Rolling Stone: Trump Economic Advisor Refers to Workers as ‘Human Capital Stock’

Mod: Apparently in the eyes of the Trump administration you are something to be referred to as "Human Capital Stock." In their eyes it appears that you are a less than human object.

Trump Economic Advisor Reduces Workers to ‘Human Capital Stock’ (Rolling Stone link): While discussing whether the U.S. economy might recover this fall after the coronavirus downturn, a Trump economic advisor referred to the American worker as “human capital stock.”

'Hassett the Asset'

Senior White House Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett made the wildly insensitive remark, first flagged by Aaron Rupar on Twitter, on Sunday after CNN’s Dana Bash asked whether unemployment numbers would remain in double digits come November.

“Our capital stock hasn’t been destroyed, our human capital stock is ready to get back to work, and so there are lots of reasons to believe that we can get going way faster than we have in previous crises,” Hassett said.

Calling people “stock” is next level apathetic, and the way Hassett used the term so casually lines up with the lack of empathy shown to the victims of the coronavirus by Trump’s administration and Republicans since the crisis began months ago.

Trump has moved ahead with attempts to cut food stamps during the crisis while Republicans in Congress have balked at passing a second stimulus package and are looking to phase out coronavirus-related unemployment benefits. Hassett was also asked about increasing funding for food stamps and said he hadn’t raised the topic with Trump, saying, “I have not discussed with the president.” Hassett also called the requests for additional funding coming from states “absurd” and “radical.”

“There’s already a lot of money for state and local governments… I think that a lot of the requests for state and local bailouts that you’re seeing out there up on the Hill are, like, radically, radically more money than the expected shortfall for the year… And the requests are kind of absurd,” Hassett said.

A thoughtful and commonsense debate can be had about whether or not the funding requests from states are “absurd.” But calling human beings “stock” — especially as essential workers are putting their lives and bodies on the line right now — is undeniably absurd and heartless.

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Ann Coulter Turns on ‘Disloyal Actual Retard’ Trump in Twitter Rant - Plus: Charlamagne Tha Sexual Predator?

Mod: While in no ways a wonderful person, Ann does have several interesting new observations to make about Disinfectant Donny. But here is my question. How come she gets to call him an 'actual retard,' and I don't?

Ann Coulter Turns on ‘Disloyal Actual Retard’ Trump in Twitter Rant (The Wrap link): Ann Coulter went on an early Sunday morning Twitter tear, calling President Donald Trump “the most disloyal actual retard that has ever set foot in the Oval Office.”

The far-right media pundit and former Trump defender was triggered by the president’s Friday tweet in which he called for Alabama voters to “not trust Jeff Sessions” and instead put their support behind Sessions’ Republican Senate seat challenger, football coach Tommy Tuberville.

“3 years ago, after Jeff Sessions recused himself, the Fraudulent Mueller Scam began. Alabama, do not trust Jeff Sessions. He let our Country down. That’s why I endorsed Coach Tommy Tuberville (@TTuberville), the true supporter of our #MAGA agenda!,” Trump tweeted.

And that set off Coulter, who called Trump a “moron,” “retard” and “lout,” who was incapable of “pretending to be” a “decent, compassionate human being.”

Coulter capped off her rant by affirming the issues that Trump stood behind as a candidate but that she feels he has abandoned since entering the White House. The commentator, who published a book in 2016 titled “In Trump We Trust,” added that she regrets once believing in “this shallow and broken man.” In February 2019, Trump declared a national emergency at the Southern border, while pushing himself away from Coulter. She responded that “the only national emergency is our president is an idiot.”

Mod: My one remaining question about the now rapidly waning Charlemagne Tha God controversy (diminutive radio jock, television talking head) is why was Joe Biden even talking with this dude in the first place?

In 2015, Charlamagne Tha God Admitted to Giving a Woman Spanish Fly and Having Sex While She 'Wasn't Coherent' (The Root link): After a 17-year-old rape allegation resurfaced against popular radio host, Charlamange Tha God, an old clip of Charlamagne (born Lenard Larry McKelvey) talking about the incident with DJ Akademics began circulating again on social media. In the 2013 interview, McKelvey denies he ever slept with Jessica Reid, the woman who’s accused him of raping her in South Carolina when she was just 15 years old (McKelvey was 22).

