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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

It appears the Republican Party is preparing a bounty of October Surprises. There are plans for an accelerated antitrust case against Google, as well as for a coronavirus vaccine that could come well ahead of schedule.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump clarifies that when he told people in North Carolina to vote twice, he meant that they should vote twice. If he was soliciting voter fraud, that’s actually illegal in and of itself.

And lastly, the polls remain encouraging for Joe Biden. Both national and battleground state surveys show him holding a strong lead over Trump, with both parties’ nominating conventions now in the rear-view.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Google facing antitrust investigation

The US Department of Justice plans to bring an antitrust case against one of the world’s largest technology companies, Google, as early as this month. That’s according to the New York Times, which broke the story yesterday.

And there’s a twist: the lawyers who were investigating Google on behalf of the Department aren’t happy about the case moving forward. They reportedly felt rushed after higher ups at the DOJ told them to wrap up their inquiry by the end of September. Several lawyers on the forty-odd person team left over the summer. Others said they’d refuse to sign the antitrust complaint against Google’s parent company, Alphabet.

There is, apparently, some concern that the end-of-month deadline is arbitrary and politically motivated. Donald Trump has accused Google of being biased against him, and Attorney General Bill Barr may wish to bring the case to a conclusion in order to give Trump something to brag about on the campaign trail.

Separately, Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar yesterday told CBS News that a recently announced November 1 timeline for a coronavirus vaccine has QUOTE nothing to do with the election ENDQUOTE. The Centers for Disease Control told state governors in a letter

last week to be ready to distribute a vaccine by that date. Three potential vaccines are in the third and final stage of clinical trials in the US, well ahead of what experts originally said was a reasonable timeline. Azar attributed the success of the so-called Warp Speed vaccine research effort to President Trump’s leadership. No politics at play in that department, no sir.

Trump says vote twice

As the Washington Post and the New York Times so delicately put it, Trump yesterday sought to clarify remarks he made late the previous day, in which he told supporters in North Carolina to vote twice. Which is very much against the law. By clarify, they must have meant repeat. Because what he told supporters yesterday on Twitter was to vote twice, first by mail and then in person. Just to make sure their postal vote got counted, you see.

Twitter put a warning label on Trump’s posts, saying they violated the company’s policies around election integrity. But they left the post up because they said doing so was QUOTE in the public interest ENDQUOTE. Facebook said it would delete a video of Trump’s original comments telling people to vote twice, unless it was shared in order to correct the record.

Forgive me if I’m repeating myself here, but it sure seems like when Trump complains about the upcoming election being rigged, it’s because he’s doing his damndest to make it so. The executive director of North Carolina’s board of elections said in a statement yesterday that checks would be in place to prevent double voting, which is illegal. It’s also illegal to solicit someone to vote twice, but who will dare bring charges against Trump for this? Finally, the board urged people not to follow Trump’s instructions and line up on election day to check that their mail-in ballots had been counted, for two reasons. One, it’s not necessary. And two, it could spread coronavirus. What a mess, cripes.

Biden maintains polling lead

Joe Biden maintains a strong lead in the polls over Donald Trump, NBC News reported yesterday. The party conventions held over the past couple of weeks did not seem to sway many people one way or the other.

National polls show Biden with a lead of anywhere between seven and eleven percentage points over Trump. And Biden continues to perform better than Hillary Clinton did at the same

point in 2016. That year, Trump held a fifteen-point lead over Clinton on the question of which candidate was more honest and trustworthy in a CNN poll. Now, Biden leads Trump on the same question by seventeen percentage points.

Signs are good for Biden in state polls, as well. Fox News polls show Biden beating Trump by eight percentage points in Wisconsin, by nine points in Arizona and by four points in North Carolina. The race appears closer in Pennsylvania, however, especially with models that predict lower turnout.

If his polling lead holds true, NBC reported, Biden could defeat Trump with similar margins as Barack Obama’s victory over the late Arizona Senator John McCain. Democratic voters can’t rest on their laurels, but despair would be premature at this stage.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Americans can expect more extreme weather this Labor Day weekend. Over twenty million people in the mid-Atlantic states face a severe storm warning. Four million people in the South and Midwest are under flash flood watches. And forty-four million people in the West and Southwest will be warned to watch out for record-setting heat and dry conditions that could exacerbate the threat of wildfires. So it might be a nice weekend to stay inside, unless of course you are being told to evacuate.

At least five mayors in Democratic cities around the US have temporarily moved out of their homes on account of ongoing protests on their doorsteps. Those cities are, according to the Washington Post: Portland, Oregon; Chicago; Seattle; Pittsburgh and St. Louis. The protests, generally speaking, decry police violence and call for justice for Black lives. Do the right thing, folks. Leave no mayor behind!

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed yesterday that her private, maskless visit to a San Francisco hair salon, in violation of city pandemic restrictions, was QUOTE clearly a setup ENDQUOTE. At a press conference, the White House played security camera footage of Pelosi’s salon visit on a loop. The stylist Pelosi visited also released a statement supporting Pelosi’s account and accusing the salon owner of forcing stylists to work in violation of public health orders. Now you’re up to speed.

Best wishes to the family and friends of David Graeber, an anthropologist and writer best known for his books Bullshit Jobs and Debt_: The First Five Thousand Years_. As an activist with Occupy Wall Street, Graeber coined the slogan We Are The Ninety-Nine Percent. Denied tenure at Yale for supporting a graduate student union, Graeber went on to join the London School of Economics as a professor. According to his widow, Nika Dubrovsky, he died in a hospital in Venice. May he rest in peace.

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

SEPT 4, 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 Donald Trump administration announces new sanctions on The Hague. It all seems a little bit backwards.

Meanwhile, Joe and Jill Biden visit Kenosha, Wisconsin today. The campaign set a one- month presidential fundraising record in August.

And lastly, doctors say new guidelines for coronavirus treatment represent a sign of hope in the fight against the virus. The World Health Organization now says chronically and severely ill COVID patients should be treated with steroids.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

In a shocking and damning move, the United States has imposed sanctions on senior officials of the International Criminal Court at the Hague. The ICC prosecutes war criminals around the world. The US sanctions include the ICC’s chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda. Bensouda was once justice minister of her home country, The Gambia. Her experience in international justice includes advising a United Nations tribunal that prosecuted key figures in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The new sanctions allow the US to block assets of those targeted, as well as bar them from entry to the US.

So why is the US sanctioning The Hague prosecutors now? Well, it’s simple: The ICC has been investigating American war crimes in Afghanistan. Announcing the sanctions, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called those ICC investigations QUOTE illegitimate attempts to subject Americans to its jurisdiction ENDQUOTE. The US is one of a dozen countries including China, India, and Russia that have refused to recognize the ICC’s authority, according to BBC News. The court was created by a UN treaty in 2002.

Balkees Jarrah, a senior counsel on international justice with Human Rights Watch, said the sanctions mark a shameful new low for US commitments to justice for victims of the worst crimes. They are, Jarrah added, a stunning perversion of US sanctions that were devised to penalize rights abusers and kleptocrats. Instead, they will be used to harrass those seeking

justice for victims of war crimes. Folks, just ask yourselves: Is this how a country operates when it has nothing to answer for, nothing to hide?

