The Morning Dispatch: A Botched Friday Night Massacre

Plus, Trump holds his rally in Tulsa.

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343

Happy Monday! And welcome to all our new Dad readers. Your children have excellent taste in Father’s Day gifts.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

  • As of Sunday night, 2,279,875 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in the United States (an increase of 25,213 from yesterday) and 119,969 deaths have been attributed to the virus (an increase of 250 from yesterday), according to the Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 Dashboard, leading to a mortality rate among confirmed cases of 5.3 percent (the true mortality rate is likely much lower, between 0.4 percent and 1.4 percent, but it’s impossible to determine precisely due to incomplete testing regimens). Of 27,084,900 coronavirus tests conducted in the United States (518,347 conducted since yesterday), 8.4 percent have come back positive.

  • Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, agreed to step down from his post on Saturday. Attorney General William Barr had announced Berman’s resignation on Friday night, but Berman put out his own statement denying he had resigned and implying that Barr lacked the authority to fire him.

  • U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth rejected the Trump administration’s last-ditch attempt to block the release of John Bolton’s new book, The Room Where it Happened, but concluded that Trump’s former national security adviser “gambled with the national security of the United States.” “While Bolton’s unilateral conduct raises grave national security concerns, the government has not established that an injunction is an appropriate remedy,” Lamberth wrote. The book is set for national release on Tuesday.

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  1. Avatar photo
    C C Writer

    The only TV news show I watch is Special Report, and I fast-forward through parts of it. I stop for pieces of news that don't involve the current administration (because I don't want their faces or sound bites in my head) or politics per se, and also for the panel if it includes someone whose comments I think would be worth listening to.

    Every morning I listen to a local radio station and get the latest news at the top and bottom of the hour.

    Also, I subscribe to my major metropolitan daily. On paper. 7 days. And I read most of it. It's easlier to read when stuff isn't jumping up in your face. I was reading the Mon-Sat version electronically, but it got too glitchy and wouldn't open most of the time (may have had something to do with the ad blocker, shouldn't have popups when I am paying for it!) and I just said, the heck with it, what's the price, fine, let's go back to 100% home delivery. Some of the news in this paper seems a little bit "spun" by the younger generation of journalists, but I can figure out what parts to discount, and the editorial board includes some folks I consider really, really solid, and this shows up in their respective columns and on the editorial page.

    And I also subscribe (as in pay money to every month) to a hyper-local news website, with reporters on the ground covering my neighborhood. They come up with stuff affecting my life and my community that I might not otherwise have known, and they actually stimulate the major daily not to neglect that beat.

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    1. Avatar photo
      C C Writer

      Another P.S.: I used to listen to two different local conservative-friendly radio stations. But they both got infected with Trumpism and became tiresome. The station I listen to now tries to stay neutral and keep the focus off national politics, and I hopped on board when they got rid of a morning man I considered unlistenable, and replaced him with someone I have always liked.

      I am looking forward to seeing what WGN America does with their new cable news channel to debut in September. If only my cable system would carry it--or maybe I will manage to cut the cord and go streaming by then (as I may have mentioned, I need to purchase new hardware).

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    2. Avatar photo
      C C Writer

      P.S. I like the Wall Street Journal, but it is way overpriced. When they tightened up their firewall I tried the introductory offer. But the regular price was just way, way too high, and they play games with you, which I do not appreciate. There is content that I really miss, but I won't give in to a pricing structure that is so out of whack. I think they need to preserve their exclusive demographics to sell advertising. I used to watch their TV show but I fell out of the habit after I detected that some of them had come down with the Trump virus. Watching video just takes too much of my time to be worth it if it is too much of a mixed bag to slog through.

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  2. Avatar photo
    Theirn Scott

    TV: Bloomberg is on most of the time (M-F) and catches most breaking news. I record MSNBC MTP Daily and FNC Special Report along with all the Sunday morning programs. I also record C-SPAN's Washington Journal and review for interesting guests.

    Newspaper websites: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    Other Websites: (besides TheDispatch.com) Real Clear Politics, Confessions of a Political Junkie (Erick Erickson), FiveThirtyEight

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    1. Avatar photo
      Theirn Scott

      I forgot I still subscribe to National Review and recently added The Atlantic.

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  3. ROBERT

    If it's not too late, I'll add my comments.
    3 other websites daily: National Review, Reason, and CNN.
    Yes I know, CNN is not news anymore. In politics certainly. But it's where I started years ago and I still go there just to scan for non-political articles. Events from around the country- say a unique crime case, storm, etc. I bypass the politics. But I have to get non-political info somewhere.
    I also subscribe to Bernie Goldberg's site - although I only read him and John Daly.
    Occasionally I'll look at Slate just to check the view from the other side. They still have a few good writers. I sure miss Reihem Salam.
    I spend the most amount of time listening to the various Dispatch podcasts during my daily driving commute.
    Looking at the list, perhaps I'm too heavy on the political. But 2020 is a very strange time.

