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      Covid cases could surge in battleground midwest during Labor Day holiday

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      As health officials warned that gatherings on the upcoming Labor Day holiday weekend in the United States could fuel the spread of coronavirus, political observers are closely watching attitudes about the virus in the midwest, where Donald Trump and Joe Biden are locked in a struggle that could decide the presidential election.Two new national polls published on Wednesday found that Trump retained the support of 40%-41% of voters – within the narrow band of support he has held since he took office, even as the confirmed death toll from Covid-19 in the United States approaches 200,000.One of the polls, for Grinnell College by the highly reputed Selzer & Company, found that Trump enjoys a 49-45 lead over Biden among voters ages 55 and older – precisely the group most vulnerable to serious complications or death from coronavirus.But in midwestern states such as Iowa and Minnesota, in particular, new warnings about coronavirus are being sounded just as the presidential election enters its final weeks and absentee voting begins.“We cannot afford to have this Labor Day weekend further accelerate the community spread, because if that happens, what comes next is going to be worse,” Jan Malcolm, the Minnesota health commissioner, told local MPR News on Monday. “For a while now, we feel we’ve been kind of walking on the edge of a cliff.”A White House coronavirus taskforce sent Iowa health officials a report this week warning that the state has the highest rate of cases in the United States, according to the Des Moines Register.The state has recorded just over 1,000 deaths from Covid-19, and the more than 65,000 confirmed cases have disproportionately affected communities tied to regional packing plants.Biden was scheduled to speak on Wednesday about Trump’s handling of the pandemic, and on Thursday the former vice-president planned to hold a community meeting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the site of protests after the shooting of Jacob Blake by a white police officer last month. More

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      Trump blames racism in policing on 'bad apples' during visit to Kenosha

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      Wisconsin

      US president defended law enforcement while touring Wisconsin city that became flashpoint after police shooting of Jacob Blake

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      ‘It’s called choking’: Donald Trump blames racist policing on ‘bad apples’ – video

      Donald Trump brought his politics of division to Kenosha, Wisconsin, planting himself firmly on the side of law enforcement rather than civil rights protesters during a contentious visit to the city.
      The US president insisted that racial injustice in policing is due to “bad apples” rather than being “systemic” and that a silent majority of Kenosha residents are most concerned about “law and order” rather than racism.
      Kenosha became the latest flashpoint in a long summer of unrest in America after Jacob Blake, an African American man, was shot seven times in the back by police as he tried to enter his vehicle. Three nights of protests set off more than 30 fires and culminated in a 17-year-old militia supporter allegedly shooting and killing two demonstrators – an act that Trump has pointedly failed to condemn.
      Since then, marches organized both by police sympathizers and Blake’s family have been peaceful with no vandalism. But, critics say, Trump has seized on vivid TV pictures for political gain with no intention of healing or unifying.
      On Tuesday, the Blake family held a community gathering at the shooting site with a DJ playing music and tables set up so people could register to vote, get a haircut, take a coronavirus test or write a messages to put in Blake’s hospital room. The president was not invited.
      Trump’s motorcade passed crowds of demonstrators, some holding pro-Trump signs, others jeering while carrying placards that read Black Lives Matter. Under heavy police guard, including several armored vehicles, Trump toured the charred remains of a block including a furniture shop that was burned down. More

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      Jacob Blake family reject 'orange man in the White House' as Trump tours nearby

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      As Donald Trump toured parts of the Wisconsin city of Kenosha on Tuesday – against the wishes of local government officials – the family of Jacob Blake, the young Black father now paralyzed after being shot by city police, had a message for the visiting US president.Justin Blake, Jacob’s uncle, kicked off a community party on the same Kenosha block where his nephew was shot multiple times in the back by a police officer. The shooting triggered yet another harsh examination of US police practices and led to the gun deaths of two protesters, killed by a white militia supporter last week.“We’re not going to let anyone smudge my nephew’s name,” said Justin Blake, as Trump held court elsewhere with local law enforcement and criticized the protesters who had taken to streets after the shooting.“We don’t have any words for the orange man in the White House,” Blake added.Trump’s visit came to a town at the center of US politics following Blake’s shooting, the nights of protest and vandalism that it triggered, and finally the deaths of two protesters allegedly at the hands of Kyle Rittenhouse, who now stands charged with murder.Trump had billed his trip to Kenosha as a unifying move, but Blake’s family declined to meet with him and his schedule was dominated by meetings with local police officials and business leaders. He toured damaged property and paid far more attention to the destruction than to the police shooting that preceded it.To many residents, especially Black citizens, Trump’s visit was roundly unwelcome, echoing the local mayor, John Antaramian, and Wisconsin governor, Tony Evers, who had asked the president not to come. At the local courthouse, about 100 Trump supporters and a similar number of Black Lives Matter supporters traded chants back and forth. About 50 yards away, members of the national guard sat laughing and joking behind the courthouse wall.Jacob Ansari, a 42-year-old IT security adviser, wore a shirt depicting the Republican party being thrown into the trash. He said: “The president has no business being here and inflaming tension. He’s riling up his supporters and bringing in all these people who aren’t wearing masks and who have the potential to incite more violence.”He added: “People frame everything around broken windows and property, and not the actual human lives that are being hurt by bad cops and white supremacists. I think we all need to come out and stand up in this moment and say that none of this is OK. It’s not OK for the president to come out and whip up his potentially violent supporters.” More

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      Trump fails to denounce an accused killer – which comes as little surprise

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      Donald Trump has the blind devotion of a rabid sports fan. His team can do no wrong. The opposition are liars and cheats.So maybe no one was surprised on Monday when he appeared to defend an accused murderer.At the White House press briefing, Trump was asked about Kyle Rittenhouse, a white 17-year-old charged with killing two people and injuring another with an AR-15-style rifle during protests against the police shooting of an African American man in Kenosha, Wisconsin.Rittenhouse sat in the front row of a Trump rally this year and has become a darling of conservative media. Jesse Kelly, a radio host, reportedly said that “with a couple pelts on the wall” Rittenhouse “is gonna have to fight off hot conservative chicks with a bat”, while the columnist Ann Coulter said she wanted him “as my president”.Such signals from the base ensure that Trump’s loyalty is guaranteed. Asked if he will condemn the actions of vigilantes like Rittenhouse, the president demurred: “We’re looking at all of it. And that was an interesting situation. You saw the same tape as I saw. And he was trying to get away from them, I guess; it looks like. And he fell, and then they very violently attacked him. And it was something that we’re looking at right now and it’s under investigation.”And in another startling remark, Trump could not bring himself to say political violence is wrong. “I guess he was in very big trouble,” he said. “He probably would have been killed but it’s under investigation.”It was a moment that evoked memories of Charlottesville in 2017, when Trump drew moral equivalence between white nationalists and civil rights protesters. It will probably cause less of a stir, given the numbing effect of the past four years; recently Trump declined to condemn the QAnon conspiracy theory because its followers are on his side.Eric Swalwell, a Democratic congressman, observed on Twitter: “Mass shooters finally have a president who speaks for them.”“Law and order”, it seems, only applies to Trump’s perceived foes, not his supporters nor the half dozen aides to his 2016 campaign who now have criminal convictions. The president, due to visit Kenosha on Tuesday, is yet to speak to the family of Jacob Blake, who was shot and paralysed from the waist down.Moments earlier at Monday’s briefing, Trump was also asked about his own supporters riding pickup trucks into downtown Portland, Oregon, on Saturday and firing paintball guns and pepper spray. He said: “Paint is a defensive mechanism. Paint is not bullets.”A member of a far-right group was killed in the Portland clashes, prompting Trump to tweet a message of condolence: “Rest in peace Jay.” CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, often a thorn in Trump’s side, tried several times to follow up but he refused to answer and moved to the next question.Monday’s briefing also featured a long diatribe against “leftwing rioters” and “antifa” who share “the same agenda” as Democratic nominee Joe Biden, waging a “war on law enforcement” and threatening to “destroy our suburbs”.In what may have been classic projection, Trump said: “When you surrender to the mob, you don’t get freedom; you get fascism. That’s what happens in all cases. You take a look at Venezuela. Look what’s going on there and other places.“Biden is using mafia talking points: the mob will leave you alone if you give them what you want … In America we will never surrender to mob rule because if the mob rules, America is dead.”He lambasted Democratic governors and mayors for unrest happening on his own watch. The divide-and-rule appeal to tribalism is naked and obvious but that doesn’t mean it won’t work. Just as in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was constantly asked to respond to Trump’s latest outrage rather than setting out her own agenda, Biden earlier on Monday was forced to issue a rebuttal to the president’s Nixonian law-and-order hammer.That meant another day distracting from the coronavirus pandemic – burning cars and mayhem in streets attract TV cameras more readily than an invisible microbe that has been around for months – and from his attempts to sabotage the postal service and election. Like a rabid sports fan, Trump is much more comfortable on home turf. More