McKelvey did admit to hosting the party where she was allegedly raped.

Now, another old Charlamagne recording has resurfaced, this one from 2015, in which McKelvey describes a separate incident involving another woman. In the exchange, which was recorded on the Brilliant Idiots podcast, McKelvey recounts giving a woman Spanish Fly and having sex with her while she was “wasted.”

McKelvey also insists the sex was consensual, though he admits that his partner did not remember the encounter and wasn’t “coherent” at the time.

If the details as McKelvey lays them out in the podcast are true, the incident could be defined as rape, particularly if she wasn’t aware that the substance was in her drink—something which isn’t clear in McKelvey’s initial story, and which “Brilliant Idiots” co-host Andrew Shultz alludes to when McKelvey described the encounter to him.

The podcast episode itself is dedicated to discussing rape culture as a whole. Despite being recorded just three years ago, the conversation hasn’t aged well, with McKelvey and Shultz laughing throughout the discussion. During the podcast, McKelvey tells Shultz about a “scenario in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.”

“I got this girl real drunk, and I fu—we fucked,” McKelvey says before Schultz cuts him off. “Just that sentence sound a little fishy,” Schultz interjects. “‘I got her drunk.’” McKelvey continues his story, detailing how he went to “the sex store” to get Spanish Fly, which he then put into both of their E&J drinks. Once the girl got drunk, McKelvey says he had sex with her, adding that “a lot of my boys” also tried to come in and have sex with the woman (he says he turned them away).

“Running a train on her, that’s rape,” McKelvey says, laughing.

Mod: Sounds more like a Trumpy kind of dude, right? Bonus content from 2018: "Inside the Disturbing Rape Allegations Against Charlamagne Tha God, Hip-Hop Radio’s Biggest Voice" (Daily Beast link)

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As Trump Golfs - ‘Incalculable Loss’: NY Times Front Page Features Names, Obituaries of 1,000 Coronavirus Victims

Mod: It should be quite obvious to everyone by now that this guy couldn't care less.

‘Incalculable Loss’: New York Times Front Page Features Names, Obituary Excerpts of 1,000 Coronavirus Victims (MEDIAITE link): The New York Times unveiled an astonishing cover for Sunday’s paper, featuring the names of 1,000 victims of Covid-19.

“Instead of the articles, photographs or graphics that normally appear on the front page of The New York Times, on Sunday, there is just a list: a long, solemn list of people whose lives were lost to the coronavirus pandemic,” The Times announced in a piece explaining the cover on Saturday.

“As the death toll from Covid-19 in the United States approaches 100,000, a number expected to be reached in the coming days, editors at The Times have been planning how to mark the grim milestone,” they wrote. “Simone Landon, assistant editor of the Graphics desk, wanted to represent the number in a way that conveyed both the vastness and the variety of lives lost.”

According to a John Hopkins University tally, 96,983 people in the United States have died from the coronavirus. There is a nationwide total of 1.6 million cases. As the country approaches 100,000 deaths, states including Texas and Florida have already begun relaxing lockdown measures, allowing for businesses to reopen.

“We knew we were approaching this milestone,” said Simone Landon, assistant editor of the Times graphics desk. “We knew that there should be some way to try to reckon with that number.”

The 1,000 names shown on the cover represent just 1% of the total lives lost in the United States throughout this pandemic.

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Matt Lewis: Trump’s ‘hostile takeover’ of the Republican Party is going to lead to a 2020 election wipeout

Mod: Conservative Matt Lewis is a former Republican political writer who has some down-home truth for his ex-party. Apparently now you have to leave the GOP before you can tell the truth.

Trump’s ‘hostile takeover’ of the Republican Party is going to lead to a 2020 election wipeout (Raw Story link): In a column for the Daily Beast, former Republican — but still conservative — Matt Lewis took a look at the most recent presidential and Senate election polling and predicted that Donald Trump is leading the GOP to a November wipeout that will see them lose the Senate and the White House.

With a Fox News poll coming out this week showing the president trailing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden badly, Lewis said things likely won’t get better for Trump and that could lead to the collapse of the entire party.

Posing the question, “A Democratic wave is slowly gaining energy. Could a Republican wipe-out ensue?” Lewis added, “Consider this: Donald Trump is getting trounced by 11 points in the recent Quinnipiac poll. That one may be an outlier, but Biden is also up by 8 in the latest Fox News poll. More importantly, he continues to expand the electoral map, consistently besting Trump in Arizona, a state that wasn’t considered vital to his path to victory. He’s also winning in Florida and (albeit narrowly) Georgia (!).”

Acknowledging it is still early, Lewis said Republicans should be very concerned about what the future holds not only for the November election but beyond.

“The U.S. Senate map is experiencing a similar blue-ish expansion. Democrats need three seats to take control (four, if you assume that Democrat Doug Jones will lose in Alabama), a hurdle that looks increasingly doable,” he wrote. ” Should this trend continue, Republicans will have, in four short years, gone from controlling all the levers of power to losing them all. Did I mention that Democrats will retain the House of Representatives, which Republicans lost in year two of Trump’s presidency?”

“Even before Trump completed his hostile takeover of the GOP, the future looked tenuous for a party that had grown increasingly reliant on old, white, married, rural, and non-college-educated voters, even as demographic trends seem to be shifting in an opposite direction,” the Daily Beast columnist explained.

“Some speculated that Trump’s 2016 victory might constitute one last, desperate, gasp for this demographic coalition. If that were the case, the trade-off might be worth it—especially if it bought time for the GOP to adapt.”

“He [Trump] didn’t just burn the village, he sowed salt in the ground, too. He emasculated and destroyed the reputations of a rising generation of Republican leaders, who, depending on their story, will now be viewed as weaklings, co-conspirators, appeasers, racists, phonies, losers, or apostates,” he added, before suggesting, “Let’s assume 2020 is a total wipeout for Republicans. Do these Republicans kick Trump to the curb and adapt to reality?”

Mod: Much more at the link.

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NPR: Nearly Half Of Accounts Tweeting About Coronavirus Are Likely Bots

Mod: The new Fox News poll (link) has Trump down 8 points to Biden. So look who is back. The Moscow fixer, helping out.

Researchers: Nearly Half Of Accounts Tweeting About Coronavirus Are Likely Bots (NPR link): Nearly half of the Twitter accounts spreading messages on the social media platform about the coronavirus pandemic are likely bots, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University said Wednesday.

Researchers culled through more than 200 million tweets discussing the virus since January and found that about 45% were sent by accounts that behave more like computerized robots than humans.

It is too early to say conclusively which individuals or groups are behind the bot accounts, but researchers said the tweets appeared aimed at sowing division in America.

"We do know that it looks like it's a propaganda machine, and it definitely matches the Russian and Chinese playbooks, but it would take a tremendous amount of resources to substantiate that," said Kathleen Carley, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University who is conducting a study into bot-generated coronavirus activity on Twitter that has yet to be published.

Researchers identified more than 100 false narratives about COVID-19 that are proliferating on Twitter by accounts controlled by bots. Among the misinformation disseminated by bot accounts: tweeted conspiracy theories about hospitals being filled with mannequins or tweets that connected the spread of the coronavirus to 5G wireless towers, a notion that is patently untrue.

Such bogus ideas on the Internet have caused real-world harm. In England, dozens of wireless towers have been set on fire in acts officials believe have been fueled by false conspiracy theories linking the rollout of 5G technology to the coronavirus.

"We're seeing up to two times as much bot activity as we'd predicted based on previous natural disasters, crises and elections," Carley said.

Mod: More at the link.

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CNN: Trump will lose in a landslide because of the economy, new election model predicts (35% of the vote)

270ToWin.com link

Mod: New polling is starting to roll in and none of it is looking especially good for the Happy Hydrox.

Trump will lose in a landslide because of the economy, new election model predicts (CNN link): The economy has gone from President Donald Trump's greatest political asset to perhaps his biggest weakness. Unemployment is spiking at an unprecedented rate. Consumer spending is vanishing. And GDP is collapsing. History shows that dreadful economic trends like these spell doom for sitting presidents seeking reelection.

The coronavirus recession will cause Trump to suffer a "historic defeat" in November, a national election model released Wednesday by Oxford Economics predicted.

The model, which uses unemployment, disposable income and inflation to forecast election results, predicts that Trump will lose in a landslide, capturing just 35% of the popular vote. That's a sharp reversal from the model's pre-crisis prediction that Trump would win about 55% of the vote. And it would be the worst performance for an incumbent in a century.

"It would take nothing short of an economic miracle for pocketbooks to favor Trump," Oxford Economics wrote in the report, adding that the economy will be a "nearly insurmountable obstacle for Trump come November."

Poll: Biden holds 11-point lead over Trump (The Hill link): Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by double digits in the race for the White House, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday.

The poll shows Biden with an 11-point advantage over Trump in a national head-to-head match-up. Fifty percent of those surveyed said they currently plan on voting for the former vice president, while 39 percent said they would vote for Trump.

Meanwhile, the number of voters who disapprove of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic rose to 56 percent from 51 percent last month. The president’s overall job approval is in decline, as well, falling to 42 percent from 45 percent in April.

Mod: Quinnipiac Poll on whether Americans consider President Trump honest: Yes 34% No 62%.

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‘It’s called libel’: MSNBC’s Mika demands Twitter CEO act after Trump baselessly accuses her husband of murder

Mod: I'm not sure a President of the United States is supposed to talk and act out like an unhinged Internet troll. 

‘It’s called libel’: MSNBC’s Mika demands Twitter CEO act after Trump baselessly accuses her husband of murder (Raw Story link): MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski on Wednesday demanded that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey take action after President Donald Trump once again used the platform to level baseless accusations of murder against her husband.

“Jack, please take my call today,” she wrote. “Please stop allowing your platform policies to be abused by the day. It’s called libel.”

Brzezinski also demanded to know “why Trump is not banned” from the platform for violating its rules.

In a tweet posted earlier in the morning, Trump once again called for law enforcement officials to launch an investigation into “Low Ratings Psycho Joe Scarborough” for supposedly murdering Lori Klausutis, an 28-year-old intern who died in 2001 while working in Scarborough’s Florida office.

However, as an AP fact check published in 2017 shows, a coroner’s report found that Klausutis, who suffered from an undiagnosed heart condition, fainted and fatally hit her head while working in Scarborough’s office. The fact check also noted that Scarborough was in Washington, D.C. at the time of Klausutis’s death.

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How will his Doctors know? "Hydroxychloroquine could cause Trump hallucinations and ‘severe’ mental changes"

Mod: The big junk news yesterday afternoon was Mad Don's near-shocking confession that he has been taking Hydroxy -chloroquine for a few weeks. This despite the misgivings of many health professionals. I think it's all bullshit, intended as yet one more distraction from his crimes against America. But (and I'm playing along here), as bananas as Trump already is, how will his Doctors truly know? What is the baseline data for an old fat guy with a basketful of mental preconditions?

Hydroxy -chloroquine could cause Trump hallucinations — and ‘severe’ mental changes: report (Raw Story link): President Donald Trump could be experiencing unwanted side-effects from his use of Hydroxy -chloroquine.

CNN’s Bob Ortega warned of the danger following Trump’s admission he has been taking the drug.

"Worth noting, perhaps, that the Mayo Clinic lists possible side effects of hydroxychloroquine as including: "feeling, seeing, or hearing things that are not there… severe mood or mental changes… unusual behavior… unusual facial expressions… irritability." Indeed, the organization does warn of potential mental health impacts.

