PBC News & Comment: Autocrats Cuomo, McConnell Spar Over Aid to States

As Mitch McConnell spikes hopes for “blue state bailouts”, Gov. Cuomo fights back against partisanship and Mitch’s loopy bankruptcy idea…First up: new Rolling Stones song and video, Living in a Ghost Town watch it here:
--both combatants have authoritarian streaks and partisan backers, but Cuomo is right on this one—watch his comments here
--David Sirota adds context in great newsletter post
--NYU education Pro. Diane Ravitch warns of effort to use Covid to dismantle public schools, courtesy of listener Faith Peeples
--in Florida, only 4% of unemployment claims have been paid, resident Rush Limbaugh feigns compassion for broke workers, and blames Dems
--Georgia’s dumb Gov. Briam Kemp tried to please Trump by lifting restrictions, and gets surprise brushback from Conman Don!
--Dumb & Dumber: Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman wants to reopen casinos and see what happens
--more exposure of the right wing oligarchs who are orchestrating the “Liberate” protests
--NY Times runs excellent opinion piece by Lisa Graves, an expert on Koch networks, but news columns are much weaker
--as self-styled “Boogaloo Boy” is arrested after seeking to kill a cop, we learn about Facebook’s complicity
--NY Times big-picture guy Peter Baker looks at the cold calculations ahead: save the economy, or save lives?
--China reports new Covid hotspot in Harbin
--from Trump to Cuomo to Newsom, why didn’t they consider testing needs sooner?
--our daily Covid-19 update, edited by Linda Lewis
--SF Chronicle report sells smartphone contact tracing, downplays privacy invasion
--at The Grayzone, an excellent investigative report on the Team Trump “Chinese lab” theory, which seems to be total speculation
--at ConsortiumNews, Joe Lauria exposes the source of “Chinese agents” spreading threat of martial law in US, it came from the Washington Examiner
--as poor Detroiters get brief reprieve from water shut-offs, Coke and Pepsi bottle municipal water, and never get cutoff when their bills are way past due
--SCOTUS rejects Trump’s attempt to water down Clean Water Act in Maui case
--SCOTUS watcher Linda Greenhouse reviews the bizarre breakdown of the justices in this week’s Ramos v. Louisiana decision
--Iran launches satellite, and draws silly threat from Trump over Gulf speedboats
--LOL reporting at Buzzfeed, claiming that Iran is dividing Californians on almost nonexistent movement to secede from US