The Weekly List

Things are getting worse in America, week by  week. This week, as the West Coast saw wildfires spread, with much of  California, Oregon, and Washington covered in smoke so thick the sun  couldn’t break through and the sky was a hazy gray or shade of yellow  and orange, Trump ignored it. Just as he skipped a commemorative  ceremony in lower Manhattan for the anniversary of 9/11 — as if the blue  states were not his responsibility — repeating a theme from the start  in office: leader of his supporters, not the country.

This week Trump was engulfed in a second major  scandal, as journalist Bob Woodward released tapes of conversations he  had with Trump on a variety of topics, including Trump admitting he knew  in early February that Covid-19 posed a dire risk — a fact he hid and  lied about for months. One historian described it as “the greatest  dereliction of duty” in presidential history.

This week reporting revealed the Trump regime’s  embrace of tactics more familiar to an authoritarian regime than a  democracy. Department of Health and Human Services officials sought to  hide information and alter reports on the extent of the Covid-19  outbreak, while a whistleblower complaint portrayed Department of  Homeland Security officials hiding intelligence on Russian interference,  and altering reports to blame left-leaning groups for violence. There  was more shocking news about the Justice Department intervening in a  case for Trump on a personal matter, while a top deputy of John Durham  resigned from his investigation of the investigators, citing pressure  from Attorney General William Barr to finalize a report before the  election. The Treasury Department sanctioned Andrii Derkach, described  as an active Russian agent, who had been a source of information for  both Rudy Giuliani and Senate Chairs Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley in  their investigations of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

America is a country at war with itself, with  Trump stoking division as a campaign strategy. The apocalyptic skies of  the West seemed to capture the dystopian feel of an exhausted, anxious,  fearful, downtrodden America. Having failed to truly tame the  coronavirus over the summer with no federal strategy and Trump refusing  to even encourage face masks, the country now heads into fall and  winter, with dire predictions on illness and death.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-200/

This week, with no discernible post-convention  bounce and the election two months away, Trump was frenzied. He started  the week with a storm of tweets, and then embarked on espousing a series  of bizarre conspiracy theories that made him appear mentally unfit to  lead, some of which were then backed in part by Attorney General William  Barr — our country’s chief law enforcement, who openly lied and  obfuscated in a television interview.

While continuing to attack the integrity of the  election, Trump encouraged his supporters, at campaign rallies in two  swing states and on Twitter, to vote twice, an illegal act. Notably,  reporting this week indicated the attack lines used by his campaign,  including disparaging the integrity of mail-in voting, nearly mirrored  those of Russian intelligence. The entire week felt not only chaotic,  but almost surreal given the bizarre conspiracies, lies, and calls for  both violence and illegal acts Trump openly floated.

The week closed with blockbuster reporting by the Atlantic on  Trump’s disparaging of members of the U.S. military, calling them  “losers” and “suckers” for the ultimate sacrifice. A story Trump denied,  but was confirmed by the Post, the AP and even Fox News. The story shook the nation, and Trump could not  shake its impact on his image as a pro-military strong man as the week  came to a close.

In between, this was the longest week so far, by  far. There are so many stories that needed focus, and got very little  or none. They are recorded here for posterity and to be undone when this  nightmare of an era is over. Notably also in the midst of the gravest  public health crisis in a century, Trump has managed to undermine the  trust in all our public health agencies, as we near 200,000 Americans  dead, with projections showing more than double that could die by  year-end in the pandemic.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-199/

This week, the Republican Party held its  convention — which was likened to a Trump convention — a four-day span  of shattered norms, and possibly multiple violations of the law. Gone  were names familiar to the Grand Old Party, replaced by Trump loyalists  and his family members. Republicans, for the first time 1856, didn’t  even produce a platform! Instead, the convention was akin to a reality  television show, starring Trump every night, full of lies,  misinformation, and an alternative reality in which the pandemic was  over.

As the election approaches, the Trump regime  continues to be increasingly brazen and lawless. This week, the regime  threatened a Post reporter by  telling him they were building a dossier on him and others, mail  continued to pile-up as Trump’s Postmaster General continued to  obfuscate, and by week’s end, the director of the Office of the Director  of National Intelligence said his agency would no longer brief Congress  in person on foreign interference.

Jacob Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times  in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, setting off protests, and  later killings by an armed militia member who came from out of state.  Disturbing videos from Kenosha, as well as Portland, Oregon, seemed to  show police officers in cahoots with far-right hate groups and armed  militants. Major league teams protested Blake’s shooting and systemic  racism by canceling games, while Trump stoked division and hate.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-198/

This was the longest weekly list, and it was  simply exhausting. The Democrats held a very successful first virtual  Democratic National Convention, while Trump spent the week advancing  lies and conspiracy theories about voting to undermine the election.  Polls continue to show he will lose by a wide margin.

In a break from tradition, both former First  Lady Michelle and President Barack Obama gave historic speeches, focused  on warning the American people that Trump is a danger to our democracy,  and is not capable of doing the job. The emotional speeches were a call  to action, from the former first family who had largely has given Trump  a chance to grow into the position. Barack in particular portrayed  Trump as a grave threat. Meanwhile, nominee Joe Biden gave what was  widely heralded as the best speech of his career, in a moving,  emotional, optimistic speech of unity, promising light, hope, and  competence.

This week, the U.S. Postal Service was front and  center, as Postmaster General Louis DeJoy faced public outcry for the  slowing mail, and Congressional hearings got underway. Trump tried to  gaslight, suggesting the slowing mail was, ironically, a conspiracy  theory by Democrats. This week a nearly 1,000 page shocking Senate  Intelligence Committee report was released, revealing a deep connection  between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 presidential  election.

Trump largely abandoned his so-called daily  coronavirus briefings, instead holding campaign rallies and some Q&A  sessions with the media. Dr. Deborah Birx has largely disappeared from  the public, as Trump switched to a radiologist who frequently appeared  on Fox News for advice and shares his point-of-view. College reopening,  like K-12 openings the week before, got off to a rocky start, with  outbreaks on several campuses — again a result of a patchwork strategy,  with inadequate testing and few guidelines.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-197/

This week, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe  Biden chose his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, the first Black and  Asian American vice presidential candidate. An oddly unprepared Trump  campaign and Republican Party reacted with a deluge of sexist and racist  attacks, including shameful accusations of “birtherism.” Trump also  threw his support behind a House candidate who espouses the QAnon  conspiracy theory and is openly racist, raising serious concerns again  about the future of the Republican Party.

This week, as polls continued to show Trump down  to Biden nationally and in key battleground states, and despite the  pandemic continuing to impact much of the country, Trump openly said he  would block needed funding for the U.S. Post Office in an effort to  thwart mail-in voting for the November election. An incredible  admission, but yet Republicans seemed largely unwilling to call him out,  or band with Democrats to protect this basic tenet not only of American  democracy, but of everyday life. As democracies around the world looked  on in horror at a stolen election in Belarus, Americans were left to  wonder if we were next — with Trump’s efforts to compromise the upcoming  election.

This was another week full of stories of  corruption, kleptocracy, and division, as an exhausted America, that  couldn’t even agree on a scientifically proven measure like wearing  masks, faced an uncertain election in 80 days. Even as tens of millions  of Americans were still without a weekly unemployment payment, Senate  Majority Leader Mitch McConnell adjourned the Senate until  mid-September, and Trump headed back to the golf course.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-196/

This week U.S. intelligence revealed Russia is  actively interfering in the 2020 presidential election, with a goal of  harming presumptive Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Democratic leaders  pressed NCSC Director William Evanina to inform the American people,  while Republicans, reminiscent of 2016, tried to obfuscate intelligence  by publicly claiming it was unclear Russia was helping Trump, and using  the whataboutism that other countries, China and Iran, were also  interfering.

This week Trump continued to push for schools to  reopen, falsely claiming on Fox News that children are “almost  immune” — a clip of which was then pulled by Twitter and Facebook over  it being false information on Covid-19. Schools that reopened however,  had a shaky start with unclear guidance and patchwork approach. Trump  also had another disastrous interview with Axios’s  Jonathan Swan, revealing a lack of basic knowledge about the pandemic,  and raising concerns about his mental acuity and competency.

This week with the virus spreading and Trump  regurgitating the same disinformation, tens of millions of unemployed  Americans were without an essential $600 weekly payment to help make  ends meet. Trump left town for a long weekend at his Bedminster club,  and Republican leaders also skipped town.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-195/

This week, for the first time, Trump publicly  floated the idea of delaying the November election, drawing swift  condemnation from Democrats and a mild rebuke from Republican  leadership. The co-founder of conservative Federalist Society said in an  op-ed that Trump should be removed if he tries to follow through.  Undeterred, Trump spent the week continuing to sow doubt about the  results of the “rigged” and “most fraudulent” upcoming election. His  U.S. Postal Service appointee meanwhile took steps to slow the flow of  mail ahead of the expected surge of mail-in and absentee ballots in less  than 100 days.

This week, the pace of coronavirus deaths  started to increase as the U.S. passed another grim milestone of 150,000  deaths, and while Trump outwardly suggested that large areas of the  country were “corona-free,” an internal White House document showed the  exact opposite: a virus spreading to new states and out of control.

Portland was front and center this week, as  Trump’s stormtroopers tear-gassed and shot non-lethal bullets in the  faces of largely peaceful protestors. Trump continued to invoke  decades-old racist tropes about suburbia in a failed effort to win over  white suburban voters, especially women, who largely disapproved of his  handling of the social unrest. By week’s end, Trump pulled out the  troops, leaving the city to peaceful protests and calm. Attorney General  William Barr finally testified in a cantankerous bad-and-forth with  Congressional Democrats, filled with disinformation and gaslighting.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-194/

This week, as the coronavirus raged out of  control, passing 4 million U.S. cases and 145,000 deaths, Trump  resurrected his daily coronavirus briefings — by himself, with no health  officials. He also sought to divert attention to Portland, Oregon,  where alarming images of unmarked federal law enforcement were seen  shoving and tear-gassing growing crowds of Black Lives Matter  protestors. Reporting indicated Trump has purposefully picked Portland  to create imagery and video content of a culture war, which he continues  to flame.

This week a series of stories came out about the  corruption of the Trump regime, but in the chaos, got little attention.  Reporting indicated Attorney General William Barr was behind Michael  Cohen being sent back to prison, and Barr’s rationale for pushing out  U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman was related to the Cohen investigation,  and Barr potentially outed a F.B.I. source on Russia. The Department of  Homeland Security was also under fire for admitting the agency had  provided false information to justify Trump retaliating against New  York.

Meanwhile, Trump was forced this week to retreat  on several issues, as his poll numbers continued their plummet, and  even some Republicans turned on him or refused to do his bidding. Trump  abruptly canceled the Republican National Convention, amid his already  imperiled re-election campaign.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-193/

This week, as the coronavirus raged out of  control in many states, Trump sought to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci,  with several members of the regime publicly attacking Fauci’s  credibility. Reporting indicated Trump had lost interest in the  pandemic, with an adviser telling the Post,  Trump’s “not really working this anymore. He doesn’t want to be  distracted by it” — as the country hit a daily record 77,000 new cases.

As Trump continued his fall in the polls, he  fired his campaign manager, but stuck with his strategy of us vs. them:  this week repeatedly invoking the white “suburbs” and stoking  not-so-well disguised racist tropes of integration. He turned a Rose  Garden speech meant to address deregulation into a bizarre, meandering,  hour-long campaign speech — drawing ire from even Fox News.

In new tests of authoritarian boundaries, Trump  sent federal law enforcement to Portland, Oregon — uninvited and  unwelcome — to quell protests. In what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi  described as “unidentified stormtroopers” and “Trump’s secret police,”  law enforcement in unmarked cars were seen grabbing protestors off the  streets and whisking them away. Trump also sought to hide the extent of  the pandemic, by ordering hospitalization data to be sent to Washington  rather than the CDC, and threatening to block funding for testing in the  upcoming coronavirus relief bill.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-192/

This week, the pandemic continued to worsen,  with many states seeing new highs and the death toll starting to rise.  By week’s end, the U.S. registered an unthinkable nearly 70,000 new  daily coronavirus cases. Amid the surge, issues that plagued the April  wave of cases in New York and elsewhere, like shortages of PPE and  testing, reappeared, making it clear the federal government had done  nothing to address or plan for a new surge. Trump continued to deny the  severity of the virus, falsely claiming “99 percent of [cases] are  totally harmless,” and then pushing for schools to reopen.

This week Trump lost a landmark case, with the  Supreme Court ruling 7-2 that Trump cannot keep his tax returns and  financial records from the Manhattan U.S. Attorney; however, the ruling  would likely mean the public will not see the documents ahead of the  election. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman retired from the Army, citing  bullying by Trump after he testified in the impeachment inquiry. Days  later, Trump commuted Roger Stone’s sentence days before his former  associate was set to serve 40 months in prison. Republican Sen. Mitt  Romney called the commuting of Stone’s sentence “unprecedented, historic  corruption,” but he was — as would be typical — the lone GOP voice to  criticize Trump, as an exhausted, outraged country had dejectedly grown  accustomed and normalized to such lawlessness from our budding  authoritarian leader.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-191/