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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Michael Bloomberg spent millions of dollars to have the Democratic candidates for president mock him on live television. But maybe there’s a strategy there.

Meanwhile, the Trump family promotes an insane conspiracy theory that says the president will put top Democrats in prison. So, a typical weekday, in that respect.

And lastly, a mass shooting and neo-Nazi terrorism puts Germany on edge. Which, naturally, puts everyone else a little on edge, too.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The Democrats running for president had another debate last night in Last Vegas. It did not go well for the late entrant, Michael Bloomberg.

Before the debate, the Wall Street Journal reported that his campaign was paying $2,500 a month to people willing to spam their contacts with praise for Bloomberg. His campaign manager warned that if more candidates don’t drop out, Bernie Sanders would be QUOTE unstoppable ENDQUOTE. The suggestion was not taken kindly. If there was one thing the other candidates agreed on, it was that the billionaire former Republican Mayor of New York City was not welcome onstage -- and could not beat Donald Trump.

Warren slammed his workplace abuse of women. Bloomberg quickly got flustered. He would not say how many women he had asked to sign non-disclosure agreements over workplace harrassment. But, he said, those who took his money in exchange for their silence did so QUOTE consensually ENDQUOTE. Warren and others pointed out that he could easily give permission for all those women – however many there are – to speak. He declined.

Taking aim at the front-runner, Bloomberg suggested Sanders was a communist. Sanders called that a cheap shot and, quoting Martin Luther King, said America already has socialism – but only for the rich. Sanders later asked Bloomberg in which tax haven he keeps his home. Joe Biden was a ghostlike presence during the debate, pleading for attention, and keeping his mouth shut at Bloomberg’s command. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar struggled for relevancy, and argued mostly with each other. After Buttigieg repeated how she could not name the president of Mexico despite serving on foreign trade committees, Klobuchar asked QUOTE Are you trying to say I'm dumb? Or are you mocking me? ENDQUOTE.

As attention focused on Bloomberg and Sanders, those two candidates made the case for why each is the one to beat Trump. Sanders’ pitch was that billionaires like Bloomberg and Trump are too powerful, that workers need a hand in government and in companies, that healthcare is a human right, and that we must end war to save the planet from climate change. Bloomberg’s pitch was that he is an effective manager who will give away his money, and that some women he harrassed QUOTE didn’t like a joke I made ENDQUOTE. Does that mean we can file a class action over this joke of a campaign?

President Trump had another surprise for the US intelligence community. Their new overseer is a total Trump lackey with no relevant experience, even by the standards of an administration. The White House announced Richard Grenell as the new Director of National Intelligence. Who is Rick Grenell? Exactly!

Press reports cast him as another loud-mouthed Trump loyalist. Perhaps his principal qualification is that he is one of only nine people in the world with gold member status in the so-called Trump Card loyalty program. That’s not a joke, that’s from the Washington Post. Because Grenell previously obtained Senate confirmation when Trump appointed him to be Ambassador to Germany, his appointment as D.N.I. dodged Congressional scrutiny.

Before his rally yesterday in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump shared a video on Twitter that featured a supporter wearing a Q-Anon shirt. The Q-Anon guy was shown helping a purported World War Two veteran find his seat at the rally. Warming up the crowd, Don Junior also drew attention to the video.

Bless you if you don’t know Q-Anon. It is an elaborate whackjob online conspiracy theory. Adherents believe a mysterious government insider is feeding them cryptic information about future events. Q is Nostradamus for racist morons, but extra scary and weird. Q says Trump will put a bunch of top Democrats in prison. And this theory has the Trump seal of approval. In another sign of the bottomless derrangement of the Republican Party, former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka had another Fox News personality on his radio show, who laid out the stakes for Republicans as follows: QUOTE It’s Trump, or the end of the world. ENDQUOTE. Correction: If it’s Trump, then it’s the end of the world.

All is not well in Germany. At least eight people were killed yesterday in shootings at shisha bars in Hanau, a small city near Frankfurt. Police had taken at least one suspect in custody. No motive was given. Terrorism experts suggested organized crime was a possibility. However, the country also been grappling with a surge of neo-Nazi activity. An investigation published yesterday revealed disturbing new details in a recent political assassination in Germany. The new report revealed that the killer of a center-right politician, Walter Lubcke, had a long history in the neo-Nazi underground. The killer was dormant for many years until being reactivated by a new nationalist party known as A.F.D. Lubcke, the politician murdered by the A.F.D. supporter, welcomed refugees to Europe. That made him a target.

Last week, German federal police arrested tweleve armed neo-Nazis for planning attacks modeled on the mosque massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand. At least one person arrested was a police officer. The group’s plan was reportedly to kick off a civil war.

In separate but related news, A.F.D. was criticized for giving away copies of a racist coloring book at a public event. The book depicted black people with bones in their hair harrassing white women at a swimming pool, as well as Muslim men waving assault rifles and other obscene stereotypes. A.F.D. said giving away the book to children was QUOTE an organizational mistake ENDQUOTE. Not the first mistake of its kind by German fascists.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A lawyer for Julian Assange told a British court today that Donald Trump had offered the Wikileaks journalist a presidential pardon – on one condition. Trump wanted Assange to say that Russia had not hacked the Democrats before the 2016 election. The offer allegedly came through former Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Assange is fighting extradition to the US. Meanwhile, psychologists told a judge that the continued imprisonment of military whistleblower Chelsea Manning was QUOTE pointless ENDQUOTE.

Online therapy apps are leaking personal mental health data to Facebook and other sketchy companies. An investigation by Jezebel found that many popular apps are selling out their users more than they know. Advertisers may be using the data, for example, to target teenagers who are feeling insecure, worthless, overwhelmed, or anxious. If only we had an app to explain why this is still legal.

The famously sweaty Mark Zuckerberg allegedl blow-dies his armpits for half an hour before appearing in public. The revelation comes in a new book by a veteran tech reporter. A

Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider that if the allegation is true, it was her department’s idea, and that many people seem to sweat through grey cotton shirts. She did not explain why the billionaire could not buy another shirt. Zuck has reason to sweat. Last week, George Soros said he should resign from Facebook. The financier and Democratic donor said Zuckerberg was conspiring with Donald Trump to secure his reelection. Eff that.

That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report as we break down last night’s debate -- and Bloomberg’s humiliation -- in great detail.

#AMQuickie: Feb 20, 2020

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:

Trump rediscovered the presidential pardon on Tuesday, and promptly used it to lift up some real scumbags from the white collar crime rolls of the last few decades. While it’s not a shock coming from him, it could be a troubling sign of things to come if he decides to apply the same standard to himself.

Meanwhile, Pete Buttigieg gets caught in another awkward situation with a black community, overstating his ties with several black-owned businesses in South Carolina who said that the candidate had simply stopped by.

And lastly, the war in Syria has created a fresh wave of refugees, around 900,000 of who have fled their homes since December as the Syrian government and its Russian allies have waged indiscriminate war on civilian populations in the rebel-held province of Idlib.

Want a get out of jail free card? Turns out, all you have to do is be a white collar criminal from the past few decades.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump pardoned several prominent white collar criminals including the infamous junk bond scammer Michael Milken, former NYC police commissioner Bernard Kerik, over half a dozen others. He also commuted former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s sentence, for good measure.

If you’re curious, here’s a lightning fast who’s who of all the lucky crooks.

Mike Milken, a financier who got rich off selling junk bonds -- pardoned.

Former NYC Police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who also served as the Interior minister for Iraq during the Bush Junior years but later went to jail for tax fraud -- pardoned.

NFL owner Edward J. DeBartolo Jr, who was accused of sexual assault in the 90s and then got wrapped up in a corruption case involving a former governor of Louisiana later in the decade -- pardoned.

