We now have a new projection of 300,000 US COVID fatalities by December. I’ve wanted over recent days to put together a chart showing just how much worse the death toll already is in the US compared to almost any other peer country – ‘peers’ here meaning countries with comparable affluence, state capacity, etc.

The US is now well over 150,000 fatalities. Japan has had just over one thousand. Germany is approaching 10,000 fatalities. These countries have small populations of course. If Germany had the same population as the US that number would be about 40,000. Japan would be about 3,000. But the magnitude of the difference speaks for itself. How many of these 150,000 and counting US fatalities are the product of negligence and policy abdication? 100,000? 75,000? The number is staggering.

We have a special briefing on Friday at 1 PM for Inside members. We’ll be talking to Annette Gordon-Reed. Gordon-Reed is one of the country’s preeminent Jefferson scholars and the leading scholar of the Jefferson/Hemings family in all its dimensions. We’re going to talk about that story, Annette’s scholarship and how we do see or should see Jefferson in the light of this history and particularly in the light of the season of iconoclasm we are currently living through after the murder of George Floyd. I’m really looking forward to this conversation. So I hope you’ll join us. An email invitation should be in your inbox.

Yesterday I sat down with Senior Editor David Taintor and Reporter Kate Riga to discuss this week’s news. We talked COVID, COVID relief negotiations and the 2020 elections. If you’re a member watch our conversation right here.

Vice President Mike Pence was speaking directly to the audience he knows best when he went after Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts yesterday.

As I’ve tried to make clear repeatedly, I think an audit of the executive branch after Trump leaves office (whenever that is), is absolutely essential. Equally so, disclosure – a full airing of everything that happened during this corrupt, transgressive era – is a higher priority than punishment or criminal investigations.

While President Trump himself is exempt from the rules of the Hatch Act, it would appear he’s not even trying to adhere to precedent as he vies for a second term.

Let’s be honest: good news on the COVID front is very hard to come by. So let’s note some very limited but still real good news. The post-“reopening” outbreak in the United States – almost entirely a self-inflicted harm – appears to have peaked and is possibly beginning to subside.