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  4. deathtomcmansions

    Print: Local regional paper, Reason Magazine, Military Officer, Vanity Fair (I like their deeper dives and Graydon Carter's editorials before he stepped down. The delicious dissing of the adult spawn of Trump is worth it just for that!), 2 or 3 lifestyle mags
    TV: rarely other than local news for weather and local doings, and not regularly. If my husband is watching a show and it interests me, I will, but almost never turn on of own volition. Sometimes Stephen Colbert's monologue.
    Digital: Jonathan Turley's legal blog, heterodox academy (wish they had new content more regularly), Science Based Medicine, Respectful Insolence, Reason online, sciencemag.com, just joined The Dispatch, have been reading for a few weeks. The Bulwark, recommended by a college classmate at Cato Institute, which linked an article to you -- which is how I found you. France24.com, The Federalist (yecch...but I think there's merit in keeping an eye on that ilk) which once in a great while has some worthwhile nuggets, mostly not political matters. And Vanity Fair online. Read pretty much in that order; I do Federalist after all the sane sources, with a dose of Vanity Fair to clean out the taste of Federalist at the end. Occasionally Forbes.com and whatever catches my eye from links at any of these. Am considering The Atlantic, too. Prob should skim a couple more international sites. On Instagram, a few posters that I like: some just for fun, others for a supplemental science based source of items not covered as much at sciencebasedmedicine.org and respectfulinsolence.com -- foodsciencebabe is a good source of rational responses to food pseudoscience, that sort of thing.
    News media online: Washington Post (daily read), LA Times
    I refuse to be on Facebook so far and only reason to join would be to touch bases with famiy and a few old friends.

    The quality of commenters is what kept me hanging around here. I had to stop reading WaPo comments -- not because they were bad, although there were a few awful ones, but because it was such a time suck. Science Based Medicine has great commenters, as does Respectful Insolence. Reason has mediocre to poor commenters, same for Turley's blog. Federalist commenters are almost universally atrocious and a huge troll infestation as well.

    I think that's it! For all online sources, I skim, pick and only read stuff that interests me, not every article. Local paper, skim and do sudoku, read my fav comics (Baby Blues, Get Fuzzy, and Non-Sequiter). Magazines get a more thorough read.

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  5. Ben W

    You are my only paid "magazine" sub. I have a slashed rate at NYT and WSJ (using a university email from my MBA program). My dad sends me The Atlantic (print). I get the free stuff from NRO, and I've lessened my appetite for FDLST. When I'm feeling extra salty, I will see what Steven Crowder is up to (shameful, I'm sorry, I know).

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  6. Avatar photo
    Ryan Woods

    I get several news briefings delivered to my inbox (although The Dispatch is the only one I pay for). Lately, though, I have morphed into a consumer of short (usually ~1-4 minutes) news briefing podcasts from various sources. I try to mix it up between national, international, and local outlets. Those include CNN, BBC, The Oregonian, Al Jazeera, South China Morning Post, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, American Family Association, RELEVANT Daily, Texas Sports Nation (basically the sports section of the Houston Chronicle), and NPR. By the time my coffee is made, I've gotten through a decent chunk of what I just listed. Others show up in my feed later in the day. Not sure I have much of a strategy to sort through what's actually "the truth" other than listening to as diverse a collection of perspectives as I can.

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  7. Scroop Moth

    Slate is free, but I would subscribe for Willim Saletan, Ruth Graham, and Dahlia Lithwick, who is one of the best legal writers. I subscribe to NYTimes, WaPost, The Atlantic, NR, and The Dispatch, and donate to Vox. I like Politico and find some items of interest in American Conservative.

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    1. ROBERT

      I also like Saletan. But I sure miss Reihem Salam. He's got a better gig going now at The Manhattan institute.

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  8. Avatar photo
    Mike Kupfer

    media diet: primarily The Economist, San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR (in addition to The Dispatch). Perhaps I'm naive, but I trust those publications to at least try to get the facts straight. And I often don't try to ferret out "the truth" unless some decision of mine hinges on it. With all the events and opinions swirling around, trying to get to the bottom of every news item would be a full-time job.

    One thing that I particularly appreciate about The Economist is the additional details that they will go into. For example, when the IRS was hassling Tea Party groups, I didn't have much of an opinion about the situation, because I hadn't seen any *evidence* that the IRS was abusing its authority. Then I read an article in TE that noted that the IRS was digging for information about the reading habits of the Tea Party group leaders. I suddenly had a lot more sympathy for the complaints against the IRS.

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    Idontdocute

    I look at conservative google news on my phone and liberal google news on my tablet, swing by here, and AP news if it’s working time. If it’s off days, I usually chat while the professional dog petter and faithful Chihuahua (picture to the left) attempt to skitter through multiple news channels in the unending challenge to avoid commercials while taking the stand that it isn’t really French toast and bacon if we don’t cook the whole package of bacon and split it 50/50.

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  10. Avatar photo
    PC Albright

    WRT media, and aside from the Dispatch, I read the NYT, the WSJ, WaPo. I get the CNN feeds, also the Fox and MSNBC feeds but I generally ignore them. I think I'm smart enough to separate the biases out. The good thing about MSM is that when they get it wrong they almost always admit it and try to get it right.

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