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  • Aug 19, 2020: Trump's Corrupt Postmaster Backpedals
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is backpedaling as fast as possible after finally facing some Congressional pushback, and now claims that his aggressive cost cutting measures will be rolled back before the election.

    Meanwhile, it’s night two of the DNC, which is now basically just the RNC from 2004 -- we’ve got Colin Powell up tonight and a tribute to Cindy McCain, while the party quietly eliminates language that calls for an end to fossil fuel subsidies.

    And lastly, the GOP led Senate Panel, after much hemming and hawing, reveals some pretty conclusive evidence in the Russiagate scandal. Maybe now we can move on?

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW

    There is a small light at the end of the fascist tunnel for the Post Office, as public pressure appears to have cowed Trump lackey Louis DeJoy.

    DeJoy, the postmaster general who previously ordered aggressive cost-cutting measures that crippled the already-struggling agency’s ability to do its jobs, now claims he will roll back some of those cuts until after the election, to quote “avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.” endquote.

    Unfortunately, it’s a bit too late for that: we all know the score. But the blatant nature of DeJoy’s corruption appears to have provoked enough backlash that things might slightly change. Like many of Trump’s corrupt schemes, this one appears to be partly undone because the administration didn’t quite dot the “i”s and cross the t’s legally.

    Two states, Washington and Pennsylvania, have filed lawsuits against the government to challenge DeJoy’s policies.

    Per CNN, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson claims Dejoy quote “acted outside of his authority to implement changes to the postal system, and did not follow the proper procedures under federal law.”

    DeJoy’s cost cutting measures like slashed overtime, reduced office hours, and processing facility closures would be postponed, but we know that’s not going to be enough -- we’re going to have to pump way more funding into the agency rather than just stop the bleeding**:**

    DNC Night 2: Party Like It's the RNC '04

    Night two of the RNC, sorry, I mean DNC, but honestly, it’s getting hard to tell at this point.

    On Tuesday, Biden’s GOP buddies included Colin Powell, who has endorsed Democrats in the past. Powell has also, of course, lied to the American public in order to sell us on the Iraq war, but we can’t hold that against him. If supporting the Iraq war were a disqualifying factor in Democratic politics, of course, Joe Biden wouldn’t be the nominee.

    But he is, and plenty of Democrats are pleased about that. Biden formally got the nomination tonight, beating Bernie Sanders in the official delegate count.

    Progressive Rep. AOC was one of two speakers who nominated Sanders, not Biden, which immediately caused something of a centrist panic online. What they don’t realize is that AOC’s speech is a traditional formality when there’s a runner-up candidate like Bernie whose name is still on the convention’s ballots.

    AOC used her time well, giving a forceful, short speech shouting out several progressive causes and problems with the country, like the looming eviction crisis, that have until now gone unnoticed by the Democrats and Republicans at the convention.

    Meanwhile, in a blink-and-you’ll miss it moment, the Huffington Post reported on Tuesday that the DNC had quietly dropped language from its party platform that demanded an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Says a lot about whose votes they’re gunning for.

    And on that note -- we also heard from Cindy McCain, who spoke about her husband’s long friendship with Biden. That sounds lovely for them. McCain presence fit the issue of national security that other speakers, like former Secretary of State John Kerry, also spoke on -- hyping up Biden’s steady hand over the military, which in context basically means he won’t tweet at Iran as much but might bomb them anyway.

    To close out the night, Jill Biden spoke as a character witness for her husband, who joined her briefly at the end of her speech. We’ll surely be seeing a whole lot more of them as the week goes on.

    Senate Finds Russiagate Dirt

    A massive Senate report on Tuesday confirmed what most sane people already knew: Trump campaign officials in 2016 had contact with Russian intelligence officers, Kremlin officials and other Russian nationals.

    Russiagate isn’t the only reason Trump won the 2016 election, of course, but Tuesday’s report shows that even the GOP-led Senate has been forced to admit that members of the Trump campaign actively sought Russian help, and the Russians, in some cases, provided it.

    The Senate report, like Robert Mueller’s exhaustive, exhausting investigation, stopped short of calling the contacts “collusion,” but that’s basically just semantics. What the new report shows is that Paul Manafort buddy Konstantin V. Kilimnik was in fact a Russian intelligence officer, and that Kilimnik had ties to the Russian government’s election interference operations.

    Russiagate can be a fraught topic on the left, as it’s been used as a cudgel and a crutch by liberals trying to find a scapegoat to blame for botching the 2016 election and dooming the country to at least four years of Trump.

    But you don’t have to go full Red Scare to acknowledge the facts that the Mueller investigation and the new Senate report show. Maybe once we’re all on the same page, we can move on and make sure neither the foreign interference or the embarrassing loss to a fascist candidate ever happen again.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES

    Notre Dame University has become the latest college to rapidly shut down after opening for the school year, canceling in-person classes after an outbreak. Michigan State and UNC-Chapel Hill both took similar steps almost immediately after starting classes. Seems like... maybe opening schools isn’t the right idea right now.

    Well folks, it actually happened. Notorious weird islamophobic troll Laura Loomer won her primary in Florida’s 21st congressional district. The 21st is heavily Democratic, so it’s highly unlikely Loomer will actually win, but it’s sure setting up one hell of a surreal general election.

    Elsewhere in Florida’s primary, the Bernie Sanders-backed candidate for Ninth Circuit State Attorney, Monique Worrell, won election and will replace departing Democrat Aramis Ayala. Worrell is a staunch criminal justice reform advocate, and is now in a position to really change lives in the state.

    And finally, cops in Portsmouth, Virginia are doing their level best to sideline a progressive prosecutor from handling cases relating to the vandalism of Confederate monuments. The same

    cops, of course, are pushing for felony charges for civil rights leaders and public defenders who participated in protests that damaged the statues.

    That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for more DNC madness with the full show this afternoon.

    Aug 19, 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Jack Crosbie

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 18, 2020: DNC Night One
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    We just wrapped up night one of the Democratic National Convention, featuring Republican John Kasich, Republican Meg Whitman, and surprise, a few actual Democrats. Bernie Sanders was there too. Here’s what went down.

    Meanwhile, new details in the strange story of Alex Morse’s Congressional Campaign show that the Massachusetts Democratic Party conspired with and urged College Democrats to delete communications records that allegedly outlined their campaign to smear Morse with sexual impropriety.

    And lastly, Donald Trump finalizes a plan to open up an Arctic nature sanctuary to oil and gas drilling.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    The DNC kicked off Monday night and oh boy. Well. We’re one night down at least.

    For some reason, the Democrats front-loaded their convention with a line of Republican speakers, including abortion and unions opponent John Kasich, Quibi CEO and former Republican Rep Meg Whitman, and more. Eventually, some actual Democrats did speak, but there wasn’t much in the way of political platform.

    Instead, Images of black people hugging cops followed by testimonials from the families of George Floyd and Eric Garner. Andrew Cuomo went on and pretended his mistakes didn’t kill thousands of Americans in New York City.

    The DNC did give runner-up Bernie Sanders a chance to speak, and he wasted no time, giving the first substantive discussion of Biden’s platform. It was pretty depressing to hear him champion Biden’s health plan, which is very much not Medicare for All, but you can tell the guy is just trying to do his part in beating Trump. He sucked it up for Hillary and he’ll do it again.

    Michelle Obama, the night’s headliner, closed out the evening with an impassioned speech about Biden’s merits and the value of empathy, which was pretty effective in striking a contrast between what the Trump campaign and RNC will offer. But will the vague emotional tone get the

    Democrats across the finish line? We’ve probably got two more days of it at least, so I guess we’ll find out!

    Mass Dems Plotted Against Morse

    A new report by the Intercept shows some shocking new details in the strange smear campaign against Alex Morse, a progressive candidate for Congress in Massachusettes’s Democratic Primary.

    The Intercept reports that the executive director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, Veronica Martinez, told student leaders that UMass Amherst to delete communications records between them and the state party. The offending messages could implicate that the party organized the strange purity scandal around Morse.

    The initial scandal was always strange. Morse, who is in his early 30s and openly gay, was accused of sleeping with students at UMass, where he was an adjunct professor. But none of the students made accusations that the sex was anything but consensual.

    Several days later, the Intercept reported that members of the Massachusetts college democrats association had a long-running scheme to smear Morse with rumors of sexual impropriety.

    Now, the new reporting shows that the Massachusettes state party may have been in on it too. The context here is that Morse is an open progressive who’s running to take down Rep. Richard Neal, the chair of the powerful Ways and Means committee. The state’s primary is on September 1, but even throughout the strange scandal the Morse campaign’s internal polls show them within 5 points of Neal.

    After the victories of Jamal Bowman and Cori Rice against longtime Democratic incumbents, it’s pretty clear that some party insiders are willing to stoop to some pretty low lows to make sure some centrists keep their seats.

    Trump Lets Big Oil into Arctic

    The Trump administration finalized a plan to turn over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas developers, overturning decades of protection for the country’s largest remaining stretch of wilderness.

    Advocates quickly denounced the move, obviously, because it’s a gift to environmentally destructive companies that can’t wait to savage the land. Steve Blackledge, senior conservation program director for Environment America, said quote:

    "The door is being flung wide open for oil and gas drilling to impose irreversible harm to one of America's iconic spaces. Claims that this thoroughly invasive industrial work can be done in an environmentally responsible way are either naive or, even worse, cynically deceptive."

    That pretty much sums it up. According to Common Dreams, Blackledge said Trump’s interior department’s plans for the region were quote “wrongheaded and tragic.”

    Opponents are sure to challenge the move in court, but if Trump gets a second term, we can imagine far more of the same.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    Common Dreams reports that according to new research, just 12 billionaires have now amassed a combined wealth of 1 trillion dollars. Some of the top of that list, like Jeff Bezos, have seen their net worth skyrocket by dozens of billions of dollars even in the midst of the pandemic.

    California’s Death Valley hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, which, if confirmed, would be the region’s hottest temperature since 1913. Climate activists warned that unless we make some changes soon, that record will get broken a whole lot sooner this time.

    According to the Mississippi Free Press, 71 of the state’s 82 counties are now reporting coronavirus outbreaks in schools, with more than 2500 students and teachers in quarantine. For many schools, it’s only the second day of classes.

    And finally, Postmaster General LaJoy has agreed to testify before the House on August 24, as Democrats pressure the Senate to come back and get a deal to save the post office on the table. Will it work? Let’s not go there just yet.

    That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon.

    Aug 18, 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Jack Crosbie

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 17, 2020: House Reconvenes to Address USPS 'Sabotage'
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    Donald Trump’s war on the postal service continues, and the House agrees to reconvene to try to fight back as distressing reports filter in of the agency removing post office boxes from streets.

    Meanwhile, a new report shows that the Trump administration has been using a private security company to detain migrant children and their families at major hotel chains before ejecting them from the country.

    And lastly, protests intensify in Chicago, Stone Mountain Georgia, and Portland Oregon, as Black Lives Matter protesters clash with right wing nationalists and fascist cops alike.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called her part of Congress back late on Sunday night, saying that the Democrat-led House of Representatives would meet in order to pass emergency legislation that would help save the U.S. Postal Service before the November election.

    Trump has been systematically destroying the Post Office for months, using his pet Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to gut the organization in order to cast more doubts on nationwide voting by mail.

    So far, according to the Washington Post, DeJoy has used absurd cost cutting measures to slash post carriers’ overtime and other strategies to get the mail on time, as well as removing physical inventory like mail-sorting machines and making it so mail-in ballots are no longer automatically sorted as priority mail.

    Reporters and social media users in multiple cities reported the Postal Service physically removing its own letter boxes from the streets as part of a scaling-back process.

    According to CNN, the agency says it will stop this practice for at least the next 90 days, which is good news for the election, but it’s completely clear the DeJoy is trying to demolish any chance of a workable mail-voting system before Trump goes up against Biden.

    The House is back in session this week to pass a bill putting a band-aid on this, but you can imagine how far that’s going to get with the Republican Senate. At least they’re trying.

    Trump Keeping Migrant Kids in Hotels

    A new report by the New York Times shows that despite the catastrophic pandemic, the Trump administration is still finding new and depraved ways to treat immigrant families on the border.

    According to the Times, government data and private court documents show that the Trump administration has massively increased detentions of migrants in private hotel chains before deporting them, often placing children as young as a year old under the supervision of transportation workers not licensed to provide child care.

    At first glance, this doesn’t sound so bad: a hotel room is likely far more comfortable that the dystopian concentration camps that the Trump administration is also using to detain kids and adults on the border. But as the Times notes, this is all being done by a private security company called MVM Inc, which is completely outside of the scope or oversight of normal government operations: there’s no accountability or transparency here.

    The new wave of expulsions are justified under Trump’s new pandemic border rules, which is basically just kicking people out of the country en masse, including unaccompanied children, without any thought to the consequences or the condition of the people under their care.

    The Times reports that under the new policy, most children just put on planes and sent back to their home countries, though some get turned over to child services in Mexico, which often forces parents into confusing, desperate searches to track them down.

    Protests Continue in Portland, Chicago, Stone Mountain

    Widespread protests continued to rage across the country this weekend, with major actions in Portland, Oregon, Stone Mountain, Georgia and Chicago, Illinois. We’ll run down some of the major events.

    In Portland, far-right members of the Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys clashed with protesters and allegedly fired a gun, while other members dueled with paintball guns and mace. Some reports on social media suggested that a small plastic pipe bomb was tossed as well.

    In Stone Mountain, Georgia Black Lives Matter counterprotesters faced down a smaller contingent of white nationalist three-percenter militia members who had applied for a permit to hold a rally in the park, ostensibly to defend the massive Confederate monument there.

    In both of these places it looks like the far right is getting more and more bold in pushing for conflict with protesters.

    And in Chicago, the police cracked down hard on protests and again blamed outside agitators for escalating demonstrations, despite evidence that the cops used aggressive tactics like kettling and baton charges.

    Chicago Police claim that 17 officers were injured during a protest on Saturday. There’s no clear accounting on how many protesters have been hurt so far, of course.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    The big story this week we didn’t get to up top is that the Democratic National Convention starts this week. Because pretty much everything in Milwaulkee is canceled, DNC officials are going to try to juggle hundreds of different live streams to keep the atmosphere festive and lively for... well, whoever’s actually watching. Tune in! What could go wrong.

    In case you were wondering how the rich and famous are faring through all this: a new report by the New York Times shows that the wealthy elites are throwing parties in the Hamptons and other wealthy enclaves where private, lightning-fast coronavirus testing happens at the door, provided you can pay. Gee, I wonder who’s going to get the vaccine first when it comes out?

    In a surreal turn of events, a Government Accountability Audit shows that Acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf, as well as deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli may have been illegally appointed to their positions by the Trump administration. These are the guys ordering many of the federal goons breaking up protests, who may not even legally deserve the authority they’re abusing.

    And finally, the Trump administration is planning to jack up the costs involved with becoming a U.S. citizen in the fall, as part of a systemic push to keep poorer immigrants out of the country.

    That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon.

    Aug 17, 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Jack Crosbie

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 14, 2020: Trump Admits USPS Sabotage
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    We no longer have to wonder whether Donald Trump will try to sabotage the election by making it really hard to vote by mail. He just came out and said it.

    Meanwhile, the stress of the coronavirus pandemic is really getting to people. A new survey shows Americans are more anxious, depressed, and traumatized than ever.

    And lastly, hundreds of people swarmed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement vehicle to prevent two men from getting taken away from their families. We’ll take a look at this flash mob for justice came together.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    Donald Trump now admits he wants to deny twenty five billion dollars in emergency funding to the US Postal Service in order to prevent mail-in voting from functioning smoothly during the coronavirus pandemic. He’s basically bragging about trying to rig the election, while complaining that the election will be rigged. Typical.

    Yesterday, in an interview with Fox News, Trump laid out his thinking in denying funding for the Postal Service. He said QUOTE they need that money in order to make the Post Office work, so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots... Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting -- they just can’t have it. Sort of a crazy thing, ENDQUOTE. Yeah, sort of a crazy thing, you might say. A spokesman for Joe Biden said Trump is QUOTE sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon, [and] cutting a critical lifeline for rural economies and for delivery of medicines, because he wants to deprive Americans of their fundamental right to vote safely ENDQUOTE.

    Separetely, Vice News reported that the Postal Service’s management is removing mail sorting machines from facilities around the country without any explanation. These machines are the same ones that will be used to sort ballots for the November presidential election. A postal worker who spoke to Vice compared it to a grocery store removing one-third of the checkout machines and expecting the same level of customer service. While the

    consequences of removing the machines has yet to be felt, Vice reports that the decision fits with a pattern of sudden, opaque, and drastic changes made by the new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, in his first two months on the job. DeJoy is a longtime Republican fundraiser and Trump donor. Go figure! His real job seems to be bureaucratic sabotage.

    Survey shows Americans depressed

    Americans are losing it, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control. And the pandemic is to blame.

    The study surveyed more than fifty-four hundred Americans, according to Yahoo News. Nearly forty-one percent of people reported at least one mental or behavioral health problem. Approximately one in three suffered from anxiety or depression. One in four showed symptoms of a traumatic disorder. One in five said they were using drugs or alcohol more heavily – or, for the first time – in order to cope. One in ten said they had seriously considered suicide. That’s really bad! Please call someone if you are feeling that way.

    They’re pretty sure the pandemic is to blame because it’s not the first time the CDC has carried out this mental health survey. Compared to the same period last year, frequency of anxiety symptoms tripled. Depression quadrupled. And serious suicidal ideation doubled. More than ninety percent said they were not being treated for anxiety, depression or posttraumatic stress before the pandemic struck.

    Compared to other demographics, younger adults, non-whites, essential workers and unpaid adult caregivers are faring QUOTE disproportionately worse ENDQUOTE. As if the coronavirus itself wasn’t bad enough. Can we get some Medicare for All please?

    Activists surround ICE vehicle

    Early on Wednesday morning, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested two men in Bend, Oregon, then loaded the men onto buses. One of the men, named Marcos, was allowed to call his wife at around one in the afternoon. That call set off a chain reaction on social media, and soon people began driving from all over central Oregon to surround the ICE buses. Hundreds of people swarmed the area and spotted the buses in a parking lot

    behind a hotel. Some people, including a member of the city council, parked their cars in front of the buses to prevent them from leaving. Others simply stood in front of the ICE vehicles. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, family members of the detained men wept against the sides of the bus, pleading with the ICE contractors operating the bus to allow them to give the men food and water. A small boy cried: “Papa, Papa, I love you.”

    This went on for ten hours. Local police came, first in SWAT attire, then in regular uniforms. Then the local police chief made a personal appearance and warned the crowd that more federal agents were on their way. Around eleven o’clock at night, more Border Patrol officers showed up and pepper sprayed some people in the crowd. The agents succeeded in removing their colleagues as well as the detained men. But civil liberties groups used the time they gained thanks to the impromptu action to file an emergency motion in federal court on behalf of the men. The motion seeks to prevent the men from being removed from central Oregon and taken away from their families. The local district attorney, John Hummel, later wrote QUOTE I’ve never been so disgusted by my government, and so proud of my community ENDQUOTE.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    Israel and the United Arab Emirates have struck a deal to normalize their diplomatic relations. As part of the deal, Israel will reportedly forego its attempts to annex more land in the West Bank. In a White House statement, Trump took credit for brokering the agreement, but his actual involvement remains unclear. From Gaza, Hamas denounced the deal and called it QUOTE tantamount to a free reward for the Israeli occupation ENDQUOTE.

    The Trump administration is getting rid of environmental rule limiting how much methane oil and gas companies can allow to leak into the atmosphere from wells, pipelines, and storage tanks. This is a terrible idea, because methane warms the atmosphere even faster than carbon dioxide. Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the new rule in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, making no attempt to hide the fact that it’s an election-year political gambit. Sad!

    The city council in Austin, Texas, approved a new budget yesterday that cuts one hundred and fifty million dollars from the city’s police force. Some twenty million in cuts will take effect immediately. According to the Austin-American Statesman, much of the police funding will be redirected to a wide variety of programs and departments, including emergency medical services, mental health response, a family violence shelter, parks and trails, abortion access, and substance abuse care. The new budget was approved unanimously, after months of public outcry over police brutality.

    South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem plans to build a wall around her official residence. The project, budgeted at four hundred thousand dollars, consists of eight-foot-tall fencing made of powder-coated steel. The governor’s office cannot cite any specific threats to justify the expense, according to CBS News. An earlier design for the wall included a guardhouse but that feature has apparently been dropped. What, no machine gun turrets? Why is Governor Noem caving to the libs?

    That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report.

    Aug 14 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Corey Pein

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 13, 2020: Big Victory For Teachers in NJ
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    08:39

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

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    It’s a victory for teachers unions in New Jersey as the state reconsiders its requirement for in-person classes. Can their campaign be replicated elsewhere students, teachers, and families remain at risk due to COVID-19?

    Meanwhile, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris make their first appearance together in Delaware. Reviews are encouraging, but mixed.

    And lastly, a big win for the birds! A federal judge overturned a Trump administration rule change that let oil companies off the hook for killing wildlife en masse.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    Teachers unions at a single district in New Jersey forced a statewide policy reversal from the governor over safety concerns in schools. Some four hundred out of a total two thousand teachers at the Elizabeth school district opted out of teaching in-person classes, citing health fears on account of the coronavirus pandemic. Governor Phil Murphy had originally mandated that all New Jersey schools offer in-person learning. But after the strong showing by teachers in Elizabeth, Murphy changed his tune. On Monday, the district voted to begin the school year with all-online learning for twenty-eight thousand students, blaming COVID-19 and the subsequent teacher shortage.

    Then, late on Tuesday, in a joint statement with principals and administrators, the teachers union called for online learning statewide. The statement called for swift and decisive action from the governor. The union said that while remote education cannot replace in-person instruction, QUOTE we believe that a carefully planned, well-resourced remote education plan is better than the dangerous, uncertain in- person alternative currently available to us ENDQUOTE. Yesterday, Murphy, an ally of the teachers union, finally dropped the in-person learning requiorement.

    The union wasn’t alone in its campaign. The mayor of Newark, a former high school principal, had advised parents to keep their kids home from school on account of the risk. And while opinions remain divided among parents, students, and teachers, one parent told CBS News why she thought holding classes online for now was the right choice. She said, QUOTE do we

    really want to risk our children going back to school, getting sick and getting all the other kids sick, and then we are all back lock down all over again? ENDQUOTE. Well, when you put it like that, no, I guess we don’t really want that.

    Biden, Harris appear together

    Joe Biden and Kamala Harris made their first joint appearance as a presidential ticket yesterday in Wilmington, Delaware. Calling Harris an honorary Biden, the former vice president said QUOTE we both believe we can define America in one word: possibilities. Possibilities. Let me say it again: possibilities ENDQUOTE. Harris attacked Donald Trump’s leadership failures and said it’s all on the line for America in this election. She said, QUOTE the case against Donald Trump and Mike Pence is open and shut... Electing Joe Biden is just the start of the work that’s ahead of us ENDQUOTE.

    After their speeches, CNN reported, the two Democratic candidates held an online fundraiser for small-dollar donors. According to the Wall Street Journal, Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief when Biden chose Harris to be his number two. In Harris’s home state of California, reaction was a mixture of excitement and doubts, given the familiarity voters have there with Harris’s record as a US Senator as well as a prosecutor. Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, told the LA Times that she would’ve preferred a more progressive candidate as Biden’s vice presidential pick. However, she said, BLM leaders did have several positive interactions with Harris shortly after the group was founded.

    Separately, the New York Times reported that Donald Trump’s son-in-law and key adviser Jared Kushner met with the rapper Kanye West last weekend. West is running his own Quixotic campaign for president and will appear on the ballot in at least a few states. According to the Times, West did not deny that he was running as a spoiler.

    Judge restores conservation rule

    A federal judge in New York overturned rule changes by the Trump administration that allowed corporations and individuals to kill vast numbers of birds. Trump changed the environmental rule in order to benefit oil companies, which had paid most of the fines under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. The law covered a wide range of birds including eagles, red knots, Canada geese and vultures, according to the Washington Post. Trump changed the way it was interpreted two years ago, and required US Fish and Wildlife Service police to enforce the act only if they could prove violators intended to harm birds. In other words, if companies killed birds accidentally as part of their operations, they got a pass. That suited companies like BP just fine. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill killed an estimated one million birds. Under Trump’s interpretation of the law, they wouldn’t have been liable for that particular crime against nature. But US District Judge Valerie Caproni restored the plain meaning of the law in her ruling yesterday. Eight state attorneys general had joined the National Audubon Society and other conservation groups in challenging the Trump rule. Judge Caproni wrote QUOTE it is not only a sin to kill a mockingbird, it is also a crime. That has been the letter of the law for the past century. But if the Department of the Interior ha[d] its way, many mockingbirds and other migratory birds that delight people and support ecosystems throughout the country w[ould] be killed without legal consequence ENDQUOTE. In a joint statement, more than a thousand species of birds tweeted their thanks.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    Bloomberg News reported that Trump has said privately he plans to replace Defense Secretary Mark Esper, a former Raytheon lobbyist, after the November election. For his part, Esper claims he plans to leave the administration regardless of the election’s outcome. Trump was reportedly mad that Esper didn’t get on board with deploying active-duty military to put down Black Lives Matter protests around the country. So there’s at least one functioning brain cell between them.

    More than six thousand people have reportedly been arrested in Belarus after three nights of protests against alleged vote-rigging in Sunday’s presidential election. The main opposition candidate fled to Lithuania following threats to her children. The election commission declared a landslide victory for incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko. In Minsk yesterday, hundreds of women formed a human chain to protest against police brutality and mass arrests, the Guardian reported. The women wore white and held flowers.

    The Colorado attorney general has opened a so-called pattern and practice investigation into the Aurora Police Department. The investigation centers on the death of

    Elijah McClain, a young Black man who died in Aurora police custody last year. The AG’s announcement came the same day that McClain’s family filed a federal lawsuit against the department. Police Chief Vanessa Wilson pledged QUOTE full cooperation ENDQUOTE, but the Aurora Police Association has declined comment.

    The chief executive of Uber says the company will shut down service in California if a judge does not overturn an unfavorable ruling. On Monday, a judge granted an injunction against the company that forbids it from classifying its drivers as independent contractors when they are in fact employees. But yesterday Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told MSNBC that the company would rather shut down temporarily than comply with the law. Sounds like a personal problem!

    Aug 13 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Corey Pein

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 12, 2020: Q-Anon Flourishes on Facebook
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    A conspiracy theory popular with fans of Donald Trump has found millions of followers through Facebook. Why is Mark Zuckerberg letting Q-Anon run amok on his platforms?

    Meanwhile, five states held elections yesterday, and Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is among those facing a primary challenger. Politics keeps happening outside the Democratic Party veepstakes, but don’t worry, we’ve got the news there, too.

    And lastly, Russia claims to have developed a coronavirus vaccine. But critics are warning that it hasn’t gone through full clinical trials.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    A new investigation by the Guardian points to the crucial role of Facebook in spreading insane Q-Anon propaganda around the world. The investigation documented more than one hundred and seventy Q-Anon groups, pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram. Altogether, they have more than four and a half million followers in at least fifteen countries. That’s a whole lot of crazy.

    The Q-Anon cult promotes the idea that Donald Trump is a holy force guided by an intricate plan to root out a deep-state cabal of child-abusing politicians and celebrities. It almost goes without saying that there’s no evidence for any of this – but apparently, it does need saying. If anyone should be answering questions about his ties to shadowy sex traffickers, it’s Donald Trump. You may remember, Trump recently sent well-wishes to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is now in custody awaiting trial.

    While Twitter recently cracked down on Q-Anon promoters on its platform, Facebook is reportedly allowing these conspiracy theorists to flourish. The largest groups have more than two hundred thousand members. Facebook says it bans groups that violate its rules, but the company seems to be habitually behind the ball. A Harvard researcher quoted by the Guardian said Facebook needs to proceed carefully. Banning Q-Anon pages without an explanation may only reinforce the paranoid beliefs of adherents. What might help, the expert

    concluded, would be QUOTE factual interventions ENDQUOTE from conservative media outlets. Good luck putting that together. Let us know how it goes.

    Ilhan Omar faces off against primary challenger

    Elections wrapped up yesterday in Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota, Vermont, and Wisconsin. In Georgia’s Fourteenth Congressional District, there was Republican primary runoff. One of the candidates, Marjorie Taylor Greene, is a Q-Anon conspiracy theorist. Her more conventional Republican opponent, John Cowan, trailed far behind Greene in the June primary. Per CNN, Greene won some forty percent of the vote in that prior contest, while Cowan received only twenty-one percent. If that pattern holds, the up-and-coming Congressional Q-Anon Caucus will be adding another member.

    The highest-profile Democratic primary contest yesterday pit incumbent Squad member Ilhan Omar of Minnesota against Antone Melton-Meaux, a lawyer and professional mediator. Despite her popularity across the state and the country, Melton-Meaux has tried to portray Omar as out of touch with the people in her district, and thus turn her celebrity into a disadvantage. The challenger has put together a sizable war chest with the help of donors who don’t like Omar’s critical position on Israel. Omar had raised some four point three million dollars at last report, while Melton-Meaux raised four point one million. Addressing her opponent’s criticisms, Omar told ABC News that QUOTE even in the face of death threats, I have made it my top priority to be in the community with Minnesotans and listen to them ENDQUOTE. Watch for results in the days ahead – or possibly weeks, in the event of a close race.

    Russia rushes coronavirus vaccine

    There is some well-justified international skepticism about this news, but it’s still worth reporting: Russia yesterday announced that it was the first country to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. Scientists at Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute developed and tested the vaccine without large-scale clinical trials, leading global health experts to emphasize caution. But president Vladimir Putin vouched for it and said that one of his two daughters had been given a dose.

    The vaccine is named Sputnik Five, in a reference to Russia’s Cold War satellite that kicked off the space race. The United States, China, and other countries are engaged in a race of sorts to develop a coronavirus vaccine, and Russia was clearly keen to declare victory. Last month the US, Britain, and Canada accused Russian hackers of stealing vaccine research.

    However thorough the testing was or wasn’t, millions of Russians, beginning with front-line workers such as teachers, will receive the vaccine this fall. Doctors could begin receiving the vaccine as early as this month. If the vaccine is faulty it could cause a number of problems, experts said. Among other things, it could render those inoculated more vulnerable to severe forms of COVID-19, the New York Times reported. Putin said the vaccine will be voluntary. However, coercion is possible if employers in Russia and beyond demand their workers take a drug that hasn’t been fully tested. Whether it works or not, vaccine politics is about to get even more weird and hostile.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    Joe Biden picked California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate yesterday, in a much-anticipated decision. In a tweet, Biden called Harris QUOTE a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants ENDQUOTE. Harris will become the first Black woman and first Asian-American to be nominated for the vice presidency by a major party. (Harris’s parents are from India and Jamaica.) Expect to hear more about this all week. It’s not like Biden has much else to talk about.

    More than eight hundred students and forty teachers in Cherokee County, Georgia, were told to quarantine after possible coronavirus exposure. The school district there has been open for less than a week, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Most students have opted to attend in person rather than take online classes, as the quarantined students will now be doing. I’m no expert but this all seems preventable.

    A fifteen-year-old student in Michigan who was placed in juvenile detention for failing to do her homework has been removed from probation. The victory for the student, known as Grace, and her family came after the investigative news website ProPublica took up her case. Grace, who is Black and has ADHD, had reportedly struggled with the abrupt shift to online coursework.

    Hours after the Seattle City Council voted to cut the local police budget by three million dollars, the city’s police chief, Carmen Best, announced her retirement. In addition to shrinking the force by up to one hundred officers, the cuts would have reduced the chief’s pay. Socialist City Council member Kshama Sawant voted against the defunding measure, saying it didn’t go nearly far enough, according to the Washington Post. Former Chief Best said QUOTE when it’s time, it’s time ENDQUOTE. Time to retire on that sweet public pension.

    That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report.

    Aug 12, 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Corey Pein

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 11, 2020: Biden VP? AOC at the DNC?
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    Biden will announce his VP pick tomorrow, or maybe he won’t!. Also, AOC at the DNC, Trump wants to break the law at Gettysburg, and more: we’re doing a politics funbag at the top of the night.

    Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s administration is circulating a proposal that would crack down on immigration on the Mexican border to absurd levels, even preventing some legal citizens from entering the country if they’re suspected of carrying the coronavirus.

    And lastly, Chicago police say they’ve arrested over 100 after a night of chaotic protests and looting broke out on Sunday following a fortunately non-fatal shooting by the police.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    Joe Biden has selected a vice presidential running mate. Or maybe he hasn’t! Either way, he’s not telling, but that’s not stopping literally anyone from speculating wildly.

    Take the New York Times, for instance, published a full story on Monday basically saying welp, he’s talked to everyone! Now the decision will come... some time. It might be today, but other people think it might be wednesday. And no one knows who it’ll be, though Kamala Harris, Susan Rice, and Elizabeth Warren are all in the running, along with a handful of others.

    Anyway, let’s move on to more concrete news: the DNC. Against all odds, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is getting a speaking slot, playing opener to Bernie Sanders. Kinda wild the DNC took this long to announce that, considering they had literal Republican John Kasich all lined up weeks ago.

    Over on the Republican side, Trump is planning some more breaches of decorum and possibly the law: he wants to accept his party’s nomination at Gettysburg. But that’s a major breach of ethics, as doing partisan business on federal property is generally seen as a no-no. He’ll probably end up doing whatever he wants!

    In the final miscellaneous event of note today, Trump was rushed out of a press briefing by the Secret Service after a shooting outside of the White House. Secret Service agents allegedly shot someone after a disturbance near the fence. Trump walked back into the briefing after a

    few minutes, perhaps in an attempt to save face from the time he got caught hiding in the presidential bunker during protests.

    Trump May Try to Stop Citizens at Border

    LUCIE: The Trump administration is reportedly considering its harshest immigration restriction yet, in this case circulating a proposal that would preventing some legal citizens from entering the country from Mexico if they’re suspected of carrying the coronavirus.

    That Trump is singling out the Mexican border isn’t surprising, but it is open evidence that there’s nothing behind this order other than blatant racism.

    It would have literally no effect on cases in the U.S., as the disease is spreading unfettered in our own communities here, but would largely make the lives of latino Americans and their families incredibly difficult on the border.

    What Trump is doing with this order is again trying to use Mexico as a scapegoat for all his problems. He figures if he can blame rising coronavirus on Mexico, it’ll distract some of his core base from realizing how utterly he failed them this year.

    And he’s clearly willing to do whatever it takes to do that, including barring U.S. citizens from their own country.

    Keep in mind, he might not have the legal authority to do it, of course, and none of this is law yet. But if it does come down, we all know what it’s for.

    Chicago Protests Flare Up

    In Chicago, a day and night of confusion on Sunday ripped up parts of the city, as protesters took to the streets after reports of a police shooting.

    On Monday, Chicago police said they’d arrested over 100 people, and that 13 cops had been injured during the demonstrations, which also spilled over into widespread looting.

    Part of the community’s fury on Sunday night was driven by mistaken rumors, that said the police had shot dead a 15-year-old boy. However, authorities claim that the police were fired upon by a 20 year old suspect, who they shot but did not kill. The suspect is reportedly in stable condition at the hospital.

    The suspect’s brother, however, denied that his sibling fired at the police in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.

    Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the looting was quote “straight up felony criminal conduct,”and quote “an assault on our city” endquote, but it’s pretty clear that the public’s relationship with the police is so strained it could boil over at any second, which is always going to cause collateral damage.

    Chicago police closed down roads and streets in the business district that saw much of the looting and in downtown Chicago on Monday night as well.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    Belarus also erupted in protests after its strongman leader Aleksandr Lukashenko won a ludicrous 80 percent of the vote in a highly sketchy election and then cracked down on dissent. Lukashenko’s police have brutally attacked protesters and arrested at least 14 journalists for covering the demonstrations.

    NCAA football players are undergoing a remarkable organizing push under two joined campaigns, hashtag #WeAreUnited and #WeWantToPlay, which unite two groups of players pushing for a college football season to go ahead, but only if the schools involved commit to stringent coronavirus prevention protocol and support for the athletes involved. It’s not quite a college football players union yet, but it’s getting there.

    The newspaper guild members of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette voted overwhelmingly, 88-31, in favor of authorizing a strike at the paper. If the News Guild leadership signs off on it, it’ll add a huge weapon to the arsenal of a group of journalists who have been fighting their owners’ anti-union lawyers over a new contract for three and a half years.

    A freak storm packing 100 mile per hour winds, known as a “derecho” swept across the Midwest on Monday, snapping trees and flipping vehicles across Iowa, Indiana, Michigan and other regions, leaving several injured and thousands without power. Just a sneak peak of what climate change has in store!

    Aug 11, 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Jack Crosbie

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 10, 2020: Trump Does Some Executive Ordering
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    President Trump used executive orders to push extensions to unemployment benefits and other economic measures while Congress was deadlocked this weekend. But his big showy orders aren’t likely to trickle down to working people anytime soon -- and his planned cuts to social security and medicare are even worse.

    Meanwhile, schools are reopening across the country, and the coronavirus is already starting to spread among them. In one school in Georgia captured in a viral photograph last week, local reports say nine cases have already cropped up.

    And lastly, protests are building in Lebanon against the corrupt government many hold responsible for the devastating explosion last week. And sure enough, that same government is cracking down, hard.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    President Donald Trump took executive action on Saturday, signing four executive orders supposedly aimed at stimulating the economy. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to note that most of them are just back doors to gutting social programs and preventing working Americans from getting what they deserve.

    The four orders look like they address needs of a desperately hurting public. The first delayed payroll tax collection for people making under $104,000. Note that it just delayed the tax, not waived it, so while it’ll mean a little more money in people’s pockets, it’s not going to do much in the long run.

    To make matters worse, payroll tax cuts are what feed medicare and social security, and progressive activists are worried that Trump’s cuts to them are just a back door to slashing those programs further down the line. And sure enough: Trump said in a press conference Saturday that if re-elected he’d shoot to eliminate the payroll taxes entirely.

    The second order extended unemployment benefits at $400 a week, $200 less than the $600 per week figure that most out of work people were collecting before. But Trump is trying to take the Federal government’s share of this out of the DHS’s disaster relief fund, sidestepping Congress and draining vital funds all at once. There’ll probably be a legal challenge.

    The third order says that top officials, like the head of health and human services and the CDC director, can quote “consider” whether or not to enact a ban on evictions. But it doesn’t actually ban evictions, doesn’t allocate any more money to help renters, and basically does nothing. Great.

    The last order defers student loan payments until December 31, at which point the money is due again. Seeing as this crisis doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, it’s unclear how much that’ll help.

    As Democrats pointed out, all of this could have been avoided if the Senate had actually considered the HEROES act passed by the House almost two months ago. But because the GOP’s in charge, we get some half-assed executive orders serving as bandaids at best, and further wounds at worst.

    Back To School COVID Surge

    The new school year is starting, and some students are, shockingly, back in the classroom. This is having and almost immediate tragic result.

    Let’s look at the numbers. The New York Times reports that at least 97,000 children tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks of July alone. Imagine what’s going to happen to that number as thousands of them go back to in-person school in Florida.

    You may have seen a photo floating around the news and social media last week, which showed a jam-packed hallway at a Georgia high school. The school had claimed that masks were encouraged but not mandatory, because there was no way to enforce it, despite the fact that schools enforce dress codes all the time.

    And guess what: Six students and three staff members have now tested positive, all of whom were present at school in the past week.

    This is just one very easy example of what’s going to happen all over the country if in-person school continues this year. It’s going to feed kids and their teachers into a meat-grinder of diseases. Sure, the kids do tend to fare slightly better with the disease than older adults, but there will be deaths, especially among the teachers who will be exposed again and again.

    Reopening a school is almost certainly condemning at least some of your students and staff to death, but officials across the country are going ahead with it anyway.

    Lebanon Protests Corrupt Government

    Lebanon is fed up. After government neglect and corruption effectively caused the massive explosion that devastated the city of Beirut last week, its citizens have taken to the streets in massive protests against the government.

    Protests began on Saturday and continued through Sunday, as angry demonstrators pelted the outside of the country’s parliament building with rocks. The government responded by cracking down with tactics that would seem familiar to any American after this summer: tear gas, batons, riot gear.

    Waves of protesters stormed the foreign ministry, the environment ministry and the economy ministry, and occupied the Banking Association building. The latter group is held responsible for part of the country’s worsening economic crisis.

    So far a handful of politicians have resigned, but nowhere close to the 43 needed for the government to official change. 21 people are still missing after the blast, and 153 are confirmed dead, according to the Guardian. Search and Rescue teams have given up on finding any more survivors.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    The post office is still in dire straits: Common Dreams reports on a Friday Night Massacre at the end of last week, in which the Trump crony postmaster general ousted several top executives. As funding for the beleaguered agency and vote-by-mail battles go on, keep an eye on this story this week.

    Alex Morse, a progressive mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts who’s running to unseat longterm Democrat Richie Neal in the state’s primary next month, is currently weathering a strange morality scandal, as critics bring up his consensual relationships with college-age men, some of them students, while he was mayor and a lecturer at UMass Amherst. Morse isn’t accused of anything, per se, which makes the whole situation shaky.

    Joe Biden still does not have a VP pick! But he might have one soon. He’s got a virtual fundraiser event set for Monday, which is including a press pool, and could be when he’s making the announcement. Or not! We’ll see.

    Protesters in Portland aren’t letting up, once again setting a small fire at the police union headquarters on Sunday, which cops quickly declared a riot, sparking another night of running arrests and street clashes.

    That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show later today!

    Aug 10 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Jack Crosbie

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 7, 2020: Trump Dodges Ohio's Sick Governor
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    Donald Trump flies to Ohio for a rally, right as the state’s governor tests positive for coronavirus.

    Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Tish James files a lawsuit to dissolve the National Rifle Association on grounds of rampant corruption and financial crimes.

    And lastly, a wild story out of LA: Sheriff’s deputies organized in “secret societies” that functioned like street gangs cost the county $55 million in settlements for their corrupt and brutal behavior.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    Donald Trump flew into Ohio today just in time to not meet with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, because DeWine had just tested positive for COVID-19.

    DeWine, to his credit, has been far more aggressive against the coronavirus than many of his fellow Republican governors. After testing positive, he headed home to self-isolate and did not meet Trump at the airport.

    Trump then gave a planned speech on reopening the economy in Cleveland, but used most of his time to rail against Joe Biden, saying the former vice president was in favor of quote:

    “No Religion, no anything -- hurt the bible, hurt god. He’s against god, hes against guns, he’s against energy, our kind of energy, I don’t think he’s going to do too well in Ohio.”

    endquote.

    Trump said Biden wants all those things because he’s following quote “the radical left agenda,” endquote. Buddy, we wish Biden was following the radical left agenda! Unfortunately, he very much is not.

    This is pretty much the attack line that the Biden campaign must be expecting, and if that’s the best Trump can bring, it’s clear he’s just grasping at straws and trying to play the hits. Guns and God? Sure, that stuff is catnip for conservatives, but at a certain point people have gotta realize they’ve heard it all before.

    NY Sues NRA

    New York Attorney General Leticia James filed a lawsuit aiming to dissolve the National Rifle Association, a huge target that has been under fire for months with allegations of financial impropriety and open corruption. What can I say, if you’ve got the shot, take it.

    Gun puns aside, the lawsuit is a huge step that represents a culmination of years of diligent reporting by Propublica and nonprofit newsroom The Trace, which broke story after story detailing the NRA’s internal chaos and corruption.

    James’s suit, according to the New York Times, accuses the N.R.A. and executives like Wayne LaPierre and John Fazer of “violating numerous state and federal laws” by kicking back some $64 million of organizational funding to enrich themselves and their friends and family over the past 3 years. The NRA is a nonprofit chartered in New York City, so this is basically James’s wheelhouse.

    Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., filed suit against the N.R.A. and it’s charity wing, which is based in DC instead of New York.

    It’s not going to be a quick fight, however: the legal battle is expected to take years, so the NRA will surely play a role in the 2020 election, as they have every other year. But it is a strong opening volley against one of the most noxious political forces in America.

    LA Sheriffs Also in Gangs

    Our last story today isn’t so much breaking news as it is a shocking reminder of how dirty police forces in American routinely get.

    According to the LA Times, a group of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies cost the county and their department $55 million in court settlements over a decades-long period, as they formed organized, aggressive secret societies that glorified brutal policing and operated like street gangs. IN the last 10 years alone, the county has paid out at least 21 million to these groups’ victims.

