Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

There’s a new scandal nipping at the heels of Donald Trump’s favorite Postal Service bureaucrat, Louis DeJoy. And – bad news for him – it involves the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Meanwhile, a United Nations report from Libya reveals that, possibly for the first time, a drone powered by artificial intelligence selected, pursued and attacked human targets – all on its own. That’ll be enough about the wonders of technology, thanks.

And lastly, the Biden administration is stepping up US shipments of coronavirus vaccines to foreign countries in a big way. It’s an overdue but welcome measure to fight the virus in places where it’s still spreading out of control.

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He’s one of Trump’s last holdovers, but maybe not for long. The Washington Post reports that the FBI is investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in connection with campaign fundraising activity involving his former business. FBI agents in recent weeks interviewed current and former employees of DeJoy and the business, asking questions about political contributions and company activities. Prosecutors also issued a subpoena to DeJoy himself. A DeJoy spokesman confirmed the investigation but insisted DeJoy had not knowingly violated any laws. The inquiries could signal legal peril for the controversial head of the nation’s mail service – though DeJoy has not been charged with any crimes. Asked yesterday whether President Joe Biden believed DeJoy should step down, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would leave the process to the Department of Justice.

The Post says DeJoy – who was appointed to run the Postal Service by its board of governors last May – has been dogged by controversy for almost his entire time in office. Soon after starting in the job, he imposed cost-cutting moves that mail carriers blamed for creating backlogs across the country. Democrats accused the prominent GOP fundraiser, who personally gave more than $1.1 million to Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican

Party, of trying to undermine his own organization because of Trump’s distrust of mail-in voting. And they were totally right about that. But it seems it’ll be other, previously hidden misdeeds that bring down this dastardly saboteur. Hey, whatever does the trick.

UN Report: AI Drone Attacked Humans

This preview of the next Terminator movie comes from the New York Times. A military drone that attacked soldiers during a battle in Libya’s civil war last year may have done so without human control, according to a recent report commissioned by the United Nations. The drone, which the report described as a lethal autonomous weapons systems, was powered by artificial intelligence. It was used by forces backed by the government based in Tripoli, the capital, against enemy militia fighters as they ran away from rocket attacks. The fighters were hunted down and remotely engaged by the drone, according to the report. It did not say whether there were any casualties or injuries. The weapons systems, it said, were "programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: in effect a true fire, forget and find capability.: The Kargu-2 was built by STM, a defense company based in Turkey.

The Times says the report has been sent to a UN sanctions committee for review. The drone, a Kargu-2, was used as soldiers tried to flee. Once in retreat, they were subject to continual harassment from the drone, according to the report, which was written by the UN Panel of Experts on Libya. Zachary Kallenborn, a researcher who studies drone warfare at the University of Maryland, said the report suggested that for the first time, a weapons systems with artificial intelligence capability operated autonomously to find and attack humans. What a landmark. Oh boy.

Biden Boosts Overseas Vaccine Shipments

This global pandemic update comes from the Associated Press. President Biden announced yesterday that the US will donate a first tranche of twenty five million doses of surplus vaccine overseas through the UN-backed Covax program. The donation promises infusions for South and Central America, Asia, Africa and others at a time of glaring shortages abroad and more than ample supplies at home. The doses mark a substantial – and immediate – boost to the lagging Covax effort, which to date has shared just seventy six million doses with needy countries. The announcement came just hours after World Health Organization officials in Africa made a new plea for vaccine sharing because of an alarming situation on the continent, where shipments have ground to a near halt while virus cases have spiked.

The AP says that overall, the White House has announced plans to share eighty million doses globally by the end of June. Of the first nineteen million donated through Covax, approximately six million doses will go to South and Central America, seven million to Asia and five million to Africa. The remaining six million in the initial distribution will be directed to US allies and partners. In a statement, Biden said, "As long as this pandemic is raging anywhere in the world, the American people will still be vulnerable. And the United States is committed to bringing the same urgency to international vaccination efforts that we have demonstrated at home.". Remember, this isn’t over until it’s over everywhere.

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The Guardian reports that the Ethiopian government has brushed aside international calls for a ceasefire in the province of Tigray, saying its forces will soon eliminate all armed opposition. The UN said earlier this week that more than ninety percent of people in Tigray need emergency food aid. Between the starvation and the atrocities, it’s a true horrorshow.

ABC News reports that workers at a South Dakota meatpacking plant that became a coronavirus hotspot last year are considering a strike after contract negotiations between Smithfield Foods and the union have stalled. The Sioux Falls chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said workers have risked their health and lives throughout the pandemic, arguing the company should do more for its employees. Who can argue?

According to Politico, federal prosecutors are examining whether Representative Matt Gaetz obstructed justice during a phone call he had with a witness in the sex-crimes investigation of the Florida congressman. The obstruction inquiry stems from a phone call the witness had with Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend. At some point during the conversation, the ex-girlfriend patched Gaetz into the call. Awkward!

The AP reports that George P. Bush this week launched his next political move: a run for Texas attorney general in 2022. Bush, who has served as Texas’ land commissioner since 2015, is the son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He is the last of the Bush family still in public office. Now that’s worth a good clap.

AM QUICKIE - JUNE 4, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Democrats including President Joe Biden are losing patience with Senator Joe Manchin. He’s waffling on supporting a nationwide voting rights package that could be crucial to the party’s electoral future.

Meanwhile, cleanup and containment efforts are underway off the coast of Sri Lanka, where a sinking container ship threatens environmental disaster. The beaches are suffocated with tiny plastic pellets, and now there are worries about an oil spill, as well.

And lastly, the evidence is in on the effects of the stimulus checks that went out to Americans earlier this year, and guess what – they really helped people! It looks like there’s something to the old saying that the problem with poor people is that they don’t have enough money.

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This spotlight on a weak link in the ruling Congressional coalition comes from the Washington Post. Democratic leaders and activists are stepping up pressure on Senator Joe Manchin to support legislation to fight Republican-led voting restrictions across the country. Party officials are concluding that the battle over voting rights could come down to what the centrist Democrat from West Virginia does. In a rare show of public frustration with his own party on Tuesday, President Biden appeared to lash out at Manchin when he accused a pair of unnamed senators of aligning too closely with Republicans and stalling efforts to pass sweeping voting standards. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently announced that his chamber would vote this month on a House-passed elections bill co-sponsored by every Democratic senator except Manchin – a move that would force Manchin to pick a side. Even some of Manchin’s Democratic colleagues are beginning to prod him more aggressively to join their cause, while activists and civil rights leaders are loudly decrying his hesitation.

According to the Post, Manchin has said his overriding concern is a lack of bipartisan support for the measure. But Democrats increasingly see an existential threat from Republican-led state governments determined to place new limits on voting, which critics say would disproportionately affect voters of color, a core part of the Democratic coalition. One

Democratic congressional aide said panic is the right word to describe the mood in the party. By all rights, though, Manchin is the one who should be sweating.

Sri Lanka Faces Environmental Disaster

This is just tragic. NBC News reports that a cargo ship laden with chemicals sank yesterday after nearly two weeks ablaze off the west coast of Sri Lanka, worsening fears of a major environmental disaster. The vessel has already left the country’s coastline covered in tons of plastic pellets and now threatens to spill oil into its rich fishing waters. The government has banned fishing, a crucial industry, along fifty miles of coast in the wake of the incident. Authorities have also deployed hundreds of soldiers to clean affected beaches and warned residents not to touch the debris because it could be contaminated with harmful chemicals. Where there was once gold sand and coconut trees, there is now a sea of plastic waste.

A Sri Lankan Navy spokesman told NBC News yesterday that an effort to tow the ship into deeper waters was not successful and had to be abandoned halfway through. Silva said there was water inside the ship and their main concern was the possibility of an oil spill, although they had not yet observed any oil slicks. The fire-ravaged ship was transporting one thousand four hundred and eight six containers, including twenty five tons of nitric acid, along with other chemicals and cosmetics. As the fire was being extinguished, flaming containers laden with chemicals had fallen from the ship's deck or broken open on the deck, spilling their cargo into the sea. It shows how our economic system sometimes does damage that cannot be undone.

Stimulus Checks Reduced Hunger, Anxiety

This social science deep dive comes from the New York Times. In offering Americans two rounds of stimulus checks in the past six months, totaling $2,000 a person, the government effectively conducted a huge experiment in safety net policy. A new analysis of Census Bureau surveys argues that the two latest rounds of aid significantly improved Americans’ ability to buy food and pay household bills and reduced anxiety and depression. The largest benefits went to the poorest households and those with children. The analysis offers the fullest look at hardship reduction under the stimulus aid. Among households with children, reports of food shortages fell forty two percent from January through April. A broader gauge of financial instability fell forty three percent. Among all households, frequent anxiety and depression fell by more than twenty percent. The largest declines in measures of hardship coincided with the $600 checks that reached most people in January and the $1,400 checks mostly distributed in April.

According to the Times, the aggressive use of stimulus checks coincides with growing interest in broad cash payments as a tool in social policy. The evidence that they can have an immediate effect on the economic strains afflicting many households could influence that debate. Starting in July, the government will mail up to $300 a month per child to most families in a yearlong expansion of the child tax credit that Democrats want to make permanent. But this research raises another question: Why not two grand for everyone, every month?

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

CNN reports that the US military has apologized after soldiers accidentally stormed a factory in Bulgaria during a training exercise last month. The factory produces machinery for making olive oil. Luckily, no weapons were fired. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev condemned the incident and said he expects there will be an investigation. It’s like a Three Stooges routine about US imperialism.

According to the Guardian, the climate crisis is causing a widespread fall in oxygen levels in lakes across the world, suffocating wildlife and threatening drinking water supplies. A study, published in the journal Nature, analysed data collected from nearly four hundred lakes worldwide. Humanity is really doing a number on marine life, maybe we should ease up.

The Associated Press reports that the NFL yesterday pledged to halt the use of race- norming – which assumed Black players started out with lower cognitive function – in the $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims. The league will also review past scores for any potential race bias. More than two thousand NFL retirees have filed dementia claims, but fewer than six hundred have received awards. And this racist policy was one reason why.

The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump’s blog, celebrated by advisers as a beacon of freedom that would keep him relevant, is dead. It was twenty nine days old. Upset by reports highlighting its measly readership, Trump ordered his team Tuesday to put the blog out of its misery. My kingdom for a verified Twitter account!

AM QUICKIE - JUNE 3, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Last time it was an oil pipeline, this time it’s meat processors. Another cyberattack has thrown global commerce into chaos.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is getting ready to make his return to the rally circuit, on behalf of loyal Republican candidates in several states. We knew this day would come, but for decency’s sake, we wish it could’ve waited a while longer.

And lastly, President Joe Biden is on the diplomatic circuit trying to persuade other countries to raise taxes on multinational corporations. The basic idea is, if everyone does it at once, there will be nowhere for the tax dodgers to hide.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Hold the beef. No, really. The beef is on hold until further notice. Bloomberg News reports that a cyberattack on JBS, the largest meat producer globally, has forced the shutdown of some of world’s largest slaughterhouses. There are signs that the closures are spreading. JBS’s five biggest beef plants in the US – which handle twenty three thousand cattle a day – have halted processing following a weekend attack on the company’s networks. Those outages alone have wiped out nearly a fifth of America’s production. Slaughter operations across Australia were also down. One of Canada’s largest beef plants was idled. But it’s unclear exactly how many plants globally have been affected by the attack. The prospect of more extensive shutdowns is already upending agricultural markets and raising concerns about food security as hackers increasingly target critical infrastructure.

Bloomberg says the White House has offered assistance to JBS. The company notified the Biden administration on Sunday of a cyberattack from a criminal organization likely based in Russia. Biden has directed the administration to mitigate the impact on the meat supply. Any substantial disruption in meat processing would further stoke mounting political concerns about the concentration of the meat industry. Four giant companies control more than eighty percent of US beef processing. Rural lawmakers recently pressed the Justice Department for action on an anti-trust investigation of the beef industry launched last year. There’s nothing like a massive ransomware attack to bring home the dangers of unchecked corporate consolidation! At least some cows are happy.

Trump To Hold Rallies Again

Did you miss him? Neither did we. NBC News reports that Donald Trump returns to the electoral battlefield Saturday as the marquee speaker at the North Carolina Republican Party’s state convention. He plans to follow up with several more rallies in June and July to keep his base engaged in the 2022 midterms and give him the option of seeking the presidency again in 2024. While his schedule isn't set, his coming stops are likely to include efforts to help Ohio congressional candidate Max Miller, a former White House aide looking to win a primary against Representative Anthony Gonzales, who voted to impeach Trump; Jody Hice, who is trying to unseat fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger as Georgia secretary of state, after Raffensperger defied Trump; and Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks.

