💌 Send me a handwritten postcard or letter with advice for the future generation about wtf has happened over the last four years and what needs to be done.

Not sure where to start? Consider the Trump administration’s impact on climate change, healthcare, immigration, education, civil rights, or whatever, like this goddamn pandemic, and how it’s changed you, your relationships, and your outlook for the future.

Matt at WTF Just Happened Today?
505 Broadway E #211
Seattle, WA 98102 USA

🗳 How To Vote In The 2020 Election In Every State. Everything you need to know about mail-in and early in-person voting in every state in the age of COVID-19, including the first day you can cast your ballot in the 2020 election. (FiveThirtyEight / NBC News / Wall Street Journal)

  • 😷 Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”

  • Global: Total confirmed cases: ~24,566,000; deaths: ~834,000

  • U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~5,903,000; deaths: ~182,000

  • Source: Johns Hopkins University

  • At least 200,000 more people have died than usual since March – about 60,000 higher than the number of deaths that have been directly linked to the coronavirus. (New York Times)

  • 💻 COVID-19 Live Blogs: New York Times / Washington Post / USA Today / CNN / CNBC

1/ Trump’s effort to block a subpoena for his financial records would “significantly impair” an ongoing investigation into potential financial crimes, according to the Manhattan district attorney. Cyrus Vance urged the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reject Trump’s emergency bid to block the subpoena for eight years of his tax returns, saying the “continued delay of the grand jury’s investigation is unwarranted” because Trump has “no chance of success.” Trump has until Monday to respond in writing. Oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 1. (Reuters / Politico)

2/ A federal judge ordered the Trump administration and the U.S. Postal Service to turn over documents and information about USPS service changes that could undermine mail-in voting. U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian gave the administration 10 days to comply with the order, which is tied to a lawsuit brought by 20 states over the changes made by Postmaster General Louis Dejoy. The Justice Department opposed the request, arguing that responding to the requests would be burdensome and that much of the information is already part of the public record. Among the information sought by the states is a list of all mail sorting machines identified for decommissioning, including their locations, and whether they will be reinstalled if they have already been decommissioned. (Associated Press / CNN)

  • A judge ordered an Iowa county to invalidate 50,000 requests for absentee ballots, agreeing with Trump’s campaign that its elections commissioner overstepped his authority by pre-filling them with voters’ personal information. (NBC News)

3/ Trump “profoundly” accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for a second term, botching the word “proudly” in his prepared text, during a 70-minute speech on the South Lawn of the White House. Trump repeatedly misrepresented his own record and leveled numerous false or misleading attacks on Democrats, asserting that he is responsible for everything good that has happened since taking office and that everyone else is to blame for the country’s problems. Trump, meanwhile, has presided over the deaths of 180,000 Americans with nearly 30 million people out of work from the coronavirus, and civil unrest over racial injustice that he has repeatedly and consistently stoked. And, nearly every claim Trump made about Biden’s positions was false. Trump, nevertheless, claimed the nation is on the cusp of a takeover by “violent anarchists” who would exploit a “weak” Joe Biden to destroy America, adding: “No one will be safe in Biden’s America.” Nearly 2,000 guests on the lawn were packed into rows of chairs with few wearing masks despite the pandemic and social distancing guideline. (NBC News / New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / CNN / Wall Street Journal)

  • 👑 Portrait of a president: Instead of Evolving as President, Trump Has Bent the Job to His Will. When asked to define what his second-term agenda would be, Trump replied: “But so I think, I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we’d have a very, very solid, we would continue what we’re doing, we’d solidify what we’ve done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done.” (New York Times)

  • 🌀 Dept. of Political Infomercials.

  • 🐘 Fact-Checking Night 4 of the RNC: CNN / Washington Post

  • 🐘 RNC Night 4 Recaps: New York Times / The Atlantic / Washington Post / CNN / Politico / Wall Street Journal / USA Today / NPR

  • [Read] Trump’s acceptance speech at the RNC.