The Bidens visit Kenosha today

Joe Biden and his wife Jill are visiting Kenosha, Wisconsin today. Biden said that there were overwhelming requests for him to visit in the wake of the shooting of Jacob Blake and the subsequent killing of two protesters by a seventeen-year-old armed with an assault rifle. In advance of the visit, Biden said he hopes to be a positive influence toward healing. He certainly couldn’t do worse than Donald Trump’s loathsome, inflammatory performance there on Tuesday.

There was no indication that Biden’s vice presidential pick Kamala Harris would join him and his wife in Kenosha. However, the Washington Post reported that Biden has deployed Harris elsewhere as an ambassador to Black activists. For instance, Harris joined a conference call with one hundred Black male leaders, including the civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, who is representing the Blake family. The Post said Crump and Harris addressed the Blake shooting and police violence against Black men in general, but offered no details.

Also on the campaign trail, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced the lineup for three debates between Biden and Trump. The first debate will take place on September 29 and be moderated by Fox News Sunday anchor Chris Wallace. The second debate will be moderated by C-SPAN political editor Steve Scully, and take place on October 15. The third and final debate will take place on October 22nd and be moderated by Kristen Welker, a White House correspondent for NBC News and co-anchor of the weekend “Today” show. There will also be a single vice-presidential debate to be moderated by Susan Page, the Washington bureau chief of USA Today. That’s on October 7.

Finally, Biden reportedly broke a campaign fundraising record, raising three-hundred and sixty-four and a half million dollars in August. More than two-hundred and five million came through online donations. The previously monthly record in a presidential race was set by Barack Obama in September 2008, when he raised more than two hundred and two million.

New coronavirus treatment guidelines

The World Health Organization released new treatment guidance yesterday for the coronavirus. The updated guidance is based on new research, also published yesterday, in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The research consisted of five separate articles including three studies, an editorial, and an analysis of seven randomized clinical trials. From all that, the evidence was clear: Doctors should use steroids to treat patients who are severely or critically ill with COVID-19. The only other drug shown to be effective in seriously ill patients is remdesivir, according to the New York Times, summarizing the research.

Per the Times, steroids can have harmful side effects, especially in elderly patients, who make up the majority of very ill coronavirus patients. The drugs may leave patients vulnerable to other infections, may raise blood glucose levels, and may cause confusion and delirium.

The new research doesn’t answer every question. Only the sickest patients were treated with steroids in the clinical trials that were studied. The optimal dosages and duration of treatment remain uncertain. But the good news is that these drugs are cheap and widely available. And they reduced deaths in critically ill patients by twenty percent. What this means: If your loved ones are diagnosed as severely or critically ill with coronavirus, they should be getting treated with cortico-steroids – and if they aren’t, the doctors should have a good reason why not, based on the individual circumstances of the patient. If they are sick enough for these drugs, they may already be on mechanical ventilation. But if they are in a gray area, receiving perhaps only a few liters of oxygen, doctors may conclude steroids are too risky.

All ins and outs aside, this is a rare bit of good news for the fight against the dreaded ’rona.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Indigenous people in the remote Andaman and Nicobar Islands are reportedly now threatened by the coronavirus. Most cases are asymptomatic, but experts quoted by NBC News fear that uncontacted people on nearby islands could be next. The population of the Great Andamanese tribe for instance, is just over fifty people. Ten of them are now hospitalized with coronavirus, according to NBC News. Luckily, for now, all are asymptomatic, but there are concerns for tribal elders on the most remote islands.

A Homeland Security Department official who resigned in April told NPR News that the Trump administration is fanning the flames of violence and right-wing extremism. This won’t be news to most listeners of this program, but it’s something else to hear it from a person like Elizabeth Neumann, former assistant secretary of counterterrorism and threat prevention at DHS. Neumann also said, unequivocally, QUOTE The threat of domestic terrorism is not from antifa. ENDQUOTE. To paraphrase Trump, put that in your soup and throw it!

Survivors of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 filed a lawsuit on Tuesday demanding reparations from the city government. The lead plaintiff is Lessie Benningfield “Mother” Randle, who is one hundred and five years old. The lawsuit says the local law enforcement deputized white Tuslans to murder, loot, and burn a Black district of the city. It also names the local chamber of commerce, which backed a form of indentured servitude for some Black internees after the massacre. Per the Washington Post, no one was ever arrested for the violence.

Staff at the Voice of America are in open revolt over the conduct of their boss, Michael Pack. Pack was appointed to head up the US Agency for Global Media and confirmed by the Senate in June. He commenced to purge employees on a political basis, adding unfounded and xenophobic claims of espionage. Solidarity to all journalists fighting for their independence, and for the free speech of all!

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

Sept 3, 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 Trump administration, desperate for political goodwill, is using the Center for Disease Control’s authority to hand down a temporary eviction moratorium for anyone making less than $99,000 per year, but it comes with some other pretty strict qualifications.

Meanwhile, Amazon is cracking down on labor organizing and spying on its own employees in unprecedented ways, Motherboard reports, while delivery drivers are leaving smartphones hanging from trees to try to eke out a living from the company’s algorithm.

And lastly, Incumbent Senator Ed Markey appears to have fended off Rep. Joe Kennedy III in the Democratic primary. We’ll chat about that and break down some of the other races to watch in the State’s primary.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The Trump administration passed down a temporary federal eviction moratorium on Tuesday night, using the CDC’s quarantine authority to bar evictions for individuals making less than $99,000 a year.

There’s a pretty easy way to read this: the looming eviction crisis is so bad that even Trump’s advisors have recognized that if it hits before the election, he’s screwed. Sure enough, the CDC’s moratorium only lasts until December 31.

It also requires people to self-identify, basically making an official claim that they can’t pay rent but they’re trying to, and that they meet the required income bracket. And, crucially, it doesn’t convert that rent debt into consumer debt, meaning that you could get evicted right after the moratorium expires in January 2021.

In other words, it’s a stopgap measure aimed at preserving some of Trump’s flagging support. Don’t get me wrong, it will still be a major lifeline to families living on the edge, giving them a few more crucial months to figure out a better situation, and it’s a far stronger provision than the original moratorium in the CARES act. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the crisis -- similar to the payroll tax deferrals we talked about earlier in the week, it basically postpones some of the pain of this recession, rather than alleviating it entirely.

Amazon Doing Evil Again

Amazon had a huge day yesterday, and by huge day I mean got exposed for doing a whole bunch of evil stuff. So basically a normal Tuesday for them.

Let’s take a look at the evil in particular though. Item one: the company is hiring two quote “intelligence analysts” for its security division to track a whole host of threats including protests, crises, and geopolitical conflicts that could affect the company’s operations. So a corporate spy, essentially. But one bit of the job description stands out: according to Motherboard, the job listing mentions “labor organizing” three times. Essentially, the company is hiring private spooks to spy on labor organizers.