Democrats are also looking ahead to the midterms. Politico reports that with their fragile House majority on the line, many Democrats are imploring their colleagues not to take the bait after last November’s referendum on Trump ended up costing their party a dozen seats. Instead, those Democrats are eager to deploy a policy-heavy playbook to help stave off a potential midterm whipping. Some in the party are contending that their midterm strategy should resemble that of 2018 – when their party netted forty seats to wrest back the majority. That year, Democratic candidates pummeled their GOP opponents on health care, rather than Trump, and it worked. Besides, Donald Trump won’t be the ballot – and Joe Biden’s honeymoon will be long over.

Biden Pitches Global Tax Hike

This look at a possible global corporate tax crackdown comes from the Washington Post. Finance ministers from Group of Seven nations meeting in London on Friday are expected to back President Biden’s call for a global minimum tax on corporate profits. The new minimum tax is designed to halt a cycle of corporate tax-cutting that has sapped government revenue around the globe. Biden catalyzed the debate in late May by proposing a worldwide minimum tax of at least fifteen percent, which was lower than many tax specialists had expected. If he can secure agreement from the world’s leading democracies, it could produce the most significant global tax shift in decades. Putting a floor beneath multinationals’ tax bills in other countries would help the president raise the corporate rate at home to twenty eight percent.

The Post says that along with opposition from corporate lobbyists, additional obstacles loom, including objections from low-tax countries such as Ireland, as well as likely noncompliance from China and Russia. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the goal is to make sure multinationals are paying their fair share. The president also aims to shrink the role that tax calculations play in corporate investment decisions. Even without action by other nations, the Biden administration expects to reap more than $533 billion over the next decade by reducing incentives for US corporations to shift assets abroad. Corporate taxes could always be higher, but it took generations for them to get so low. This is welcome news.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The New York Times reports that the the Biden administration yesterday suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were issued in the waning days of the Trump administration. Arctic tribal leaders who have protested oil drilling praised the move. Let’s hope the new rule sticks around longer than the next presidential election.

Politico reports that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday signed into law a policy banning transgender athletes from playing girls and women’s sports. Democrats disavow the policy, claiming it’s unwarranted, fuels transphobia and discriminates against transgender students. Of course, for Republicans like DeSantis, those are the selling points.

According to the Jerusalem Post, the state of Arizona is preparing to execute inmates on death row using Zyklon B, the same gas used by the Nazis in death camp gas chambers. The Arizona corrections department has spent more than $2,000 on the ingredients required to make the deadly gas. The Republican-controlled state has not carried out any executions since 2014, but they are now working towards reinstating capital punishment. Yikes.

CNN reports that Nike and other major sponsors have come out in support of tennis star Naomi Osaka following her decision to withdraw from the French Open. Announcing her decision to withdraw, she revealed that she has suffered long bouts of depression since winning her first Grand Slam title in 2018. It’s quite a moment of visibility and acceptance for everyone suffering from mental illness. Which, in pandemic times, is pretty much everyone.

AM QUICKIE - JUNE 2, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Texas Democrats staged a late-night walkout in the state’s capitol to briefly block the local GOP’s sweeping voter suppression bill, but the fight is far from over.

Meanwhile, the New York Times obtained documents showing how Joe Biden is attempting to overhaul the country’s immigration system.

And lastly, Colombia’s government ramps up its attacks on protesters and deploys thousands of troops to combat a social movement against police brutality and income inequality, while the U.N. calls for an end to the violence.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The battle for voting rights in America is boiling over in Texas. The GOP there has passed one of the most restrictive voting bills we’ve seen this far, and the state’s minority Democratic caucus is doing everything in their power to stop it actually becoming a law.

Texas’s embattled Democrats did everything they could to slow down the bill in the State Senate, where it was eventually passed on Sunday.

It then went to the House, with a looming legislative deadline attached. At around 10:35 on Sunday evening, the leader of the State House Democratic Caucus told all his members to just pick up and leave the building. This move deprived the Republicans of the minimum number of members needed to start a vote and forced the House Speaker to adjourn the session around 11 p.m.

Even though the GOP would have won that vote on party lines, the Democrats realized they could run out the clock by simply refusing to play, and therefore throw a big wrench in the Republican’s voter suppression plans.

Now, Governor Gregg Abbott says he’ll call a special legislative session, which will give the GOP another chance to pass a similar bill. They’ll have to start over, but could just cannibalize the old bill or even make it worse.

But still, the Texas Democrats fight this weekend is an example of how difficult the Democrats should be making this kind of thing across the country. There are similar voter suppression bills being voted on or already passed in over half a dozen other states around the country already, and it’s going to take a lot more political hardball to shut them down, especially as federal efforts to ensure the right to vote are moving at a glacial pace.

Biden Immigration Plans Leak

The New York Times has obtained 46-page draft of President Biden’s prospective plan to reform the United States’ immigration system.

According to the Times’ the Clif notes version of this plan is pretty promising. Biden wants to make everything simpler, with shorter forms, fewer security hoops, and more chances for families to join one another and secure work visas.

He wants to clear the Trump-era backlog of immigration applications and generally expand the legal immigration process in all the ways that Trump crushed it, particularly by letting in more asylum seekers and granting more work visas.

The Times reports that most of Biden’s plans can be put in place without going through Congress, which means they’ll skip the chaotic gridlock that dominates our national legislature at the moment. The White House didn’t comment on the Times story, but hopefully they’ll have some public plans out soon.

All of this is good, and should be expected after the utter barbarism of the Trump administration. But we’ve got to take it with a grain of salt: this is still just reform of a system that has failed so many needy people.

The Times story at least doesn’t mention some of the more progressive immigration policies advocates have been pushing for for years, like pathways to citizenship for currently undocumented people. For that, Biden will likely have to navigate the gauntlet on Capitol Hill.

Colombia Protests Get Bloodier

Protests in the Colombian city of Cali, and across the country, have intensified in recent days, after President Ivan Duque ordered 7,000 troops to the city.

The resulting violence has killed 14 protesters since May 28, and injured 98, the majority of which were shot by the government’s guns, according to the U.N.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights voiced “deep concern” over the situation and called for an end to the violence, which is about par for the course when a country starts shooting its own citizens in the street.

