Day: August 31, 2020

Amid America’s summer of protests against police brutality and racism, another police shooting of a Black man has gone viral: that of 29-year-old Kenosha, Wisconsin, resident Jacob Blake.

Blake survived the shooting. But his father told the Chicago Sun-Times his son is paralyzed from the waist down. Rusten Sheskey, a white officer who is a seven-year veteran of the Kenosha Police Department, reportedly shot Blake in the back at close range seven times on August 23. The shooting sparked local protests (during which a 17-year-old vigilante killed two people), reignited national unrest, prompted professional athletes to strike, and …

Cal Cunningham, the Democratic candidate in North Carolina’s US Senate race, pointed out that the US is capable of coming together for the national good — just not, apparently, on Covid-19.

“If it had been a terrorist attack, there would have been an address to the nation, probably to a joint session of Congress. There would not have been a hesitation to invoke things like the Defense Production Act,” Cunningham, a military veteran, told me in a phone interview. “There would have been clear communication from the top to every corner of America about how we fight that enemy. …

A federal appeals court’s 8-2 decision in In re: Michael T. Flynn, handed down Monday, affirms — over the objection of two right-wing judges — that the ordinary rules that apply to any other litigant also apply to President Trump’s former national security adviser. Michael Flynn, a former general who briefly served as Trump’s top national security aide, won’t be able to have criminal charges against him dropped before his case is heard by a federal trial judge.

It’s hardly an earth-shattering legal event. But the decision is significant because it unwinds a deeply radical opinion by one of …

Voters have their last chance to weigh in on one of the country’s most head-scratching primary races this Tuesday, September 1.

Last year, Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA), a four-term congressman and scion of one of the US’s most famous political families, announced that he would challenge sitting Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), who’s up for reelection this fall. What Kennedy has struggled to articulate since then, however, is why he’s doing so. Although he’s emphasized a commitment to the people of Massachusetts, and framed his candidacy as one advancing generational change, Kennedy’s bid has still left many confused.

“He has never …