“Feeling that others are watching you or controlling your behavior,” is one potential side effect. “Feeling that others can hear your thoughts,” is another. “Feeling, seeing, or hearing things that are not there,” is also listed. “Severe mood or mental changes,” as well. Mayo also warns of “unusual behavior.”

Boogie knows Hydrox is really a cookie.

Pelosi: Trump is at grave risk taking hydroxychloroquine because he’s old and ‘morbidly obese’ (Raw Story link): On Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that she believes President Donald Trump’s decision to take hydroxychloroquine is dangerous for his health, given his age and weight.

“He’s our president and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by scientists, especially in his age group and in his, shall we say, weight group,” said Pelosi.

“Morbidly obese, they say.”

Trump has consistently claimed he is in good health and weight range, and has notes from his doctors to that effect, but these have expressed constant skepticism from the public.

Mod: A video of Speaker Pelosi's candid conversation with CNN's Anderson Cooper is available to those who click here. 

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Report: Over 100 Militant Extremist Groups Have Been Promoting Second Civil War on Facebook

Mod: Prezzy Mad Donald O' Mar-a-Lago might have some complaints about what he claims is a left wing bias on the major social media platforms, but it appears that his "good people" militias still have a nice place to call home.

Report: Over 100 Militant Groups Have Been Promoting Second Civil War on Facebook (Gizmodo link): God help us if Mark Zuckerberg’s next congressional hearing is on the subject of the Bloody Insurrection of 2020. As HuffPost first reported, a scourge of far-right extremist accounts on Facebook appear to be gearing up for a meme-inspired civil war amid the Covid-19 outbreak.

The Tech Transparency Project (TTP), a research group focused on exposing large platforms’ misconduct and influence, released a report finding that 125 Facebook groups are promoting the “boogaloo,” a term far-right groups use to refer to a wishful Civil War sequel. The boogaloo appears to have mutated from a joking 4chan meme into a real-life movement of militiamen (“Boojihadeens”) late last year. But the TTP found a surge in boogaloo interest over the past few months, correlating with social distancing measures. According to the report, over 60 percent of the Facebook groups cropped up in the past three months and, as a whole, have attracted over 36,000 members in the last 30 days.

In a statement to Gizmodo Friday night, a Facebook spokesperson said that the company has “removed groups and pages who’ve used this and related terms for violating our policies.” “We’re reviewing the content referenced in this report and will enforce against any violations,” they added. On Monday morning, dozens of boogaloo-themed pages, including ones mentioned in the TTP report, were still accessible on the platform.

Boogaloo promoters have been attending anti-quarantine protests, events with ties to pro-gun activists. The report says that the Boojahideen have been hearing dog whistles from the president lately, greeting his “LIBERATE” tweets with cheers. “TTP found that some members of private boogaloo Facebook groups reacted to the president’s rhetoric with memes of celebration,” it reads, “and traded details of anti-quarantine protests in Richmond, Virginia, and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”

In total, these Facebook groups boast 72,686 members, although the report did not verify how many members overlap between groups. One merch page, the Thicc Boog Line, admins at least 11 other boogaloo groups.

Mod: Much more can be found at the Gizmodo link. For the Huffington Post article (''Amid The Pandemic, U.S. Militia Groups Plot ‘The Boogaloo,’ AKA Civil War, On Facebook'') click here. For the Tech Transparency Project report ("Extremists Are Using Facebook to Organize for Civil War Amid Coronavirus") you'll click here.

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Trump Says Tech Giants Facebook, Twitter, Google Controlled by ‘Radical Left,’ Vows Action

Mod: Der Disinfectant Trumpenfuhrer continues to thrash around wildly like a deer hit by a truck, and currently his rage is being directed at social media. A place where he spends a lot of his time.

Trump Says Tech Giants Controlled by ‘Radical Left,’ Vows Action (MSN link): President Donald Trump accused Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google of being controlled by the “Radical Left” and said that his administration is working to remedy what he called an “illegal situation.”

In a tweet that also mentions the Facebook-owned Instagram, the U.S. president commented on a clip by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin lambasting the so-called deplatforming of conservative voices by technology companies. Trump didn’t elaborate on potential measures targeting the tech giants.

Malkin in a recent post on her Twitter account said that she would not be taking the “Gates vaccine,” a term often employed online by anti-vaccine activists to refer to the many coronavirus vaccines in development. It refers to Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates.

Trump threatens Facebook and Twitter in ominous early morning rage-tweet (Raw Story link): In an early-morning tweet, Donald Trump issued threats against a wide array of social media platforms saying they are engaging in “illegal” activities at the behest of the “Radical Left.”

Linking to a clip of a speech given by conservative gadfly Michelle Malkin complaining about censorship, the president wrote, “The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google. The Administration is working to remedy this illegal situation. Stay tuned, and send names & events. Thank you Michelle!”

Mod: Wouldn't it be something if Twitter 'deplatformed' Donald?

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Politico: Elderly Trump voters dying of coronavirus could cost him in November

Mod: With the CDC now predicting coronavirus deaths will exceed 100,000 by June (link), exactly who is dying becomes a political calculation as well. 

Study: Elderly Trump voters dying of coronavirus could cost him in November (Politico link): Mass casualties from the coronavirus could upend the political landscape in battleground states and shift contests away from President Donald Trump, according to a new analysis.

Academic researchers writing in a little-noticed public administration journal — Administrative Theory & Praxis (link) — conclude that when considering nothing other than the tens of thousands of deaths projected from the virus, demographic shifts alone could be enough to swing crucial states to Joe Biden in the fall.

“The pandemic is going to take a greater toll on the conservative electorate leading into this election — and that’s simply just a calculation of age,” Andrew Johnson, the lead author and a professor of management at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said in an interview. “The virus is killing more older voters, and in many states that’s the key to a GOP victory.”

Johnson and his colleagues Wendi Pollock and Beth M. Rauhaus projected that even with shelter-in-place orders remaining in effect, about 11,000 more Republicans than Democrats who are 65 and older could die before the election in both Michigan and North Carolina.

In Pennsylvania, should the state return to using only social distancing to fight infections, over 13,000 more Republican than Democratic voters in that age category could be lost.

The study is based on early fatality projections from CovidActNow.org that are orders of magnitude higher than what's borne out so far in battleground states — a point some outside experts have seized on to inject a dose of skepticism in the study’s findings. In an interview, Johnson acknowledged the high numbers used for the study, but he contended it remains early and that easing of stay-at-home orders could spark more cases and deaths.

Mod: More at the Politico link.

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Rasmussen: 23% of Republicans Think GOP Should Nominate Someone Other Than Trump

Mod: Now before somebody asks, "Only 23%?, please remember something. This is the party that has long claimed Trump enjoys well over 90% Republican support. Something must have happened.

23% of Republicans Think GOP Should Nominate Someone Other Than Trump (Rasmussen Report link): Republicans overwhelmingly expect President Trump to be their nominee this fall, but nearly one-in-four GOP voters would prefer someone else. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 23% of Likely Republican Voters think their party should find someone other than Trump to be their presidential nominee. Seventy percent (70%) disagree. Only seven percent (7%) are undecided.

Fox News is telling its employees to work from home for at least another month while its TV hosts push for businesses to reopen (Business Insider link): In a memo to employees Friday, the Fox Corporation announced workers will be told to telework for at least another month, CNN reported. According to CNN's Brian Stelter, the memo sent Friday tells Fox Corp. employees — which include employees of Fox News — that they will not begin a gradual return to the company's offices until June 15 at the earliest. The date could be pushed back even further, according to CNN.

"We were originally told of a potential return to the office in mid-May back in late March, so I wouldn't be surprised if we don't make [the June 15 date] and we push it to late summer," a Fox source told CNN.

The memo, sent by Fox Corp. Chief Operating Officer John Nallen, says that the company's properties would reopen in "phases," sources told CNN.

The memo comes as the network's on-air personalities have for weeks been echoing President Donald's calls to reopen shuttered portions of the country, from schools to businesses. Coronavirus cases continue to rise, and models predict even more cases as states reopen early.

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