The current protest movement in Colombia has been running for most of May, after tensions over pandemic-era tax reforms spiraled into mounting protests against police brutality. The New York Times reports that Colombia’s police forces have been heavily militarized for decades due to their clashes with guerilla groups and drug cartels, but when domestic protests broke out, those guns were turned on ordinary people.

At least 42 people have died since the protests began, including the 14 that were killed just this weekend. The country’s leadership under Duque, meanwhile, has denied that police brutality is a widespread problem. The death tolls and grieving families there make that kind of talk pretty hard to swallow.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Israel’s always confusing, often corrupt government appears to be headed toward a parliamentary compromise that would oust Benjamin Netanyahu from power. There only problem is his likely successor would be either an ultra-nationalist who has boasted of killing Arabs or a centrist former TV host. Not the greatest options there.

China announced on Sunday that it would allow its citizens to have up to three children, further relaxing the country’s long standing restrictive child policies amid nationwide worries of population decline. But the New York Times reports that experts say the new policies don’t do enough to actually help people raise families, noting the lack of child care and workplace protections for mothers.

The Washington Post reports that finance ministers from each of the G-7 countries are expected to back Biden’s push for a global minimum tax on corporate products during a meeting in London on Friday. This will be one to watch over the next few weeks, as Biden’s facing an uphill fight to get corporations to pay even a shred of what they owe to the people who create their riches.

And finally, the Biden administration announced on Monday that Biden’s new direct cash payments for childcare benefits will start hitting parents’ bank accounts as early as July 15, giving a much-needed boost for many families as we emerge from the pandemic.

AM QUICKIE - June 1, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The Biden administration will today unveil its biggest and sure to be most controversial proposal yet – for a $6 trillion federal budget. And from child care to electric vehicles, there’s a lot in there for Republicans to cry over.

Meanwhile, the United Nations is launching an unprecedented, open-ended inquiry into the root causes of the latest violence in Gaza. War crimes may be found on both sides, but Israel has made clear it does not welcome the scrutiny.

And lastly, hard-working college athletes could finally get what’s due to them. Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy want to give them the right to form unions and bargain collectively with colleges.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Why can’t we have nice things? Politico reports that President Joe Biden continues to negotiate with Republicans on his big-ticket spending plans. But yesterday, when he left Washington for Ohio, he mocked them for voting against the coronavirus recovery package and then turning around and promoting the bill. In a speech at Cuyahoga Community College, Biden said his trillions of dollars in proposals are already igniting economic recovery and creating millions of jobs following the coronavirus pandemic. Back in Washington, Senate Republicans sent Biden their latest proposal, but the $928 billion infrastructure plan is still hundreds of billions less than the White House’s last offer of $1.7 trillion.

And there’s an even bigger budget fight brewing. The New York Times reports Biden will propose a $6 trillion budget today that would take the United States to its highest levels of federal spending since World War Two. Biden is looking to fund a sweeping economic agenda that includes new investments in education, transportation and fighting climate change. The budget request includes money for roads, water pipes, broadband internet, electric vehicle charging stations and advanced manufacturing research. It also envisions funding for affordable child care, universal prekindergarten and a national paid leave program. Spending on national defense would also grow, though it would decline as a share of the economy.

Biden plans to fund his agenda by raising taxes on corporations and high earners. The documents show budget deficits shrinking in the 2030s. So maybe we can have nice things after all.

UN Opens Gaza Inquiry

his diplomatic dispatch comes from the Guardian. The UN’s main human rights body will launch an investigation into systematic discrimination and repression in Israel and Palestine, with the aim of identifying the root causes of recent Gaza bloodshed. The proposal, called at the request of Muslim states, was passed by the forty seven-member United Nations human rights council yesterday. Opening the session in Geneva, the UN rights chief, Michelle Bachelet (Ba-chuh-let), said Israel’s attacks on Gaza this month could constitute war crimes if they were found to be disproportionate. She also accused Hamas of firing indiscriminate rockets on Israel. Bachelet, a former president of Chile, called the death and injury of children in the conflict "a source of shame for all."

According to the Guardian, Bachelet said the Gaza violence was directly linked to protests in Jerusalem that began weeks beforehand, which she said were met with a heavy response from Israeli security forces. She said two factors led to the escalation – the imminent eviction of Palestinians under forced displacement in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah; and Israel’s use of excessive force against Palestinian protesters, including at the al-Aqsa mosque. Yesterday’s resolution received twenty four votes in favour, nine against and fourteen abstentions. The US didn’t vote because it is not a member of the council. Israel and its allies, including the US, have accused the UN of anti-Israel bias. Criticize away, but is anyone better suited than UN investigators to establish the facts of the situation?

Sanders Rallies For College Athletes

College sports break! The Washington Post reports that a new bill from Congressional Democrats would allow college athletes to unionize, making it possible for students from across universities to band together to form unions within athletic conferences. The bill from Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Chris Murphy of Connecticut would rewrite federal labor law to define all college athletes receiving scholarships and other pay as employees of both public and private universities. It would be a significant reimagining of the college sports landscape. And it would open a door to athletes receiving additional compensation from colleges by bargaining over wages, working conditions, revenue sharing agreements, and other rights afforded to employees.

The Post says the bill, called the College Athlete Right to Organize Act, is unlikely to pass in the current Congress. A companion bill introduced by three House Democrats has also not found any Republican co-sponsors. But it has created substantial momentum in Congress to pass legislation that would set a single standard for how athletes can earn income, rather than a patchwork of conflicting state laws. In a statement yesterday, Sanders linked the right of athletes to form a union to the fight to earn money through their personal brands. He said, "College athletes are workers. ... We cannot wait for the NCAA to share its billions with the workers who create it.". The NCAA put out a statement condemning the bill. But of course they did – they don’t want to share the wealth!

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Associated Press reports that Senate Republicans are poised to deploy the filibuster to block a commission on the January 6th insurrection. The GOP maneuver may shatter chances for a bipartisan probe of the deadly assault on the US Capitol and revive pressure to do away with the procedural tactic. Indeed, why give the Republicans a veto?

According to the Washington Post, Amazon and other retailers are opposing a bipartisan measure in Congress that would require online sellers to clearly state where their products are made. Current laws don’t force online retailers to include this information. Sounds like a fine loophole if you sell tons of cheap junk made god-knows-where!

The Seattle Times reports that three Tacoma, Washington police officers will face criminal charges in the March 2020 killing of Manuel Ellis, a thirty three-year-old Black man whose death sparked widespread calls for justice. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said yesterday he will charge officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins with second- degree murder, and Timothy Rankine with first-degree manslaughter. More consequences for violent cops – let’s get it trending!

The New York Times reports that the New York City Council voted overwhelmingly yesterday to expand a subsidy program that could make apartments affordable to tens of thousands of people who are homeless or threatened with eviction. The council voted to sharply increase the value of housing vouchers provided by the city. The value of the new vouchers would be in line with fair market rent. So they’re actually useful? Imagine that.

MAY 28, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

One of the sketchiest libertarian venture capitalists in America planned to launch an app to summon a private police force by smartphone. Today we are pleased to report that, thanks to negative publicity, the rent-a-cop app is being scrapped.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has given US intelligence agencies ninety days to figure out where the coronavirus came from. And he says they’ll be entertaining a theory favored by many Republicans, that the virus somehow escaped from a lab in China.

And lastly, activist shareholders, with the support of public pension funds, won a vote forcing Exxon Mobil to hire directors who favor clean energy. It’s a massive defeat for Exxon management and a repudiation of the company’s old, planet-destroying ways.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

This dispatch from the dystopia comes from CBS News. The crowdsourcing crime- tracking app Citizen, whose earliest backers include the venture capitalist billionaire Peter Thiel, is ditching plans to develop a private police force that could be summoned by users via the smartphone app. The company began offering the service in Los Angeles last month as a pilot program. For the service, Citizen partnered with a private firm called Los Angeles Professional Security, which describes itself as a provider of subscription law enforcement. But on Tuesday, Citizen ended the program, stating it has no plans to launch a similar service elsewhere. The company's decision follows more than a week of negative publicity for the popular app, which uses cellphone-location data to alert users of potential safety hazards, emergencies and criminal activity in their area.

CBS reports that as Citizen's popularity has grown, so, too, has its number of critics, who say the app raises privacy issues as well as racial bias. Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the app "a digital superhighway for racial profiling," In mid-May, the app misidentified a homeless person as the source of a recent wildfire in Los Angeles. Citizen posted pictures of the man, and offered a $30,000 reward to anyone who could provide information leading to his arrest. A few days later, a different man was arrested for the crime. If you think the regular police are bad, wait until you see what Silicon Valley comes up with.

Biden Orders Review Of Virus Origins

This update on the politics of the pandemic comes from the Washington Post. President Biden said yesterday that he has asked the intelligence community to determine the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a major departure from the previous White House position that the World Health Organization should lead efforts to uncover the contagion’s origin. Biden has asked for a report within ninety days. The new message from the White House reflects the rapidly changing views about the origins of the virus. In recent weeks, a theory has gained more support that the source of the coronavirus may have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, though that is far from proved. Some Republicans pushed the idea early on, including Donald Trump. But the idea was dismissed by many influential scientists and Democrats.

The Post says that in recent weeks, some prominent researchers have begun arguing that the lab theory should remain on the table until more is known. And a series of reports in the Wall Street Journal, including one that highlighted how several people who work at the Wuhan lab became sick in fall 2019 with Covid-like symptoms, has been part of a reexamination. Biden said one element of the US intelligence community leans toward the view that the novel coronavirus came from a laboratory accident. Two other components, on the other hand, believe the virus came from animal-to-human contact. But are American spies really well- suited to make this determination, especially without Chinese cooperation?

Exxon Shareholders Revolt Over Clean Energy

You love to see it. The New York Times says Big Oil was knocked down a peg yesterday. Shareholders of Exxon Mobil dealt the company’s management a stunning defeat by electing at least two board candidates who pledged to steer the company away from oil and gas and toward cleaner energy. The success of the campaign, led by a tiny hedge fund against the nation’s largest oil company, could force the energy industry to confront climate change. Analysts could not recall another time that Exxon management had lost a vote against company-picked directors. The vote reveals the growing power that giant Wall Street firms now have to press corporate managements to pursue social goals.

According to the Times, the hedge fund leading this campaign, Engine Number One, was seeking to defeat four of the company’s twelve director candidates. Its victory is the culmination of years of efforts by activists to force the oil giant to change its environmental policies. Some big pension funds, including the New York State Common Retirement Fund and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, had joined the effort. In another sign of change, shareholders of Chevron, the second largest US oil company, yesterday voted for a proposal to reduce emissions from the fuel the company makes and sells. And in the Netherlands, a court required Royal Dutch Shell to reduce its emissions by forty five percent by 2030.

One day these companies will be only a memory, and the world will be better for it.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Los Angeles Times reports that nine people were killed, including the gunman, in a shooting yesterday morning at a San Jose rail yard. The suspect set his own house on fire, then drove to a Valley Transportation Authority union meeting and began shooting, law enforcement sources said. Sympathy and solidarity to all affected.

The Washington Post reports that Amazon will buy MGM Holdings from its investment- group owners, paying $8.45 billion billion to put the historic studio in the hands of the retailing giant. The Post is also owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, but we aren’t, so we can say he has enough money, power and cultural influence, already.

According to the Associated Press, President Biden is nominating former senior State Department official Nicholas Burns to serve as his ambassador to China, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be his ambassador to India. Prominent Democratic fundraisers Denise Bauer, Jane Hartley and David Cohen have also emerged as leading contenders for postings in France, Italy and Canada, respectively. Gotta love those patronage jobs!

Good news! The New York Times reports that immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time – especially after vaccination. That’s according to two new studies, both in the journal Nature. The results suggest that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and later been vaccinated will continue to have high levels of protection against emerging variants, even without a vaccine booster. So there’s a silver lining for survivors.

AM QUICKIE - MAY 27, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The Intercept reports that the Senate is preparing a $10 billion bailout fund for Jeff Bezos’s vanity spaceflight company Blue Origin.

Meanwhile, the State Department approves a $735 million arms deal to Israel, while sending only a paltry 5 million to Palestinian reconstruction efforts.

And lastly, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema try to leverage their conservative clout to beg Republicans to support a commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The hottest luxury for billionaires right now is a private space company. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are both in on the trend, but the former’s big rocket adventure isn’t going so well. But don’t worry! Our government is preparing to save him.

