"How can the Washington Post say the court decisions on his vaccine or testing mandates were 'out of his control'?"

"Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won’t* get blocked by courts! Those court decisions didn’t happen at random; they happened because judges looked at what the administration did and decided that it didn’t comply with the law."

Writes my son John, at Facebook, commenting on "A year ago, Biden unveiled a 200-page plan to defeat covid. He has struggled to deliver on some key promises" (WaPo).

"Biden and his legal team are supposed to figure out a way to implement his policies that *won’t* get blocked by courts!" — We are all expected to pursue our goals and desires within the limits of the law. But we still can complain about the law that stands in our way and excuse our failure to achieve by pointing at this pesky law.

Sometimes you push the limits of the law and hope to convince judges. With a slightly different configuration of the Supreme Court, the vaccine mandate would have succeeded. Blaming the Court is worth doing to set up judicial appointments as a campaign issue.

And would the implementation of the vaccine mandate have served Biden's interests? Isn't he better off with it failing? He can point to it and say that he tried so hard and not be burdened with the realities of driving so many people out of employment, leaving businesses inadequately staffed, and imposing on the intimate personal bodily autonomy that his Party ordinarily celebrates. 

By the way: "Activists look ahead to what could be the 'last anniversary' for Roe" (NPR).

Speaking of the pending abortion case... did the Texas legislators "figure out a way to implement [their] policies that won’t get blocked by courts"? I'd say they deliberately overreached well-known law because they wanted to convince the Court to change it and, failing that, they wanted political credit for trying.

"It is now indisputable, and almost undisputed, that the year and a quarter of virtual school imposed devastating consequences on the students who endured it."

"Studies have found that virtual school left students nearly half a year behind pace, on average, with the learning loss falling disproportionately on low-income, Latino, and Black students. Perhaps a million students functionally dropped out of school altogether. The social isolation imposed on kids caused a mental health 'state of emergency,' according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The damage to a generation of children’s social development and educational attainment, and particularly to the social mobility prospects of its most marginalized members, will be irrecoverable. It is nearly as clear that these measures did little to contain the pandemic... Progressives were carried along by two predominant impulses. One was a zero-COVID policy that refused to weigh the trade-off of any measure that could even plausibly claim to suppress the pandemic. The other was deference to teachers unions, who were organizing to keep schools closed. Those strands combined into a refusal to acknowledge the scale or importance of losing in-person learning with a moralistic insistence that anybody who disagreed was callous about death or motivated by greed.... 'Parents who advocated for school reopening were repeatedly demonized on social media as racist and mischaracterized as Trump supporters.'...  Most progressives [now]... just want to quietly move on without anybody admitting anybody did anything wrong."

Writes Jonathan Chait in "School Closures Were a Catastrophic Error. Progressives Still Haven’t Reckoned With It. Sometimes you need to own up to an error so it’s not repeated" (NY Magazine).

"The premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality..."

"... which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. [Ernest Becker, the author of this Pulitzer Prize-winning 1973 book] argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and biology, and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves, i.e. our culturally-based self esteem, which Becker calls 'heroism': a 'defiant creation of meaning' expressing 'the myth of the significance of human life' as compared to other animals.... Humanity's traditional 'hero-systems,' such as religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason. Becker argues that the loss of religion leaves humanity with impoverished resources for necessary illusions. Science attempts to serve as an immortality project, something that Becker believes it can never do because it is unable to provide agreeable, absolute meanings to human life. The book states that we need new convincing 'illusions' that enable us to feel heroic in ways that are agreeable...."

From the Wikipedia article, "The Denial of Death," a book title that sprang to mind when I saw the news that the U.S. government is going to stop requiring daily reports of the number of Covid deaths.

This is the book Alvy Singer wanted Annie Hall to read:

"The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked the Biden administration from enforcing a vaccine-or-testing mandate for large employers..."

"... dealing a blow to a key element of the White House’s plan to address the pandemic as cases resulting from the Omicron variant are on the rise. But the court allowed a more modest mandate requiring health care workers at facilities receiving federal money to be vaccinated. The vote in the employer mandate case was 6 to 3, with liberal justices in dissent. The vote in the health care case was 5 to 4, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh joining the liberal justices to form a majority...."

The NYT reports.

Here are the opinions — NFIB v. OSHA and Biden v. Missouri.