David Safavian, a federal procurement official under Bush Junior, who lied about his ties to lobbyists and obstructed a federal investigation -- pardoned.

And for good measure, the president issued clemency to six other people, as well as commuting the sentence for Rod Blagojevich, the former Democratic governor of Illinois, who was impeached and convicted on corruption charges for soliciting bribes for various political favors.

All in all, a real stunning group of fellas!

The New York Times notes that it’s possible Trump was swayed by his favorite TV network when making these decisions, as well as a list of influential Republican backers.

Most of the listed parties have appeared on Fox or tossed their cases around the right wing media machine, and it certainly paid off. Blagojevich was even a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice about a decade ago!

It also sets a pretty dangerous precedent. If Donald starts to get trigger happy with the pardons, all bets are off.

Trump has mentioned giving Roger Stone a pass for his crimes already. If the wealthy backers who encouraged him to dish out Tuesday’s pardons have their way, it’s pretty much a free pass to do crimes for as long as Trump’s in power.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and you might have some job opportunities on Pete Buttigieg’s campaign staff, which has now made multiple gaffes with the black community over the support of celebrities and local leaders alike.

On Tuesday evening, ABC news reported on a pattern of the Buttigieg campaign mis-identifying people of color as quote “supporters,” when they were not, in fact, supporters. Curious!

The first instance of this came back in November, when the Buttigieg campaign convinced hundreds of black leaders to sign off on its key plan for investing in and empowering black Americans. But when the campaign promoted the plan, it made it sound like those leaders were endorsing the candidate, not the plan itself.

And the pattern continues: earlier this week, the Buttigieg campaign touted support from comedian Keegan-Michael Key, and then immediately had to walk it back when Key said he only appeared with Buttigieg to support early voting and voter registration, not make an endorsement.

In possibly the most comical incident, ABC news reported that the Buttigieg campaign was touting that it had quote “proudly partnered” with several local businesses in South Carolina. But when ABC called one of those businesses, Diane’s Kitchen, the owner, Diane Cole, said she quote “didn’t say I had a partnership.” endquote. ABC reports that after taking that quote back to Buttigieg’s team, the campaign frantically emailed Cole to try to get her in line with their language, misspelling her name in one of the emails. Cole wasn’t buying it, saying quote:

"It sounds like you're saying that I am your business partner. I'm only going to accept that you all stopped in while you were campaigning in South Carolina and I welcomed you all."

The campaign insists that these events are all misunderstandings, but then again, this is coming from the people who declared victory in Iowa with precisely zero results counted and again made it sound like they’d won New Hampshire when, in fact, they did not.

Anyway, if stopping somewhere for lunch makes you partners, then I’m about to pursue an exciting new business relationship with a halal cart later today.

**The dire humanitarian situation in Syria is once again escalating at a dramatic pace. **

Since December, close to 900,000 people have fled their homes in the country, which has been ripped apart by war for the better part of a decade.

Many of the new refugees are fleeing from Idlib province, one of the last sections of the country not under control of Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad. In recent weeks, Syrian government forces and their Russian allies have been pounding rebel fighters and civilians alike indiscriminately in the province, attempting to finally win the country’s bloody civil war.

Civilians fleeing this violence have mostly run north, toward the Turkish border, dramatically increasing the refugee crisis there. The Turkish border has been closed since 2015, although the country hosts more than three million Syrians who fled there early in the war.

Now, hundreds of thousands are huddled in rapidly-expanding camps at the border, many of them sleeping in the open because they lack adequate shelter. Meanwhile, the front line continues to push more civilians toward the Turkish border as Russian and Syrian government bombardment creeps in.

And the various heads of state involved aren’t making things any easier. The Turkish government has taken a macho posture against Syrian and Russian advancement, ratcheting up tensions in the region. Trump has backed Turkish president Erdogan, calling him a quote “tough guy.”

And while this all plays out, civilians continue to suffer, according to the Doctors Without Borders mission in Syria, whose leader told Bloomberg that attacks by Syrian government forces have now spread to areas civilians once thought were safe.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The startup tech industry has one of its first major unions! Employees at Kickstarter voted 46-37 in an NLRB election on Tuesday, solidifying their union after 18 months of negotiations with management.

A new study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Energy warns that extreme weather caused by climate change could spark a devastating financial recession, as markets have not sufficiently accounted for the risk that our ever-heating world faces.

Bernie Sanders jumped out to a double-digit lead in a national primary poll released by NBC News on Tuesday, solidifying his status as the Democratic frontrunner.

Indigenous activists in Canada continue to battle to stop a pipeline running over their traditional territory, sparking protests across the country that closed roadways, shut down railroads, and blockaded ports.

That’s all for the AM Quickie this morning. Catch the full majority report later this afternoon, wherever you find your podcasts.

#AMQuickie: Feb 19, 2020

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:

Former Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg set his sights on Bernie Sanders’ extremely online fans, using recent Twitter fights as the basis for a new line of attacks on the Democratic frontrunner.

Meanwhile, John Bolton may have more of a story to tell. In what pretty much amounts to PR for his suppressed book, Bolton warned on Monday that he had far more dirt on the inner workings of the Trump administration.

And lastly, Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion to address climate change. That’s very nice of him and all, but wouldn’t it be great if he also divested his global empire from the fossil fuel industry?

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

They say that Twitter isn’t real life, but sometimes that just isn’t true.

Unfortunately for pretty much everyone involved, Bernie Sander’s major rivals are doing their level best to drag trivial fights from the internet into the everyday discourse of the campaign trail.

On Monday, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a direct shot at the Sanders campaign, saying that the Democratic frontrunner must respond to the actions of a small minority of his supporters online.

Let’s be clear here: Bloomberg is literally a Republican pretending to be a Democrat in order to buy the Presidency, and as such has spent most of the past week getting brutally dunked on by pretty much every leftist with access to Google.

These “attacks,” if we can call them that, are not particularly hard to do: finding a clip of Bloomberg saying something openly racist or overtly fascist is as easy as pulling up YouTube dot com and typing in his name.

But because the internet is what it is, some self-described Sanders supporters have been, well, less than polite in their critiques.

Now, Bloomberg is milking that for all it’s worth, releasing an ad on Monday that is literally just screenshots of people being mean to him on Twitter, including Sanders’ press secretary calling him a quote “racist authoritarian.”

It’s a pity Bloomberg has to put up with this kind of stuff, for the small crime of -- oh yeah, being a racist authoritarian for his entire career.

Sanders, for his part, has released several statements dissuading supporters of any campaign from bullying or harassment. Anyone who’s been on the internet more than five minutes could tell you that really, there’s not much more he could do there.

Could this be the dumbest story of the campaign cycle forced into relevancy by fragile egos and the credulous press? Perhaps, but this morning brings a brand new day of stupidity, so we’ll just have to see.

John Bolton is back in the news, and guess what? His book still hasn’t come out yet. But during a speaking engagement on Monday, he mentioned that when it does, it may have a whole lot more juicy details. Is all of this a scam to sell books? Most likely!

The Bolton book, if it ever comes to be, will likely contain many of the items that Bolton could have testified about in front of the Senate Impeachment trial, if he had been called as a witness.

Republicans blocked that, of course, and now Bolton claims that the White House may try to suppress his book as well. The drama builds! It’s sure to be a bestseller now!

The frustrating thing about all of this grandstanding is that Bolton could have spilled the beans on Trump whenever he wanted. He doesn’t have to wait for his book to come out. He didn’t even have to wait for a subpoena. If he had actionable information that could have affected impeachment, all he had to do was call a press conference and dish.

But instead, we’ve got a big book launch to deal with, and Bolton saying stuff like the Ukraine-Impeachment secrets are quote “like the sprinkles on the ice cream sundae in terms of what’s in the book.”

Look, it’s very likely that Bolton has some pretty damaging first-hand information on Trump’s dealings with Ukraine and the general operations of his catastrophic administration. But will progressives get much out of it if it’s only released in the fashion that makes John Bolton the most money? Probably not!

Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, pledged a whopping $10 billion dollars in grants to fight climate change. Sorry, did we say whopping? Considering Bezos has about 120 other billions, he could probably be doing more.

The money will be given out to scientists, activists and NGOs through a new program called the Bezos Earth fund. Bezos’s announcement was timed, coincidentally, we’re sure, to the release of a new Frontline documentary investigation of his massive empire.

It’s not the first time Bezos has capitulated to climate activists to reel in some good PR. In September of last year, he signed a new climate pledge one day before a large group of Amazon employees was due to walk out of work over their boss’s inaction on climate change.

The September pledge committed Amazon to going carbon neutral by 2040. But then, as now, Bezos’s big conservation efforts fall a little flat, when you consider all of the other entanglements his empire has with the oil and natural gas industry.

The same employees who threatened to walk out in September are calling him on this B.S. Amazon Employees for Climate Justice said it appreciated the sentiment, but followed up with a zinger, saying quote “One hand cannot give what the other is taking away… When is Amazon going to stop helping oil and gas companies ravage Earth with more oil and gas wells?” endquote.

Amazon provides cloud computing services to BP, Shell, and dozens of other major oil and gas companies. Bezos might want to take a look at that!

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A new proposed law in Washington state would take the drastic step of banning all bottled water production in the state, in response to an uptick in corporate interest in new bottling facilities in the state.

Lawmakers in Virginia shot down a proposed ban on military-style rifles, one of the most controversial gun violence prevention bills in a state that has become a flashpoint for the second amendment debate in recent weeks.

Disastrous flooding continues in Mississippi and Tennessee, as public officials warn more rain may be on the way. River levels in some areas are already the highest in more than 30 years, Al Jazeera reported Monday.

In a last, absurd Bloomberg headline: the candidate’s own campaign staffers leaked an advance copy of his public education plan to a quote “rival campaign” on Monday night, which then subsequently leaked it to the Intercept.

Bloomberg’s plan, which will be released in full on Tuesday morning, unsurprisingly falls well short of the public education plans proposed by his progressive rivals.

That’s all for the AM Quickie today! Make sure to tune in to the full Majority Report this afternoon.

#AMQuickie: Feb 18, 2020

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:

More than a thousand former Department of Justice officials asked Attorney General William Barr to resign this weekend, amidst public worry that the a-political nature of the justice department was under threat. Gee, what could give people that idea? Oh that’s right -- it was Barr’s personal intervention to shave a few years off Roger Stone’s recommended sentence. Real subtle.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus continues to spread, as public health officials warn it may have reached a quote “turning point,” after potentially infected passengers disembarked a cruise ship en mass and headed for airports. Not great!

And lastly, the Trump administration’s proposed new plans for Medicaid could severely harm rural hospitals, as a push for so-called financial transparency will also result in cuts to the federal fund-matching for some of the most impoverished rural hospitals in the country. For all the love Trump claims to have for rural America, he sure has a funny way of showing it.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Over one thousand one hundred former Department of Justice officials came to a shocking revelation this weekend: Attorney General William Barr may not be quite on the level.

In an open letter, hundreds of DOJ Alumni called out Barr’s close ties to Donald Trump and his decision, in particular, to lower the sentencing recommendation for the president’s lackey Roger Stone.

Federal prosecutors recommended that Stone be found guilty of bstructing congress and witness tampering and sentenced to seven to nine years in prison. Trump, of course, did not agree, tweeting angrily through the whole thing and prompting Barr to swoop in and announce that he would reduce the sentencing recommendation.

Barr later tried to claim that Trump’s tweets were making it harder to do his job, which some saw as a sign of resistance, despite the fact that his actual actions have been basically whatever the president wants him to do at any given moment.

After Barr’s interference in the case, all four of the DOJ career prosecutors trying Stone immediately quit. This appears to have been the last straw for many former agency officials.

The DOJ, of course, is supposed to be an impartial, apolitical entity that carries out the law. But Trump and Barr have quote “openly and repeatedly flouted this fundamental principle,” endquote, according to the former officials, who called Barr’s conduct “outrageous.”

And it appears current DOJ officials are reaching the same conclusions. Supervisors in many of the DOJ’s satellite locations in major cities are privately reassuring their staff, and others wonder just how far Barr will go to protect the integrity of the greater organization. Our guess: not very far!

**The coronavirus is only getting worse. **

But before we go any further, some non-fear-mongering facts: estimates put the virus’s fatality rate at around 3 percent, much less than SARS. So while it’s contagious and can be deadly, it’s not exactly killing everything it touches.

That said: it sure is getting hard to contain! On Thursday last week, the cruise ship Westerdam made port in Cambodia with the assurance that it was completely disease free.

The passengers disembarked and went along their way… until one of them, an American woman, was stopped at an airport and tested positive for the disease.

One infectious disease expert told the New York Times that quote “this could be a turning point” endquote in containing the disease, as the cruise ship’s potentially infected passengers have now spread out all over the world.

Previously, local and global public health officials had been doing their best to keep the disease mostly contained in China, quarantining and dealing with sporadic, isolated cases as they popped up in other countries. Now, that part is going to be a whole lot harder.

The Westerdam had more than 600 Americans on board, including the passenger who eventually tested positive for the disease. Officials recommend finding and quarantining every passenger who left the ship, wherever they area, which sounds like a pretty tall order.

When you consider that the disease is often difficult to detect in early stages of infection, it all adds up to a giant mess.

**Another day, another draconian cut to the programs that support some of our country’s most vulnerable people. Today, Medicaid’s on the chopping block for the Trump administration. **

According to NBC News, Trump’s government is in the final stages of proposing a change to Medicaid that could result in massive cuts to overall spending, which would disproportionately affect states who lean on the program the most to cover rural communities.

The justification for the change is quote “financial transparency.” Essentially, the change makes hospitals and states share more data about what money they’re getting through Medicaid. But in the fine print, it also redefine what qualifies as public funds.

Medicaid usually helps state, county or city jurisdictions by matching money raised for healthcare through local taxes with federal funding. But under the new rules, critics of the plan say the government could use vague standards to reduce federal payouts to at-risk hospitals.

The effects of this would be felt -- surprise! -- in rural communities where hospitals and care centers are already on the edge of going under. The American Hospitals Association said as much to the Trump administration, which -- another surprise! -- isn’t budging.

The damage after all this? An estimated 39 to 47 billion dollar reduction in Medicaid funding nationwide. But hey, who says a government has to help people anyway?

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Joe Biden called for Bernie Sanders to reign in his online supporters, which is particularly funny because like a week ago Biden himself was encouraging his own supporters to get more involved online on his behalf.

The New York Times published a massive investigation into former NYC mayor and current Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg’s bribes, for lack of a better word, toward liberal organizations like Emily’s List and the Center for American Progress, which took his money despite his terrible politics.

The Trump Administration is sending specially-trained Border-patrol SWAT teams to intimidate residents of sanctuary cities like New York, LA, Chicago and others, edging the country ever closer to the fascist dystopia it now promises to become.

And finally, after an utterly surreal day online, it turns out that Pete Buttigieg’s number one Nigerian twitter fan is a real person, and not a sock-puppet profile created by Buttigieg’s communications advisor Lis Smith. The strange account, which at first glance appeared to be Smith adopting a bizarre alter-ego of a wine-loving Nigerian man, belongs to a real-life Nigerian man. What’re the odds.

