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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

A low-energy Donald Trump whined and moaned his way through a second debate with Joe Biden. The Democratic nominee laid out Trump’s many failures on the coronavirus response, national security and more.

Meanwhile, it turns out the Taliban’s Air Force is based out of a high-tech American command center. A new report reveals US drone operators have secretly been helping the Taliban on missions in remote eastern Afghanistan.

And lastly, a judge upholds a murder charge against the cop who killed George Floyd. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison calls the ruling an important step forward.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Joe Biden and Donald Trump met at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee last night for their second and final debate. Kristen Welker of NBC News moderated – this time, with the help of a mute button for Trump’s inevitable filibusters.

As an opener, Biden reminded viewers that more than two hundred thousand Americans have died from the coronavirus and said QUOTE if you don’t hear anything else I say, hear this: anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America ENDQUOTE. He said Trump’s promises of a vaccine in a few weeks’ time is a lie.

Trump, in his typical rambling fashion, struggled to defend his record on the pandemic. Of catching the coronavirus, he said QUOTE I learned a lot. I learned a lot ENDQUOTE. To which Biden responded QUOTE Learning to live with it? Come on, we’re dying with it... We’re about to lose two hundred thousand more people. ENDQUOTE.

Trump’s tone was markedly whiny throughout. Biden remained sharply on the offensive. It will probably go down as one of the better nights of his otherwise unobtrusive campaign.

US drones support Taliban

The Washington Post reports that American forces in Afghanistan have made a practice of providing air support to the Taliban, which is fighting a local ISIS group in the eastern province of Konar. Inside the Joint Special Operations Command counterterrorism task force based at Bagram air base, the team working on this mission is jokingly known as QUOTE the Taliban Air Force ENDQUOTE.

There is reportedly no direct US military communication with the Taliban on these missions. Instead, drone pilots try to guess where Taliban commanders need help by remotely observing battle conditions and listening in on the group.

Even though the Taliban is fighting the Islamic State, it remains allied with al-Qaeda, the enemy that brought US troops to Afghanistan in the first place. Last fall and winter, as the JSOC task force was conducting the strikes, the Trump administration’s public line was that it was hammering the Taliban harder than they have ever been hit before. In reality, the US military has been quietly helping the Taliban in Konar.

Loren Crowe, who was shot in the leg as an infantry company commander in Konar, told the Post that he worried that the military was acting like a hammer seeking nails to pound. Crowe added that the local militants who comprise ISIS groups in Konar may not be so big a threat to Americans as they’ve been made out to be. After two decades of war, it’s no wonder we’ve lost track of who we’re supposed to be fighting and why.

George Floyd case advances

A judge in Minnesota yesterday upheld second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter charges against the former Minneapolis officer in the killing of George Floyd, CBS News reports. Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill dismissed a lesser charge of third- degree murder against the officer, Derek Chauvin.

Cahill also declined to dismiss charges of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter against the other officers involved: Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane. Chauvin was the one who pressed his knee into Floyd's neck during a May arrest as the handcuffed Black man begged, “I can't breathe.” The judge noted that Chauvin’s demeanor never changed despite Floyd’s plaintive cries and demands from the bystanders.

In his ruling, Cahill found probable cause exists for the state to prove the charges against Thao, Kueng and Lane and the more serious charges against Chauvin. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, whose office is handling the prosecution, called the ruling QUOTE an important, positive step forward in the path toward justice for George Floyd, his family, our community, and Minnesota ENDQUOTE. According to CBS, Judge Cahill is still deciding whether the jury should be anonymous; if the trial should happen in Hennepin County; and whether the officers involved should have separate trials.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Politico reported yesterday that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is considering a position in Biden’s cabinet, possibly as Labor Secretary. Two people close to Sanders, including one former aide, said Sanders is keen to join a potential Biden administration and has reached out to allies on the transition team. Robert Reich, who served as Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration, said Sanders would be QUOTE terrific ENDQUOTE. We know!

A four hundred and sixty five-page transcript of a deposition from 2016 given by Ghislaine Maxwell was released yesterday. In that testimony, the Miami Herald reports, Maxwell denied all knowledge of illegal sex trafficking by her friend, the late Jeffrey Epstein. But, as the Herald points out, she also made claims that contradict her sworn statements elsewhere. We’ll see if Maxwell can get her stories straight as her trial moves forward.

A wildfire in Colorado exploded sixfold in size in one day, causing hundreds to evacuate and turning the sky an eerie shade of orange. The Washington Post reports that the East Troublesome Fire has all the hallmarks of climate change. It’s burning at an elevation of nine thousand feet at a time of year when snow should be falling, during a severe drought aggravated by record heat. Yikes.

New York City, Seattle and Portland filed a lawsuit yesterday to invalidate their designation by the Trump administration as QUOTE anarchist jurisdictions ENDQUOTE. Announcing the lawsuit, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan called Trump’s threats an unlawful abuse of federal power. She added QUOTE It’s immoral, unconstitutional, and shameful that we are forced to expend any resources on this political theater ENDQUOTE. Anarchists, meanwhile, are delighted at the prospect of no longer being associated with Mayors Durkan, Ted Wheeler, and Bill de Blasio.

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

OCT 23, 2020 - 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:

Supporters of Donald Trump are already running amok at early voting locations around the United States. And the Secret Service busted a man who wrote a letter threatening to kill Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, as well as their supporters in his city.

Meanwhile, labor unions and allied organizations are forming their own volunteer force to counter Trump’s QUOTE army ENDQUOTE of poll-watchers. Everybody in labor is getting the message that the election isn’t over on November 3rd.

And lastly, for the first time, a pope of the Catholic church comes out in favor of legal recognition for same-sex unions. Tradcaths are mad as hell about it.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

A 42-year-old man from Frederick, Marlyand, was charged yesterday with threatening the lives of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Washington Post reports. Secret Service investigators and federal prosecutors say James Dale Reed left a handwritten letter on the doorstep of a Frederick residence, threatening to severely beat Biden and rape Harris with his rifle barrel before executing both candidates on national television. The letter also warned supporters of the Biden-Harris campaign that they would be targeted.

Separately, the Post reports, tensions are high at early-voting sites around the country. The first days of early voting have unfolded with dozens of accusations of inappropriate campaigning and possible voter intimidation in at least fourteen states. A wide array of complaints have been reported, many involving Trump supporters.

In Nevada City, California, as many as three hundred raucous Trump supporters in cars and trucks crowded into the parking lot of the county government center, where early voting was underway. At one polling place at a church in Hendersonville, Tennessee, last week, a Trump supporter drove by repeatedly in a large truck-and-trailer rig with Trump flags and music blaring from speakers, creating havoc. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a convoy of vehicles, some with Trump flags, honked and yelled near a voting site on Saturday. And so on. There are also concerns about the presence of police and armed security at some polling places.