Which brings us to item two, another scoop by Motherboard: an internal report shows that Amazon is quietly surveilling its Flex drivers and other employees in dozens of private facebook groups. Like many gig-work behemoths, Flex drivers have private facebook groups where they chat about the job and blow off steam, but now it’s on the record that Amazon has plants in pretty much all of those groups making sure none of the pesky working people get any ideas about organizing, protesting, or calling a strike.

Bear in mind what these people’s jobs are like. Item three: Bloomberg reports that savvy drivers are literally hanging smartphones from trees near Amazon warehouses in an attempt to get the jump on their competitors. Amazon feeds off of this lowest-possible-fee, dog-eat-dog competitive atmosphere for workers who have been mistreated and underpaid for years, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.

We’ll have to wait and see how Obama’s old press secretary Jay Carney, who’s now an Amazon spokesman, wriggles out of this jam!

A Kennedy Falls in Massachusetts

It finally happened: a candidate with the last name Kennedy lost an election in Massachusetts. Senator Ed Markey appears to have struck down the youngest rising star of the dark Kennedy Dynasty, Joe Kennedy III, in the Massachusetts senate primary.

Most networks called the race for Markey on Tuesday night, and as we were scripting this, it wasn’t even close. Markey was up by double digits, giving the much younger and much more nakedly ambitious Kennedy the thrashing his power-hungry family deserves.

Unfortunately, the other big progressive race in the state appears to have gone the opposite way. House Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal appears to have beaten progressive challenger Alex Morse, after a contentious, borderline corrupt primary that saw a devastating smear campaign against Morse. Morse bounced back when the Intercept’s reporting exposed the smears against him as fake, but he wasn’t able to oust the incumbent Neal.

Other races to watch: Jesse Mermell, a progressive, is in the lead in the open primary to fill Kennedy’s House seat that he left to challenge Markey. Mermell ran a pretty left-focused campaign, but one of her challengers, Ihssane Leckey, looked very promising as well. Keep an eye on that race, as it hasn’t been called as of script time, and the closest rival candidate to Mermell is a big money-funded centrist.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Joe Biden’s campaign is launching new yard signs... in a video game. In the popular Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can now proclaim yourself team Joe. And now all I can think about is how Hillary Clinton said Pokemon Go to the Polls.

According to a new book, Melania Trump used multiple private email addresses, iMessage, and the encrypted messaging app Signal while in the White House. Remember when this was a huge national security story when Hillary Clinton did it? Neither do I, because I had a voluntary lobotomy after the 2016 election.

In slightly brighter Republican primary news, the Massachusetts congressional candidate who was openly linked to Qanon did NOT win his primary election. So that’s one thing the GOP’s got going for it, I guess.

Trump’s personal physician denied that the President experienced a stroke last year during a sudden medical emergency, and denied that Pence had been put on standby if the President had gone into surgery. The allegations were made in, would you guess, a new book about the Trump administration by a New York Times reporter. So that clears all that up, it’s clear the big man is in perfect health!

That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM quickie today. Sam’s got you in the afternoon.

Sept 2, 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:

President Trump defended militia member Kyle Rittenhouse, refusing to condemn the two killings the 17-year-old Trump supporter committed in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week.

Meanwhile, New York City’s teacher are preparing to strike if Mayor Bill de Blasio doesn’t meet their demands for mandatory testing, which would be one of the largest actions in the ongoing nationwide battle over reopening schools.

And lastly, a whistleblower report alleges that the L.A. Sheriff’s Deputy who shot 18-year-old Andres Guardado was quote “chasing ink,” or attempting to join one of the violent gangs that exist inside the Sheriff's department.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

At this point, nobody should be expecting Donald Trump to condemn the things his supporters do, but after last week’s shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the president appears to have thrown his lot entirely behind the right-wing defense of Kyle Rittenhouse.

Rittenhouse shot three protesters, killing two, during a chaotic incident in the middle of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin after the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

When asked about the shooting at a press conference on Saturday, Trump leaned into the right-wing narrative that Rittenhouse’s shootings were committed in self-defense, saying quote: “I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would have been killed,” endquote.

Trump also refused to condem the widespread violence perpetrated by his supporters in Portland over the weekend, where a truck convoy of Trump supporters sprayed protesters with mace and shot them with paintballs. Trump referred to his supporters as quote “Peaceful,” and added quote “paint is not bullets.” Those confrontations also ended in violence, when one right-wing militia member was shot and killed in the city on Saturday.

The Trump campaign and other conservative voices have sought to blame the increasing violence at protests around the country on Joe Biden, alleging that Biden is somehow supportive of incidents of violence, looting or rioting. But in a speech on Monday, Biden wasted no time in decrying all such behavior. He said quote:

“I urge the President to join me in saying that while peaceful protest is a right — a necessity — violence is wrong, period. No matter who does it, no matter what political affiliation they have. Period.

“If Donald Trump can’t say that, then he is unfit to be president, and his preference for more violence — not less — is clear.”

Trump plans to visit Kenosha on today, so look out for even more dangerous rhetoric from him then.

NYC Teachers Prepare to Strike

The battle over returning to school is coming to a head in New York City, as the city’s powerful Teachers Union says a strike is still on the table if mayor Bill de Blasio doesn’t meet their demands.

The sticking point right now is a mandatory testing program for students and staff returning to school. United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said quote:

“I cannot and I will not back off the fact that I said we would not go back unless independent medical experts gave us a stamp of approval. So it’s not like the mayor is going to convince me not to have a mandated testing program. It’s not happening.”

If that wrinkle isn’t ironed out, Mulgrew left the door open for a major labor action, including a strike.

The UFT is also pushing for a delayed start to the year, which is supposed to begin on September 10.

While many teachers across the country have already been pushed back into classrooms, this battle in one of the largest school systems in the country could set a precedent for other unions fighting for mandatory testing as well.

Earlier in the year, Chicago’s powerful teachers’ union, which has gone on strike just last year over contract negotiations, threatened another strike in July if the city did not meet their demands to hold remote classes -- and hours later, got what they wanted.

Now, New York is laying the same threat on the table. We’ll see how de Blasio responds.

Killer LA Sheriff Was Chasing Gang Ink

A new whistleblower complaint claims that the L.A. Country Sheriff’s Deputy who shot 18-year-old Andres Guardado was in fact “chasing ink,” or trying to join an organized police gang that rewards its members for brutality.

The fact that there are active, violent gangs inside the LA Sheriffs Department is nothing short of absurd.

But Guardado’s killing came after knowledge of the gangs was widespread, which means that the forces inside the department weren’t cowed by external pressure or an FBI investigation.

According to the new complaint, Deputy Miguel Vega was trying to get into an exclusive clique inside the Sheriffs Office known as the Executioners.

Another deputy, Art Gonzalez, alleged in a sworn whistleblower statement that the Executioners have more than a dozen members with matching tattoos, who often host parties after an officer has shot someone in which they may be inked.

In other words, Guardado’s death may have come at the hands of a cop looking to kill someone to buy his way into a gang. Gonzalez, the whistleblower, testified for nearly six hours under oath, according to Spectrum News 1 in LA.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Trump’s environmental protection agency is quietly relaxing another key anti-pollution measure, this time weakening Obama-era regulations on coal waste. The new rules drastically increase the daily thresholds for amounts of toxic elements that plants can release into the water supply.

Spain is officially going through a true “second wave” of coronavirus infections, as its rate of infections has been higher than the U.S., France, Germany and most of the rest of Europe in the past week. Spain had a brutal first wave of infections which were only broken by a strict lockdown -- but after a rapid reopening program, the virus is creeping back in.

Airlines are making one major change in the attempt to coax customers into flying again: they’re permanently dropping change fees for most domestic flights. Delta, United and American are all following this plan, which will certainly give travelers who have to fly a bit more peace of mind, as it’s clear the actual process isn’t and won’t be safe for a while.

In slightly terrifying news, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg officiated a wedding and was pictured not wearing a mask just weeks after being hospitalized for liver cancer. The bride claimed that quote “we tested negative,” but still. Probably not a great risk to take.

Sept 1, 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:

Protesters in Portland clashed with a pro-Trump truck caravan in a night of violence that left one right-wing militia member dead.

Meanwhile, The U.S. passes 6 million coronavirus cases, and California becomes the first U.S. State to hit 700,000. California’s infection rates are falling, though, but other states with smaller populations continue to spike.

And lastly, President Trump has made a big deal about his payroll tax deferrals, but new data shows that when the tax man does come knocking in 2021, workers are going to get slammed.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

One person was shot dead during a chaotic night of protests in Portland, Oregon on Saturday.

The circumstances around the shooting are still unclear -- it happened near a parking garage away from the main protests. The victim was wearing a hat with the logo of Patriot Prayer, a far-right militia that has squared off with Black Lives Matter protesters and other anti-fascists in Portland.

Portland Police say they’re trying to find out who was responsible for the shooting but released no information yet.

Earlier in the night, a huge convoy of Trump supporters drove into the city, largely in pickup trucks, streaming Trump 2020 and thin blue line flags. They then proceeded to antagonize Black Lives Matter protesters in the city, spraying mace and shooting them with paintballs. Far-right counter-protesters have attacked protesters in Portland repeatedly in the past weeks, brandishing or firing guns on multiple occasions.

Any of that nuance is sure to be stripped from the conversation, particularly after the politically-charged shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week.

President Trump has used the incident to double down on his fascist rhetoric and enable more far-right escalation, saying that quote “the people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer.” endquote, and criticizing Portland’s embattled mayor Ted Wheeler.

Some far-right groups have already jumped to conclusions over the shooting, saying the loss of one of their own means civil war with the left. It’s hard to say what the next week has in store, but more violence could well be on the way.

US Hits 6 Mil COVID Cases

The United States passed 6 million confirmed coronavirus cases on Sunday, according to the New York Times.

California now rules the bleak coronavirus charts with 700,000 confirmed cases in the state. However, that number belies a slightly more positive story for the state: the infection rate is falling, and of course California’s massive population always means it’s going to have more cases than most.

Other states are still struggling, however. Louisiana has the highest number of cases per 100,000 people in the country, with over 3,100, according to the Times.

Outbreaks continue to spread, especially in schools and universities that have resumed in-person classes. But recent data shows that the rate of infections might be slowing slightly -- new daily cases have been going down since the end of July.

The next worry is how quickly -- and how safely -- we’ll be able to get a vaccine. The FDA commissioner recently said his agency might be willing to approve a vaccine before phase 3 human trials had been completed, which is obviously a risk. It’s one that could save lives if the vaccine works, but is also being pushed for heavily by the Trump administration, which is desperate to get some kind of solution on the table before the election. And as we know from Trump’s handling of the pandemic, human life matters far less than political capital.

Payroll Tax Payback Looks Grim

President Trump made a big deal about suspending payroll taxes during the height of the pandemic, meaning that workers got to skip at least one regular subtraction from their take-home wage. But instead of abolishing the tax, Trump just deferred it, and new data confirms that when we have to pay that tax back retroactively, things are going to be bleak.

The Treasury department on friday indicated that employers would be on the hook to pay back the postponed payroll taxes in 2021, meaning that they’d be taking even more out of workers’ paychecks then than they would have normally.

What Trump’s cuts are doing then is giving a short-term boost to paychecks, which will certainly be appreciated by some, at least until it’s all owed in a year. After the election, of course.

To make matters worse, guess what payroll taxes usually fund: Social Security and Medicare. So in one move, Trump is putting stress on the budgets of essential services for just a temporary relief to workers. If Trump eventually decides to cut the tax whatsoever, it will give most workers a bit of a bump in take-home pay -- but at the cost of those same essential services. Since Republicans have been looking to gut those programs for years, this seems like the perfect plan to add a whole lot more uncertainty to the mix.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Rep. Steve Scalise sank to a new low on Sunday, publishing a doctored video that manipulated the words said by ALS-afflicted healthcare advocate Ady Barkhan. In the footage, Barkhan appears to ask Biden to redirect funding for police to healthcare. In reality, Barkhan, who uses a digital voicebox, didn’t say the words “for police” -- Scalise just added them in to fit his twisted narrative.

Arizona State University’s College Republicans have become one of the first formal political groups to throw their lot all-in behind Kenosha murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, holding a fundraiser for him and telling a newspaper journalist who called that they quote “do not speak to journalists with pronouns on their Twitter page,” endquote. Classy group of people, clearly.

A small number of U.S. troops doing... something??... in Syria this week were injured in a skirmish with Russian forces, allegedly after the two groups crashed their vehicles into one another. U.S. officials said there wasn’t any actual shooting, but still. Yikes.

And finally, the Director of National Intelligence’s office informed the Senate and House that it would no longer be doing in-person briefings relating to election security, limiting Congress’s ability to ask hard questions of the people running security for the November election and striking yet another blow to transparency overall. Not a great sign!

That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today, stay tuned for the full show this afternoon.

Aug 31, 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:

Protests and vigils continue in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and beyond, calling for justice for Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the back by police. And new details have emerged about a teenage vigilante shooter who killed two and injured a third at one of those protests this week.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump speaks on the final night of the Republican National Convention. And a new report details how much money his companies have skimmed from the US government during his time in office.

And lastly, the Christchurch mosque killer receives New Zealand’s maximum criminal penalty. Hear how a victim’s son delivered a righteous speech before the sentencing.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Our apologies: Yesterday we said Jacob Blake, the man shot seven times in the back by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, had been killed. He is in fact still alive, though paralyzed from the waist down. Yesterday the Chicago Sun-Times reported that Blake was handcuffed to his hospital bed when his father came to visit. It’s unclear what charges he faces, because police haven’t said. Blake’s father, also named Jacob, is scheduled to speak at the March on Washington today.

Meanwhile, more details have emerged about Kyle Rittenhouse, the seventeen-year-old shooter who attacked a crowd of protesters in Kenosha before fleeing to his home across the state line in Antioch, Illinois. Students at a high school Rittenhouse attended told Vice News he was shy but also aggressive, and some had him pegged for a future school shooter. He was active in a police cadet training program and reportedly idolized the police. And in addition to making common cause with a local right-wing militia, he was a big fan of Donald Trump. Buzzfeed News found a photo of Rittenhouse in the front row at a Trump rally in Des Moines, Iowa, in late January. Since his shooting, which killed two and wounded another, much of the Republican right has rallied around Rittenhouse, casting him as a hero who fought to protect property from rioters. The survivors of his victims have disputed that characterization in the strongest terms.

Those shot dead were victims Anthony Huber, age twenty-six, of Silver Lake; and Joseph “Jojo” Rosenbaum, thirty-six, of Kenosha. Gaige Grosskreutz, twenty-six, of West Allis, was shot in the arm and is expected to recover, according to the Sun-Times. Per the Chicago Tribune, Huber had confronted Rittenhouse, who was carrying an assault rifle, using only his skateboard. A GoFundMe created by his family said QUOTE He was fighting for a cause, and he wasn’t a rioter – he was a protester and a defender ENDQUOTE. Law enforcement and National Guard were out in an attempt to enforce curfews again last night, not only in Kenosha but also in Minneapolis, where protests are ongoing.

Finally, police in Kenosha named the officer who shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back while holding his shirt as Rusten Sheskey, a seven-year veteran of the department. The local district attorney will decide whether to file charges against the officer next month after the state Justice Department releases its report.

Trump calls Biden... extreme?

Yesterday the New York Times reported that for the second time in thirty days, the Trump campaign pulled all its broadcast ads from circulation. The campaign has no new ads scheduled until September 8. That’s two weeks with no ads on television and fewer than seventy days until the election. Something isn’t quite clicking for the Republicans. On night three of the Republican National Convention, headliner Mike Pence brought the lowest ratings yet. And last night, Donald Trump himself delivered the convention keynote from the White House. According to prepared remarks obtained by the Associated Press, Trump cast his super-centrist opponent, Joe Biden, as some kind of flaming radical. And he blamed the violence in Kenosha and elsewhere on the local Democratic leadership.

Separately, the Washington Post reported that the Trump Organization has bilked taxpayers for at least nine hundred thousand dollars since he took office, much of it through booking feels at Trump hotels and resorts. The Secret Service is obliged to follow Trump wherever he goes, which means that when he stays at a Trump hotel, agents must book rooms there. Trump has now visited his own hotels two hundred and seventy-one times as president. Sometimes the charges to the Secret Service seemed not only exorbitant but straight-up bogus, such as a bill for furniture removal from a room totaling thirteen hundred dollars plus tax. In response to the Post’s reporting, a White House spokesman warned that they were

building up a very large dossier on the reporter, David Farenthold. We’re sure he’s quaking in his shoes.

Christchurch mosque shooter sentenced

A judge in New Zealand yesterday sentenced Brenton Harrison Tarrant, who killed fifty-one people at two mosques in a terrorist attack last year, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. It was the maximum sentence allowed by law and the first time it has been imposed in the country’s history. According to the Associated Press, Judge Cameron Mander said Tarrant's crimes were so wicked that a lifetime in jail could not begin to atone for them. Tarrant, twenty-nine, is an Austrailian citizen.

Ahad Nabi, the son of a shooting victim, also had words for the killer. In an appeal to the judge shared widely on social media, Nabi endorsed the sentence of life without parole. He called the killer a maggot who had inadvertently made his father a martyr. Nabi said, in part, QUOTE You shot at defenseless people that were not aware of what was going on until they knew it was too late. Your actions were gutless... You deserve to be buried in a landfill. This world was created with color. A peasant like you will never change the human race. Your wish is to make this world a racist cult of one color. But you will never succeed... I would like to say that my seventy-one year old dad would have broke you in half if you challenged him to a fight. But you are weak. A sheep with a wolf’s jacket on, for only ten minutes of your whole life. I am strong, and you made me even stronger ENDQUOTE. And with that, Nabi flipped the killer off with both hands.

And now for some Quicker Quickies.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Hurricane Laura flattened buildings and trees along the Gulf Coast and kicked off a large chemical fire over Lake Charles, Louisiana, when it made landfall. Laura continues to move north toward Arkansas and has been downgraded to a tropical storm. Four deaths were reported in Louisiana and none in Texas. The verdict from Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards: it could have been a lot worse. Indeed, the storm also knocked over a Confederate statue in Lake Charles, only days after parish officials voted to leave it standing.

A new analysis in the British Medical Journal found that six feet of social distancing may be insufficient protection against the coronavirus, especially in poorly ventilated indoor settings. Public health experts quoted by the Washington Post say six feet of social distance should be regarded as a starting point, not a strict guidance. The only thing close to a silver bullet, researchers say, is a distanced gathering outdoors where everyone is wearing well- fitted masks. Got that? Mask up and be mindful of how the air is flowing.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin has said he is willing to provide military or police assistance to help the ruler of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko (LUKE-UH-SHEN-KOH), remain in power. Lukashenko, recently seen carrying an assault rifle after deboarding a helicopter, has ordered amid mass arrests of protesters after elections the European Union refuses to recognize as legitimate. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki (MAT-EH-USH MORA-VESHKY), urged Russia to cease any plans for military intervention in Belarus, calling it a hostile act in violation of international law.

The British artist Banksy has used some of his wealth to finance a boat that is patrolling the Mediterranean to rescue refugees lost at sea. The Guardian reports that the boat, named Louise Michel after a French feminist anarchist, rescued eighty-nine people in distress yesterday, including fourteen women and four children. At last report the Louise Michel was looking for a safe port to let the refugees disembark.

Aug 28, 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:

A teenage wannabe cop and militia member was arrested for shooting and killing two people at a protest against police violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The Milwaukee Bucks then launched a solidarity strike with protesters, leading to the postponement of the basketball playoffs, which will definitely get the attention of people who might not have noticed or cared.

Meanwhile, Texas and Lousiana braced for a massive Category Four hurricane that was set to make landfall last night. And thousands more homes are at risk of burning in California.

And lastly, there was a courtroom a victory for transgender equity in Virginia yesterday. A federal appeals court upheld the right of a transgender male student to use the boy’s bathroom at school, regardless of how many bigoted adults may feel about it.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Police in Lake County, Illinois arrested a seventeen-year-old boy for shooting three people and killing two at ongoing protests in nearby Kenosha, Wisconsin. According to Vice News, the young man, Kyle Rittenhouse is an aspiring police officer, and online videos showed him milling about with local police, as well as with right-wing militia members, and carrying an assault rifle. The militia claimed to be on the scene to protect businesses and property from rioters and QUOTE evil thugs ENDQUOTE. An event page set up by the militia was removed from Facebook, but not before the event was promoted by Alex Jones’ Infowars.

Prosecutors in Illinois called Rittenhouse a fugitive who fled Wisconsin to avoid accountability for the shooting. He is being charged with first-degree murder. Videos show Wisconsin police allowed Rittenhouse to leave the scene with his rifle. Photographer Brent Ford witnessed the entire scene and told Vice News QUOTE He had his hands up and they told him to get out of there, even though everyone was yelling that he was the shooter. The police didn’t seem to hear or care what the crowd was saying ENDQUOTE. Yesterday the Kenosha police chief told reporters that if everyone involved had respected the curfew that was in place, QUOTE perhaps the situation that unfolded would not have happened ENDQUOTE.

The shooting took place just before midnight on Tuesday, which was the third night of protests in Kenosha following the police shooting of an unarmed black man, Jacob Blake. Yesterday, Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said he was calling up five hundred members of the National Guard to support police in Kenosha County. A curfew was set for seven P.M. Donald Trump was also tweeting about the situation yesterday, which is sure to help. More importantly, players with the Milaukee Bucks decided to go on strike in solidarity with the protests over Jacob Blake’s shooting, prompting the National Basketball Association to postpone all of yesterday’s playoffs games.

*Editor's Note: A previous version of this report said that police killed Jacob Blake. Blake was not killed but he was shot by police seven times and as a result has been paralyzed from the waist down

Hurricane hits Gulf states

National Guard were also deployed in Texas and Louisiana, which are in the way of Hurricane Laura. The storm yesterday was upgraded to a Category Four, with peak winds reaching one-hundred and forty-five miles per hour. It could be the strongest storm to hit Louisiana in one-hundred and sixty years, according to Bloomberg News. The National Hurricane Center said an unsurvivable storm surge with large and destructive waves could penetrate thirty miles inland, causing catastrophic damage from Sea Rim State Park, Texas, to Intracoastal City, Louisiana, including Calcasieu and Sabine Lakes. The American Red Cross is putting emergency evacuation protocols in place for both states. In all more than a half a million people have been ordered to evacuate the coastal areas.

Meanwhile, firefighters in California, aided by cooler weather, have made some progress containing the wildfires that are ravaging the state. Nearly two thousand buildings have already burned, according to the Los Angeles Times. Officials say that number could double before the fires are finally extinguished. Since August 15, when the state was first hit with a so-called lightning siege that sparked the flames, more than seven hundred wildfires have burned one point three million acres around the north and central parts of the state. While progress is being made, crews are still busy responding to new fires. Another four hundred and twenty three lightning strikes hit the state in the twenty-four hour period ending yesterday afternoon, causing fifty new fires. More than one hundred and thirty-six thousand Californians have been evacuated, and Governor Gavin Newsom has warned everyone in the state that they may need to flee their homes at some point on account of the fires. At least seven people have died so far in the fires.

Transgender bathroom rights upheld

A federal appeals court in Virginia yesterday sided with a transgender student in a bathroom-access case. The Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Gloucester County School Board and said the transgender student was protected both by a federal law preventing sex discrimination in education, as well as by the US Constitution’s equal protection clause. The lawsuit dates to 2015, according to NBC News. It was filed by Gavin Grimm, who is now a college student. Grimm was assigned female at birth but identifies as male. School officials had forbidden him from using the boy’s restroom.

Writing for the court, which sided with Grimm in a two-to-one vote, Judge Henry Floyd wrote that school officials were guilty of a special kind of discrimination against a child, based in the fantastical fears and unfounded prejudices of adults. Floyd wrote QUOTE the proudest moments of the federal judiciary have been when we affirm the burgeoning values of our bright youth, rather than preserve the prejudices of the past ENDQUOTE.

Grimm’s case was originally going to be heard by the US Supreme Court in 2017, but it was removed from the calendar after Donald Trump rescinded a federal rule on transgender bathroom access put into place by Barack Obama. It’s possible, even likely, that the question of transgender rights will come before the high court again.

Grimm was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. In a statement following the verdict, he said QUOTE all transgender students should have what I was denied: the opportunity to be seen for who we are by our schools and our government ENDQUOTE.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Mike Pence was the marquee name last night at the Republican National Convention. Separately, a Politico story blamed Pence for doing his part to slow down the nation’s coronavirus response. Donald Trump spent part of the day at his namesake hotel in Washington, DC, meeting with donors. According to the Washington Post, among the sundry events scheduled for the Trump International Hotel yesterday was a panel on Defeating the Deep State, featuring, among other panelists, Sebastian Gorka. There was also a bourbon tasting with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Boy howdy.

Four US service members suffered concussion-like symptoms after an altercation with Russian forces in Syria this week. Video of the incident emerged yesterday, and it showed a Russian helicopter flying low over US armored vehicles, which were then rammed by a Russian vehicle on the ground. A draft statement written by US Central Command and cited by Politico blamed the Russians for unsafely pursuing then intentionally ramming the American forces. The Pentagon offered no comment.

The ACLU of Oregon filed a lawsuit yesterday in federal court on behalf of Portland protesters who say they were beaten by federal agents or snatched into unmarked rental vans, Portland’s Willamette (WILL-AM-ET) Week newspaper reported. Donald Trump, the Department of Homeland Security and the US Marshals Service are named as defendants. One of the plaintiffs, Mark Mark Pettibone, was snatched up by federal agents and tossed into an unmarked van. He said QUOTE I still haven't fully come to terms with what it means that I was kidnapped by my government ENDQUOTE. Same here buddy.

The US Centers for Disease Control revised its guidance for COVID-19 testing this week, saying people who were exposed to the virus but are not showing symptoms should not be tested. Public health experts expressed concern over the revision, saying all who were exposed should be tested. After word got out about the changes, the New York Times reported that CDC officials were pressured to make the change by higher-ups in the Trump administration. Apparently Trump officials took advantage of the absence of Doctor Anthony Fauci, who was undergoing surgery for polyp on his vocal cords, to ram through the change. I don’t know about you, folks, but this is all the nonsense I can take today.

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

Aug 27, 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:

A man shot into a group of civil rights marchers in rural Pennsylvania. Which is pretty emblematic of how this year has been going.

Meanwhile, night two of the Republican National Convention featured Melania Trump and Mike Pompeo. Can you guess which one was criticized for breaking federal rules, and which was being secretly recorded by a former friend?

And lastly, more states are fighting back as the Trump administration monkeywrenches the United States Postal Service. Now New York, New Jersey, and Hawaii have filed a lawsuit in federal court.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

An old white man shot into a mixed-race crowd of some fifty civil rights marchers in rural Pennsylvania late on Monday night, though the incident wasn’t reported by local media until yesterday. Police did not release the shooter’s name but said in a press release that two men were being questioned at a state police barracks in small-town Bedford.

The marchers are on a pilgrimage from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Washington, DC – a journey of nearly eight hundred miles, on foot. Before the shooting the marchers had taken a break and were preparing to climb a hill. Witness Tory Lowe said marchers caught sight of the man looking out a door, but had no time to react before he began shooting at them from behind. Lowe said in a Facebook Live stream that the man fired at least seven shots from a long gun. “He just came out shooting. There was nothing we could do,” Lowe said.

One marcher was hit in the face. He was reportedly in stable condition yesterday at a nearby hospital. Police said an argument preceded the shooting, but witnesses disputed that account. According to Lowe, QUOTE it was no argument. The video is proof ENDQUOTE.

The marchers set out from Milwaukee on August 4. At least two were arrested on charges of blocking traffic earlier along the route, in Indiana. They hope to arrive at the Lincoln

Monument in DC by Friday, which marks the fifty-seventh anniversary of Martin Luther King Junior’s “I Have a Dream” speech. How little has changed.

Pompeo speech called illegal

Breaking form, Donald Trump yesterday praised CNN for running the opening night of the Republican National Convention more or less uninterrupted. But what he didn’t mention was that ratings were down twenty-eight percent for the RNC as compared to 2016. That’s according to the Los Angeles Times reported. And about three million fewer people watched it than watched the Democratic National Convention last week.

Last night was the second of four nights of planned programming by the Republicans. There was no coverage of how Trump has moved more than two million dollars in contributions to his campaign from those accounts to his private companies, as Forbes reported yesterday. There were, in contrast to the Democratic convention, no past presidents speaking on Trump’s behalf. But there was scandal aplenty. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to the convention from the US Embassy in Jerusalem. Career diplomats were appalled by the decision, according to CBS News. The Foreign Service has strict guidelines about political activity, which Pompeo ignored. We couldn’t put it better than Democratic Congressman Ilhan Omar, who said QUOTE if there's one thing this administration has shown us, it's a willingness to break the law in broad daylight. Mike Pompeo's participation at the RNC as Secretary of State – from foreign soil, no less – isn't just inappropriate. It's illegal. ENDQUOTE.

Trump’s wife Melania also spoke, from the recently renovated White House Rose Garden. But what’s more interesting is that Melania is reportedly on tape dissing various Trumpworld figures. The tapes were surreptitiously recorded by her former friend and adviser, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who has a book coming out soon. Titled Melania and Me, it’s billed as a tell- all. We’ll let you know the dirt as soon as it’s available.

More states sue USPS

New York state Attorney General Letitia James, joined by the states of New Jersey and Hawaii, and the cities of New York and San Francisco, are suing Donald Trump and his

crony, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, over their sabotage of Postal Service operations leading up to the November election.

It’s the third lawsuit over DeJoy’s disruptions to postal operations. Pennsylvania and Washington State led two multistate lawsuits that were filed last week. All three lawsuits allege DeJoy made the changes without getting them cleared by the postal regulator or seeking public comment as required by Congress, Bloomberg News reported.

In addition to Trump and DeJoy, the new lawsuit led by New York Attorney General James also names the Postal Service itself as a defendant. In a statement yesterday, James said QUOTE this USPS slowdown is nothing more than a voter suppression tactic. Yet, this time, these authoritarian actions are not only jeopardizing our democracy and fundamental right to vote, but the immediate health and financial well-being of Americans across the nation ENDQUOTE.

The lawsuits seek court orders to prevent further changes, in addition to undoing the changes DeJoy already made. Meanwhile, more videos emerged from around the country showing discarded mail sorting machines and postal drop boxes being removed. They’re not even really trying to hide this election interference. It’s all so damned brazen.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

More than half a million people were told to evacuate the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana ahead of Hurricane Laura, a category three storm that is expected to make landfall late tonight or early tomorrow. Winds are forecast to be in excess of one hundred miles per hour and there is a risk of flash flooding, as well. Stay safe, stay dry, and if you’re planning on using one of the official shelters, the authorities ask that you bring two masks for each person, plus hand sanitizer, along with the rest of your emergency kit.

The Kremlin yesterday rejected claims by German doctors that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent. Navalny fell ill last Thursday while on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. His allies are calling for a criminal inquiry and say they don’t trust results from a Russian hospital that found no basis for the poisoning claim.

The New York Times reports that American colleges and universities are cracking down hard on students who hold parties in violation of coronavirus restrictions. Suspensions of individual students, as well as entire fraternities and sororities, are already in the hundreds. Outbreaks stemming from parties are a real problem. The Times has counted twenty-three thousand COVID cases on seven-hundred and fifty campuses since the pandemic kicked off last winter.

Jerry Falwell Junior formally resigned the presidency of Liberty University yesterday, amid a sex scandal. Falwell accidentally copied university leadership on an email with pictures of his wife having sex with a pool boy, reportedly an activity the right-wing Christian leader enjoyed observing several times per year. After the pool boy confirmed the relationship, Falwell said he was resigning, then changed his mind, then changed his mind again, and here we are.

Aug 26, 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 RNC kicked off tonight with, who would have guessed, a controversy, as Trump narrowly decided against holding an illegal gathering in DC and went forward with plans to accept his party’s nomination from the White House, rather than a politically neutral site.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, protests erupt after police shot Jacob Blake, a black man, seven times in the back while he was attempting to get back in his car. Blake survived, but the outrage over his clearly unjust treatment caught on video has rocked the city of Kenosha.

And lastly, California is once again burning, as exhausted firefighters battle 625 active blazes across the state.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Here we go everyone, it’s the RNC. After last week’s Republican-lite convention put on by Joe Biden and the Democrats, it’s time to watch the full-fascist party put on their show.

Night one did not disappoint: Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside of their mansion, leaned hard into false rhetoric that the Democrats would hand over citizens to criminals.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel praised Trump’s support of housewives and moms, and diaper-boy Charlie Kirk leaned in to his alt-right roots by making a pitch for Trump that included the words “Western Civilization.” You can see where that one’s going.

But all of this gabbling is mostly just window dressing. The more interesting story of the convention, like we mentioned yesterday, is the GOP’s full-throated endorsement of Trump without any concrete policy goals.

Late Sunday night, the Trump administration released a list of “goals” for a second term, which include everything from moon bases to intensely repressive immigration lists. The Republican party is on board with this till the bitter end.

The other theme is that the normal rules will not apply to this party or this President. On Monday, the White House constructed a stage in the Rose Garden, preparing for a big event on Thursday when the president will formally accept the nomination. It’s technically against ethics rules for the president to do partisan activities like campaigning on federal property, but Trump has decided that, like so many other laws and norms, doesn’t apply to him.

It’s all just part of him testing his limits to see just how far he can go. We’ll see on November 5th whether or not that’ll extend to free and fair elections, and we’ll see what other buttons Trump tries to press at the RNC the rest of this week.

Jacob Blake Shooting Fractures Kenosha

In Wisconsin, a new shocking incident of police violence has thrown a small city into turmoil, as massive protests and civil unrest erupted after police in Kenosha shot an unarmed black man seven times in the back.

The victim, Jacob Blake, was shot as he was attempting to get back into his car, which his three children were inside. He’s in stable condition in the hospital, miraculously.

But his shooting was captured on video, and within hours the city was on fire, as angry residents torched garbage trucks, parked cars, and looted businesses downtown. On Monday, the state deployed 100 national guard members and set an 8 p.m. curfew for the city to crack down on protests.

Blake was allegedly trying to break up a fight between two women when police arrived on scene, and appears to attempt to leave the situation as police yelled and pointed their weapons at him. As he attempted to get back into his car, an officer grabbed his shirt and shots rang out.

The city is still on edge, and while the police immediately opened an investigation, it doesn’t look like there will be an easy resolution anytime soon.

California Fights Over 600 Fires

California is on fire, as it is every year around this time. But due to the drastic effects of global climate change, every year seems worse than the last.

Right now, firefighters in the state are battling upwards of 625 active fires, including two of the biggest fires the state has ever seen. Together, over 1.4 million acres of land in the state have burned.

Many of the fires are sparked by lightning strikes, as dry fuel loads go up like matches during dry summer thunderstorms.

And of course, vulture capitalists have found a way to use the catastrophe to get richer: Common Dreams dot com reports that one hedge fund has added $3 billion to their coffers by buying up insurance claims.

Thanks to the megafires nearby, Oakland and much of the Bay Area is choked by smoke, closing state parks and schools already plagued by the pandemic.

Another thing weakened by the pandemic: the prison labor California and other states often use to fight wildfires. Thanks to early release programs aimed at releasing prisoners from the COVID-traps of the prison system, much of the state’s captive wildfire labor force is home, and not behind bars.

The prison labor system is an abusive form of modern slavery, which the most recent fires have exposed as an integral part of California’s response to wildfires. Clearly, the state needs a better system, because this is only going to get worse.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Kellyanne Conway announced she would leave the White House at the end of August, citing the need to focus on her family. It’s probably no coincidence that her daughter, who has promoted leftist causes on social media, has been publicly seeking emancipation from her parents, claiming that she’s disgusted with her mother’s job.

Researchers in Hong Kong confirmed the first case of coronavirus re-infection, raising concerns that having the virus will only make you resistant to it for a limited period of time, not indefinitely. The patient is asymptomatic and doing fine, but definitely appears to have caught two different strains of the virus months apart.

Hamas leadership in the Gaza strip reported the first cases of community spread of coronavirus, raising fears that the disease could rip through the blockaded, mostly captive populations there, who are underserved by healthcare networks.

Trump’s National Labor Relations Board announced last Friday that criticizing an employer’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic was not protected speech in the workplace, meaning companies could fire workers for speaking out. That means that under Trump, brave organizers like Amazon warehouse worker Chris Smalls can be axed with no government backup, just for trying to keep their coworkers safe.

That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today! We’ll have more pre-recorded content for you this afternoon, as Sam and the Team are still on a well-deserved break.

Aug 25, 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:

It’s night one of the Republican National Convention, featuring an even more deranged lineup of GOP stooges than the DNC had last week! Trump will be speaking every night. Here’s what to look out for.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration pushed the FDA to authorize blood plasma treatments from recovered COVID patients to treat active cases of the disease, despite warnings from some scientists that the process needed more study.

And lastly, as federal aid expires, millions of Americans are sinking deeper into debt, hunger, and evictions, according to a new report in the Washington Post.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The RNC starts today, and here’s what you’re in for: Trump, Trump, and more Trump.

The speakers lineup includes almost every Trump you can think of: Don Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Ivanka Trump, Tiffany Trump, Melania Trump, and of course Donald himself, not once but every single night.

Other hits include, we’re not kidding: the Covington Catholic kid who went viral during an altercation with a Native American protester, the St. Louis lawyer couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter Protesters, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, one of the few pro-gun parents of a child who died in the Parkland massacre, and the Republicans’ only black Senator, Tim Scott.

The interesting thing about the convention this year as well is that the RNC is just not adopting an official platform in any way, basically signaling that whatever Trump wants to do is fine with them.

This isn’t exactly unexpected, but it’s telling that the GOP as a whole has decided against any sort of concrete policy goals, trusting that Trump will basically just do his thing and accomplish most of what they want anyway.

So much for the myth of the reasonable Republican. The convention starts Monday night and will run through Thursday.

COVID Plasma Treatment Pushed Through FDA

For weeks, the Trump administration has been hammering the FDA to get some kind of coronavirus treatment approved, seeking to get the good PR by floating one miracle cure or another right before the election. Now, it appears they’ve found their in: blood plasma from recovering patients used to cure those still suffering from the disease.

The treatment, known as convalescent plasma, got emergency FDA approval on Sunday, after days of pressure from the administration. Previously, top federal scientists had delayed FDA approval because they thought it needed further study, according to the New York Times. They’re probably not wrong: the Times reports that randomized clinical trials have not proven that convalescent plasma works.

That didn’t stop Trump from touting the treatment as quote “very effective”endquote at a press conference on Sunday, and saying quote: “This is a powerful therapy that transfuses very, very strong antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection.” endquote.

And unlike other treatments that focus on medications, convalescent plasma treatments obviously depend on blood donations, which can’t exactly be mass produced.

The next step in this is the Trump administration pushing forward a vaccine before the election, which it has openly said it wants to do, perhaps as early as September. Of course, the earlier we can get a vaccine the better, but do we really trust the Trump administration not to rush something potentially unsafe or ineffective through the process for political gain? Sure sounds like the kind of thing he’d want to do.

Report Shows Economic Ruin Ahead

For a few months, the federal government kept most Americans’ heads above water -- but the life rafts are gone, and now we’re starting to sink.

According to the Washington Post, 29 million adults reported not having enough to eat in late July, as expanded unemployment benefits started to end. During the same period, 15 million renters reported being behind on rent payments. Trump’s new $300 per week unemployment expansion will only last a few weeks, and when it’s gone, the Post reports that poverty levels could rise to above Great Recession levels if the government doesn’t do more to help.

Another thing the Post story shows is that the additional $600 a week that Bernie Sanders and other Democratic leaders fought for had a huge effect on keeping people afloat. Zach Parolin, a researcher at Columbia University, told the Post that 17 million people would have dropped below the poverty line without direct intervention from the Government.

Progressives wanted an even bigger investment, of course, but it goes to show that even what we were able to get from the Trump administration and Republican Senate had a huge impact.

As all that phases out, we’re looking at dark times for a lot of Americans, unless Congress can get its act together and find a way to push forward more aid.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Tennessee’s right-wing Governor Bill Lee quietly signed off on a bill that makes camping on state property a Class E felony, directly targeting the Black Lives Matter protesters who have been camping outside of the Tennessee Capitol Building. And with a felony charge, those protesters could lose their right to vote.

Protests in Belarus against dictator Alexander Lukashenko are only growing, as massive crowds gathered in Minsk on Sunday in defiance of the leader’s violent crackdowns. Lukashenko, meanwhile, was pictured while arriving in the capital by helicopter wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a rifle, so it’s pretty clear what kind of signal he’s sending to his people.

Remember the whole mess over TikTok a few weeks back? A new report by the Wall Street Journal alleges that Facebook ManBoy Mark Zuckerberg led a lobbying campaign highlighting the dangers of Chinese-backed tech companies like TikTok, which may have helped prompt the Trump administration’s weird crusade against the app. And guess what? Facebook-owned Instagram is now trying to make waves with a TikTok competitor.

California’s massive wildfires could worsen this week as the state prepares for lightning and wind storms over the next week, which could spark new blazes. 1.3 million acres have burned across the state in the last month.

That’s all for the AM Quickie today. Sam and the Majority Report crew are out this week, but we’ll have plenty of pre-recorded content to keep you going.

Aug 24, 2020 - AM Quickie

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn