The Total Report

As Democratic leaders hash out the details of the upcoming $3.5 trillion reconciliation deal, dozens of Democratic lawmakers are uniting behind a proposal to create a Civilian Climate Corps and rallying for its inclusion in the bill. Eighty-four Democrats signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) urging them to incorporate their proposal for the Corps on Tuesday.

Hospitals throughout the state of Florida are seeing increases in COVID-19 numbers, so much so that some have reverted to implementing policies that limit visitors in order to curtail the possibility of spreading the virus. Reporting from The Miami Herald details how much has changed in just the past few weeks. Jackson Health System, a public hospital system in Miami-Dade County, which includes three separate hospitals, has seen the number of patients admitted for overnight care due to coronavirus infections increase from 66 on July 6 to 139 as of July 19, the Herald noted. Baptist Health South Florida’s system of 10 hospitals has seen the number of patients admitted for coronavirus increase nearly 300 percent since the end of June. And Memorial Healthcare System, which has six hospitals, says it’s treating 225 patients for COVID-19, compared to just 92 patients about a month ago.

Former president George W. Bush recently took a break from painting portraits of the wounded soldiers he fed into the maw of dual wars 20 years ago to complain about the end of one of those wars. In a rare interview, given to German news agency Deutsche Welle (DW), Bush had himself a nice little sad about the fact that the Biden administration was finally shutting down U.S. military involvement in the two-decade bottomless pit that was, and will ever be, his Afghanistan conflict.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) has chosen five Republican members to serve on the select committee to investigate the attack on the Capitol on January 6 — and a majority of those chosen are people who voted to overturn the election on that day. Under the rules of the committee set by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), McCarthy is allowed to choose five Republicans for the 13-member committee. This is similar to Pelosi’s original proposal to form the commission, with Democrats making up a majority of the group. A subsequent bipartisan proposal for the commission, meanwhile, had a 50-50 split between the parties but was blocked by Republicans, despite several concessions from the Democrats. McCarthy chose Republican Representatives Jim Banks (Indiana), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Rodney Davis (Illinois), Kelly Armstrong (North Dakota) and Troy Nehls (Texas) to serve on the committee. Of those picks, Banks, Jordan and Nehls were among the 147 Republican lawmakers who voted against certifying the electoral college results on the day that the deadly attack on the Capitol occured, encouraged by President Trump.

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we end today’s show looking at...

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: And finally, I wanted to ask you about Guantánamo. Guantánamo was just in the news yesterday, because...

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to bring Dr. Callamard back into the conversation, new secretary general of Amnesty International. I...

Summer is a great time for the outdoors. While the heat can get overbearing, summertime usually brings along a lot of relaxation. While people are still working and carrying out their...

2020 was an atypical year. While it put a hard stop on most things, it was also an election year, opening the door to a lot of change. One of these...