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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The number of migrant children detained at the U.S. border has tripled in the past two weeks, filling adult detention facilities as places in slightly-more-human shelters run out fast. If this is the new normal, it looks a lot like the old one.

Meanwhile, Republican politicians start their legal onslaught against the Biden administration, as a dozen state attorneys general filed suit challenging an executive order regarding climate change.

And lastly, DSA-backed candidates pull off a rout in the Nevada Democratic Party -- and establishment leaders threw a fit and took their ball home, quitting en mass rather than supporting the new progressive leadership.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

President Biden is already facing a major immigration crisis, as the New York Times reports that the number of migrant children in federal custody has tripled in the past two weeks -- and his administration’s officials aren’t keeping up.

The Times reports that immigration authorities have detained more than 3,250 children who crossed the border unaccompanied in the past two weeks.

And instead of placing them in shelters, documents obtained by the Times show that more than 1,360 of the children have been detained in jail facilities. The law only permits children to spend 72 hours in federal detention before they have to be transferred to a shelter, and the documents show that the government is blowing right past that.

Homeland security, which operates the jails, is blaming Health and Human services, which operates the shelters, saying that the latter has been slow to pick kids up.

But either way, you’ve got children on the border being shuffled between one dismal situation and another perhaps slightly-less dismal one. It’s worth noting that adults and families are still largely being turned away en masse under pandemic restrictions. Unaccompanied children, however, are detained.

None of this is humane, and all of it needs a fix. If Biden is committed to being a better leader than his predecessor, he’s got to take decisive action soon.

GOP Starts Legal Onslaught on Biden

The GOP’s legal gameplan against the Biden administration is kicking into gear. On Monday, a group of 12 attorneys general from Republican-led states filed suit against the administration challenging an executive order that biden sent instructing the federal government to analyze the social costs of greenhouse gas emission.

The executive order itself was relatively mundane: signed on Biden’s first day in office, it basically audited where the federal government was at on climate change and reaffirmed Biden’s pledge to quote “advance environmental justice.” Endquote.

In response, the GOP singled out a single section, which established a working group comprised of the OMB head and several cabinet members tasked with looking at the social costs of various greenhouse gas emissions.

The Republican Attorney General gang jumped at that as some overreach of federal power, writing in their lawsuit that the directive was a threat to separation of powers and quoting an absurd Supreme Court dissent by Antonin Scalia.

Quote:“Frequently,” a threat to the separation of powers “will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep’s clothing.... But this wolf comes as a wolf.”

Endquote.

Clearly, these dudes are, shall we say, high on their own supply. But the legal tactic could represent a real hangup for the Biden administration, which is sure to get an avalanche of similar tactics as the GOP looks to derail his agenda at least as much as liberal lawsuits were able to forestall some of Trump’s most destructive actions.

It doesn’t even matter if most of these cases fail or get thrown out -- if even one gets upheld or ruled in their favor, it’s a win for the GOP. And meanwhile, it costs the federal government time and money to be defending itself at every turn.

This is how politics works now, so we better get used to it -- and hope that Biden’s lawyers are better at their jobs than Trump’s were.

Progressives Take Over Nevada Democratic Party

In case that last story convinced you that the GOP was the only party capable of throwing weird temper tantrums, you won’t believe what we’ve got next.

In Nevada, the entire staff of the state democratic party quit this weekend, largely in protest to a slate of Democratic Socialist-backed progressive candidates sweeping internal leadership elections.

The Intercept reports that on Saturday, a coalition of progressive candidates backed by the local chapter of the DSA took over all five party leadership elections in the Nevada Democratic Party. In response, party leadership pre-emptively moved $450,000 out of the party’s larger war chest into separate accounts controlled by the establishment-led Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and then quit en masse.

The background drama behind all this is a bit more complicated to parse, involving multiple factions that supported Bernie Sanders and the tightly-controlled old guard of the state’s party that was run by former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but the Intercept has the details.

Judith Whitmer, the progressive who is now the new chair of the Nevada Democratic Party said quote: “We weren’t really surprised, in that we were prepared for it. But what hit us by surprise was the willingness to just walk away, instead of working with us.”

Let’s hope that at some point, an adult in the room of the national party decides to give their new progressive colleagues a more friendly welcome.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Some encouraging news from Brazil, where the Supreme Court invalidated the criminal convictions of former President Lula da Silva. Da Silva is now eligible to challenge fascist Jair [JAI-YEER] Bolsonaro in 2022, and could have pretty substantial support, as he was leading the country’s polls when he was convicted in 2018.

The first major poll of the New York City mayoral race has a familiar face out ahead. Andrew Yang leads all contenders with 32 percent, 13 points clear of his nearest challenger, former NYPD officer Eric Adams.

The trial of Andrea Sahouri [SA-HOO-REE], a Des Moines Register reporter arrested while doing her job covering the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, began on Monday. The prosecution is trying to obscure the fact that Sahouri was actively reporting during her arrest, and throwing the book at her regardless, setting a dangerous precedent for reporters working during civil unrest in the future.

And finally, Congress has a new frontrunner in its always-entertaining “biggest Nazi” competition, after Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar tweeted out a white nationalist group’s slogan on Sunday, a few days after speaking at their convention outside of CPAC. Seems like a great guy!

MAR 9, 2021 - 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 Senate passed Joe Biden’s flagship Coronavirus aid package on Saturday, against unanimous Republican opposition, despite all of the concessions hacked out of it by centrists like Joe Manchin.

Meanwhile, The U.S. proposed an interim power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, the fundamentalist government turned insurgency that we overthrew in 2001, showing just how deranged and pointless the past 20 years of war have been.

And lastly, Biden signs an executive order meant to make voting easier, as state GOP bosses aim to brutalize voting rights all over the country.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The Senate passed Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package on Saturday, narrowly scraping by without Kamala Harris’s tiebreaker vote because one Republican was absent.

The other 49 members of the GOP voted against the bill, even after conservative democrats like Joe Manchin had made sure its most progressive bits were sliced out.

Manchin personally lobbied against the $15 minimum wage amendment proposed by Bernie Sanders and had worked hard to shoot down a bump to the $300 a week enhanced unemployment benefits keeping many Americans afloat.

Biden supported both of those things, but because he currently doesn’t have a handle on his own party, the barely-Democratic brigade ran the show.

Reuters reported that the Senate set a record for its longest single vote in the modern era, at 11 hours and 50 minutes, most of which spent on shooting down dozens of Republican amendments and negotiating a compromise on the UI benefits for Manchin’s sake.

Since the Senate hacked up the bill originally passed by the House by removing the minimum wage increase, they have to send it back to the Representatives before it ends up on Biden’s desk for him to sign.

Still, it does mean that we’re one step closer to actually getting the $1400 checks that Biden has agreed to give us. He originally promised $2000, but hey, who’s counting. It’s not like we’re in the midst of a desperate global recession or anything!

U.S. Proposes Sharing Power With Taliban

We have been at war in Afghanistan for 19 years, five months, and one day. In October of 2001, we invaded the country to overthrow the Taliban, a fundamnetalist regime that was believed to be hiding Osama Bin Laden. We later found him in Pakistan, but nevermind.

Last week, the Biden administration proposed a plan for a sweeping power-sharing agreement between the Afghan government we installed after invading and the Taliban, showing just how little the U.S. has accomplished after almost 20 years of violence.

The power-sharing plan, which was obtained and published by Afghanistan’s Tolo News, is a sort of last-ditch plan for some semblance of peace in the country. The U.S. is pushing for, at the least, a restart to the peace talks between the two groups brokered by the United Nations.

Biden faces a May 1 deadline to decide whether or not to leave any troops in the country. In a letter also published by Tolo, Biden’s secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, warned Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, that the Taliban would take over massive swathes of territory if U.S. troops pull out.

That’s what someone who wanted to stay at war would say, of course, but unfortunately it’s also probably true. The U.S.’s decades of war in Afghanistan have left everyone involved, except perhaps the Taliban, in a no-win situation.

The Washington Post reports that Afghan experts think the Taliban is moving closer to a total military victory, but doesn’t want to then have to lead a country that would get cut off from U.S. aid. As we said. There’s no winning in this one.

Biden Orders Voting Access

Biden signed an executive order on Sunday aimed at expanding federal voting education, outreach, and access.

Sunday was the 56th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march in Birmingham Alabama, but the order he signed is somewhat less revolutionary than the actions civil rights leaders took there.

Biden’s order largely pushes federal organizations to modernize their voter outreach programs, including vote dot gov, and expand access to registration materials to people with disabilities, incarcerated people, and other underserved groups.

What it doesn’t do, of course, is directly combat some of the outright attacks on voting rights that have been launched in GOP-controlled state legislatures for years. The GOP under Trump, and after him, has been engaged in a nationwide push to restrict voting rights as much as possible, because they know they can’t win elections in a fair or representative democracy.

Biden does support HR1, the For the People Act, which passed the House last week. That bill does lay out several more concrete ways to fight back against the GOP’s anti-democracy forces, so it’ll be important to watch that one as it hits the Senate.

But the GOP’s onslaught on voting may be on firmer ground in the courts, as the conservative-majority supreme court is currently hearing arguments on an Arizona case that could limit activists' ways to fight voter suppression.

Biden’s order is at least a token acknowledgement of the problem, but if Democrats want to hold any power at all in the next few cycles, they’re going to have to get serious about protecting every American’s right to vote.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A U.N. report revealed that the world’s population wastes more than two trillion pounds of food per year, which breaks down to roughly 163 pounds per person in private homes alone, to say nothing of restaurants and businesses. This isn’t to scold everyone for not finishing their dinner, but more of a reminder of the damaging inefficiencies that the global economic system wreaks.

Meghan Markle said in an explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey that forces inside the British Royal family prevented her from receiving mental health support and psychiatric help, as well as speculated about the skin color of her child with Britain’s Prince Harry. Monarchies -- not great, it turns out!

The CDC is expected to release its official guidelines for what vaccinated Americans should or should not do at some point this week. We’ll expect those to be pretty cautious, but still might have some encouraging notes for people who’ve gotten the jab already.

And finally, it’s all falling down for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, including, perhaps, his bridge, as a new report shows that structural problems with the bridge named after Cuomo’s father were covered up. Adding to this, more top state democratic officials are calling for his resignation. Not looking good for the guy.

MAR 8 , 2022 - 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:

Washington, DC, will remain in fortress mode as the Pentagon considers a request to keep the National Guard deployed there. Perhaps because of the heightened security, a reported threat against the Capitol yesterday failed to materialize.

Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley, local officials swept a homeless encampment that sprung up near the Facebook campus. Advocates liken the scenes to something out of the Great Depression and say the wealthy need to do more to ensure everyone has access to housing.

And lastly, there are two competing bills in Congress regarding the future of Puerto Rico and the question of statehood. Progressive groups favor the one backed by AOC, which aims to create a meaningful process around decolonization.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The seat of American power is still on high alert for threats from within. US Capitol Police have requested a sixty-day extension of the National Guard members activated in the District of Colombia in response to security threats and the January 6th assault on Congress, according to the Washington Post. If approved, it would keep Guard members on duty through May, defense officials said. About five thousand two hundred Guard troops are on duty in Washington now. They are staffing a security perimeter around the Capitol that includes miles of fencing around one of the major symbols of American democracy.

The request appeared to catch DC Mayor Muriel Bowser by surprise, the Post reports. She said her expectation was that the additional forces would be leaving now, adding that Capitol Police have had limited communication with the city. The request comes after Capitol Police officials said Wednesday that they had information about a possible attempt by a militia group to breach the Capitol on Thursday, a date that some followers of QAnon falsely claimed would mark Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The House canceled a session yesterday in response, while the Senate remained in session to consider President Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

Concerns about QAnon at the Capitol were not borne out Thursday, the Post reports. While Guard members remained on duty and the fencing and barbed wire is still in place, there was no violence. The appearance of the military forces, and the onerous security measures in place, have become controversial – and politicized – in recent weeks. Representative Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan, called for more transparency. And some Republicans have questioned the need for the National Guard to stay. Of course, some Republicans cheered on the insurrection, so their judgment here is questionable.

Homeless Evicted Near Facebook

This vignette from the great class divide comes from the Los Angeles Times. In the shadow of Facebook’s headquarters, dozens of unsheltered people made their home on a sixty-acre plot of grass and marshland they shared with foxes, coyotes and other Silicon Valley wildlife. The encampment has existed for years, but started swelling in numbers last summer. In 2019, the Bay Area was home to more than twenty eight thousand homeless people, third nationwide behind only New York City with seventy six thousand and Los Angeles with fifty five thousand. Those numbers have likely increased during the pandemic. Sometimes tents appear on the edges of city parks, inches from multimillion-dollar homes.

Heather Freinkel, an attorney for the Oakland-based Homeless Action Center, told the Times QUOTE I know it sounds dramatic, but the scale feels like something out of the Great Depression or Dust Bowl. It’s really not OK ENDQUOTE. As numbers in the camp swelled, infrastructure within the camp became increasingly intricate and complicated. Camp occupants dug four-feet deep latrines in the ground, erected solar panels around their structures, constructed chimneys into their shelters, and kept dogs that alerted them to strangers.

A spokeswoman for Facebook told the Times that the company was not involved in the local decision to dismantle the neighboring encampment. In mid-February, a crew of Caltrans contractors arrived with three fifty-yard dumpsters and dismantled the tents and structures, removed the residents’ belongings and filled in the holes that dotted the landscape. By Monday of this week, an encampment had been partially rebuilt. A few days later, even more people had returned. What’s needed, advocates say, is more housing options — solutions that will allow people to live in dignity. Amen to that. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg should chip in.

