“It’s a Band-Aid on an open wound. (Trump) can do it, legally, but to provide real lasting relief he needs help from Congress — and if anything, he made that less likely yesterday. Most of us won’t see more money in our paychecks, and the millions of families on unemployment will still be in crisis come September.”
–Daniel Hemel, law professor at the University of Chicago, on Trump’s executive order that extends unemployment benefits, suspend payroll taxes, and offer federal eviction and student loan relief
“Unfortunately, the president’s executive orders, described in one word, could be paltry, in three words, unworkable, weak and far too narrow.”
–Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
“Executive Orders can’t replace legislative actions. States can’t pay 25% of unemployment costs. It’s simply impossible.”
–New York Gov. Andrew Cuoimo, on the executive order.
“I think what most employers are going to do is not pass this on to their employees. They’re not going to give money to the worker because the government is at some point going to come back for it.”
–Josh Bivens, director of research at the Economic Policy Institute.
“[W]atch out if President Trump is reelected.”
–Schumer warning to Social Security and Medicare recipients that Trump has indicated he might make the payroll tax cuts permanent if he is reelected, a move that would adversely impact both programs.
“Like several other QAnon-supporting candidates, Marjorie Greene has the backing of several members of Donald Trump’s inner-circle.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center put Marjorie Greene on their hate-watch list because of her anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric on Facebook, as well her ties to known militia groups including the Three Percenters.
“Other prominent Trump allies have also bolstered Greene’s campaign. The House Freedom Fund, a PAC associated with Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, spent $44,000 backing Greene and delivered $78,000 in earmarked contributions to her campaign. Greene also received endorsements from prominent Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the House Freedom Caucus and the gun rights group Gun Owners of America.”
–OpenSecrets.org, June 8, 2020, on QAnon conspiracy and hate-mongering Republican candidate for Congress in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District in Tuesday’s Republican primary. [Republicans in congress have been cricket-chirping silent in disavowing Greene.]
Louisiana Voice 
Worth repeating:
As our late friend, C. B. Forgotston always said, “You can’t make this stuff up.” However, with regard to people who support President Trump and the Republican Party (and to quote a fairly recent immigrant to our country), “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think.”
Writing in today’s New York Times about the deep political divisions in our country becoming similar to Beirut’s, Thomas Friedman says:
Illiberal populists like Trump — or Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orban in Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey and Vladimir Putin in Russia — deliberately try to undermine the guardians of facts and the common good. Their message to their people is: “Don’t believe the courts, the independent civil servants or the fake news generators — only trust me, my words and my decisions. It’s a jungle out there. My critics are killers (which is what Trump called his press corps on Friday), and only I can protect our tribe from theirs. It’s rule or die.”
This trend is not only hurting us, it’s literally killing us. The reason Trump has utterly failed to manage the Covid-19 pandemic is that he finally met a force he could not discredit and deflect by turning it into politics — Mother Nature. She is impenetrable to politics because all she consists of is chemistry, biology and physics. And she will do whatever they dictate — in this case, spread a coronavirus — whether Trump affirms it or not.
Worth a read…