The Intercept reported that Bezos’s company Blue Origin recently lost out on a massive, multi-billion dollar government contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. But now, Congress is trying to slip in an amendment to a bill that would make sure Blue Origin still gets a big chunk of taxpayer money.

According to the Intercept, the slush money was added in as an amendment to the Endless Frontier Act by Washington Senator Maria Cantwell. It would go to NASA first, which would then use it for a Blue Origin contract. And quick: you’ve got one guess as to where Blue Origin’s headquarters are. That’s right, Washington.

The amendment might face some opposition, however. Bernie Sanders quickly slid in an amendment of his own to cut out the $10 billion, telling the Intercept quote:

“It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America.”

That’s a great point, Bernie!

It’s worth placing some of this information in the wider context, which is that spaceflight in general is becoming more and more privatized. Instead of NASA building the ships that carry our astronauts and satellites to the ISS and beyond, those contracts are now going to people like Musk and Bezos. The specific contract Blue Origin lost was to put astronauts on the moon, something we haven’t done since 1972.

The difference is back then, we could truly say we the people put someone on the moon. Now, we can only say we paid for a private company to do it.

White House OK's Israel Arms Deal

On Tuesday, the Biden Administration officially committed to sending $5 million in relief funds to rebuild Palestine’s bombed-out Gaza strip. But days before that, it also agreed to send an order of magnitude more in deadly weapons to Israel.

Jewish Currents magazine reports that on May 21, the Biden State department granted the U.S. based company Boeing an export license to sell $735 million worth of laser guided munitions to Israel.

If you remember, this is the arms deal that progressives in the House and Senate were trying to stop.

Jewish Currents reports that Bernie Sanders office learned that the sale had been greenlit on Friday, and immediately used his leverage to place a hold on all new State Department nominations, stopping them from being approved by the Senate. Sanders only lifted that hold when the Biden administration committed to some humanitarian relief for Gaza.

But the dollar amounts at play tell the whole story. The government is letting Israel buy $735 million in U.S. bombs, which makes its 5 million in relief to Gazans seem like pennies.

As Jewish Currents notes, that’s a pretty good indication that the Biden Administration’s policy toward Israel’s violence in Palestine is going to look like much more of the same.

Manchin and Sinema Cash in Conservative Clout

Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have spent the first months of the Biden Presidency building clout with their colleagues across the aisle, largely by stopping their own party from getting anything done.

Now, they’re finally cashing that in, in a last-ditch attempt to get several GOP Senators to support the creation of a January 6 commission.

The proposed commission would be modeled after the one that investigated the 9/11 attacks, and represents basically the only shot at getting a formal government breakdown of who did what during the Capitol Insurrection.

The GOP, of course, largely does not want this to happen, probably because several of their colleagues were directly involved or implicated. The proposal was somewhat bipartisan, and won 35 votes in the House. But in the Senate, it’s in trouble, because Mitch McConnell unsurprisingly does not want to play ball, calling the commission a quote “purely political exercise” endquote.

Instead Manchin and Synema are reportedly working the same little cadre of moderate Republicans like Mitt Romney and Susan Collins, some of whom want tweaks to the commission to give the GOP more power over how it works.

We’ll see if all that boot-licking and bill-sabotaging pays off for them!

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The New York Times reports that the Navy has finally dropped its opposition to parts of the California coast being used for wind farms, clearing the way for the Biden Administration to push forward on a long-sought clean energy goal.

One more note about the Democratic spoiler crew mentioned in our third story tonight: the Washington Post reports that the bipartisan centrist lobby is now privately designing a new and not-improved version of Biden’s ambitious infrastructure bill in case the first one falls apart. That’s progress, baby! Moving steadily backwards.

Daniella Frazier, the 17-year-old girl who filmed Derek Chauvin’s murdering George Floyd last year, spoke publicly for the first time in a Facebook post. Here’s a quote:

“It changed me. It changed how I viewed life. It made me realize how dangerous it is to be Black in America. We shouldn’t have to walk on eggshells around police officers, the same people that are supposed to protect and serve.”

And finally, the CDC says it will stop investigating mild COVID infections in vaccinated adults, indicating that they’re confident that the vast majority of these breakthrough cases will not be life-threatening. The vaccines, it seems, are doing their jobs, though the Washington Post reports that some scientists are lamenting the loss of potential data.

AM QUICKIE - MAY 26, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

A new coronavirus variant that has been ravaging India is now spreading throughout the UK and other European countries, and could pose problems in communities that haven’t yet received a vaccine.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court turns down a request by a Mississippi inmate on death row who asked to be executed by a firing squad.

And lastly, George Floyd died one year ago today, and while activists have won some victories in the struggle since, police department funding is rising again as the status quo re asserts itself.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The new coronavirus variant that has been fueling India’s out of control epidemic has made its way to Europe, where researchers are starting to get a picture of what it represents for the future of the pandemic.

First, some good news: existing vaccines still offer pretty high levels of protection against this variant. But like others before it, there is evidence that it is more infectious, according to a report by the New York Times.

So far, the U.S. has only detected 800 cases of this specific variant, which is called B dot 1 dot 617 dot 2. You’d be forgiven for not keeping track of all these numbered variants -- there’s a simpler way to interpret this news. The newer variants of the virus are more infectious, which means they eventually slowly replace the older strains in places they make it to.

What this means is that they’ll be particularly dangerous to unvaccinated communities, and as both America and the general global vaccination efforts slow down, this is what we’re going to be dealing with.

The Times reports that people who have only gotten one shot of the vaccine should still be careful, as the more infectious strains are more resistant to the vaccine. In other words, like most of the scary news of new variants, the advice here is the same: keep track of your own risks and stay safe until you’re fully vaxxed.

Supreme Court Turns Down Firing Squad Request

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a request from Mississippi death row inmate Ernest Johnson, who asked to be executed by firing squad.

The Court’s conservative majority voted to not hear the case, despite strong dissent from the bench’s liberals. Johnson suffers from epilepsy, and was requesting a firing squad as he fears that lethal injection will cause incredibly painful seizures.

The Court’s liberals fiercely argued for Johnson’s right to choose his death. While a firing squad may be unusual and barbaric, evidence suggests that it’s also a much quicker and less painful death than lethal injection or the electric chair.

Stephen Breyer wrote in his dissent that Johnson’s petition was simple. Quote:

“In other words, he asks that the courts decide between an execution that is ‘cruel’ and one that is ‘unusual.”

Johnson had previously petitioned to be executed with nitrogen gas rather than lethal injection, and was turned down by a lower federal court. He then tried to amend this petition to request the firing squad, which was the decision the Supreme Court decided not to hear.

One Year Since George Floyd

George Floyd died one year ago today. After months of protests, activists won some key reforms, but now the status quo is creeping back in.

The New York Times reports that major cities like Los Angeles are starting to funnel money back to their police departments after getting spooked by a rise in violent crime statistics. LA is hiring 250 more cops less than a year after city leaders promised to take $150 million away from the LAPD.

The right wing has leaned into the narrative of crime surges, and placed the blame squarely on movements like defunding the police. Research shows, of course, that surges in crime are often linked to gaps in social services and economic hardship, which have swept the country during the pandemic.

And some of the biggest changes activists seek do little to defund police, instead seeking to hold them accountable. New York City moved earlier this year to become the first city to end qualified immunity for its police forces, a major change that would let people file civil suits against cops who abuse their power.

But on a national level, even those small changes have stalled. On Monday, for instance, the Supreme Court declined to take up a case that would have challenged qualified immunity on a broader scale.

What this means is that this fight is far from over -- and we can only hope that elected officials feel just as much pressure from the people this summer as they did last.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

After Belarus’s shocking abduction of a journalist on a civilian airliner this weekend, European officials agreed to level sanctions against the dictator Aleksadr Lukashenko’s regime, also moving to stop E.U. airlines from flying into Belarus’s airspace, which would be a significant blow to the country’s economy.

The Washington Post reports that the Biden administration is moving to let more government employees than ever to work from home even after the pandemic ends, continue the experiment in remote work that the federal government has been slow to adopt.

Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey and other democrats reintroduced legislation on Monday to slash spending to the U.S.’s massive nuclear arsenal, dubbing it the Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures Act, or SANE. They promise that it will save $73 billion over the next decade, if it passes.

And finally, New York City, once the epicenter of the U.S.’s coronavirus outbreak, has announced that it will not have any form of remote learning starting next school year, heralding that the city expects to be fully back open by that time.

AM QUICKIE - MAY 25, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The far-right dictator of Belarus used a fighter jet and a fake bomb threat to force down a civilian airliner flying over his country, allowing him to arrest a journalist and dissident who was on board.

Meanwhile, Israel’s violence against Gaza is still having ripple effects after a ceasefire, as health officials report hospitals overwhelmed with wounded civilians are now also facing a surge in coronavirus cases.

And lastly, the Biden Administration finally granted Temporary Protected Status to thousands of Haitian immigrants living in the U.S., shielding them from deportation back to a country that is dealing with both a political crisis and a brutal COVID epidemic.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Belarus’ dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko carried out a shocking abduction of a journalist on Sunday, using a fighter jet and a faked bomb plot to force down a civilian airliner carrying the dissident and then arresting him on the ground.

On Sunday, dissident journalist Roman Protasevich was on a Ryanair flight from Greece to Vilnius, Poland, where he has been living in exile. Protasevich is the 26-year-old former editor of NEXTA, a channel on the Telegram app that has become one of Belarus’s largest opposition media companies.

The flight passed through Belarussian airspace, at which point Belarussian air traffic control claimed that there was a bomb threat aboard. Lukashenko then used that as pretext to personally order Mig-29 fighter jet up to force the plane to land in Minsk, although it was by that time far closer to its destination of Vilnius, according to the BBC.

After seven hours on the tarmac in Minsk, the flight eventually made it to Vilnius. But Protasevich was not aboard, as he had been abducted by Belarussian agents when the plane was forced to land. One passenger on the flight told AFP quote:

“He was not screaming, but it was clear that he was very much afraid. It looked like if the window had been open, he would have jumped out of it.” Protasevich reportedly told other passengers that he was facing the death penalty.

Lukashenko has, in recent months, brutally repressed protests against his authoritarian rule, but has been staunchly defended by the Russian government and faced little to no consequences for his policies. European governments and the U.S. have strongly denounced the shocking hijacking, but it’s unclear what concrete action they can or actually will take -- prior sanctions on the Lukashenko regime have clearly done little to dampen his brazen authoritarianism.

Gaza Sees Rise in Covid Cases

Israel agreed to stop its outright bombardment of the Gaza strip on Friday, but the aftershocks of its brutal campaign of violence are still shaking the captive population there.

According to the Washington Post, Gaza’s hospitals are starting to experience a new wave of COVID cases, as Israel’s bombardment forced many residents into close-packed bomb shelters.

Those cases are in addition to the 1,900 people who were injured directly by Israel’s bombing. To make matters worse, the Post reports that an airstrike destroyed the only lab in Gaza that was doing PCR tests for COVID.

All of this is even more outrageous when you consider the disparities between Israel and Gaza’s access to the vaccine. Outside of the strip, Israel has conducted one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world. But inside Gaza, only 2 percent of the population has been vaccinated. Much of this shortage is in thanks in part to the Israeli blockade that stops medical supplies getting through to people there.

Even before the recent bombardment, Gaza’s ICUs were completely swamped. The country has only 60 ICU beds for a population of almost 2 million.

The International Red Cross said that damage inflicted by Israel during the conflict cut water supplies in Gaza by 40 percent and had cut power to 700,000 Gazans at one point or another.

Lest we forget: all of this damage is intentional. Israel knows what will happen when it drops its bombs. And even though it claims to be targeting Hamas, it’s Gaza’s citizens who suffer the most.

Biden Gives Haitians Protected Status

Some good news from the Biden Administration. Biden’s head of the DHS announced on Saturday that Haitians living in the U.S. would be extended Temporary Protected Status, reversing Trump-era efforts to deport them or force them out of the country.

Some 150,000 Haitians have been living in the U.S. since the devastating 2010 earthquake, and recent political crises and the pandemic there have only made their predicament more dire.

Alejandro Mayorkas, the head of the DHS, acknowledged that the country’s recent plight has made it all the more important to offer these people shelter.

The temporary protected status order will last for 18 months, and is a continuation of policies the Obama administration started for Haitians after the 2010 quake. The New York Times reports that it originally stems from a 1990 law that allowed foreigners who had to flee their homes because of natural disasters and conflict to work and live in the United States.

This decision is far from fixing the disastrous trend of U.S. immigration policy, but it will certainly be a welcome relief for thousands of Haitians fearing for their lives and livelihoods. The U.S. was founded to offer refuge to the needy, and policies like this are the least we can do to live up to that ideal.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Some more good news for the coronavirus watch in the U.S. Our cases are down to their lowest rate since last summer, with fewer than 30,000 new cases a day. That’s still a lot, but at least 50 percent of Americans have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine now, so we should see those continue to drop.

The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Jack Read, said on Sunday that he supports assigning independent prosecutors to sexual assault cases in the military, cutting out the role that unit commanders had played in investigating their own troops.

Shareholders at Tribune Publishing, the company that owns the Chicago Tribune and many other newspapers, approved a sale of the company to Alden Global Capital, one of the most bloodthirsty vulture capital funds that has been destroying newspaper chains across the country, in another blow to the greater journalism industry.

In news that should surprise no one, GOP Senator Rand Paul has announced he will not get the COVID vaccine. What can we say -- I guess the only thing Rand is afraid of is that neighbor who beat the crap out of him a few years back, and not a deadly pandemic. A smart guy, that Rand.

AM QUICKIE - MAY 24, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Republican state legislators across the country are passing laws to micromanage the history that gets taught in schools and make it seem like racism doesn’t exist. For some reason the party of bigoted white men is touchy about this particular subject.

Meanwhile, forecasters are predicting another year of intense storms and wildfires. So it’s rather concerning that FEMA’s workforce is reportedly stretched to the breaking point.

And lastly, after eleven days of fighting, Israel has agreed to a ceasefire in Gaza. The work of rebuilding is urgent, as Palestinian medical facilities are overwhelmed.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The curriculum wars continue. CBS News reports that this month, Idaho Governor Brad Little became the first Republican governor to sign into law a bill that restricts educators from teaching a concept called critical race theory. And more could follow: Nearly a dozen states have introduced similar Republican-backed bills that would direct what students can and cannot be taught about slavery in American history and the ongoing effects of racism. But critics say the legislation isn’t aimed at what children are learning in the classroom. Idaho’s law prohibits teaching that individuals are responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of the same sex, race, religion, et cetera. A proposal in Rhode Island would prevent teaching that the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist. However, proponents of critical race theory say it does not teach that any race is inherently racist, but how race is ingrained in our history.

Jazmyne Owens, of the think tank New America, told CBS that the wave of legislation is; "aimed at erasing and whitewashing American history." For example, Owens pointed to a Texas bill that just passed in the state's House that bans discussion of privilege and white supremacy. The state bills have similar goals as two executive orders Donald Trump introduced, one that called for patriotic education and a one that sought to ban diversity training for federal workers. President Joe Biden has revoked both. But at this rate, Republicans will soon be pushing to ban schools entirely.

FEMA Workers Are Exhausted

This report on essential worker burnout comes from the New York Times. Workers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been scouting shelters for migrant children. They’ve been running coronavirus vaccination sites in Colorado, Massachusetts and Washington. And they are still managing the recovery from a string of record disasters starting with Hurricane Harvey in 2017. On the cusp of a destructive season of hurricanes and wildfires, just thirty eight hundred of the agency’s nearly fourteen thousand emergency workers are available now to respond to a new disaster. That’s twenty nine percent fewer than were ready to deploy at the start of last year’s hurricane period. FEMA has seldom been in greater demand – becoming a kind of 911 hotline for some of President Biden’s most pressing challenges. And the men and women who have become the nation’s first responders are tired. Deanne Criswell, Biden’s pick to run the agency, identified employee burnout as a major issue during her first all-hands FEMA meeting, according to Steve Reaves, president of the union local that represents employees.

According to the Times, the shortage is severe for some categories of workers. Among the agency’s senior leadership, just three out of fifty three are currently available to deploy. Other specialized personnel have less than fifteen percent of their workers available. In interviews, current and former FEMA employees described twelve-hour days, canceled vacations, and not enough time to recover between assignments. Sounds like they should hire and train more staff and create some good-paying government jobs.

Gaza Ceasefire Takes Effect

At last, a breather. Al-Jazeera reports that Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire yesterday to halt eleven days of fighting in the Gaza Strip. A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the security cabinet had unanimously accepted an Egyptian initiative for an unconditional ceasefire. Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad then confirmed the ceasefire in a statement. At least two hundred and thirty two Palestinians, including sixty five children, have been killed. On the Israeli side, twelve people, including two children, have been killed. Following the announcement of a ceasefire, Egypt’s representative at the United Nations announced to member states that it will fund efforts to rebuild Gaza.

And there is much rebuilding to be done. According to the Associated Press, the Gaza Strip’s already feeble health system has been brought to its knees. Hospitals have been overwhelmed with waves of dead and wounded from Israel’s bombardment. Many vital medicines are rapidly running out in the tiny, blockaded coastal territory, as is fuel to keep electricity going. Two of Gaza’s most prominent doctors, including the Number Two in Gaza’s coronavirus task force, were killed when their homes were destroyed during barrages. Just as Gaza was climbing out of a second wave of coronavirus infections, its only virus testing lab was damaged by an airstrike and has been shut. Health officials fear further outbreaks among tens of thousands of displaced residents crowded into makeshift shelters after fleeing massive barrages. And absolutely none of this needed to happen.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Wall Street Journal reports that prosecutors in the case of three former Minneapolis police officers charged with abetting Derek Chauvin in the murder of George Floyd told an appellate court yesterday they are considering adding a third-degree murder charge against the three men. Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane are expected to stand trial next March. They could have stopped Chauvin, but didn’t.

According to the Houston Chronicle, Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday signed legislation that bans abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy and, in a first, would give nearly any Texan the ability to sue providers who they believe have broken the law. It is one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the nation and is certain to face legal challenges. Strike it down on the double!

The Intercept reports that the Department of Homeland Security will be shutting down the controversial immigration prison in Georgia where dozens of women were subjected to nonconsensual gynecological procedures, including hysterectomies. The Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, run by LaSalle Corrections, was the focus of criticism last fall when a nurse alleged pervasive medical misconduct. Good riddance.

The Guardian reports that relations between the US and Russia have taken a tentative step forward after the Kremlin welcomed a decision by the Biden administration not to impose sanctions on a Russian pipeline delivering gas to Germany. Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, also reacted positively. Let’s everybody just hug it out, okay?

AM QUICKIE - MAY 21, 2021

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn