By Robert A. Vella
Let’s get right to it.
Trump Shenanigans
From: Trump Organization under investigation for ‘insurance and bank fraud,’ filing suggests
Attorneys for Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance argued Monday that President Donald Trump should be forced to comply with a subpoena for his tax documents — and suggested that his company was under investigation for alleged insurance and bank fraud.
[…]
Vance’s office subpoenaed Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, in 2019 as part of an investigation into the Trump Organization about payments made to two women who have alleged affairs with the president, which he has denied. But the latest filing suggests Vance’s probe extends beyond the hush-money payments.
See also:
[Dr. Deborah] Birx stung by first public attack from Trump
Trump doubles down on well-wishes for alleged sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell
Government and Politics
From: FCC chair says agency will take public comment on Trump social media petition
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Communications Commission will take public comment for 45 days on a petition filed by the Trump administration seeking new transparency rules in how social media companies moderate content, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said on Monday.
Pai rejected calls from Democrats that he summarily dismiss the petition without public comment. The decision came after President Donald Trump directed the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to file the petition after Twitter Inc in May warned readers to fact-check his posts about unsubstantiated claims of fraud in mail-in voting.
See also:
Trump’s New Adviser Steve Cortes Thinks He Hasn’t Been ‘Fascist’ Enough
Divisive Trump nominee gets new Pentagon post, despite snub by Congress
Trump appointee Merritt Corrigan fired from USAID amid anti-LGBTQ tweets
Judge voids Trump administration restrictions on coronavirus sick leave
Judge: ‘Discriminatory’ to deny Puerto Rico access to US aid
Election News
President Trump’s unfounded attacks on mail balloting are discouraging his own supporters from embracing the practice, according to polls and Republican leaders across the country, prompting growing alarm that one of the central strategies of his campaign is threatening GOP prospects in November.
Multiple public surveys show a growing divide between Democrats and Republicans about the security of voting by mail, with Republicans saying they are far less likely to trust it in November. In addition, party leaders in several states said they are encountering resistance among GOP voters who are being encouraged to vote absentee while also seeing the president describe mail voting as “rigged” and “fraudulent.”
As a result, state and local Republicans across the country fear they are falling dramatically behind in a practice that is expected to be key to voter turnout this year. Through mailers and Facebook ads, they are racing to promote absentee balloting among their own.
See also:
Nevada approves plan to mail ballots to all registered voters
[Federal] Judge orders that NY ballots on House primaries be counted
Morality and Religion
From: Do we need God to be good? Here’s what a massive Pew Research survey says
In Kenya, for example, the country with the lowest gross domestic product per capita in the survey, 95% of people said belief in God is necessary for a person to be moral.
In Sweden, the richest country, just 9% of people connected God with good morals. (The survey did not break down respondents by religion.)
Even within countries, the rich and poor don’t agree on God and morality, the survey said.
In the United States, to take one example, there is a gap of 24 percentage points between high and low income Americans. The poor were much more likely to say belief in God is necessary to be good.
“People in the emerging economies included in this survey tend to be more religious and more likely to consider religion to be important in their lives,” wrote the authors of the study.
Pew’s study seems to lend weight to the secularization thesis: the idea that nations become less religious as their people get richer and more educated.
For decades, the United States defied this theory by being both rich and religious. But even that is changing, according to a number of other studies.
In 2002, 58% of Americans said belief in God is necessary to be good. In 2019, that number slipped to 44%.
Coronavirus Pandemic
Global Cases Top 18 Million; Lockdowns Increase: Virus Update
New cases of coronavirus are down but death is rate up, says FEMA
Tens of Thousands Positive COVID Results in Texas Not Reported, Officials Say
260 employees in Georgia’s largest school district test positive for COVID-19 or are exposed
2 in 3 say US is handling pandemic worse than other countries: NPR poll
Satisfaction With U.S. Plummets as Trump Faces Reckoning Over COVID-19
Trump’s base starting to erode, new poll shows
World is facing “generational catastrophe” in education, UN warns
Top Federal Reserve official says US needs another lockdown to save economy
Protests, Racism, and Public Health
40 people arrested in Austin during weekend protests
Police committed 125 human rights violations during Floyd protests: Amnesty
‘Racist incidents’ stop construction work on FC Cincinnati stadium
Judge starts new injunction barring Lee statue removal
Judge Salas breaks silence in heartbreaking video tribute after son’s shooting death
Many Americans Are Convinced Crime Is Rising In The U.S. They’re Wrong.
People live longer in blue states than red; new study points to impact of state policies
The Secular Jurist 
I’d smile for an entire decade if it turned out Princess Donald and her pals in the GOP get spanked in Nov because Her Royal Highness discouraged her voters from voting by mail. Oh, the irony!
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Irony, indeed!
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Some interesting stuff here
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Yeah, I thought the morality and religion story was fascinating.
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