Finally, from the campaign trail: Barack Obama made his first live speech for Biden yesterday in Philadelphia. Voting doesn’t make everything perfect, Obama said, but it can make things better. Which, after a year like this one, has gotta be worth something.

Labor prepares election defenders

America’s largest labor unions are getting ready for anything come election day and its aftermath. NBC News reports that AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will convene an emergency meeting of major union leaders on Friday to map out election contingency plans.

Donald Trump’s campaign is recruiting what it calls an army of volunteers to monitor polls. Labor officials say they are preparing to counter any attempt by Trump supporters to interfere with the casting or counting of ballots. In his invitation to other union presidents, Trumka said QUOTE Trump's threats pose a clear and present danger to the election, our democracy and the future of the country ENDQUOTE. The group he’s assembled includes the leaders of the Service Employees International Union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the National Education Association, all of which have endorsed Joe Biden.

Tefere Gebre, executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, told NBC that labor groups plan to push back not only on any ballot interference but also against any resistance to the peaceful transfer of power should Biden win. Meanwhile, the Working Families Party, a progressive group founded and backed in part by labor unions, is supporting a new initiative called Election Defenders, which is training thousands of people across the country to work the polls. The Election Defenders will provide, among other things, election and voter defense, de-escalating white supremacist intimidation tactics and signaling to a network of groups and lawyers if and where trouble breaks out. Solidarity with all defenders of democracy!

Pope endorses gay unions

Pope Francis became the first pontiff to endorse same-sex civil unions in comments for a documentary that premiered yesterday, the Associated Press reports.

The pope’s comments come midway through the feature-length documentary “Francesco,” which premiered at the Rome Film Festival. The film delves into issues Francis cares about most, including the environment, poverty, migration, racial and income inequality, and the

people most affected by discrimination. According to the Catholic News Agency, Francis was speaking in the context of providing pastoral care to people who identify as LGBT.

In the film, Francis says QUOTE Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God. You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered ENDQUOTE.

It’s not full marriage equality, but by Catholic church standards, it’s definitely something. Conservative Catholics are already freaking out. Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, called for clarification from the pope, saying QUOTE the church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships ENDQUOTE. Oh please, get over yourself.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A court filing this week by the American Civil Liberties Union revealed that lawyers have been unable to track down the parents of five hundred and forty five children who were separated from their families by the Trump administration. Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, said the people responsible for this horrific practice must be held accountable. He added QUOTE We will not stop looking until we have found every one of the families, no matter how long it takes ENDQUOTE. Godspeed.

The Justice Department announced a record $8.3 billion settlement yesterday with Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin. As part of the deal, the company agreed to plead guilty to three felonies, but the Washington Post reports that state authorities and families who have lost loved ones to opioid addiction complain that the DOJ’s terms go easy on the Sacklers, the billionaire family that once ran the firm. Who could blame them?

Donald Trump has a mysterious bank account in China, the New York Times reports as part of its ongoing investigation of his taxes. It’s unclear which bank holds the account or how much money may have passed through it. But it does explain why Republicans are so desperate to make an issue of the Biden family’s international business deals, which are piddling by comparison.

As you may have heard by now, for his new Borat movie, Sacha Baron Cohen lured Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, into a compromising position in a hotel room. Those privy to

the advance footage report that Giuliani is seen stuffing his left hand down his pants on a hotel bed in the presence of a woman presented as Borat’s fifteen-year-old daughter, Tutar, who is played by twenty-four-year-old actress Maria Bakalova. Very nice. Giuliani insisted in a radio interview yesterday that he was just tucking his shirt in. Sure thing, Rudy.

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

OCT 22, 2020 - 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:

The feds have brought an antitrust case against Google. It’s one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree is long overdue.

Meanwhile, health insurance scammers have blitzed the internet with ads for bogus Trumpcare plans. Google – surprise, surprise – is among those profiting.

And lastly, Donald Trump’s campaign has wasted a boatload of money, according to a review of expenditures. But at least they got Don Junior’s stupid book onto the bestseller list.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Antitrust: Feds sue Google

The Justice Department sued Google yesterday, saying the company has an illegal and abusive monopoly over internet search technology. It is the first antitrust case against Google to result from yearslong investigations into the company’s conduct by the DOJ, Congress, and the states. Eleven state attorneys general, all Republicans, joined the suit. Attorney General Bill Barr reportedly wanted to bring the case before the November election to please Donald Trump, who has vowed to take on Big Tech.

According to the New York Times, the government says Google is illegally protecting its dominant position in the market for search with the deals it has struck with companies like Apple. For example, Google pays Apple billions of dollars a year to have its search engine set as the default option on iPhones. To prevail, the Justice Department has to show two things: that Google is dominant in search, and that its deals with Apple and other companies hobble competition. Although those seem like easy things to prove, the case is likely to take years.

Democrats have also sought to counter Google’s monopoly market power. Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline, the chairman of the top competition-focused panel in the House of Representatives, told the Washington Post QUOTE antitrust enforcement against Google is long overdue ENDQUOTE. The Post reports that a handful of states including Colorado,

Iowa, Nebraska and New York issued a joint public statement yesterday indicating they are still scrutinizing a wide array of Google’s business practices and may opt to join any federal case later. The more the merrier!

Trumpcare scammers fleece consumers

There’s no such thing as Trumpcare. But an investigation by ProPublica reveals that thousands of Americans are getting scammed by online marketers selling junk health insurance plans using that name.

Facebook and Google have run tens of thousands of ads in the past year containing false claims about health insurance reform and plans. The ads have been viewed some twenty two million times in that time, mostly in battleground states like Texas, Florida, and Ohio. Google even gave the misinformation prime real estate, with the ads as the top-listed results when people search for affordable health insurance.

When people respond to the ads, they become sales leads. Then they get deluged with phone calls from brokers. The Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, requires most health insurance plans to provide minimal essential coverage, which includes preventive care, mental health care, maternity and more. The unconventional plans sold as Trumpcare are exempted from those requirements, but their weaknesses aren’t made clear to consumers. Far from it. Agents on commission often lie, saying Trumpcare is the new Obamacare.

State regulators who spoke to ProPublica say catching scam brokers is like playing whack-a- mole, as those caught using abusive marketing tactics can simply incorporate under a new name and start all over again. Frank Pyle, director of market conduct enforcement for the Delaware Department of Insurance, told ProPublica that harsher penalties might put an end to the scams. Pyle said QUOTE You can fine these companies and they consider it the cost of doing business. But if you lock up their CEO in federal prison, they’ll think twice about harming our consumers. ENDQUOTE. A single-payer system would also solve the problem.

Trump campaign bleeding cash

A new review of Donald Trump’s election expenditures shows that by overspending in the early stages of the race, the campaign has weakened its position in the final stretch. The campaign has raised well over $1 billion since Trump took the White House in 2017 — and, as the Associated Press put it, set a lot of that money on fire.

Among the examples of Trumpian profligacy flagged by the news agency: Trump bought a $10 million Super Bowl ad when he didn’t yet have a challenger. He tapped his political organization to cover exorbitant legal fees related to his impeachment. Aides made flashy displays of their newfound wealth — including a fleet of luxury vehicles purchased by Brad Parscale, his former campaign manager.

Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican consultant, said the campaign spent its money on lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-famous activity by the campaign staff, and vanity ads that ran way too early. He added QUOTE You could literally have ten monkeys with flamethrowers go after the money, and they wouldn’t have burned through it as stupidly ENDQUOTE.

Other moronic expenditures by Trump and the RNC include:

— Nearly $100,000 spent on copies of Donald Trump Junior’s book “Triggered.”

— Over $7.4 million spent at Trump-branded properties.

— At least $35.2 million spent on Trump merchandise.

— At least $14.1 million spent on the Republican National Convention, which was mostly online.

— $1.6 million on TV ads in the Washington, DC, media market, an overwhelmingly Democratic area that Trump can’t win. But, of course, it’s where Trump himself watches the tube. Hey, whatever keeps the boss happy...

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Politico reports that Joe Biden’s transition team is vetting a handful of Republicans for potential Cabinet positions. The names being floated include former Ohio Governor John Kasich, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, and Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and now CEO of Quibi. It’s not great news for progressives, but maybe the vetting process will sort out once and for all the question: What on earth is Quibi?

A Miami police officer was photographed at a voting site wearing a “Trump 2020” mask yesterday. Steve Simeonidis, the chairman of the Miami-Dade Democratic Party, took the photo of Miami police department officer Daniel Ubeda and posted it online, calling it QUOTE city funded voter intimidation ENDQUOTE. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Ubeda’s superiors were quick to call the political display unacceptable and a violation of department policy. Of course, they declined to say exactly how he’d be disciplined.

Death from drug overdoses are up and may reach an all-time high this year, the AP reports. Addiction experts blame the pandemic, which has left people stressed and isolated, disrupted treatment and recovery programs, and contributed to an increasingly dangerous illicit drug supply. Please remember, friends, we’re all in this together.

Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, is under a twenty four-hour curfew after large crowds attacked two prisons and freed some two thousand inmates. Protests began two weeks ago after a video circulated showing a man being beaten by police. The AP reports that protesters are demanding an end to abuses and respect for human rights in all parts of the police force. Is it really too much to ask? Apparently so.

OCT 21, 2020 - 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:

Bolivia’s Movement Towards Socialism wins big, by a margin so decisive the U.S.-backed right-wing government has no choice but to accept defeat.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump flirts with corruption in a public speech and denigrates Dr. Fauci while the Presidential Debates Commission changes the rules so that they can mute his microphone during Thursday’s debate.

And finally, an investigation into New York State’s legal system found shocking, systemic racism throughout the state’s courts, coming from judges, court officers and lawyers alike.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Right after we filed the Quickie Sunday night, early results started to come in from Bolivia’s landmark presidential election that day. Over the day on Monday, we got a clearer picture at what this means -- and it’s a massive win for former president Evo Morales’s left-wing party.

Morales’s chosen successor, Luis Arce, had such a huge lead in exit polls on Monday that his conservative opponent Carlos Mesa conceded the election. Official results won’t be available for days, but if the right-wing groups that pushed Morales out of power and installed a racist reactionary government in his place think Arce’s lead is too big to contest, it’s a good sign that the left is about to take back power.

At around midnight on Sunday, one pollster had Arce at 52.4 percent of votes compared to Mesa’s 31.5 percent.

Mesa was the chosen candidate for the conservative forces that, with the support of the U.S. and Bolivia’s military, forced Morales to resign and installed Jeanine Añez in power. Añez passed the reins to Mesa, after cracking down on protests and persecuting Morales’s supporters for over a year. And Mesa promptly got thrashed. Sometimes, elections just work!

Trump Teases Corruption, Torches Fauci

It was a big news day for Donald Trump, as the President once again lied, blustered and trash-talked his way into multiple headlines.

First, during a campaign event in Arizona on Monday, Trump spouted off about corporate donations, at one point inventing a phone call between himself and the CEO of Exxon Mobile. The clip was taken out of context, and went viral as it appeared to show Trump admitting that he

would call up the heads of major corporations and promise regulatory favors for big-budget donations. That’s not too far from the truth given how money works in our political system, but Trump was in this explict case being hyperbolic: the full scope of his remarks show him bragging that IF he could take money from corporations directly, he’d be incredible at fundraising. Sure buddy, nobody’s going to challenge you on that.

Following Dr. Anthony Fauci’s interview on 60 minutes last night, Trump also popped off in a call with campaign aides, calling the leading infectious disease expert a disaster and saying quote “People are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong.” endquote.

This kind of animus toward scientists trying in vain to stop him from destroying the country isn’t exactly new, but the understated row between Fauci and Trump appears to be getting ugly right before the election.

One place we hopefully won’t hear about it thought? The debate on Thursday night. The Commission on Presidential Debates recently announced a rule change that will let them mute either Trump or Biden’s microphone so the second debate isn’t a repeat of the first one’s septuagenarian shout-fest.

Court Report Finds Racism Surprise

And lastly, a new report in New York State finds shocking and pervasive institutional racism inside the state’s court system. If this is what it looks like in one of the biggest and most liberal states in the country, you can imagine what more conservative judicial systems look like.

The New York Times details the findings of the report, which was commissioned by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore after the nationwide protest movement this summer called attention to the fact that most of the country is extremely racist.

The Times story is punctuated by stunning examples of this, like a white court officer posting an illustration of President Barack Obama with a noose around his neck, another officer referring to one of his black colleagues as quote “one of the good monkeys,” and other officers joking about shooting unarmed black men during firearms tests.

The report also found that the state’s court system is overburdened, under staffed, and has a quote “dehumanizing effect” endquote on people of color who move through it. Yep, that sounds about right. The Times also notes that the current report documented bias that was almost identical to that found in a report over thirty years ago. In other words, nothing has changed.

But who knows: the protests this summer sparked this report. Maybe they’ll be able to finally ensure some actual change.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A federal appeals court sided with the Miami Herald in its bid to make public Ghislane Maxwell’s sealed court testimony in a past lawsuit, which could have major ramifications for the many global figures caught up in Jeffry Epstien’s web of crime.

A new poll by Data For Progress has Joe Biden up by one point, 47 to 46, in Texas, of all places. Sure, we’ve still got weeks to go, but the great flip of the lone star state is looking all the more possible.

What seemed like most of the political and media Twitter-sphere erupted in a frenzy on Monday after Vice broke the news that New Yorker Staff Writer and star CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was caught masturbating on a work-related video meeting. We’ll let the Toobin jokes on that one write themselves.

And lastly, the U.S. State Department has agreed to take Sudan off its list of countries that sponsor terrorism, paving the way for the country to normalize relations with Israel and seek international assistance. But because this is the Trump administration, it was announced like a business deal, as the president claimed Sudan would make a $335 million restitution payment to American victims of terrorism.

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

Oct 20, 2020 - AM QUICKIE

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 report shows that the New York Post’s explosive Hunter Biden story was so shaky multiple reporters inside the tabloid refused to have their bylines put on it -- but editors there pushed it ahead anyway.

Meanwhile, Bolivia heads to the polls for the first time since election dysfunction and a right-wing coup ousted socialist president Evo Morales last year. His party stands a chance of retaking the government, but the election could once again get messy.

And lastly, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sets a 48 hour deadline for stimulus talks with the President, challenging the White House to get an acceptable bill on the table before Tuesday.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Generally, if a reporter thinks a story is too sketchy to put their byline on it, it’s probably to sketchy to print. But not at the New York Post!

According to a new report by the New York Times, the Post rammed through the controversial and quite possibly bogus story about Hunter Biden’s laptop and corruption implications despite the protests of multiple reporters who worked on it. The Times reports that the story came basically hand-fed from Rudy Giuliani, who said he deliberately gave it to the Post because quote “either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out.” endquote.

Crazy how that worked out for him! Sure enough, the Post ran the story. Bruce Golding, the original reporter who wrote most of the story, took a stand against top editors and refused to put his byline on the piece, as he had serious doubts about its credibility.

The story, in short, used alleged emails on a laptop hard drive allegedly owned by Hunter Biden to show that Joe Biden, his father, had allegedly directed U.S. foreign policy to benefit his son’s business interests while Vice President. Notice how many times I just said “allegedly.” That’s because the story as a whole was a REAL stretch.

With Golding washing his hands of the matter, Post editors then slapped a new byline on it: Emma-Jo Morris, a politics editor freshly at the post by way of Sean Hannity’s Fox News Show, whose Instagram feed includes several pictures of her with Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Crazy how that one worked out too! The Post also put another reporter’s byline on the story without even telling her it was going to be on there.

Clearly, things over at New York’s most venerable source of tawdry, right-wing garbage are proceeding, well, actually pretty normally for them. We should expect this by now!

Bolivia Heads to the Polls

Sunday was election day in Bolivia, and though it may take days for election results to come in, the results could change the country’s history or tear it apart all over again.

If you remember, last year a right wing coup ousted Bolivia’s socialist president Evo Morales. Morales and his party won nationwide elections in 2019, which quickly devolved after right wing parties weaponized accusations of election fraud to spark protests and force an hard-right usurper, Jeanine Áñez, into power. Áñez, who once declared the indigenous people Morales hails from quote “satanic,” is not running in the current election as she didn’t wish to split the conservative vote.

Morales was a flawed avatar for the country’s push for equality, especially in his fourth, legally contested run for office, but he unquestionably improved living conditions for millions of Bolivians under his control.

In Sunday’s election, Morales’s Movement Towards Socialism party is represented by former finance minister Luis Arce, who has a slight edge in the polls over his main challenger, centrist journalist and former president Carlos Mesa.

Voting is mandatory in Bolivia, and on Sunday, multiple publications reported long lines outside of polling stations. Both parties are expecting contested results and possibly protests or violence after the count is announced.

Pelosi Sets Bailout Deadline

After a chaotic week of stubbornness, Nancy Pelosi is giving the White House a 48 hour deadline to deliver her an acceptable stimulus bill if they want it passed before the election.

Pelosi and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin have been in largely unproductive talks for months, and are still hung up over the meager offerings the White House is prepared to hand out. What Pelosi should do here is a nasty choice: if she caves to the White House’s demands, Mnuchin could slip through a bill that includes loose language about a nationwide testing program and a whole host of nasty corporate-friendly liability provisions. But if she doesn’t agree to anything, there’s almost no way that struggling American families will get a second $1200 stimulus check.

Some progressives are pushing Pelosi to take the deal in the hope that some relief makes it to everyday Americans. But it’s worth noting that even if she and Mnuchin strike a deal, Senate Republicans under Mitch McConnell are even more opposed to new spending than the White

House is. The thinking is that at least if Pelosi passes something, the blame goes to McConnell if Americans continue to suffer.

Most analysis thinks that a compromise isn’t likely, which means Americans living on the edge have little chance of getting relief before the election. That’s bad for Trump, of course, who will face a worsening economic picture as voting day edges clearer, but it’s also, you know, bad for all the people who desperately need assistance, and no amount of political skirmishing will fix the wounds the people in power have already caused.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer can’t really catch a break: During a Trump rally in her state on Saturday, the president again sparked his supporters to chant “Lock her up.” Whitmer, in an interview with NBC, justifiably said the President was inciting right wing terrorism, like the idiots who plotted to kidnap her just over a week ago.

Pro-democracy, student-led protests continued in Thailand this weekend in defiance of a government ban on protesting, despite facing transit shutdowns, targeted arrests and police brutality. Thailand’s ruling party took power in a military coup in 2014.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who led one of the most successful responses to Coronavirus around the world, led her left-wing labor party to a massive, resounding victory on Saturday, corralling over 49 percent of the vote and crushing the center-right opposition party to establish a huge majority in the country’s Parliament.

And finally, the Trump administration is reportedly planning a massive deregulatory push to gut federal agencies and environmental protections if they lose the election, tying up a future Biden administration in months if not years of work trying to put things back in order. Sounds like the kind of spite we should expect!

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

OCT 19, 2020 - AM QUICKIE

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 daily coronavirus death toll is climbing in thirty states, and Anthony Fauci says it might be a good idea to cancel Thanksgiving. You didn’t feel like cooking anyway, did you?

Meanwhile, two staff close to Kamala Harris have tested positive for coronavirus. And Joe Biden made a thoughtful contrast to Donald Trump in last night’s head-to-head TV town halls.