Puerto Rico Statehood Bills Considered

There are dueling proposals for Puerto Rico’s future. Progressive organizations are pushing for passage of a bill they say gives Puerto Ricans a voice on the question of the island's status and its relationship with the US, NBC News reports. The push aims to present an alternative to pro-statehood legislation introduced Tuesday by two Puerto Rican members of Congress. In a letter sent yesterday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, advocates from more than eighty grassroots organizations across sixteen states and Puerto Rico urged prioritizing the passage of the Puerto Rico Self- Determination Act of 2020.

According to NBC, the progressive groups argue that unlike the statehood bill introduced on Tuesday by Representatives Darren Soto, Democrat of Florida, and Jenniffer Gonzalez, Republican of Puerto Rico, the Self-Determination Act would ensure that Puerto Ricans have access to a legitimate, accountable and inclusive process for decolonization. The bill was introduced last year by New York Democratic Representatives Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It proposed creating a status convention made up of delegates elected by Puerto Rican voters who would come up with a long-term solution for the island’s territorial status – whether it be statehood, independence, or any option other than the current territorial arrangement.

Velázquez and AOC are expected to reintroduce their bill in the House this year, NBC reports. The Puerto Rico Statehood Admissions Act, introduced Tuesday by Soto and González, aims to make the island a state. The statehood legislation follows a referendum that took place last November. It directly asked voters whether Puerto Rico should immediately be admitted as a state. With nearly fifty-five percent voter turnout, about fifty three percent of Puerto Ricans who voted favored statehood while forty seven percent rejected it. With margins so close, the process matters that much more.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Transportation Department’s internal watchdog found evidence of potential ethical violations by then-Secretary Elaine Chao and referred the case to the Justice Department for prosecution in December, but it declined, according to the Washington Post. Investigators from the Transportation Department’s Office of Inspector General said Chao used government employees to perform private tasks, such as arranging Christmas ornaments. Pretty tacky!

Pope Francis and Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of millions of Shiite Muslims, will meet in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf on Saturday, NBC reports. It is believed to be the first meeting between a pope and an Iraqi grand ayatollah. While at the Vatican, Francis has worked to build a Christian-Muslim alliance as a way to combat the cycle of Islamic terrorism and nationalist populist reactions. Al-Sistani has similarly called for peaceful coexistence and dialogue among faiths. When’s the last time you heard good news from Iraq?

In a major shift in policy, California officials said Wednesday night they will now devote forty percent of available Covid-19 vaccines to residents in the most disadvantaged areas, the LA Times reports. The shift comes amid mounting evidence that Latino and Black communities are falling behind white and Asian ones in getting access to the vaccine. This has sparked concern in part because those underserved communities have been hardest hit by Covid-19. Vaccine justice now!

The AFL-CIO's executive board will meet next week to determine its position on eliminating the filibuster, the labor federation's president, Richard Trumka, told Politico yesterday. If organized labor coalesces around overturning the filibuster, a priority for many progressives, it could give the movement significant momentum. And then all kinds of good and interesting things could happen. We’ll keep you posted either way.

MAR 5, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Centrist Democrats in the Senate have convinced Joe Biden to limit how many people will qualify for direct $1,400 payments in his pandemic relief bill. But progressive members of Congress are still pushing for expanded eligibility.

Meanwhile, a new study shows how hard the nonprofit sector has been hit by the economic fallout of the pandemic. For smaller arts organizations in particular, the news is very bad.

And lastly, a hate crimes bill has been introduced in the Wyoming legislature. It’s one of three or four states that still don’t have such a law on the books.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Here’s what’s new with the incredible shrinking pandemic relief bill. President Biden has agreed to narrow eligibility for a new round of $1,400 stimulus payments in his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, under pressure from moderate Senate Democrats, the Washington Post reports. Biden and Senate Democratic leaders are scrambling to keep their caucus united since they cannot lose a single Democrat in the fifty-fifty Senate with Republicans united against the legislation.

The Post reports that under the changes agreed to by Biden and Senate Democratic leadership, individuals earning $75,000 per year and couples earning $150,000 would still receive the full $1,400-per-person benefit. However, the benefit would disappear for individuals earning more than $80,000 annually and couples earning more than $160,000. That means singles making between $80,000 and $100,000 and couples earning between $160,000 and $200,000 would be newly excluded from a partial benefit under the revised structure Biden agreed to. About twelve million fewer adults and five million fewer kids would get the stimulus payments under the new Biden-Senate compromise.

Centrist Senate Democrats had initially pushed for even more aggressive restrictions on the stimulus payments, according to the Post. Senior Democratic officials had at one point considered dropping the full benefit for those making more than $50,000 per year, a change they ultimately abandoned after a backlash led by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden of

Oregon and Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Presuming the Senate passes the package later this week, it would still have to go back to the House for final approval. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said QUOTE I don’t understand the political or economic wisdom in allowing Trump to give more people relief checks than a Democratic administration ENDQUOTE. AOC, you are not alone there.

Many Nonprofits Face Closure

Here are some more stark numbers for you. More than one-third of US nonprofits are in jeopardy of closing within two years because of the financial harm inflicted by the pandemic, the Associated Press reports. That figure comes from a study released yesterday by the philanthropy research group Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. The study’s findings underscore the perils for nonprofits and charities whose financial needs have escalated over the past year, well in excess of the donations that most have received.

The researchers analyzed how roughly three hundred thousand nonprofits would fare under twenty scenarios of varying severity, the AP reports. The worst-case scenario led to the closings of thirty eight percent of the nonprofits. Even the scenarios seen as more realistic resulted in closures well into double digit percentages. Among the most vulnerable nonprofits, the study said, are those involved in arts and entertainment, which depend on ticket sales for most of their revenue, cannot significantly their reduce expenses and don’t typically hold much cash. Other studies have concluded that smaller arts and culture groups, in particular, are at serious risk. Californians for the Arts, for example, surveyed arts and culture nonprofits in the state and found that about sixty four percent had shrunk their workforces. And a report last week from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found that employment in New York City’s arts, entertainment and recreation sector tumbled sixty six percent during 2020.

The AP says that while arts and entertainment groups may be at particular risk, nonprofits from all sectors are in danger. According to the study, the District of Columbia was expected to lose the most nonprofits per capita, followed by Vermont and North Dakota. We’re gonna need a bigger relief bill to save this sector of the economy.

Wyoming Tackles Hate Crimes

Progress moves slowly but it is still moving. Wyoming lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill aimed at combating hate crimes in the state, CBS News reports. It is one of three remaining states with no laws against bias-motivated crimes on its books. The move comes after a push by advocates in the state where gay college student Matthew Shepard was killed in 1998. More than two decades later, Wyoming remains without a hate crimes law even though the 2009 federal anti-hate crime law bears Shepard's name. Though Wyoming's tagline is The Equality State, named so for being the first to grant women the right to vote, the state is known to many outsiders for Shepard's brutal murder.

Shepard's mother Judy Shepard told CBS News that while she was traveling several years ago wearing a Wyoming shirt, she was asked, Isn't that where that gay kid was murdered? Pressure has been increasing on lawmakers in Wyoming and the two other states that remain without hate crime legislation – South Carolina and Arkansas, where bills have been introduced. Some advocates also include Indiana on the list of states without hate crime laws, calling a law passed in that state in 2019 problematically broad. Some similar laws in other states mandate enhanced sentences for those convicted of a crime motivated by bias. Wyoming's proposed legislation, however, would not mandate enhanced sentences.

CBS reports that the bill will likely be assigned to the legislature's judiciary committee, where a hearing is expected in the coming weeks, said Democratic Representative Cathy Connolly, a co-sponsor of the bill. While questions remain to be hashed out – including over the scope of incidents that law enforcement should be required to report – Connolly said the introduction of the bill is a big deal. Especially for marginalized people in The Equality State.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

In his first public remarks since a sexual harassment scandal enveloped his administration, Governor Andrew Cuomo said yesterday that he was embarrassed by his actions and apologized, but said that he would not resign, the New York Times reports. He also said he has learned, adding QUOTE I will be the better for this experience ENDQUOTE. Well then, congratulations are in order!

The far-right party Alternative für Deutschland will be spied on by Germany’s intelligence agency under suspicion of posing a threat to democracy, the Guardian reports. It is currently the largest opposition party in parliament. The state intel agency is now able by law to monitor the phones of AfD members and spy on its activities as a suspected extreme rightwing organisation. Suspected? Surely it’s confirmed by now.

The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI sent a joint intelligence bulletin to law enforcement agencies late Tuesday warning that some domestic groups have discussed plans to take control of the US Capitol and remove Democratic lawmakers on or about March 4 – today – according to NBC News. Also yesterday, the Capitol Police said it has uncovered a possible plot to breach the Capitol by a militia group. The House canceled its session today out of caution. Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have set this as the date they believe Donald Trump will return to office. Good luck with that, jabronis.

Myanmar security forces dramatically escalated their crackdown on protests against last month’s coup, killing at least thirty-four protesters yesterday in several cities, according to the AP. That is highest daily death toll since the February 1st takeover. Videos from yesterday also showed security forces firing slingshots at demonstrators, chasing them down and even brutally beating an ambulance crew. Solidarity with the people of Myanmar.

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

MAR 4, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The Biden Administration announced that there will be enough available coronavirus vaccine for every adult in the country by May, though it will take a bit longer than that to actually get every shot in someone’s arm.

Meanwhile, Texas governor Greg Abbot declares a full re-opening of his state and a repeal of the universal mask mandate, basically ensuring that health officials worst nightmares come true for the next few months.

And lastly, a lawyer who partly inspired California’s extremely worker-hostile Proposition 22 finds a new job: in the Biden Administration as a senior advisor on labor issues. Great!

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The vaccine tidal wave is here. Thanks to the quick approval of the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine and increased supply of the already-approved Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, President Biden announced on Tuesday that the country was on track to have enough vaccine for every adult American by the end of May. That doesn’t mean we’ll all have our shots by then, of course, but it means that distribution will be the only problem to solve, not supply.

The Administration claims that it helped create the new rush of doses by brokering a partnership between Johnson and Johnson and fellow big pharma giant Merck, which failed to develop a vaccine of its own but still has the capabilities to manufacture millions of doses.

The prior target for this step was the end of July, so it’s clear that the administration feels pretty confident in moving up its timetable.

The numbers so far aren’t overwhelming, but they’re definitely something: so far, about 51.7 million people had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and 26.1 million are fully inoculated.

The best case scenario is that the U.S. ends up with a massive surplus of vaccines this summer, and can start donating them to other countries in need. But on the other hand, we may need more for booster shots if virus resistant variants of the disease continue to circulate. Either way, the supply looks like it’s coming in.

Abbott Reopens Texas to Death

But as the country takes some steps forward on a national level, the GOP establishment in Texas is determined to take as many massive steps backward as possible.

On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced a quote “full reopening” of the state and a full lifting of the statewide mask mandate, effective March 10. That means every business will be allowed to reopen at full capacity and no one will be required to wear masks.

Here’s his tweet, quote:

I just announced Texas is OPEN 100%. EVERYTHING.

Endquote.

That’s everything in all caps, just in case it wasn’t Texas enough for you.

Abbot’s plan is exactly what the experts we mentioned in yesterday’s quickie were afraid of.

In a follow-up tweet, Abbot cited the state’s increasing vaccination rates and low positivity and hospitalization rates as justification for the move. The irony of course is that his decision will almost certainly send those rates skyrocketing again, but he’s clearly betting that the political goodwill he’ll get from the state’s conservative establishment will make it all worth it.

Gilberto Hinojosa, the state’s Democratic party chairman, summed it up bluntly, saying quote:

“What Abbott is doing is extraordinarily dangerous. This will kill Texans. Our country’s infectious disease specialists have warned that we should not put our guard down, even as we make progress towards vaccinations. Abbott doesn’t care.”

Endquote.

He’s right. Abbott is wrong. And once again, it’s the people of Texas who will suffer.

Biden Hires Labor Lackey

And finally, one more story of a bad Biden administration hiring. It’s been a few days since we had one of those! Here we go.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Biden had hired Former Obama Labor Department official Seth Harris top adviser on labor issues. For people not tracking the minutiae of every hiring and firing in Washington, this news might not mean that much. But Harris is a name every person concerned with the future of workers’ rights in this country should know.

That’s because after working in the Department of Labor under Obama, he departed for the far more lucrative private sector, landing at the law firm Dentons, which counts on its list of clients little mom and pop companies like, say, Walmart.

Bloomberg’s report cited top labor leaders like AFL-CIO president Richard Trumpka saying positive things about Harris, but the disappointing bits of his record are still pretty hard to swallow.

For instance: Harris’s best-known act in the past few years is a 2015 paper he wrote for the Hamilton Project on quote “modernizing labor laws for twenty-first century work” by creating a new class of workers that weren’t employees or independent contractors, but something in between.

That paper went on to be positively cited by ridesharing giants Uber and Lyft in their celebration of the passage of Proposition 22, the California law that made it so gig workers in the state would receive a pittance of benefits, just enough that they wouldn’t be entitled to the full protections of an actual employee.

Let’s hope that his advice to the most pro-labor president of our lifetimes is a little better than that last idea!

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

An internal Justice Department document obtained by the Intercept reveals that Donald Trump referred a whopping 334 internal leaks to the FBI for prosecution, far more than any other president. Looks like old Donny didn’t mind the Deep State when he was trying to get it to do his dirty work.

Neera Tanden’s fraught nomination to lead the Office of Management and Budget is done, after she withdrew her candidacy on Tuesday night. We wish her well in whatever other Administration job she’s quietly shuffled into!

The Washington Post reports that the conservative-majority supreme court may be bending towards the worst possible outcome in the voting rights case we mentioned yesterday, indicating that they may support making it more difficult to challenge the glut of Republican voting laws aimed at suppressing votes across the country.