    They gave themselves names too: different groups were called things like “the Vikings,” “Regulators,” “3000 Boys” and “the Banditos.” They operated out of jails and sheriff’s department stations for years, acting with impunity throughout the tenures of multiple top LA County Sheriffs. The Times reports some of the gangs even had tattoos and “earned their ink” by breaking inmates bones.

    Take the biggest case the department was forced to settle: Francisco Carrillo Jr. was jailed for over 20 years before his murder conviction was overturned in 2011. He was arrested when he

    was 16 by members of the Department’s white supremacist Lynwood Vikings gang, who he later alleged in a lawsuit had manipulated witnesses to pick him out of a lineup.

    John Sweeney, an attorney who has represented families of people killed by deputies said quote: “I think it’s a willful failure. For some reason, they pride themselves, the Sheriff’s Department, on having these violent cliques I guess to show the public who’s the boss. But, you know, what it does is just fosters a horrible relationship between the community that these sheriffs serve.”

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    Mark Zuckerberg is facing some serious pushback from his employees, who asked him at a public forum on Thursday whether he would stop Donald Trump using the service to contest the 2020 election, according to Buzzfeed News. Facebook took down a Trump campaign post yesterday for misinformation, but has a track record of wimping out on bigger issues.

    The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that fear of COVID-19 is not a good enough reason to vote absentee, striking a nasty blow against vote-by-mail in that state. If a deadly pandemic isn’t good enough, what is?

    Congress has abandoned us, as Politico reports that Senators went home at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday and the House is out of session next week. They could get called back, but if they’re heading to home states it means a coronavirus relief bill is still a long way off.

    The State Department’s special envoy to Iran, Brian Hook is quitting, and being replaced by basically the worst possible person for the job: Eliott Abrams, one of the most bloodthirsty warhawks to ever grace the halls of power in Washington.

    Catch the Majority Report LIVE early today at 10:30AM ET!

    August 7, 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Jack Crosbie

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

  • Aug 6, 2020: New Details in Beirut Blast
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    Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop

    TODAY'S HEADLINES:

    New details shed more light on the dangerous negligence that caused the catastrophic Beirut explosion yesterday.

    Meanwhile, stimulus plan talks stall between Democrats and Republicans, and Biden decides to skip an in-person appearance at the Democratic Convention in Milwaulkee.

    And lastly, Iowa finally overturns its ban on voting for people with felony convictions.

    THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

    The explosion in Beirut yesterday was catastrophic beyond what most of us can imagine. At least 135 people are dead and thousands are injured, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed by the blast.

    The details coming in paint a pretty damning picture of neglect by Lebanon’s government, which has repeatedly struggled to provide for and guide its citizens through refugee crises, pandemic, economic strife and everyday city management in its largest metropolis.

    Here’s what we know: the main explosion was caused by a massive store of ammonium nitrate, that had been left lying in a warehouse in Beirut’s port for more than six years.

    According to the New York Times, port officials made several requests to Lebanese courts to get the stockpile moved, but got nothing back from the government, even when they warned of the danger.

    The blast has devastated several of the capital city’s most prosperous and lively neighborhoods, causing as much as $3 billion in damage in a country that is already deep in a financial crisis. And the human toll may be far worse than just the casualty numbers.

    Brian Castner, lead weapons investigator for Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Team said the blast was quote “the biggest explosion in an urban area in decades. The human impact of it is the important thing, and it affected people a dozen kilometers away.”

    All told, the Times reports that some 300,000 people may be displaced from their homes. That’s a staggering number, considering that roughly 1.5 million, or over 30 percent of Lebanon’s total population are already refugees from the Syrian war and other conflicts.

    Congress' Stalled on Corona Relief

    Let’s check in briefly with the government’s response to the coronavirus. We’ll keep it brief, because it doesn’t look pretty.

    Republicans and Democrats are nowhere near an agreement, as of Wednesday evening. The holdup now appears to be a dispute over funding the Post Office.

    How the fight is playing out is pretty simple: pandemic cutbacks to the Post Office have resulted in mail delays, for obvious reasons.

    The GOP is then using those delays to say that the Post Office doesn’t deserve more funding, and simultaneously to cast doubt on mail-in voting. Basically, they’ve crushed the Post Office and are using it to mess with the election.

    Democrats want $3.6 billion in the new aid package to make sure mail-in voting goes smoothly, but of course the GOP is against it.

    Congress is also still haggling over an extension to the increased unemployment benefits, which is basically like juggling with people’s entire lives as the jobless rate continues to climb. To top it off, the GOP is also fighting against aid measures that would help state and local governments stop laying off public sector workers.

    As far as the election itself goes, it’s looking like nothing we’ve seen before. Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he wouldn’t be traveling to Milwaulkee for the Democratic National Convention, and will instead deliver his acceptance speech from his home state of Delaware.

    Three months to go, people. Buckle up.

    Iowa Gives Felons Voting Rights

    There is some good news on the horizon, however! On Wednesday, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, ended the state’s draconian ban on voting rights for felons.

    Most importantly, it stipulates that people with felony convictions can vote regardless of outstanding fines and fees, one wrinkle that less scrupulous Republicans have used to try to deny voting rights in Florida.

    Unfortunately, they still don’t get the right back until they’ve completed their sentence and parole, so there’s still work to be done. And the order doesn’t apply to people with felony homicide convictions.

    Still, it’s a pretty significant step toward justice in a state that’s been without it for too long.

    The next step, activists say, is pushing to make the order an official part of the Iowa state constitution, so it can’t be undone by another executive order from a more punitive governor.

    AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

    Remember the whole scandal at the State Department including investigations into Secretary Mike Pompeo? Well it just got a bit more suspicious: acting Inspector General Stephen Akard is leaving the organization just three months after the Trump administration forced out the last Inspector General. Seems like someone doesn’t want any inspecting going on.

    Common Dreams reports that watchdogs are up in arms after pharmaceutical giant Moderna announced plans to charge between $32 and $37 per dose for a COVID-19 vaccine it’s developing, after receiving massive amounts of funding from the U.S. federal government.

    Twitter banned the Trump campaign from tweeting and forced it to delete a post on the campaign’s account that included a link to a Fox News clip claiming that children were quote “almost immune” from COVID-19. Facebook took similar steps, outright deleting the video from its service.

    Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said that the DHS was quote “moving rapidly to replace” endquote the intimidating camouflage uniforms worn by federal officers during protests in Portland, after widespread backlash against federal cops dressing up like invading soldiers. We’ll see just how rapidly they move to make that change.

    That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show this afternoon.

    August 6, 2020 - AM Quickie

    HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

    WRITER - Jack Crosbie

    PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

    EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn