WTF Just Happened Today

Monday, August 17, 2020

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• ???? Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”

• Global: Total confirmed cases: ~21,767,000; deaths: ~777,000

• U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~5,423,000; deaths: ~171,000

• Source: Johns Hopkins University

• ???? How To Vote In The 2020 Election. A state-by-state guide to everything you need to know about mail-in and early in-person voting in the age of COVID-19, including the first day you can cast your ballot in the 2020 election. (FiveThirtyEight / NBC News)

• ???? Democratic Convention. This year’s Democratic National Convention, which was originally set to take place in Milwaukee, will instead be held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. The convention kicks-off today and will run through Thursday. Tonight’s theme, “We the People,” starts at 9 p.m. Eastern and will feature Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders, as well as other party leaders. Watch live on DemConvention.com, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Twitch, Amazon Prime Video, Microsoft Bing, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Roku TV – or via broadcast television. (Bloomberg / NBC News / CNN / Wall Street Journal)

1/ Nancy Pelosi recalled the House from summer recess to vote on legislation to block changes at the Postal Service that could disenfranchise voters who use mail-in ballots. The House was not scheduled to return until Sept. 14, but will vote Saturday on a $25 billion bill to fund the Postal Service and “prohibit the Postal Service from dialing back levels of service it had in place” on Jan. 1 until the pandemic ends. The Postal Service is expected to receive as many as 80 million mail-in ballots cast by Americans who are worried about voting in-person because of the coronavirus. Trump, meanwhile, attacked the Postal Service, declaring that the agency “has been failing for many decades” and asserting that Democrats “don’t have a clue.” (New York Times / Washington Post / Politico / Axios / CNBC / Bloomberg / Wall Street Journal)

• [Analysis] Tracing Trump’s Postal Service obsession, from “loser” to “scam” to “rigged election.” (Washington Post)

• [Context] Post...

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