A friend and I plan to go to a local beer garden this weekend—one on the Brews and Choos list, in fact—so we had to make a reservation that included a $7.50-per-person deposit. Things are weird, man. And if you read the news today, oh boy, the weirdness is all over:
- Alex Shephard calls Chris Wallace "the only person who's figured out how to interview Trump." About the same interview, Peter Wehner concludes "Donald Trump is a broken man."
- In his last long-form essay for New York Magazine, Andrew Sullivan looks at historic plagues and how they changed the world. In the same issue, Jonathan Chait wonders why the Republican response to the pandemic has been "so mind-bogglingly disastrous."
- The Guardianinterviews Anne Applebaum, who "can make a convincing case that the right betrayed her."
- Via TPM, Portland-based journalist Robert Evans reports on "the Battle of Portland."
- The BBC's Reality Check column looks at the QAnon conspiracy nonsense.
Finally, closer to home, 4,400 restaurants in Chicago have closed because of the pandemic, 2,400 permanently. The Chicago Tribune has a list of the more notable closures.