January 1, Trump Tulsa Rally Features Empty Seats, Staff Infections

This Day in History | 1788

New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land.

Good Morning Middle Americans. 

And Happy Father’s Day. Last night may have been the beginning of the end of the MAGA experiment. The Trump campaign in 2016 was a runaway train from the moment the president came down the escalator at Trump tower. The Trump Presidency has weathered an impeachment, a hostile media, a Congress that doesn’t do anything and more.   And only now after a global pandemic and a graphic video that showed a police officer kneeling on a black man’s neck for more than seven minutes, does it seem like the President is in real trouble. The signs were everywhere at his rally last night in Tulsa. Empty seats, people yawning, and the president arriving back at the White House looking defeated. 

We also have a couple of other stories for you today, Bernie Sanders says the best way to reform policing in America is to legalize Marijuana. Also an arrest warrant has been issued for a woman – who,  investigators say set the Wendy’s ablaze in Atlanta after the fatal shooting of Rayshard Brooks. 

Read all about it. 

-Fraser Dixon

Trump Returns To Campaign Trail With A Familiar Message In A Changing World

(AP) – In his first campaign event since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, President Trump reached back into his culture war playbook to paint an image of a left-wing extremist dystopia that will take hold if he is defeated and Democratic opponent Joe Biden is elected this November.

“If the Democrats gain power, then the rioters will be in charge and no one will be safe and no one will have control,” Trump said to a crowd, which failed to fill the arena, but reached into the thousands in Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday night. “Joe Biden is not the leader of his party. Joe Biden is a helpless puppet of the radical left.” 

But then Trump seemed to undercut that message saying of Biden, “he’s not radical left” and that “he was never radical left. But now he’s controlled by the radical left.”

Read more here

Related: 6 Trump Staffers Test Positive Ahead of Tulsa Rally

Related: Trump Cancels Outdoor Speech in Tulsa Amid Low Turnout 

Bernie Sanders: If You Want Police Reform, Legalize Marijuana

(Chicago Tribune) – National leaders and lawmakers have held ongoing conversations around criminal justice reform and racial injustices following George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police. According to Sen. Bernie Sanders, one obvious place to start is legalizing marijuana.

Sanders gave a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, discussing several solutions to address police violence in the country. He proposed abolishing qualified immunityand establishing a “civilian” core of unarmed first responders. But legalizing marijuana is a key pillar to police reform, Sanders added, especially amid other issues, such as the coronavirus pandemic.

Find out more here

Woman Sought for Torching Atlanta Wendy’s where Rayshard Brooks was Killed

(Reuters) – A 29-year-old woman has been identified as a suspect in setting fire to the Wendy’s restaurant in Atlanta where police shot and killed Rayshard Brooks a week ago, the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department said on Saturday.

Investigators have issued an arrest warrant for Natalie White on suspicion of arson in the first degree, the fire department said in a statement. 

She is suspected of involvement in the torching of the restaurant on June 13 as protests erupted after Brooks, a 27-year-old Black man, was fatally shot by a white police officer. 

Brooks repeatedly referred to a “Natalie White” as his girlfriend the night he was killed, according to video footage from the body camera of one of the officers at the scene.

Get the latest here