As for the Pending Democratic Senate Primary

I offer my heartiest endorsement to Senator Ed Markey, for renomination and reelection. In a sea of Massachusetts' Politicians who all burn with the Fever Dream of Avenging 11/22/1963 and proudly Marching to the Banks of the Potomac...Markey is an anomaly, a progressive workhorse.  We've got Men of Destiny, Women of Destiny, Eloquent Seraphs, Prophets, Sorceresses...But only Ed Markey seems to realize that an Expansive Free and Democratic Vision of the Future, requires a lot of hard work and sacrifice.
Change comes of the unnatural marriage of zeal and perseverance, those are both "Brand Markey" to the core.
Kennedy is a good man, I guess...He hasn't really wrung up a very long record in congress, he is definitely the vanguard of the Commonwealth's deathless "March to the Potomac" brigade, other than that, I hardly know the man, his commercials make him look awfully young like he should be assistant managing a Dairy Queen or Something.
But I digress, it was different with Kennedy's Father, I'd a walked thru fire for that guy, The Spartan's of Arlington loved him.  But times change, but the change agent here, is Markey not Kennedy, he's put the time in, if the democrats carry both Houses of Congress this Fall, Markey will at last be in a position to put paid to his Agenda.
I wanna see that happen, I don't wanna start over with some new guy, especially some new guy who'll  be raising funds to run for President by Thanksgiving should he be nominated.
Lets keep our Heads Here, and Lets Keep Ed Markey.

On the other hand,

I wouldn't mind one bit if every statue and memorial in the USA erected to the deathless memory of the likes of Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis were melted down to make durable commodes in public housing projects.  Those men reneged on a solemn oath taken to defend the US Constitution that they subsequently defied and sought to destroy.
That having been said, the removal of such lascivious and unpleasant memorials is more on the "symbolic politics" spectrum, it's nice but it doesn't change anything.
So If, your goal is, a demilitarized police force, drawn from a diverse citizenry & trained to function honorably in a democratic society, then I don't think dropping Christopher Columbus' statue into the Harbor gets you there.
Just saying, the politics of distraction have an honored history in the USA they are designed to thwart progress either by slowing down the critical time frame or else dissipating the unity of progressive forces.
As I said, just sayin'.

President Andrew Johnson isn't remembered well these days...

and there are legit reasons for that, let us be honest. The man was a "piece of work" on racial issues to be sure. But let us also recall that when his home state of Tennessee seceded from the Union in 1861, Johnson loudly denounced all secession & rebellion, he chose His Country over His State.  He was the only southern US Senator to choose the Federal Union over the Confederacy, the only one.
Robert E. Lee, faced with the exact same choice, bound by oath to the US Constitution, begged by Abe Lincoln to command his armies and put down the rebellion, made the opposite decision.
Robert E. Lee chose "State before Country", and yet somehow today we are finally getting to debating what is to be done with all these statues of the Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia.  Frankly if all those statues of Marse Robert were melted down to make bronze commodes in Public Housing Projects, no one would be happier than I.  Remember that when the debate starts about the statue of Andrew Johnson in the State Capitol in Nashville Tennessee, as bad and misguided as Johnson was, he choice the Union and the US Constitution, that matters.

If I had to guess

I think both the Player's Association & the Owners both mentally walked away from the table weeks ago in respect of restarting Professional Baseball in the USA. The players want all the money they contracted for in March, they also don't want to set any precedents that'll impede their freedom of action at next year's contract talks. The owners, are owners, they wanna spend as little as possible in a fraught and fluid pathogenic situation.
The issue of how many games will be played,is a mere sideshow, the players and the owners are both waiting for Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred to order the teams to play ball on a truncated fifty game schedule, one that allows players to collect 100% of their pro-rated salaries and which also imposes the least financial burden on the allegedly cash strapped owners. Everyone can simply blame Manfred for imposing a restart via fiat, everyone gets to keep their money and their freedom of action...and if anything goes wrong, its Manfred's fault because he forced everyone to play.
I don't often have anything sensible to say about professional sports, today's commentary is derived from reading the Boston Globe's sport page to My Mother over the phone while she sits out her own lockdown in a Nursing Home.  I cannot analyze the sport from any experienced perspective, but I do have a background in politics and can assess things on a political basis.
No one has an incentive to negotiate since they know they'll be compelled to play under that are circumstances the least disadvantageous to everyone.

Woo...

I'll bet Esper is out by the weekend...the reason will be "interfering with a tyrant when he is unlawfully trying to project strength".

Or maybe Trump will try and provoke the Iranians...or maybe a mix of both, because when Trump F*cks Up this Badly, he usually opts to distract...when he cannot project strength of course.  And right now despite a ring of bayonets around the White House, Trump looks like a weakling & a loser.

There is Something Grimly Hilarious

about Donald Trump, literally cowering behind sandbags in the Oval Office, tweeting out childish threats to demonstrators protesting the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Clearly Trump is trying to goad the protesters into some foolhardy act of violence, and to stoke the fires he boasts in a cowardly way of the firepower and ferocity of The Secret Service.
This my friends, Is Praetorianism, but not in the way you think, these are Trump's threats, which the Secret Service May Have to Make Good On...I wonder how the rank and file agents feel about that?
Keep in mind, its the Praetorian Guard that assassinated The Emperor Caligula (they got tired of being his personal death squad), when it was Nero's turn, the Guard refined their technique, they simply withdrew their protection and the Emperor promptly committed suicide.
So If I was Trump I don't think I'd be polarizing his own security like this...the historic precedents are ominous.

"The Feast of Annihilation"

Y'know if Roy Cooper currently the Democratic Governor of North Carolina, wanted to create absolute chaos in the National GOP, all he has to do, is nothing.
Nothing, in the sense that, he will simply enforce the current public health & social distancing guidelines that would prohibit the Republican National Convention in Raleigh from packing the hall to capacity.  Trump has already thrown a tantrum about it...apparently the President's malevolent, senile vanity includes creating his own personal pathogen petri dish to scream his praises. So Cooper should insist the guidelines be honored, stand fast, do nothing and let the President blow his stack and impulsively send the convention elsewhere.  There will be the usual twitter tantrums and more darkly death threats...but Cooper has every right to insist on the maximum safety margin during a pandemic with limited treatment options and as yet no vaccine.

I say he should stand fast...who knows this might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Trump looks terrible these days by the way, I think he's gained 20 lbs in the last two months, he's clearly increasingly incoherent and berserk.  He's a fat sick senile old man with an alleged fondness for the recreational aspects of certain medications.  Let him apply all that to finding a new location for the RNC, it'll go as well as his response to the pandemic I assure you.
STAND FAST GOVERNOR COOPER!! LIGHT THE FUSE!