Luke Mogelson, "The Uprising," The New Yorker, June 22, 2020.

"Cummins [Prison in Arkansas] has had the  tenth-largest coronavirus outbreak in the nation -- nine hundred and fifty-six people, including sixty-five staff members have tested positive -- but the Division of Corrections has made only minimal steps to contain it." The Arkansas attorney general had stated that the risks to prisoners were not "so great that they violate standards of decency," nor were they "ones that today's society society does not tolerate." Meanwhile, in a state prison thirty-five miles from Cummins, there was a outbreak: Two hundred and twenty-eight inmates have tested positive.

"Between 2012 nd 2017, Arkansas's prison population grew more rapidly than any other state's, with  the number of elderly prisoners rising more rapidly than any other age group." "Prisoners are hidden in most realities of life, but, when it comes to infectious disease, the harms of incarceration become visible. Political leaders must  reckon with the fact that prisoners are part of our communities. The risk of tuberculosis, for instance, is twenty-three times higher inside prison walls -- poor ventilation, social density, and minimal sun exposure are fertile conditions for the spread of disease..." 

Dexter Filkins, "The Uncounted," The New Yorker, September 7, 2020.

Florida's ban on ex-felons disenfranchisement affects one out of five Black adults in the state. "Six months after Amendment Four passed, the Republican-dominated legislature approved a law dictating that ex-felons could only vote if they first paid all the fines, restitutions, and fees imposed at their sentencing. The law may affect as many as seven hundred thousand of Florida residents, about half of them Black."

Felons were also affected as the 2000 election approached: Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, sent lists presumed felons to the supervisors of elections in the state's sixty-seven counties, advising them to purge the names from voter rolls. David Klausner, a computer-forensics expert who worked with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit, told Dexter Filkins that almost inconceivably sloppy methods were being used: Flagging voters with different Social Security numbers, and even genders, from the felons they were being matched with. The rosters were being expanded by using names of felons from ten other states. "There were infants on the lists he [gave] me," says Filkins.

Bryce Covert, "Defund the Police," The New Yorker, July 27, 2020. 

Spending on the police jumped from about $2 billion in 1960 to $137 billion in 2018, unadjusted for inflation. "The Center on Budget and Policy projects a $615 billion shortfall in state budgets over the next three years." Focusing on New York City, ensuring the settlements come out of the NYPD's budget, "gives them some incentive to address misconduct."

"In addition to less spending, advocates want the police to stop dealing with things like mental health crises and school safety."

Jelani Cobb, "The Matter of Black Lives," The New Yorker, July 27, 2020.

"The Human Rights Campaign noted that between 2013 and 2015 there were fifty-three known murders of transgender people, thirty-nine of the victims were African American." "If Black  Lives Matter has been an object lesson in the power of social media, it has also revealed the medium's pitfalls."

Bryce Covert, "Has McDonalds a Real Sexual Harassment Problem?, The Nation, August 10/17, 2020.

Women who have worked at McDonalds report similar experiences with coworkers who grabbed or pinched their buttocks; groped their breasts, hips, or groin; or touched their hair or shoulders. An estimated one in eight workers in the United States have been employed at McDonalds at some point. "In 2016, 40 percent of women in nonmanagerial fast food jobs said they had experienced unwanted  sexual harassment at work. But harassment at McDonalds appears to be of a different degree. In a survey of 782 current and former nonmanagerial employees conducted this April, three-quarters said they had experienced sexual harassment at work, with the majority dealing with multiple forms at once. Half were subjected to sexual comments; a third were touched, groped, or fondled and 12 percent were sexually assaulted or raped. Many experienced these things multiple times." 

"Just 7 percent of McDonalds's global locations are owned by the company and thus are under its  direct control; the rest are owned and operated by franchises."

ADDENDUMS:

*Although some media sources used "both-sidedness" and "equivalence" to  describe the first Biden-Trump debate, polls show that Trump disappointed even his supporters, and that Biden gained on demographics and issues.

*Zeke Emanuel, a prominent bioethicist, who served in the Obama administration, tweeted: "You do not give a patient -- much less the President of the United States -- a drug that is not yet approved by the FDA (to say nothing of one with 'mild symptoms')."

*According to a new study released by Cornell University, which analyzed over 38 million articles in English-language media around the word, the American president is this planet's most toxic source of misinformation about the pandemic.

*After learning that one of his top aides had tested positive for Covid-19, President Trump still went to a fundraiser in New Jersey without informing anyone.