And finally, despite the mounting calls for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign, the Post reports that the State’s top party leadership isn’t joining in yet, instead siding with calls for an independent investigation before we know Cuomo’s fate. Playing it safe, in other words, in case Cuomo somehow wriggles out of this one.

MAR 3, 2021 - 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:

Life is starting to look a lot more normal in much of America, but experts worry that some places may be re-opening too soon, even with all the good news on the vaccine front. We’ll break down the latest Covid news today.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that far right groups are starting to fall apart after Trump’s defeat. But that may not be a good thing, as the smaller splinter groups can be harder to track.

And lastly, a third woman has come forward to share a story of sexual harassment by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, this time accompanied by photographic evidence, prompting mounting calls by state and local officials for him to resign.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

COVID Winter Almost Clear

Here’s the good news: things are looking up in America. After a solid year of mounting calamity, the coronavirus toplines are beginning to look slightly more positive.

A new study shows that the AstraZeneca vaccine substantially reduced the risk of getting sick from COVID-19 for elderly people, even after just one shot, meaning that even early stages of vaccination could help some of the most vulnerable populations.

Johnson and Johnson’s one-shot vaccine got emergency FDA approval on Saturday, and started shipping out doses on Monday.

The bad news is that all of this good news could make people get carried away.

CDC director Rochelle Walensky said on monday that she was quote “really worried” endquote about restrictions being lifted in some states.

The risk is that with new virus variants still spreading and the U.S. at a plateau of about 60,000 new cases a day, a wave of reopening across the country could keep the virus’s fires alive for longer than necessary.

Robert Horsburgh, an epidemiologist at the Boston University School of Public Health told the New York Times that he’s quote “Advocating for us to just hang tight for four to six more weeks.”

endquote. That seems like a long time, sure, but we’ve been at this a year. We can get through the final stretch.

Far Right Starts To Break Up

The New York Times has an interesting report on the state of the far right. To put it simply: thing’s aren’t great!

But that’s not necessarily cause for celebration for those of us who don’t want to see any more political violence from the fascists among us.

The Times reports that some of the most prominent groups that organized and participated in the January 6 riots are now splintering apart and blaming one another for the fallout, which has seen dozens of arrests. The Oathkeepers, the Proud Boys, and the explicitly white nationalist Groyper Army are all squabbling amongst themselves.

Part of the Proud Boys chaos, incidentally, might be driven by the news that their leader, Enrique Tarrio, was an informant for law enforcement. Nobody likes a snitch.

But experts say that this fracturing and infighting could lead to a couple more dangerous things: a regrouping phase where new groups form and seek to recruit and re-establish themselves.

It also means that existing members could radicalize further, and that lone actors who are harder to track than the established groups could seek to plan action on their own.

One expert told the Times quote: “When these groups get disrupted by law enforcement, all it does is scatter the rats. It does not get rid of the rodent problem.” endquote.

And at this point, it’s pretty tough to trust that the law enforcement establishments in this country are up to the task of chasing down that many scurrying beasts.

Yet More Cuomo Creep Allegations

A third woman has come forward to share a story of sexual harassment by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, this time accompanied by photographic evidence that he put his hands on her lower back and face at a wedding while asking to kiss her, as she tried to turn away.

Cuomo faces mounting pressure in the face of a statewide investigation led by Attorney General Tish James, and after the New York Times reported out the third victim’s story on Monday night, faced immediate calls to resign from state and local officials.

The photo itself is incredibly damning. It shows Anna Ruch, a guest at a wedding that Cuomo also attended, recoiling from the governor as he places both hands on either side of her face.

She told the Times that he touched her lower back before this, forcing her to remove his hand with her own, before saying she seemed quote “aggressive” and asking if he could kiss her.

A spokesperson for the Governor referred the Times only to his half-hearted apology from yesterday.

But that’s clearly not going to be enough. Just hours after the story went live, multiple New York State Representatives, Senators, City Council Members, and other government officials publicly called for Cuomo’s resignation and the continuation of the investigation into his behavior.

Governor Cuomo’s brother Chris Cuomo, meanwhile, used the top of his show on CNN to say that he was aware of the allegations against the Governor but could not address them, seemingly forgetting the period in the pandemic when the Governor was a regular guest on his show for fluff appearances.

As of our script-sending time, the Governor had not responded to their calls or to the new allegations.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

One of the only Democratic statewide officials in Florida is calling for an investigation into GOP-goon-governor Ron Desantis’s rollout of the coronavirus vaccine. In a letter, Florida’s agricultural commissioner said DeSantis’s behavior was quote: “an inept distribution of vaccines at best, and corrupt political patronage at worst.” endquote.

Bernie Sanders became one of the few political leaders in the Senate to urge the Democratic party to ignore the parlaimentarian’s ruling on the $15 minimum wage, mentioning that he’ll be keeping tabs on who votes for it in the roll call vote and saying quote “This is the soul of the Democratic Party.” Let’s hope some more prominent voices join him.

A Trump advisor said the former president was vaccinated before leaving the White House. Of course, he didn’t publicise that he was receiving the vaccine, because that could have actually sent an encouraging sign to the nation, which is currently grappling with widespread vaccine skepticism.

Elizabeth Warren returned to one of her favorite and most righteous beats on Monday, introducing a bill in the Senate to establish a wealth tax on the richest hundred-thousand households in the country. Its chances of getting passed probably aren’t great, but at least she’s still trying.

MAR 2, 2021 - 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:

House Democrats pass a sweeping coronavirus aid package, and send it on to the Senate, where it will be gutted and stripped of a $15 minimum wage by Republicans and bureaucratic nonsense alike.

Meanwhile, President Biden releases a statement on the Amazon union drive in Bessemer, Alabama -- sort of. He forgets to mention the company itself, of course, but it’s a start.

And lastly, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is hit with a new wave of sexual impropriety allegations, and releases a half-hearted apology in an attempt to save face.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The House of Representatives passed a sweeping Coronavirus relief bill on Saturday morning, which includes $1400 direct payments and a nationwide increase to a $15 minimum wage.

But the latter part of that massive leap is almost certainly going to get crushed in the Senate. On Thursday, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the $15 minimum wage was not permitted to be in the massive coronavirus aid package Democrats are hoping to pass in the senate.

The specifics of this decision are a bit convoluted, involving the budget reconciliation process and some other procedural things, but what you need to know is this: an unelected bureaucrat said that the $15 minimum wage can’t happen.

Fortunately, there are two ways Democrats could get past this. One is Kamala Harris overriding the parliamentarian, a strategy the GOP has used before and would be relatively easy for her to do, and the other is eliminating the filibuster and passing the bill without the budget process. The latter is still, frustratingly, a long shot.

And unfortunately, Joe Biden and Senate Democratic leadership have already indicated that they aren’t willing to take the first option. Progressive outcry to this has been understandably loud, because it’s basically a declaration that congressional decorum means more than actually getting people a minimum wage.

What happens next is that the Senate guts the bill, then sends it back to the House, meaning this whole mess added another step before Americans can get any actual help.

Biden Remembers He's Pro-Labor

President Biden has finally broken his silence on the major union battle between workers and Amazon in Bessemer Alabama.

On Sunday night, Biden released a video stating explicitly that his administration supported workers rights to form a union and condemned employer’s attempts to interfere with the process.

Of course, that’s exactly what’s happening in Bessemer -- and while Biden did mention the election in Alabama, he didn’t mention the company doing all the union busting by name.

Nor did he explicitly endorse the union. He simply reiterated that he believes unions are good for workers, saying quote:

“It’s not up to me to decide whether anyone should join a union. But let me be even more clear: it’s not up to an employer to decide that either. The choice to join a union is up to the workers, full stop.” endquote.

That’s a major step forward. It’s unequivocally good to have a U.S. president willing to endorse organized labor in such definitive terms. But it is disappointing that Biden didn’t directly call out Amazon for the destructive work they’ve done so far to stop the union forming.

Still, any boost that the workers In Bessemer can get is a good one. Let’s hope this isn’t the last we hear from Biden on the subject.

Cuomo Allegations Mount

Finally, the allegations of sexual impropriety and harassment against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo continue to mount, and the pressure is spilling over from New York State politics into a national scandal.

On Saturday, the New York Times published a story including yet another woman’s first hand account of impropriety and harassment by the governor.

The latest allegations aren’t explicit: the governor didn’t make any overt physical moves toward the victim. But he did establish a pattern of speaking inappropriately to a 25-year-old aide, asking her questions about her personal and sexual life.

This adds to testimony last week from a former Albany official that the mayor harassed her for years and once kissed her without her consent.

In response, the Governor offered this as a so-called apology quote:

“I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that.”

Cuomo has called for an independent investigation, although he tried at first to choose who would oversee the process himself. He was forced to relent when he got blasted by New York Attorney General Tish James, who will appoint an investigator with subpoena power. We’ll see what shakes out of the tree when that person starts to rustle branches.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Madison Cawthorne, the upstart mega-Trumpist Congressman who has positioned himself as the face of the new GOP, is also showing his predictable colors. The Washington Post reported on a wave of allegations against Cawthorne both of sexual assault and of repreatedly lying about his background in campaign advertisements.

Donald Trump won the straw poll for 2024 GOP nomination at CPAC, the annual conservative convention, although only 68 percent of respondents said they actually wanted him to run again. In other words, he’s the future of the party, but not everyone is happy about that.

The Supreme Court will hear its most important voting rights case in almost a decade, as it considers a case which could strip a provision from the Voting Rights Act that lets civil rights attorneys sue over potential discrimination in voting laws, which state GOP organzations have been racing to gut for months.

And finally, Joe Biden celebrated his inaugural airstrike of a foreign country we’re technically not at war with on Friday, striking a base controlled by Iranian-backed militia members in Syria. His administration claimed that the strike was “defensive” in nature, whatever that means.

MAR 1, 2021 - 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:

Scientists warn in a new study that global warming is seriously messing with Atlantic Ocean currents. The consequences for marine life, not to mention people living on the Eastern Seaboard, could be catastrophic.

Meanwhile, whistleblowers and the family of a police shooting victim point to a violent gang inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. A newly elected district attorney has pledged to tackle the problem.

And lastly, the Biden administration has expanded eligibility for unemployment benefits to cover some workers whose employers flouted pandemic safety standards. Although the new rules won’t apply to everyone affected, they’re a step in the right direction.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The Atlantic Ocean circulation that underpins the Gulf Stream, the crucial global weather system, is at its weakest in more than a millennium, the Guardian reports. Climate breakdown is the probable cause. Further weakening of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC, could result in more storms, more intense winters, and an increase in damaging heatwaves and droughts. Scientists predict that the AMOC will weaken further if global heating continues, and could reduce by up to forty-five percent by the end of this century. That could bring us close to a tipping point at which the system could become irrevocably unstable. A weakened Gulf Stream would raise sea levels on the Atlantic coast of the US, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, who co-authored the study published yesterday in Nature Geoscience, told the Guardian that circulation had already slowed by about fifteen percent and the impacts were being seen. Scientists have long predicted a weakening of the AMOC as a result of global heating, and have raised concerns that it could collapse altogether. The new study found that any such point was likely to be decades away, but that continued high greenhouse gas emissions would bring it closer.

Rahmstorf said QUOTE The consequences of this are so massive that even a ten percent chance of triggering a breakdown would be an unacceptable risk ENDQUOTE.

As well as causing more extreme weather across Europe and the east coast of the US, the weakening of the AMOC could have severe consequences for Atlantic marine ecosystems, the Guardian reports. Karsten Haustein, of the Climate Services Center in Germany, said the US could be at risk of stronger hurricanes as a result of the Gulf Stream’s weakening. Another reason we need the Green New Deal.

Police Gangs Stalk LA

A CBS News investigation has uncovered allegations of gangs existing within the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, possibly for decades. Current deputies out of the East Los Angeles station say the existence of gangs within law enforcement has been a problem. The deputies, who do not want to be identified for fear of reprisal, claim the most prevalent are called the Banditos – comprised of mostly Latino deputies who serve predominantly African American and Latino neighborhoods.

One deputy told CBS QUOTE They operate as a gang. They commit crimes, they assault people ENDQUOTE. The deputy said the gang is based out of East LA, and that Banditos there have been promoted and spread all over the county. Members of the gang identify themselves with a tattoo. Sources said the initiation process could involve getting in a shooting, which the deputy called QUOTE a definite brownie point ENDQUOTE. Members would plant weapons on suspects to justify those shootings.

The deputy told CBS the gang targets other young Latinos. That targeting is what grieving mother Lisa Vargas has contended happened to her twenty one-year-old son Anthony Vargas, who aspired to be a chef. He was shot thirteen times by sheriff's deputies while on his way home. Vargas claimed her son's death was part of the gang's initiations. She filed a lawsuit against Los Angeles County and the deputies who shot her son. The suit alleges that the individuals who shot Anthony were members of the Banditos gang, or prospects. Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has denied the existence of gangs within his department. Newly-elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón said his department takes the allegations seriously. A federal grand jury investigation has been convened. After they break up the Banditos, they need to bust some white police gangs, too.

Biden Expands Unemployment Eligibility

The Biden administration expanded unemployment insurance eligibility yesterday to include workers who refused job offers at unsafe worksites, the Washington Post reports. The new rule makes good on Joe Biden’s pledge to reduce the pressure on people who say they have been forced to choose between staying healthy or getting a paycheck. The Department of Labor made the shift in response to an executive order from President Biden in January, broadening the eligibility of Pandemic Unemployment Assistance to include workers whose unemployment benefits were denied because they refused to return to workplaces that were not in compliance with coronavirus health and safety standards.

The change in eligibility goes into affect immediately, according to the Post. But officials cautioned that it could take at least a month for workers claims to be approved, if not longer. Eligible workers will be able to receive backdated payments for unemployment claims dating to the beginning of the pandemic, as well as the supplemental $600 a week bonus that the federal government has approved through the end of July. The change in exemptions does not appear to help people who quit work in the last year, many presumably because they felt unsafe – another category of unemployed workers who have been denied benefits.

The Post reports that the guidelines will also expand eligibility for some workers who have lost hours at work, like at restaurants, but have not been eligible for unemployment insurance due to technicalities, like not making enough in wages to qualify. For workers at unsafe workplaces to qualify, they will be required to attest, under the threat of perjury, that their workplace was not in compliance with either local, state or national standards about the coronavirus, the DOL said. The new rules don’t go far enough, but they’re an improvement.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The House of Representatives yesterday voted to pass the Equality Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the Washington Post reports. It is a top legislative priority of President Biden. In twenty-seven states, a person can be denied housing because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. It’s time for that to end.

Tax and financial records that Donald Trump fought to keep secret for nearly eighteen months have been turned over to the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is investigating fraud by Trump and his company, the New York Times reports. The records, including eight years of personal tax returns, were handed over on Monday, the same day that the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s final bid to block a subpoena for them. Fingers crossed for indictments to follow.

The US Capitol Police plans to maintain enhanced security around the Capitol through at least Biden's first official address to Congress because intelligence suggests extremists could be planning an attack, acting Chief Yogananda Pittman said yesterday, according to NBC News. She said members of the militia groups present on January 6th QUOTE want to blow up the Capitol and kill as many members as possible with a direct nexus to the State of the Union ENDQUOTE. So DC will look like a fortress for a while still.

A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation’s undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what may be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analyzed by the Associated Press show. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said the Israeli government needs to come clean about whatever it’s doing at the plant. Is that too much to ask? Apparently.

FEB 26, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

With businesses and residents struggling, states are getting impatient waiting for pandemic aid from the federal government. Some passing their own relief packages before Congress acts.

Meanwhile, McDonald’s reportedly and illegally spies on workers it suspects of activism and labor union support. Inside sources say the company even created fake social media accounts to infiltrate employee networks.

And lastly, Illinois will become the first state to eliminate cash bail under a new law passed following a grassroots campaign. The law also includes police reforms such as a ban on chokeholds and increased protections for people detained by the police.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan is working its way through Congress this week. Not waiting for more federal help, states have been approving their own coronavirus aid packages, the Associated Press reports. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help residents and business owners. Maryland and California recently moved forward with help for the poor, the jobless, small businesses and those needing child care. New Mexico and Pennsylvania are funneling grants directly to cash-starved businesses. North Carolina’s governor wants additional state aid for such things as bonus pay for teachers and boosting rural internet speeds.

Other states are considering significant spending to provide more relief, according to the AP. Governors and lawmakers have said they are concerned the economy and job prospects will deteriorate even further before Congress acts on the Biden plan. A slow start to the nationwide vaccination program also has tempered expectations that inoculations will be widespread soon enough to rescue businesses that have struggled with shutdown orders.

In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, signed legislation using $145 million in reserves from a worker’s compensation fund for grants of up to $50,000 to owners of hard-hit bars, restaurants and hotels. Susan Williams, who with her sister owns a bar in Pittsburgh

and another just outside the city, told the AP she plans to apply for the grants. Her businesses remain under restrictions that include serving at twenty five percent capacity. The bars are closed part of the week to keep from losing money, and there’s nothing left over to pay tax bills that arrived this week. Williams said QUOTE They know damn well we haven’t been open. They basically choked our income, but they’re still sending our tax bills. It’s insane ENDQUOTE. Welcome to Pandemic Year Two.

McDonald's Spies On Workers

Would you like spies with that? For years, McDonald's has internally labeled activists and employees working with the Fight for $15 campaign a security threat and has spied on them, Vice News reports. The fast food giant's secretive intelligence unit has monitored its own workers’ activities with the movement, which seeks to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour, including by using social media monitoring tools. A team of intelligence analysts in the Chicago and London offices keep an eye on the activities of Fight for $15 labor organizers across the world, figure out which McDonald's workers are active in the movement, and who they are working with to organize strikes, protests, or attempt to form unions.

As Vice explains, the surveillance is particularly notable given the current political battle being fought over a $15 minimum wage, which has been proposed in Joe Biden's pandemic relief package. Specifically, McDonald's was worried about tracking workers who may be involved in activist groups advocating for higher wages, better working conditions, and the right to join unions.

Two former McDonald's corporate employees, who asked to remain anonymous, told Vice details of the intelligence program. As part of this program, since at least last year, McDonald's intelligence analysts have used a social media monitoring tool to collect and scrape data. The sources told Motherboard that the company's intelligence analysts have attempted to use the tool to reconstruct the friends lists and networks of workers involved in the labor movement using fake Facebook personas. McDonald's denies this specific aspect of the program. Matthew Finkin, a professor at the University of Illinois College of Law, said spying on workers with the purpose of learning about their labor organizing is a violation of federal labor law. No wonder they deny it!

Illinois Ends Cash Bail

Here’s an example worth following. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed off on a new law that not only institutes major police reforms, but also makes the state the first in the nation to completely abolish cash bail, according to NBC News. House Bill 3653 aims to make sweeping changes to the state’s existing policies on policing and adjudication. The legislation, which was signed Monday, comes as nationwide calls to address racial bias in the justice system have intensified, Pritzker said after signing the law.

The law came together through a grassroots mobilization of more than one hundred reform organizations, as well as the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, NBC reports. Democratic state Senator Elgie Sims Junior, who sponsored the bill, said QUOTE History will judge how we responded in this moment, which called for big, bold, transformative changes. This is not a moment for incrementalism ENDQUOTE.

Among the most notable facets of the law is the abolishment of the cash bail system, per NBC. The new law eliminates wealth-based detention and instead gives judges a more strictly defined decisionmaking process based on a real risk of present threat or willful flight. This will not go fully in effect until 2023, while other parts of the law will go into effect as early as July. The law also includes a requirement that all police officers wear body cameras by 2025, a ban on all police chokeholds, and new guidelines for decertification of police officers. Detainee rights have also been expanded to include the right to make three free phone calls within three hours of arrival at the police station and before questioning occurs, and the ability to retrieve phone numbers contained in their cellphone’s contact list prior to the phone being placed in inventory. Sounds like a good start.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A Food and Drug Administration review released yesterday of the single-shot coronavirus vaccine made by pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson found it was safe and effective and completely prevented hospitalizations and deaths in a large clinical trial, according to the Washington Post. The review sets the stage for a third coronavirus vaccine to be authorized as soon as this weekend. The more the merrier.

A former aide to Governor Andrew Cuomo published an essay yesterday accusing the governor of sexual harassment and outlining several unsettling episodes, including an unsolicited kiss in his Manhattan office, the New York Times reports. The aide, Lindsey Boylan, described several years of uncomfortable interactions with Cuomo, including an invitation to play strip poker on a government airplane. Cuomo’s press secretary calls Boylan’s claims false. Maybe Cuomo should use his own words.

A US Navy veteran who was experiencing a mental health crisis died after a police officer called out to help him knelt on his neck for several minutes, asphyxiating him, the Guardian reports. Angelo Quinto, thirty, was suffering a bout of paranoia, anxiety and depression in his family home in Antioch, California, when his sister called police on December 23rd. According to the family, the responding officer grabbed Quinto from the arms of his mother, then knelt on his neck for almost five minutes. Terrible.

The Daily Beast reports that Christopher Cantwell, dubbed the Crying Nazi after recording a tearful video about his violent role in the 2017 Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, cried in court yesterday as he was sentenced to forty-one months in prison. Cantwell, who was convicted last fall of threatening another neo-Nazi, had already spent thirteen months in jail since his arrest. Please pass the Kleenex.

FEB 25, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

First, the bad news: A new variant of the coronavirus has emerged in California, and doctors are warning that it’s both fast-spreading and deadly. The good news is, drug companies say they are ready and able to boost vaccine production.

Meanwhile, the most populous county in Texas is opening an investigation into who’s responsible for the infrastructure crisis that followed last week’s storms. And the Bidens are planning to visit Houston later this week.

And lastly, in Minneapolis, a new federal grand jury has been impaneled to hear evidence against Derek Chauvin, the cop who killed George Floyd. The city is calling in outside police and National Guard forces ahead of Chauvin’s state trial early next month.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

A coronavirus variant that emerged in mid-2020 and surged to become the dominant strain in California not only spreads more readily than its predecessors, but also evades antibodies generated by Covid-19 vaccines or prior infection, researchers told the Los Angeles Times. This California variant is associated with severe illness and death. In a study that helps explain the state’s dramatic surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths – and portends further trouble ahead – scientists at UC San Francisco said the mutations that characterize the strain mark it as a variant of concern on par with those from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil. Doctor Charles Chiu, who led the UCSF team, said QUOTE The devil is already here ENDQUOTE.

According to the Times, they call the new variant B-1-427 slash B-1-429. It will probably account for ninety percent of California’s infections by the end of next month. The new evidence that the California variant could make people sicker, and vaccines less effective, should spur more intensive efforts to drive down infections, Chiu said. He added that those should include both public health measures, such as masking and limits on public activities, and a campaign of rapid vaccinations.

About those vaccines: Drug companies told lawmakers yesterday that they project a major increase in vaccine deliveries that will result in one hundred and forty million more doses over the next five weeks, the Washington Post reports. The companies say they have solved manufacturing challenges and are in a position to overcome scarcity that has hampered the nation’s fight against the coronavirus. But achieving a surge on that scale remains daunting. Pfizer and Moderna will need to deliver twenty-eight million doses each week by March 31st, far greater than their performance so far. Come on, Big Pharma, you can do this.

Biden's Will Visit Houston

After the storm comes the search for accountability. According to the Texas Tribune, Harris County officials are launching an investigation into the events that led up to Texas’ recent electricity disaster. They will be probing decisions made by the board that operates the state’s power grid, energy providers and the Public Utility Commission. Dozens of Texans died because of last week’s winter storm, which caused damages throughout the state that experts say could cost billions. Governor Greg Abbott blasted the Electric Reliability Council of Texas for its handling of the emergency. He declared reform of the organization an emergency item for the 2021 legislative session.

Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee will request authorization to take legal action from county comissioners on Friday, the Tribune reports. He said that operators should have been prepared after 2011’s hard freeze that exposed weaknesses in Texas’ electrical grid system. Menefee said there was nothing unpredictable about this last freeze, but QUOTE the people running the grid were woefully unprepared and failed to take immediate action ENDQUOTE. State Representative Trey Martinez Fischer, Democrat of San Antonio, sent a letter to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office urging it to launch its own investigation.

Meanwhile, the Tribune reports, President Joe Biden plans visit Texas on Friday. The president and first lady Jill Biden will travel to Houston – that’s the Harris County seat. Biden has engaged from afar with state and local officials but stated a reluctance to come to Texas too soon because he didn't want his traveling entourage to pull resources from the crisis at hand. Over the weekend, Biden approved a major disaster declaration for more than one hundred Texas counties. Impacted individuals and business owners in those counties can apply for assistance by registering online at www.DisasterAssistance.gov.

New Floyd Grand Jury

Some updates on the quest for justice, thanks to the New York Times. A new federal grand jury has been empaneled in Minneapolis and the Justice Department has called new witnesses as part of its investigation of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who will go on trial in state court next month on a murder charge for the death of George Floyd. The fresh slate of witnesses subpoenaed to give testimony about Chauvin is an early sign that the federal investigation into the death of Floyd, which began last year and then languished, is being reinvigorated under the Biden administration.

It is unlikely that the Justice Department is hoping for a quick indictment of Chauvin before his state trial, which is scheduled to begin March 8, the Times reports. But if there was an acquittal or a mistrial, attention would immediately shift to the federal investigation. As Chauvin’s trial looms, Minneapolis is consumed with fears about more unrest. The National Guard has been activated, and law enforcement agencies from around the state are descending upon the Twin Cities.

Meanwhile, the Times reports, a man whose skull was fractured after he was shoved to the ground by police officers at a protest in Buffalo, New York last year has filed a lawsuit against the city and members of its police force. The man, Martin Gugino, claims in the lawsuit that he was forcibly assaulted by the police, and that officers walked by as he lay unconscious on the sidewalk, blood pouring from his fractured skull. The suit, filed on Monday in federal court, also alleges that officials tried to conceal the assault. The Buffalo Police Department said at the time that he tripped and fell during a skirmish after an 8 PM curfew. Likely story.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Steven Mnuchin, who was treasury secretary in the Trump administration, is planning to start an investment fund that is expected to raise money from sovereign wealth funds in the Persian Gulf region, the Washington Post reports. His planned investment effort, coming so soon after leaving office, raises concerns over whether government policy was influenced by Mnuchin’s future pursuits. Of course, the whole administration worked that way.

Politico reports that Al Jazeera is launching Rightly, a new digital platform aiming to serve conservative audiences. According to the Guardian, some Al Jazeera staff have privately expressed dismay at the launch of Rightly, wondering how it squared with the network’s previously stated commitments to giving voice to marginalized communities. But nobody’s more marginalized that American conservatives – just ask them!

Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon yesterday introduced a bill that would sanction Honduras President Juan Orlando Hernández, the Associated Press reports. Hernández in recent years has leaned on his support within the US government when facing domestic opposition and allegations of connections to drug traffickers. Merkley’s bill also seeks to prohibit the export of items such as tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets that Honduran security forces have deployed against protesters.

Officials in charge of security for the US Capitol on January 6th blamed poor intelligence for the deadly riot that threatened the peaceful transfer of power, NBC News reports. Asked about a January 5 threat report from the FBI that detailed specific calls online for violence at the Capitol, former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund testified that he had not seen it. The former House and Senate sergeants-at-arms also testified that they did not see the FBI memo. Whoops!

FEB 24, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn