THE DAILY NEWSLETTER  - TUESIDAY, JUNE 23, 2020  

Media Winners & Losers

MEDIA WINNER:
Bubba Wallace

Bubba Wallace, the first full-time African American driver in NASCAR’s Cup Series since 1971, took a stand this month when he called for NASCAR to ban the confederate flag at its tracks.

His voice was heard, along with many others, and NASCAR announced it was banning them.

Just days ago NASCAR announced that "a noose was found in the garage stall of the 43 team" and that an investigation was underway. Upon hearing the news, athletes from across the sports world, from LeBron James to Tyrann Mathieu to fellow NASCAR drivers like Erik Jones and Kyle Busch rallied in support of Wallace.

In a moving display on Monday, NASCAR drivers and crew members  pushed Wallace’s No. 43 car to the front of the field for the GEICO 500 race, in a show of solidarity

It was Wallace's own words after the race last night, which had been rescheduled to Monday due to weather conditions on Sunday, that really hit home.

Wallace was emotional as he spoke with Fox Sports after the race.

"The sport is changing,' he said. "Sorry I'm not wearing my mask but I wanted to show whoever it was that you're not gonna take away my smile."

It was a great, winning moment.

MEDIA LOSER:
NYC PBA

Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York has been in the news and in the spotlight, recently, like so much about the police nationwide.

The story that took over the internet for a brief time last week - that three police officers were sent to the hospital after their drink orders were spiked with bleach at a Shake Shack - was investigated by the NYPD, and it was concluded that there had been no wrongdoing on the part of the restaurant or its employees.

Now the New York Post is revealing that the story wasn't just somewhat exaggerated but blatantly lied about, both by officers and by police associations, most notably the PBA.

"The three cops at the center of the NYPD milkshake 'poisoning' scandal never even got sick, and there wasn’t the slightest whiff of criminality from the get-go — but that didn’t stop gung-ho brass from rolling out the crime scene tape and unions from dishing out empty conspiracy theories" the Post reported this week.

From escalating actions by a sergeant and a lieutenant to the outraged public statements by the Detectives Endowment Association as well as the PBA, the story is amazing. Especially the show put on by president Pat Lynch.

With the state PBA's at best controversial presser just weeks ago, the police unions in the state are not covering themselves in glory in the press. 

The A-Block

Looks what’s going on here.

President Donald Trump tweeted a video clip Tuesday showing an African-American man beating up a white gentleman in what appears to be a department store.

The video clip is violent, short, and presented with very little context, and Trump simply asked “Looks what’s going on here. Where are the protesters? Was this man arrested?”

CNN's New Day called out Trump for the tweet. Guest Alexi McCammon of Axios said “this is another example of something that President Trump is doing, apparently to fan the flames and sort of, you know, exacerbate these racial tensions that we’re already seeing played out throughout the country. And ‘racial tensions’ is generous. These are overt and egregious acts of extreme racism.”

Monuments

Trump claimed in an interview Monday that he would sign an executive order to “make the cities guard their monuments” in response to monuments and statues being taken down in cities across the country.

“We’re going to do an executive order and we’re going to make the cities guard their monuments," he said in the interview.

Then on Tuesday he tweeted with more enthusiasm about the punishments

New Zealand

The New Zealand government caused a stir, and got international attention, when it released a porn star-themed advertisement this month in an effort to get parents to watch their children’s habits online.

‘Summer of Love’ cancelled 

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan wrote on Twitter Monday evening that police “will be peacefully returning” to the so-called autonomous zone in the city’s Capitol Hill area, potentially ending what she had said could be a “summer of love” in the area.

Audience plants

The Gran Teatre del Liceu opera house in Barcelona, Spain hosted a socially-distanced concert for an audience of 2,292 plants this week amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Parscale under fire 

Former Trump campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski took a swipe at current campaign chief Brad Parscale for promising big crowds at the Tulsa rally on Saturday and “under-delivering,” adding that it is “the biggest mistake you can make in politics." 

He's not the only one pointing fingers at Brad.

Even among supporters it's a no 

“If there was a single place where you would think that the weird reality distortion field of Donald Trump would work, it would be at a rally with his hardest of hardcore supporters.”

Chris Hayes opened his show Monday night talking about the surprise of President Trump’s Tulsa rally crowd not filling up the venue like everyone assumed.  "He cannot just flap his lips and pretend that we are not in the midst of a global pandemic," said Hayes.

Sorry

Jimmy Kimmel apologized on Tuesday for wearing blackface during an impression of NBA player Karl Malone in the 1990s and acknowledged several other insensitive impressions of Black celebrities, which he said he now recognizes as “embarrassing” and “thoughtless.”

Thanks for watching, Mr President

President Trump scolded Fox News for a reporter mentioning the border wall. And anchor Bret Baier responded and corrected him.

 

Must See Clip

“You talkin’ about that Covid-1984 bullsh*t?”

MSNBC's Vaughn Hillyard was in Phoenix on Tuesday to cover the crowds that lined up for Trump’s event later in the day. Arizona has seen a particularly acute spike in Covid-19 cases this week, and Trump’s event there comes days after his under-attended rally in Tulsa that reportedly enraged him.

As Hillyard reported on the health hazards at the Arizona event, he was heckled by a number of Trump supporters, and he eventually moved to ask them questions about why they aren’t wearing masks.

That's when it got nutty.

Links We Like

Trump Is Terrorizing America
- via The New Republic
The rioting of police officers inflamed by ongoing challenges to their authority continues
- via Intelligencer
30 Rock episodes with blackface pulled from streaming, syndication per Tina Fey's request
- via Entertainment Weekly
Activists halt street protests in South Carolina as some demonstrators become infected
- via Washington Post
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