  • The Biden campaign bought the domain name KeepAmericaGreat.com and turned it into a list of Trump’s broken promises. “Trump isn’t looking for a second term,” the page reads. “He’s looking for a do-over.” The page also lists a number of promises Trump had made that the Biden campaign says he hasn’t delivered on. Trump announced that Keep America Great would be his re-election slogan before the formal launch of his campaign last year. (Politico / NBC News)

4/ A senior White House official dismissed concerns about the lack of social distancing at Trump’s GOP acceptance speech, saying “everybody is going to catch this thing eventually.” An estimated 1,500 people, mostly maskless, attended the speech. Most guests were not administered rapid coronavirus tests upon entry. (Talking Points Memo)

  • Four people involved with the Republican National Convention meeting in Charlotte tested positive for COVID-19. A spokesman for the party said two attendees and two individuals “supporting the event” tested positive upon arriving at the convention and were immediately sent home. In all, 792 tests were given to people who attended or provided support to the convention in Charlotte. (Charlotte Observer / CNN)

  • A member of Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s team tested positive for COVID-19. A defense official said the staffer was part of the advance team for Esper’s trip in the Indo-Pacific region and did not come into contact with Esper or Pentagon staff. (CNN)

5/ Thousands of demonstrators marched on Washington demanding an end to systemic racism while honoring the 57th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” address. Speakers called for the Senate to take up the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which would make it easier to prosecute police officers for misconduct, and enact a new version of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The “Get Your Knee Off Our Necks” Commitment March convened hours after Trump’s acceptance speech on the South Lawn of the White House where he railed against what he called agitators bent on destroying “the American way of life.” (New York Times / Wall Street Journal / Washington Post / USA Today)

  • Jacob Blake, who is now paralyzed from the waist down after a Kenosha police officer shot him seven times in the back, is handcuffed to his hospital bed. Blake was shackled to his bed because of a warrant related to a July charge of third-degree sexual assault, criminal trespass, and disorderly conduct. (CNN / New York Times)

6/ FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn removed the agency’s chief spokeswoman, who was installed by the White House 11 days ago. Emily Miller previously worked in communications for the re-election campaign of Ted Cruz and was a journalist for One America News, the conservative cable network. Separately, the Department of Health and Human Services terminated the contract of a public relations consultant who had advised Hahn to correct misleading comments about the benefits of blood plasma for COVID-19. HHS, however, denied that Wayne Pines’s contract was terminated because of his involvement in the plasma messaging. (New York Times / Politico / CNN)

✏️ Notables.

  1. The House Foreign Affairs Committee announced contempt proceedings against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over his “ongoing refusal to comply” with a subpoena for records related to the State Department’s involvement in attempts to link Joe Biden to corruption in Ukraine. In a statement, Chairman Eliot Engel cited Pompeo’s “unprecedented record of obstruction and defiance of the House’s constitutional oversight authority.” (CNBC / Axios / New York Times)

  2. Twitter removed two fake, pro-Trump accounts that had co-opted the identities of African Americans. The fake accounts used the images of Black men for their profile pictures and had five separate tweets with at least 10,000 retweets related to abandoning the Democratic Party. (NBC News)

  3. The Pentagon will reduce the U.S. force in Iraq to about 3,500 troops from about 5,200. “The U.S. and Iraq refrained from publicly setting a schedule for reducing the approximately 5,200 American troops now in the country when Iraq’s prime minister visited Washington last week.” (Wall Street Journal / ABC News)

  4. University of Pennsylvania faculty asked the provost to investigate how Trump was admitted to the school in 1966. Eric Orts and five other faculty cited “new evidence” on secretly recorded tapes between Mary Trump and Maryanne Trump Barry, in which Trump’s sister says a friend took his entrance exam. Mary Trump’s new book also alleges that Trump paid someone to take his SATs. In July, the six professors wrote that “failing to investigate an allegation of fraud at such a level broadcasts to prospective students and the world at large that the playing field is not equal, that our degrees can be bought, and that subsequent fame, wealth, and political status will excuse past misconduct.” (Washington Post)