From the OSHA case:

This is no “everyday exercise of federal power.” In re MCP No. 165, 20 F. 4th, at 272 (Sutton, C. J., dissenting). It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives—and health—of a vast number of employees. “We expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of vast economic and political significance.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks omitted). There can be little doubt that OSHA’s mandate qualifies as an exercise of such authority. 

The question, then, is whether the Act plainly authorizes the Secretary’s mandate. It does not. The Act empowers the Secretary to set workplace safety standards, not broad public health measures. See 29 U. S. C. §655(b) (directing the Secretary to set “occupational safety and health standards” (emphasis added)); §655(c)(1) (authorizing the Secretary to impose emergency temporary standards necessary to protect “employees” from grave danger in the workplace)....

From Biden v. Missouri:

[H]ealthcare facilities that wish to participate in Medicare and Medicaid have always been obligated to satisfy a host of conditions that address the safe and effective provision of healthcare.... [T]he Secretary routinely imposes conditions of participation that relate to the qualifications and duties of healthcare workers themselves.... Of course the vaccine mandate goes further than what the Secretary has done in the past to implement infection control. But he has never had to address an infection problem of this scale and scope before.... Vaccination requirements are a common feature of the provision of healthcare in America: Healthcare workers around the country are ordinarily required to be vaccinated for diseases such as hepatitis B, influenza, and measles, mumps, and rubella....

We accordingly conclude that the Secretary did not exceed his statutory authority in requiring that, in order to remain eligible for Medicare and Medicaid dollars, the facilities covered by the interim rule must ensure that their employees be vaccinated against COVID–19.

From the dissent in the Biden case. This is by Justice Thomas (joined by Justices Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett):

“We expect Congress to speak clearly when authorizing an agency to exercise powers of vast economic and political significance.” Alabama Assn. of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Servs., 594 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (per curiam) (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks omitted). And we expect Congress to use “exceedingly clear language if it wishes to significantly alter the balance between state and federal power.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted). The omnibus rule is undoubtedly significant—it requires millions of healthcare workers to choose between losing their livelihoods and acquiescing to a vaccine they have rejected for months. Vaccine mandates also fall squarely within a State’s police power, see Zucht v. King, 260 U. S. 174, 176 (1922), and, until now, only rarely have been a tool of the Federal Government. If Congress had wanted to grant CMS authority to impose a nationwide vaccine mandate, and consequently alter the state-federal balance, it would have said so clearly. It did not.

"I’m well aware of the stereotypes of white parents choosing the private-school option when the going gets tough at public schools."

"I told myself that prioritizing being a 'good leftist' at the expense of my son’s well-being wasn’t good parenting, but as a red-diaper baby myself, the white guilt dies hard... Sending my kid to private school was accompanied by a lot of angst....  The pandemic, and the school-reopening debate in particular, has thrown me into an ideological mid-life crisis, questioning all my prior political assumptions. I’m still attempting to hold onto the progressive label while calling out the policies I see as antithetical to it, but the longer fellow progressives support new school closures and other policies that restrict kids’ lives in order to allay the anxieties of adults, and have been shown to cause far more harm than benefit, the more alienated I feel."

From "How School Closures Made Me Question My Progressive Politics/I’ve never felt more alienated from the liberal Democratic circles I usually call home" by Rebecca Bodenheimer (Politico).

Trump does a 15-minute interview with NPR.

Full text here. It begins on the subject of covid: 

The vaccines, I recommend taking them, but I think that has to be an individual choice. I mean, it's got to be individual, but I recommend taking them. Many people recommend them. And if some people don't want, they shouldn't have to take them. They can't be mandated, as the expression goes. And I think that's very important. Personally, I feel very comfortable having taken them. I've had absolutely no reverberation....

But then it's all about the 2020 election results, with Trump sticking to his attack on the election and the interviewer, Steve Inskeep, pressuring him until  Trump cuts it off. A few highlights:

Why did Republican officials in Arizona accept the results then?

Because they're RINOs, and frankly, a lot of people are questioning that....
It is not true that there were far more votes than voters [in Philadelphia]. There was an early count. I've noticed you've talked about this in rallies and you've said, reportedly, this is true. I think even you know that that was an early report that was corrected later.

Well, you take a look at it. You take a look at Detroit. In fact, they even had a hard time getting people to sign off on it because it was so out of balance. They called it out of balance. So you take a look at it. You know the real truth, Steve, and this election was a rigged election.

Why is it that you think that the vast majority of your allies in the United States Senate are not standing behind you?...

Because Mitch McConnell is a loser. And frankly, Mitch McConnell, if he were on the other side and if Schumer were put in his position, he would have been fighting this like you've never seen before. He would have been fighting this, because when you look at it, and this is long — is a long way from over.... 

Let me ask you this question. How come Biden couldn't attract 20 people for a crowd? How come when he went to speak in different locations, nobody came to watch, but all of a sudden he got 80 million votes? Nobody believes that, Steve. Nobody believes that.

If you'll forgive me, maybe because the election was about you.... 

Oklahoma Supreme Court allows Trump rally to proceed as planned; Tulsa mayor rescinds curfew

The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Friday ruled that President Trump’s upcoming rally in Tulsa can go ahead as planned despite concerns about coronavirus -- just as Trump announced that a curfew in the city had been lifted for the rally.

“I just spoke to the highly respected Mayor of Tulsa, G.T. Bynum, who informed me there will be no curfew tonight or tomorrow for our many supporters attending the #MAGA Rally. Enjoy yourselves - thank you to Mayor Bynum!” the president tweeted.

TRUMP WARNS 'ANARCHISTS' NOT TO DISRUPT TULSA RALLY, AFTER THREAT PROMPTS EMERGENCY ORDER

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

I just spoke to the highly respected Mayor of Tulsa, G.T. Bynum, who informed me there will be no curfew tonight or tomorrow for our many supporters attending the #MAGA Rally. Enjoy yourselves - thank you to Mayor Bynum! @gtbynum

111K

2:09 AM - Jun 20, 2020

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Bynum on Friday issued a statement and said he was "told the curfew is no longer necessary."

"Last night, I enacted a curfew at the request of Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin, following consultation with the United States Secret Service based on intelligence they had received,” he said in a news release, the Tulsa World reported. “Today, we were told the curfew is no longer necessary so I am rescinding it.”

Bynum, a Republican, had declared a civil emergency and announced a curfew near the arena where Trump plans to hold a campaign rally on Saturday.

Bynum, in his order, said “in the interest of national security” he would establish a “federal exclusion zone” in the vicinity of the rally. He cited “crowds in excess of 100,000” and opposition protests as well as recent “civil unrest” -- referring to protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd that in the early days escalated into looting and violence in some cities. Additionally, he had warned that he had information that organized groups known for violence were traveling to the city “for the purposes of causing unrest in and around the rally.”

"Patients with underlying conditions were 12 times as likely to die of covid-19 as otherwise healthy people, CDC finds."

A WaPo headline, quoted along with substantial text from the article by my son John at Facebook, where I expressed surprise that the factor was so low and asked:

Did they count obesity as a "condition" when they did that calculation?

Then:

I looked at the CDC report, and I see it only counted "severe obesity (body mass index ≥40 kg/m2)" as a condition. I'm a 5'5" woman, and I would need to weigh more than 240 pounds — more than 100 pounds over normal weight — to enter that BMI range.

Obesity begins at a 30 BMI, which would be 180 pounds for my height. That's 60 pounds less than the weight the CDC counted as a "condition" when it did its calculation. It wouldn't be 12 times as likely but what? — 100 times? — if they'd included the merely obese. And what if they'd counted the overweight but not obese? That would go all the way down to 150 for my height. It would be useful to know, because we have some power over our own weight!

ADDED: My son questions my observation. The factor should be lower if they included less severe conditions. I agree with him. I'm thinking in terms of being less likely to die. When you're trying to figure out how dangerous the illness is to you, you consider how likely it is for a person in your condition to die if they get the disease. Perhaps it's the case that 99.9% of those who died of the disease were obese. Of course, that's not the same as saying if you get the disease and you're obese, you have a 99.9% chance of dying. But if the overall percentage of those who get the disease and die is 0.1%, then I'd like to know what's the percentage for those who get the disease but are not obese? Is it 0.01%? That would be extremely useful information! For one thing, it would give people something to do to protect themselves: lose weight. But also, it would show us who should continue the more extreme form of social distancing and who should feel free to get out and about.

"... without barely a wimpier..."

Interesting how ANTIFA and other Far Left militant groups can take over a city without barely a wimpier from soft Do Nothing Democrat leadership, yet these same weak leaders become RADICAL when it comes to shutting down a state or city and its hard working, tax paying citizens!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2020

"So dogmatic was the dictate that we all stay at home that any attempt to question or even balance it... was deemed immoral."

"Those who questioned state-mandated lockdown and stay-at-home orders, let alone left their homes to actually protest against them, were condemned as sociopaths who were willing to sacrifice the lives of old people for economic prosperity or the trivial, troglodyte desire to go to Applebees. Oftentimes those protesting lockdowns were vilified as white nationalists or at least driven by white racialist sentiments.... How is it remotely within the scope of the expertise of epidemiologists to pick and choose which political protests should be permitted and/or encouraged and which ones banned and/or denounced? Those are plainly political judgments, not scientific ones, and the shoddy, glaring conflation of them is nothing less than a manipulation, an abuse, of public health credentials. For scientists to purport to dictate which citizens can and cannot safely choose to leave their house — based not on health judgments but on their political ideology — is repressive, and certain to erode the credibility of their profession. Yet this is exactly what they are doing: explicitly and shamelessly.... At the very least, it is vital that we have the same health and legal standards apply to all citizens and all political ideologies when it comes to the right to leave one’s home, protest or engage in other legal activities. And at least as importantly, we need to understand whether public health experts were too restrictive in their advocated measures at the start of the pandemic, are being too lax now, or somehow can reconcile the radical shift in their posture on scientific rather than political grounds."

From "The Abrupt, Radical Reversal in How Public Health Experts Now Speak About the Coronavirus and Mass Gatherings" by Glenn Greenwald (The Intercept).

"On 'Morning Joe,' they are talking about coronavirus all the time again."

I said, after listening to the show on the car radio in 2 4-minute stretches on the way out and back from the sunrise run.

"What does that tell you?" Meade asks.

"It says the ratings came in."

"Republican legislative leaders lashed out Wednesday at Democratic Gov. Tony Evers after his staff secretly recorded a May 14 phone conversation..."

"... over how to respond to the coronavirus pandemic the day after the state Supreme Court struck down the state's stay-at-home order. The recording and the reaction to it all but ensures a permanently broken relationship between Evers and Republicans who control the Legislature.... Evers' spokeswoman, Melissa Baldauff, said... 'This was not intended for release to the media or anyone else, however, we were obligated to comply with the open records law to release these records once they were requested.'...  Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said recording a conversation without alerting the other parties isn't illegal in this state, but is in bad form — and that the nature of the meeting should have pushed the three to talk publicly instead of privately.... Evers at one stage said he was frustrated the state wasn't able to open up in a uniform, phased way.... Fitzgerald repeatedly told Evers the reopening of the state's businesses was now behind them and urged him to develop plans for dealing with large crowds at Brewers games and the eventual resumption of schools. Evers asked Vos and Fitzgerald what they wanted to do if there was a catastrophic increase in cases, expressing frustration with their hands-off approach. 'Do we just say the hell with it?' Evers asked. 'No. Someone should call Barry Alvarez and say is there going to be football in Camp Randall in August,' Fitzgerald said, referring to the University of Wisconsin athletic director."

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. You can listen to the recordings at the link.

ADDED:

Someone is the admin must have tipped off the media to Evers’ Nixon tapes right? But why? He comes across as clueless while the Speaker sounds reasonable and Fitz is in command of the meeting. How does this help him?

— Eric Bott (@BottAFP) June 11, 2020

"I was trying to stick it to the [Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation] for their invalidated models resulting in needless, economy-wrecking, life-wrecking lockdown..."

"... and when I saw they were announcing modeling a solution to our racial crisis, I was incredulous, angry, and overly emotional. Involving George Floyd's name in that effort was wrong."

Tweeted Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit who's now given up his position as CEO, quoted in "CEO steps down after inflammatory George Floyd comments/A major sponsor and affiliated gyms dropped their partnerships after Greg Glassman invoked Floyd's name when complaining about coronavirus restrictions" (NBC).

The Institute had tweeted "Racism and discrimination are critical public health issues that demand an urgent response. #BlackLivesMatter." Glassman's response was, first, the disastrously curt: "It's FLOYD-19." A few hours later, he expanded his idea:

Your failed model quarantined us and now you're going to model a solution to racism? George Floyd's brutal murder sparked riots nationally. Quarantine alone is "accompanied in every age and under all political regimes by an undercurrent of suspicion, distrust, and riots." Thanks!

Glassman had also said some things behind the scenes that made his problem worse. BuzzFeed reports that — in a Zoom call with gym owners — Glassman was asked why Crossfit's website didn't have a statement addressing the death of George Floyd. Glassman was recorded saying: “We're not mourning for George Floyd — I don't think me or any of my staff are.... Can you tell me why I should mourn for him? Other than that it’s the white thing to do — other than that, give me another reason.”

It’s the white thing to do... Who talks like that? To my ear, it sounds like left-wing critique of of white people — that white people are making these pious statements of empathy and support, and it's not really enough, it's fake and shallow, and he's the one who wants a real revolution. But it could also be someone who wants to stay out of politics and resists pressure to do what everyone else is doing. He might be using "white" in the sarcastic sense of the phrase "That's mighty white of you." In that light, it might be a way to say: Putting up those statements is virtue signaling.

In any case, Glassman was hurting his business, which was a brand that other businesses needed to want to pay to adopt as their own. That leaves little room for adamant self-defense.

"Terrified after watching economies built over the course of decades hollow out in a matter of weeks, countries seem to be saying, in effect: Enough."

"For health officials who have been watching the virus with alarm as it began claiming a foothold in continent after continent, it is a dizzying moment.... While infection rates in the hardest-hit cities in United States and Europe may have slowed, the virus remains deeply woven into the fabric of the world. Indeed, the global peak of infection may still be months away.... Even some countries that moved against the virus head on are losing ground. Among them is India. 'There will be a total ban of coming out of your homes,' Prime Minister Narendra Modi told his citizens on March 24. 'Every state, every district, every lane, every village will be under lockdown.'...  India is a country of 1.3 billion, and hundreds of millions of its citizens are destitute, with countless millions living in packed urban areas with poor sanitation and weak public health care. Despite the swift action, the country is now grappling with a sharp surge of infections.... But this week, Indians can once again dine out, shop and pray at religious sites."

From "The World Reopens, Despite Skyrocketing Coronavirus Cases/The number of infections is rising faster than ever, but many countries have decided that this is the moment to ease lockdown restrictions" (NYT)

Unfit.

"A tweet Saturday from CrossFit founder Greg Glassman that appeared to make light of both the death of George Floyd and the novel coronavirus pandemic resulted in a widespread backlash within the CrossFit community. On Sunday, Reebok announced it was ending its corporate partnership with the popular fitness company, and after some gyms said they were cutting ties to the CrossFit brand, and others said they’re considering doing so, Glassman issued an apology. Glassman was responding Saturday to a tweet posted by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), in which the research center declared, 'Racism is a public health issue.' 'It’s FLOYD-19,' replied Glassman, 63. That sparked outrage among some owners of CrossFit gyms, or 'boxes,' as they’re called, that pay fees of several thousands of dollars annually to license the brand."

From "CrossFit founder jokes about George Floyd as Reebok, gyms drop the brand" (WaPo).

If what you're selling is branding, you'd better maintain that product. You're asking other people to put your reputation on themselves! You're not a solo, roving comedian. Even if it had been a great joke — which it wasn't — Glassman was an idiot to tweet it.

"I don't want to touch an object," I found myself saying, socially distancingly.

The sun was rising, and 3 young women...



... had asked me if I'd take a picture of them — the kind of request I've always happily agreed to. And here I was being stand-offish, in the manner of a person with OCD because they wanted to hand me their phone. It's covid19world, and we're all OCD now, so I couldn't go along with that, and I knew they'd understand. Actually, they'd probably have understood in pre-covid19world and simply regarded me as a person with a disability to be treated with empathy.

But in  pre-covid19world,  covid19world, and  post-covid19world, there is a solution to the problem of not wanting to touch the other person's phone. You don't need to refuse the lovely social opportunity to take someone's picture for them. It's AirDrop. Take a photograph on your own iPhone and AirDrop it to their phone. You just have to remember, and fortunately I did.

It was nice to encounter some young people, up for a 5:40 sunrise, experiencing our strange time with optimism. Nothing more optimistic than a sunrise.

The walk back from the vantage point had the sun at our back and the fading Flower Moon up ahead. I always love when Meade sings. He began "When the moon...." but it wasn't the "When the moon" song that I thought it was. There are at least 3 well-known songs that begin "When the moon...." Which is the first one that you think of? Two are optimistic but they take entirely different paths of optimism. The other one is sad. I don't know why the sad one is the one I thought of, such a sad old Depression-Era song...

"Scrutiny of Social-Distance Policing as 35 of 40 Arrested Are Black/Mayor Bill de Blasio said the police had enforced rules properly..."

"... but other officials expressed concern about tactics similar to unfair 'stop and frisk' practices" (NYT)("Of those arrested, 35 people were black, four were Hispanic and one was white").

Mayor Bill de Blasio, who has long denounced the unconstitutional “stop and frisk” practices of the Bloomberg administration, has found himself in recent days forced to explain why enforcement of social distancing in predominantly minority neighborhoods is different than “stop and frisk.”...

“What happened with stop and frisk was a systematic, oppressive, unconstitutional strategy that created a new problem much bigger than anything it purported to solve,” he said. “This is the farthest thing from that. This is addressing a pandemic. This is addressing the fact that lives are in danger all the time. By definition, our police department needs to be a part of that because safety is what they do.”

Stop and frisk was aimed at the black community because that's where the incidence of gun violence was highest. Why is the enforcement of social distancing concentrated on the black community? I don't see how the difference from stop and frisk makes concentrating on black people better. It makes it worse!

I don't see de Blasio arguing that the coronavirus is victimizing black people disproportionately and that justifies the enforcement disparity. To say that would be to cite a similarity to stop and frisk, and how could that work for de Blasio? The pandemic is a bigger danger than gun violence? I don't know, but what he is saying doesn't cohere for me. It's a string of disjointed sentences — just nonsense.

"When you hear someone demanding inchoate generalized 'freedom,' ask whether he cares at all that millions of workers..."

"... who clean the zoos and buff the nails and intubate the grandmas are not free. These people are cannon fodder for your liberty. The long-standing tension between individual liberty and the collective good is complicated, and and as Kendi is quick to point out, the balance often tilts, trade-offs are made, federal and state governments shift clumsily along together, and the balance tilts again. Nobody denies that individual liberty is essential in a democracy, but in addition to parsing whether we as a collective do better in providing the 'freedom from' while also offering some 'freedom to,' it’s worth asking whether those making zero-sum claims about liberty are willing to sacrifice anything for freedom, or are just happily sacrificing you."

From "Whose Freedom Counts?/Anti-lockdown protesters are twisting the idea of liberty" by Dahlia Lithwick (at Slate).

Kendi is Ibram X. Kendi who has an article in The Atlantic called "We’re Still Living and Dying in the Slaveholders’ Republic/The pandemic has brought the latest battle in the long American war over communal well-being." Lithwick instructs us that there is "a long-standing difference between core notions of what he calls freedom to and freedom from."

Lithwick's phrasing is confusing. It's "long-standing," so it's not as though Kendi invented the distinction between "freedom from" and "freedom to." Two out of 4 of FDR's "Four Freedoms" were "freedom from" (from want and from fear).  I remember an early interview with Barack Obama, in which he observed that Americans think too much about "freedom to" and not enough about "freedom from."

Lithwick writes:

The freedom to harm, [Kendi] points out, has its lineage in the slaveholder’s constitutional notion of freedom: “Slaveholders disavowed a state that secured any form of communal freedom—the freedom of the community from slavery, from disenfranchisement, from exploitation, from poverty, from all the demeaning and silencing and killing.” Kendi continues by pointing out that these two notions of freedom have long rubbed along uneasily side by side, but that those demanding that states “open up” so they may shop, or visit zoos, are peeling back the tension between the two....

How do you "peel back" "tension"? I had that image of 2 notions rubbing along uneasily side by side for a long time, and then these people who want to shop are "peeling back the tension." That kind of vaguely titillating metaphor is unfair to the reader. I'm seeing 2 notions in bed with each other and the would-be shoppers bursting in and ripping back the sheets. Aha! We see what you're doing! What a distraction! But I suppose that because slavery was invoked, I'm expected to listen without protest while Kendi's solemn, censorious lecture is promoted by an over-excited Lithwick. I resist. Sorry. I do hear what you're saying, and I see how well it works to justify depriving us of all freedom. There's never enough freedom from all the things in the world that might hurt us if we're not kept in eternal lockdown.

Testing... your intelligence.

Not providing context on the increase in testing is such a basic error, and has been so widespread, that it's revealing about the media's goals. It's more interested in telling plausibly-true stories ("narratives") that sound smart to its audience than in accuracy/truth per se. https://t.co/abYbgkVFbj

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 7, 2020

"And so I do have empathy for what it feels like to suddenly be told that you can’t go back to work, or that you might lose your job, and it’s a situation you have absolutely no control over."

"And so while we may have found ourselves in similar situations albeit for very different reasons, I still feel that some of the emotional struggles are very much the same."