And lastly, YouTube joins Twitter and Facebook in cracking down on Q-Anon conspiracy theorists. The disinformation machines are going into overdrive ahead of the election.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Coronavirus cases are surging across the northern hemisphere, and public health experts are warning that the worst is yet to come. In Europe, authorities are imposing another round of curfews and restrictions. And in the United States, the lack of a coordinated response is pushing the country toward a third peak in new case numbers.

The New York Times reports that seventeen states are seeing surges unlike anything they experienced earlier in the pandemic. States including Alaska, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin reported more new cases during the seven-day stretch that ended on Wednesday than in any other week since the virus arrived in the country.

Reports of new cases are trending upward in forty one states over the last two weeks, while nine states are holding case numbers roughly steady. No state in the country is seeing a sustained decline. According to the Associated Press, the biggest surges in the Midwest and Great Plains, where resistance to wearing masks and observing other social distancing practices has been running high. Deaths per day are climbing in thirty states.

Doctor Peter Hotez, an infectious-disease specialist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, told the AP that the three months following the November 3rd presidential election could prove especially damaging when it comes to fighting the virus. Hotez said QUOTE We haven’t had much of a national strategy to begin with... People are going to be worried, scared and feeling abandoned by the federal government ENDQUOTE.

Doctor Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s point man on the coronavirus, said Americans may have to bite the bullet and cancel their plans for a big family Thanksgiving this year. Any gathering involving out-of-state travel or mingling with elderly relatives is especially discouraged. Sorry grandma, but it’s for your own good.

Harris aides catch coronavirus

One month after setting an election fundraising record, Joe Biden has done it again. The Biden campaign revealed it brought in $383 million last month, CBS News reports, up from the $365 million raised in August. September’s total included contributions from 1.1 million new donors, bringing the number of contributors to the campaign to 5.5 million.

There was a setback yesterday, however. Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris suspended in-person campaigning through Sunday after two people who were traveling with her tested positive for the coronavirus. One person who tested positive was a flight crew member. The other was Harris’s communications director, Liz Allen. Harris and her husband both tested negative yesterday.

Biden himself appeared live last night from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia for an ABC News town hall moderated by George Stephanopolous. Biden stuck mostly to describing his moderate policies in detail and trotting out a litany of supporting statistics.

Donald Trump staged a competing town hall from Miami for NBC News. Before the event, Trump dissed the network and boasted about the free airtime for his campaign. Then during it he endorsed Q-Anon conspiracy theorists as an anti-pedophilia group and said he was unsure if Democrats were a satanic cult. The competing town halls were scheduled after Trump pulled out of the second presidential debate following his coronavirus infection.

YouTube bans QAnon propaganda

YouTube took action yesterday to ban more conspiracy theory-promoting channels and videos – specifically Q-Anon and Pizzagate.

Yesterday on its blog, the company said QUOTE we are taking another step in our efforts to curb hate and harassment by removing more conspiracy theory content used to justify real- world violence ENDQUOTE. The new rules prohibit content that threatens or harrasses

someone by suggesting they are complicit in one of these harmful conspiracies. A number of popular accounts were swiftly removed shortly after the announcement, the Washington Post reported. Twitter and Facebook have already taken steps to ban Q-Anon from their platforms, so YouTube is something of a Johnny-Come-Lately.

Also this week, Twitter removed a small network of fake accounts purportedly belonging to Black supporters of Donald Trump. One of the fake accounts claimed to be a married US Marine with three children who was a newly converted Republican. It had more than eighteen thousand followers before being suspended.

Separately, both Facebook and Twitter took steps to limit readership of an article by the New York Post about alleged emails from Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son Hunter. It’s rare for the social media companies to penalize a traditional media outlet. But the companies are worried about a leak of hacked and unverified documents that could help swing the November election, after taking criticism for not doing enough to fight the spread of misinformation in 2016. A little over-correction may be preferable to the status quo here.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Donald Trump yesterday boasted to a cheering crowd in Greenville, North Carolina, that federal agents last month summarily executed an anti-fascist criminal suspect from Portland, Oregon, named Michael Reinoehl. Trump has brought up Reinoehl’s killing before, but yesterday was the first time he said US Marshals made no attempt to apprehend Reinoehl before shooting him. As Trump said, QUOTE They knew who he was. They didn’t want to arrest him ENDQUOTE. Looks like America’s death squads are coming home.

Reuters reports that record gun sales in the US this year are being driven in part by a surge in first-time buyers. Many are women, minorities and politically liberal buyers who once would not have considered gun ownership. Industry figures suggest 5 million people purchased firearms for the first time in the first seven months of this year, which is, as they say on the internet, very 2020.

Six months after the complaints surfaced about working conditions in an Amazon call center in the Philippines, workers told NBC News things have only gotten worse. The subcontracted workers who answer customer calls for the Amazon Ring home alarm system are reportedly forced into QUOTE subhuman ENDQUOTE conditions where coronavirus spreads rapidly. They are speaking up despite a contractual confidentiality clause that threatens them with a fine equivalent to two years’ salary. Here you go, another reason not to buy one of those creepy surveillance cameras.

A Brazilian senator allied to far-right President Jair Bolsonaro was caught hiding, uh, dirty money in his underwear during a corruption investigation, according to Agence France- Presse. In an attempt to conceal it from the police who were raiding his home, Chico Rodrigues reportedly stuffed the equivalent of $5,300 cash QUOTE between his buttocks ENDQUOTE. He claims to have done nothing wrong. Better luck next time, Chico.

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

OCT 16, 2020 - 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:

Early voting has kicked off in more states, as court battles over ballot counting and voter registration continue. There’s a ratings war, too: Donald Trump and Joe Biden are holding separate televised town halls instead of a debate.

Meanwhile, fears are growing that Russia and Turkey could get dragged into the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There are oil pipelines involved, which never bodes well.

And lastly, scientists think they know how to solve climate change and prevent mass extinction: by turning over a share of the world’s cropland back to nature. It sounds so simple when you put it that way...

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Tonight was originally supposed to be the second debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Instead, Americans will be subjected to a ratings contest, with rival candidate town halls on rival TV networks. ABC News is hosting a town hall with Biden at 8 p.m. Eastern time. And, at the same time, NBC News will host a Trump town hall. ABC’s Biden programming was scheduled a week ago, but NBC reached its deal with Trump only yesterday. On Twitter, former NBC News executive Vivian Schiller called the head-to-head programming decision shameful and said it wouldn’t serve the public interest.

In other election news, early voting opened yesterday in Kansas, Rhode Island and Tennessee. In Virginia, the Washington Post reports that a federal judge has extended the state’s voter registration deadline through 11:59 p.m. tonight. A severed fiber optic cable kept Virginia voters from registering online most of Tuesday, prompting the extension.

Pennsylvania’s highest court will take up the question of whether counties should count mail- in ballots when a voter’s signature doesn’t necessarily match the one on their registration. The state Supreme Court will decide the matter tomorrow, per the Associated Press. Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat, told counties that said state law does not permit them to reject a mail-in ballot solely over a perceived signature inconsistency. Trump wants more ballots to be rejected, so his campaign took Boockvar to court.

Finally, Politico reports that Defense Secretary Mark Esper has declined to commit to keep troops away from polling stations next month. Democratic Representatives Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey told reporters this week that Esper was evasive in written answers to questions they submitted regarding the role of the armed forces in a peaceful transition of power. Is it too early to start drinking?

Russia Mediates Armenian Conflict

A cease-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan appears to be failing. More than five hundred people have died in seventeen days of fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is inside Azerbaijan but governed by Armenians.

Yesterday, Reuters reports, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of trying to attack its oil and gas pipelines, and warned of a severe response. Fears are reportedly growing that Russia and Turkey could be sucked into the conflict.

Turkey’s weapons sales to its ally Azerbaijan rose six-fold this year, with sales of drones and other military hardware rising to $77 million last month alone. Turkey has accused Armenia of occupying Azeri territory and vowed full support for Azerbaijan. Turkey has also repeatedly called upon international mediators including the United States to urge Armenia to withdraw.

But it’s Russian President Vladimir Putin who has stepped in to play mediator. Putin spoke to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan by phone yesterday and expressed his concerns about the participation of Middle East fighters in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Kremlin said in a statement. The statement also said that both Putin and Erdogan reaffirmed the importance of a Moscow-mediated ceasefire. Moscow has a military treaty that calls for it to assist Armenia should its sovereignty be threatened, per the Guardian. However, Russia has made clear it does not regard defending Nagorno-Karabakh as part of its treaty obligations. Here’s hoping for a new cease-fire. One thing the world does not need is a wider war.

Scientists Propose Farmland Re-wilding

Meterological data released yesterday showed that this year the world had its hottest September on record. But there was also some hopeful news, published in the journal Nature.

Researchers report that returning thirty percent of the world’s farmland to wilderness could greatly help fight climate change and prevent mass extinction.

According to the New York Times, the researchers began with a map from the European Space Agency that breaks down the surface of the planet into a grid of parcels classified by ecosystem: forests, wetlands, shrub lands, grasslands and arid regions. Then, using an algorithm they developed, the scientists evaluated which parcels would yield the highest returns for mitigating climate change and biodiversity loss, if returned to their natural states.

The scientists found that benefits rise and fall depending on how much land is restored. Relinquishing fifteen percent of strategic farmlands, the Times reports, could spare sixty percent of predicted extinctions and sequester about thirty percent of the built-up carbon in the atmosphere. The authors estimate that at the global level, fifty-five percent of farmland could be returned to nature while maintaining current levels of food production by using existing agricultural land more effectively and sustainably.

Great – so when do we start?

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

An update from the third and final day of Amy Coney Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearings: the Washington Post reports that she declined to share her legal views on abortion rights, voting rights and the Affordable Care Act. She also failed, when asked, to name all five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. For what it’s worth, they are the freedoms of speech, press, religion, assembly, and the right to petition the government. In fairness to Barrett, nobody told her that question would be on the test.

The leaders of the Golden Dawn party in Greece were each sentenced yesterday to thirteen years in prison, the Guardian reports. A court previously ruled that the fascist party was in fact a criminal gang. One member, who fatally stabbed an anti-fascist hip-hop artist, was sentenced to life in prison. Some Greek leftists said the punishments were inadequate. After living through a prolonged neo-Nazi terror campaign, can you blame them?

Pilgrim’s Pride, one of the largest poultry producers in the US, said yesterday it would pay nearly $111 million to settle federal charges that it helped fix prices for chickens and thenpassed on higher costs to consumers, the AP reports. Separately, the company’s controlling shareholder pleaded guilty in federal court in Brooklyn of conspiring to violate the foreign corrupt practices act, and paying bribes to Brazilian officials in exchange for state financing. Hey, there’s another good reason to buy local.

According to the Payday Report, the seventy thousand-member Rochester, New York AFL-CIO Labor Council this week became the first regional AFL-CIO body in the US to call for a general strike if Trump does not respect the outcome of the election. Council president Dan Maloney said they hope to encourage other labor groups and get the discussion started now about possible action strategies if Trump does not follow a Constitutional transfer of power. Yes, more of this, please!

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

OCT 15, 2020 - 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:

It’s Amazon Prime Day, or Prime Week, whatever big sale event the ecommerce empire is driving this year, and guess what that means: more workers getting churned up through workplace safety and coronavirus exposure.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court sides with the Trump administration and allows the census to be cut short, a move which will likely sabotage Democratic voting power in the future and give the GOP more time to add in provisions that omit undocumented immigrants from the count even if they lose the White House in November.

And lastly, Minnesota officials have linked at least two dozen cases of coronavirus to people who attended campaign events in the past month. And you’ll never guess who’s campaign was responsible for the vast majority of them.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

By now AM Quickie and Majority Report listeners know what Amazon is. If you use it, you use it -- there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism and all that, but we shouldn’t harbor any illusions about what the country’s ecommerce monopoly means at this point.

Every year, Amazon does a Prime Day, which often stretches into a week, where it offers new products at hefty discounts for its subscribers. As always, the burden of this falls on its workers.

In past years, this has contributed to Amazon’s already atrocious injury rate. A recent report by the investigative outlet Reveal showed that the company has downplayed and obscured rising injury numbers that go way past industry averages.

This year, however, all that is compounded by the risk of coronavirus. In Minnesota, home to the company’s massive Shakope [shock oh pee] warehouse, the situation is particularly dire. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that at that facility alone, more than 200 employees have fallen ill over the course of the pandemic.

Amazon’s response, of course, has been barbaric throughout. They fired a warehouse worker, Chris Smalls, early on in the pandemic for speaking out about working conditions. And in Shakopee, The Star Tribune reports that some staff members recently walked off the job after a worker who tested positive was fired for quote “time off task” violations.

The company claims it has all the high-tech solutions in place to protect workers, but we know what all of that’s worth: they’re there to protect the company’s bottom line and its public image, the most important things it owns.

Supreme Court Shuts Down Census

The Supreme Court, now with a 5-3 conservative majority, sided unsurprisingly with the Trump administration on Tuesday, allowing the administration to shut down the 2020 census count early while court proceedings continue.

The Court’s decision is a bit complicated procedurally, so we’ll sketch this out in broad strokes. The Trump administration is using some arbitrary deadlines to say that it needs to shut the census count down ASAP. The work is behind, of course, because of the pressures of the pandemic.

Trump, or more accurately Stephen Miller, wants to shut things down as quickly as possible because doing so would allow them to exclude undocumented immigrants from the population totals submitted in the results.

This would effectively make the census inaccurate, but more importantly to Republicans, it would mean that the population totals that govern the next ten years of House seat and federal funding appropriations wouldn’t include undocumented immigrants, who live disproportionately in Democratic districts.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, saying that quote “the harms associated with an inaccurate census are avoidable and intolerable.” endquote. But there’s not much she can do with such a strong conservative Majority, which could get even worse if the GOP manages to confirm Amy Coney Barrett.

Typhoid Trump Strikes in Minnesota Spike

Health officials in Minnesota have connected two dozen virus cases to people who attended presidential campaign events in the past month, and almost all of them come from Trump’s big dumb airport barnburners.

Let’s get a disclaimer out of the way first though: it’s not ​_all_​ Trump. Two people who attended Biden events are part of that list. Health officials can’t pinpoint exactly where any person contracted the virus, so the Biden fans could easily have caught it somewhere else. Granted, so could the Trump supporters, but come on. Come on. Massive maskless rallies? What did you think was going to happen.

Also of note, four of the cases aren’t from Trump supporters, but of protesters who went to one of his rallies to demonstrate.

And some of the cases in general are pretty severe. The Duluth News Tribune reported that 9 cases have been linked to Trump’s rally in Bemidji [BE MIJ EE]. Of those, two have required hospitalization, and one required intensive care. Cases across the state are rising as well, with average new daily case counts topping 1,000 for more than a week.

Meanwhile, on a call with press on Monday, the president openly endorsed the anti-scientific view that herd immunity will halt the virus without a massive wave of deaths.

This should go without saying, but if Trump comes to town, maybe give it a pass.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A new report by the New York Times visual investigations team found that Michael Reinoehl, the anti-fascist protester who shot a right wing milita member in Portland, may not have brandished a weapon at police before he was shot to death, as authorities previously claimed.

The State of Virginia’s online voter registration portal abruptly crashed late on Monday night, after a fiber optic cable was severed the night before the deadline to register to vote. The same service also crashed shortly before the deadline in 2016.

A quick check in on the Amy Coney Barrett hearings: during day two, ACB refused to say she would recuse herself if the legitimacy of the election came before the court, and downplayed her hard-line stances on Abortion, healthcare, and gay marriage. She’s certainly going through the motions to make herself palatable, but it’s pretty easy to see who she’s really looking out for.

The Trump administration’s weird political sham investigation into whether Obama-era officials quote “unmasked” confidential identities improperly has concluded as a wet, limp flop. The prosecutor appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr to review the case completed his work without finding any substantive wrongdoing, something that will surely give Trump more to scream about on Twitter.

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

OCT 14, 2020 - AM Quickie

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:

Donald Trump takes his contagious campaign back on the road, and proclaims himself immune to COVID-19 while offering to kiss every man and woman in attendance at a raucous Florida rally. Oh, and the CDC confirms the first case of Coronavirus re-infection in the U.S. Huh.

Meanwhile, after avoiding a dastardly kidnapping attempt by inept right-wing militia members, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signs a package of criminal justice reform bills that could give clean slates to many people convicted of low-level crimes.

And lastly, new polls show Joe Biden pulling even further ahead in several swing states. Sure, we know these things can be fickle, but let’s take a quick look at the numbers all the same.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

he president had, and probably still has, the most deadly disease to spread widely across the globe since the Spanish Flu. You would think that means he’d take a step back from in-person, largely mask-free campaign rallies. Ah who are we kidding -- of course you wouldn’t think that. This is Donald Trump we’re talking about.

The president returned to one of his favorite haunts on Monday, speaking at a rally in a hanger at the Orlando Stanfield Airport for about an hour. During the speech, he delivered this absolute all-timer of a quote.

“I feel so powerful. I’ll walk in there, I’ll kiss everyone in that audience. I’ll kiss the guys and the beautiful women. Just give you a big fat kiss.” endquote.

He then continued quote “They say you’re immune. I don’t know for how long. Some people say for life, some people say for four months.” Endquote.

Picture a record scratch sound right here. In related news from today, the CDC confirmed the first U.S. case of coronavirus reinfection, in a Nevada man who caught the disease twice. So much for immunity! Not to mention, he’s giving this speech in a state where 15,000 people have died from the virus as a result of his and Gov. Ron DeSantis’s negligence.

And regardless of Trump’s personal status, the sane people in his own government are warning that in-person events like the Orlando rally are particularly bad ideas, especially as we head into fall and winter. Dr. Anthony Fauci, said that Trump resuming rallies was quote “asking for

trouble.” Endquote. That sounds rational! But will the president listen? No. So that’s where we are.

Whitmer Signs Clean Slate Bills

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, after a brush with the dumbest depths of right-wing terrorism, is wasting no time in firing off some criminal justice reform bills. They probably won’t apply to the men who plotted to kidnap her, but they will help a whole lot of people convicted of low-level crimes get on with their lives with a clean slate.

Whitmer signed a package of bills that focus on one key thing: wiping people’s records automatically, as opposed to forcing former convicts into a complicated system to get their past forgiven, even after they’ve served their time.

Often, people have to go through costly and time consuming processes to petition for release, which obviously leaves many people with black marks and mountains of paperwork following them around for years. According to Bridge Michigan, the bills would also let people wipe out marijuana-related convictions, as the state legalized the substance in 2018.

Whitmer said quote:

“For too long, criminal charges have created barriers to employment, barriers to housing and others for hundreds of thousands of Michiganders.When we help people get a good job so they can put a roof over their head, it is good for our state. It is good for our families, our small businesses and our economy as a whole. It’ll bring down the recidivism rate even more. And most importantly, it’s the right thing to do.”

That about sums it up. Michigan’s reforms build on similar bills adopted recently by other states like South Dakota and Pennsylvania, which now also have active Clean Slate measures. Michigan’s are some of the most expansive thus far, as they also include low-level felonies. Here’s hoping more states follow suit.

Polls Are Good Now (Kinda)

All right folks, here we go, it’s time to do some polls. Look, we’ve heard this story before: don’t put all your faith in polls. However... what if just this once... we said that things are cautiously looking pretty good.

Two surveys by the New York Times and Siena College on Monday showed that Biden is making big gains with disaffected Trump voters in the key states of Wisconsin and Michigan. You’ll remember those states as the one Hillary thought she had in the bag and ignored in 2016, which worked out... well. Poorly.

In the new polls, Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points of likely voters in Michigan, 48 percent to 40 percent. His lead in Wisconsin is bigger, 51 percent to 41 percent.

That’s not all: A new Emerson poll on Monday shows Biden leading Trump by 3 points in Florida, 50 to 47. Is Florida the bane of the Democratic Party and American Democracy as a whole? Yes. But what if this year... it isn’t. We love electoral politics don’t we folks.

In perhaps more directly impactful results, the same Emerson poll found that Florida’s proposition to raise the statewide minimum wage to $15 per hour has 55 percent support, compared to only 33 percent against. $15 is just a starting point, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

In the first day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Judicial Committee leader Lindsey Graham basically summed up the naked power grab his party is trying to make by ramming through Barrett. Quote: “This is probably not about persuading each other unless something really dramatic happens. All the Republicans will vote yes, all the Democrats will vote no.”

In Georgia, early voting is already running up against some of the state’s same old demons, as voters report massive lines and wait times upwards of five hours in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Remember: this is what the GOP wants, to make it as hard to vote as possible wherever they can.

The United Kingdom and other European countries are once again considering fresh restrictions or lockdowns, as England alone has seen coronavirus cases quadruple over the past three weeks. Once again, we’re looking at an advance picture of what our own country will probably look like this fall.

A new report by the Washington Post shows that Donald Trump’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has closed 54 percent of complaints about coronavirus procedures in the workplace without even investigating them. Not a great sign for the safety of millions of workers already back on the job site.

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

Oct 13, 2020 - AM Quickie

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 Trump campaign is grasping at straws. This weekend alone, it’s used Dr. Anthony Fauci’s words out of context in a campaign ad and pushed to resume the canceled October 15 debate after claiming the President is miraculously COVID-free.

Meanwhile, a strange shooting at a Denver protest leads the far-right to jump to conclusions about the shooter -- even as it turned out he was a private security guard, not a protester.

And lastly, confirmation hearings for Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett begin today. Barrett’s first up against the Senate Judiciary Committe, where VP candidate Kamala Harris will get her chance to rake Barrett over the coals.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Let’s check in with the Trump campaign. It is Monday, October 11, and will you look at that: they’re lying again.

This time, it’s in a campaign ad, where the Trump team used a quote from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s foremost infectious disease expert, where he says quote: “I can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more.” Endquote. Fauci’s words are framed as if he’s talking about Trump’s response, as the ad sets Trump up as this hero who defeated COVID both personally and throughout the country.

But that’s clearly not how the original quote first appeared. The full quote, as the Washington Post noted, does not refer to Trump. Instead, it refers to the White House’s task force, and specifically to Dr. Fauci and a few of his colleagues’ own work load.

The campaign ad is just one little drop of misinformation after a weekend of lies. On Sunday, Trump also claimed that his doctors had pronounced him healthy and quote “immune” to the virus, as well as not contagious. The President’s personal physician issued a statement that said Trump isn’t contagious, but who knows how far we can trust them.

That claim was so outlandish that even notoriously permissive Twitter stuck it behind a misinformation banner, but the Trump administration is still using it to push for a resumption of the in-person October 15 debate with Biden.

The event was canceled last week, as Biden understandably didn’t want to be in a room with Typhoid Trump, and Trump refused to do the event virtually. Doesn’t seem like a smart move for Biden to back down now, but we’ll see what this week holds.

Deadly Shooting in Denver

Dueling Far-right and black lives matter demonstrations in Denver this weekend saw more violence, as a security guard shot and killed one protester who many assume was part of the right-wing camp.

Immediately after the incident, however, the right wing fever swamp kicked into high gear, claiming the shooter had ties to antifa movements. Tim Pool and other assorted alt-right social media dweebs initially blasted out the news that the shooter was connected to antifa, and then walked it back as facts started to come out.

What we know so far is still a bit unclear. The shooter is 30-year-old Matthew Dolloff, who was contracted as a security guard by a local news station, 9news. 9news says they hired him from the Pinkerton agency, which, yep, still exists. However, reps from the city of Denver say Dolloff has never held the requisite license to perform armed security work in the city.

In other words, it’s a chaotic, bad situation all round. The victim has not been identified, although video of the scene shows the victim in a confrontation with another protester wearing a Black Guns Matter shirt, and later spraying mace toward another armed individual before being shot by someone -- allegedly Dolloff -- off camera.

But what the early reaction to this shows is that any violence, particularly deadly shootings, that’s connected to protests is going to be immediately weaponized to fit someone’s narrative. And the faster those jumped-up conclusion spreads, the more certain we can be that the violence will continue.

Harris vs ACB, Round One

Despite, well, some effort by the Democrats to delay, confirmation hearings for Trump’s Supreme Court candidate Amy Coney Barrett begin tomorrow.

Barret will first go up against the Senate Judiciary Committee, the body in charge of pre-vetting judicial nominees before they go to a full confirmation vote. The hearings start at 9am with Lindsey Graham, the ranking GOP member, and Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat, stating their cases.

But what may surely take center stage is Kamala Harris’s involvement. Harris announced that she would attend the hearings remotely from her office, rather than going into the room herself, as the GOP has flagrantly refused to comply with the Democrats asks that they submit to basic Coronavirus protocols.

Still, it’ll be a chance for the potential next VP to go head to head with Trump’s best shot at completely controlling the supreme court for years after he’s out of power.

Two GOP members of the Judiciary Committe are still locked down with COVID diagnoses, as is one other Senator, so the votes still aren’t quite there for Majority leader Mitch McConnell. But if Trump’s quick Quote “recovery” is any indication, the GOP won’t let a pesky deadly disease keep them from doing as much fascism as possible in the time they have left.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

According to an Axios report on Sunday night, the Biden camp is considering New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for Attorney General if they win the election. On the bright side, he won’t be able to botch New York’s pandemic response again, but he will be able to go soft and mushy on any white collar crime he encounters! Can’t wait for everything to be back to normal.

Jamie Harrison, the Democrat challenging long-time GOP ghoul Lindsay Graham, blew Senate fundraising records out of the water, raising a staggering $57 million in the third quarter of 2020. That’s a good thing for the Democrats as much as it is a depressing sign of how much big money rules our political system.

A new report by the Intercept shows that federal agents in Portland used smoke grenades containing hexachloroethane [hexa chloro ethane] during protests this summer. The chemical reportedly is highly toxic, and can cause nausea, vomiting, central nervous system depression, and kidney and liver damage.

The White House is still flailing about in regards to a new stimulus bill, pivoting once again on Sunday evening to try to push Congress for immediate action on a narrow measure that would take unused funding from the PPP program and divert it to small businesses, as the country may be catching on that it’s Trump and the GOP who are willfully destroying them in the name of politics.

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

Oct 12, 2020 - AM Quickie

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn