government’s mishandling of the virus. Feinstein and Schiff want a bi-partisan commission with open hearings. 

Within the hardest-hit states the virus continues to wreak havoc as Texas hospitals say they are overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients. Federal inmates in Texas have also been hit hard with one women’s facility recording 500 positive infections. California, the nation’s most populous state is also struggling as thousands of inmates have been infected. The spread of the disease among inmates is being attributed to prisoner transfers between facilities.

FEATURING THENMOZHI SOUNDARARAJAN – The state of California this month launched an anti-discrimination lawsuit that might be the first of its kind in the US. Aimed at the tech company Cisco Systems, the lawsuit accuses the firm of caste-discrimination among its Indian employees. While India’s caste system is rarely visible in the US, in truth the majority of Indians emigrating are among the highest castes in their home country. 

Highlighting how caste is in fact an American issue is the new popular Netflix show Indian Matchmaking, that features several Indian Americans households looking for suitors for their adult children that preserves caste and class, aspires for lighter skin and a preservation of patriarchy.

Read Thenmozhi’s recent op-ed in the Washington Post called ‘A new lawsuit shines a light on caste discrimination in the U.S. and around the world,’ HERE.

Thenmozhi Soundararajan, a Dalit American artist and activist, and the founder and executive director of Equality Labs, a Dalit civil rights organization.

FEATURING DAVID FARIS – There are currently about 47 million 18-to-29 year olds in the US who are eligible to vote in November’s general election. Of those, 15 million turned 18 since the 2016 election. For Republicans these numbers spell doom given that young voters are trending to the left and likely to pick the liberal party over the conservative one. 

According to my guest David Faris in his new book, The Kids Are All Left, “The basic dynamic [ahead of November] is a Republican Party increasingly dominated by and aligned with a dying white demographic and a Democratic Party that is not exactly beloved but is grudgingly supported come election time by overwhelming majorities of young people who haven’t yet voted in numbers sufficient enough to make anyone take notice.”

David Faris, is the author of It’s Time To Fight Dirty and Dissent and Revolution in a Digital Age. He is a regular contributor to The Week and an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University in Chicago. His latest book is called The Kids Are All Left: How Young Voters Will Unite America.

Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell unveiled some details of the next Congressional coronavirus relief bill on Tuesday morning that includes a second set of stimulus checks for Americans households and an extension of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). He did not reveal much more, but if some of his recent speeches in his home state of Kentucky are any indication, there will likely be an income limit of $40,000 a year for recipients of stimulus checks. Only a few weeks ago Republican lawmakers appeared completely unwilling to consider more financial relief for Americans struggling with the economic impacts of the pandemic. What McConnell did not say, but what news outlets are reporting, is that the bill will likely also include, “a payroll tax cut, very little aid to state and local governments, and measures tying school funding to the reopening of classrooms.” Democrats have already signaled strong opposition to these aspects of the bill and they may find some Republicans on their side too. 

While the bill appears to include blanket payments to those making $40,000 or less, a new poll shows that the economic impacts of the virus are affecting Americans differently depending on their demographic. According to the latest Covid Response Tracking Study by NORC at the University of Chicago, “For some, the virus has meant lost income or struggles to pay bills on time — particularly among Hispanic, Black and younger Americans. Others, most notably college-educated and older Americans, have transitioned to working from home or have experienced the nation’s economic decline through a dip in the value of their investments.” In Oklahoma, the lines of people waiting to file unemployment benefits are so long, they are making headlines. Many jobless Oklahomans are camping out the night before or sleeping in their cars while they wait for appointment tickets that are handed out in the morning. Oklahoma is one of the nation’s poorest states and currently has a whopping 14.7% unemployment rate. But so far Senate Republicans seem to have no plan to extend the $600-a-week in jobless benefits that kept millions of Americans afloat, despite the fact that economists are warning of financial disaster if the program is allowed to expire. Corporate America continues to receive windfalls however as a little noticed headline in the Wall Street Journal showed that those companies making profits in high-tax nations abroad will get some of the tax relief they asked for from the Treasury.

In other news, President Donald Trump has threatened to send more federal officers to more Democratic-run cities including 150 agents heading to Chicago. Trump’s test case in Portland, Oregon, where hundreds of federal officers aggressively clamped down on protesters received widespread condemnation.