#AMQuickie: Feb 17, 2020

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:

Nevada Democrats want to use a free app from Google to tally results in the caucuses this month. And a new national poll sizes up the presidential field.

Meanwhile, The attorney general went on television to tell the president to fall in line and stop Tweeting about Justice Department cases. So Donald Trump started Tweeting about football.

And lastly, scientists are freaked out by record warm temperatures in Antarctica. Whereas in Africa, climate change has brought about a plague of locusts.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Bernie Sanders expanded his national polling lead among Democratic primary voters. A new Morning Consult survey carried out after the New Hampshire primary and published yesterday put Sanders ten percentage points ahead of his nearest rival, Joe Biden. The pollsters found Sanders increased his lead by four points, to twenty-nine percent – a bigger boost than any other candidate got after New Hampshire. Biden’s support fell. Michael Bloomberg polled just behind Biden with eighteen percent support. Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Amy Klobuchar came in last with eleven, ten and three percent respectively. Klobuchar had near-zero support among black voters. Biden appeared on The View and lost his train of thought. Buttigieg made a statement supporting the health insurance industry. Warren unveiled a plan to create a task force to support Asian-Americans. Michael Bloomberg was again asked to explain past racist comments, and audio resurfaced of the billionaire opposing the very concept of the minimum wage.

Sanders announced another rally in Tacoma, Washington, to take place Monday. He also addressed a controversy around the Culinary workers union in Nevada, the next state to vote. Union leaders had denounced Sanders supporters over online attacks. Yesterday Sanders said some nasty comments might not have come from his actual supporters. He told PBS Newshour, QUOTE Anybody making personal attacks against anybody else in my name is not part of my movement. We don't want them ENDQUOTE.

After the fiaso over the results in Iowa, there were calls for other states to use paper ballots. Nevada Democrats yesterday said they would not use a special app to tally and report caucus

results, as planned. Instead, they would rely on iPads and the Google Forms website.

Donald Trump continued what Democrats called his retribution tour yesterday. The Associated Press said Trump’s interference in the criminal justice system showed his QUOTE determination to assert an iron grip on government ENDQUOTE.

Both Trump and his media surrogates, including Tucker Carlson and Michael Cernovich, attacked a juror in the case of Trump’s adviser Roger Stone case. All four federal prosecutors in that case just resigned over interference by Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr. Yesterday forty federal prosecutors signed a protesting that interference. But on Fox News, Greg Gutfield said Trump absolutely should interfere in justice whenever it suits him. GOP TV is literally arguing that the president can QUOTE do whatever he wants ENDQUOTE.

Barr appeared on ABC News to tell the president that his loud mouth was making it harder to cover up the Republican’s organized criminal conspiracy. Barr said QUOTE I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases ENDQUOTE. He said Trump’s statements QUOTE make it impossible for me to do my job ENDQUOTE, and insisted he would not take orders from the president.

Trump sure does love to talk, though. The president told Geraldo Rivera that, contrary to his past statements, he did in fact send his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to Ukraine in order to dig up dirt on Joe Biden. In short, Trump admitted to the charges he was acquited of during his impeachment trial. The good news is, Trump’s admission may also implicate Barr, who helped tip the scales for Trump’s impeachment defense.

Temperatures in Antarctica reached a record high: more than sixty-eight degrees Farenheit, or nearly twenty-one degrees Celsius. Shorts weather! Brazilian scientists took the measurement earlier this week at Seymour Island, on the northern tip of Antarctic peninsula, just south of Argentina. Last week, scientists also recorded the highest-ever temperature on the Antarctic continent proper. Climatologists told the Guardian that the balmy temperatures were QUOTE incredible and abnormal ENDQUOTE.

The melting polar ice threatens hundreds of millions of humans living on coastlines. Rising ocean temperatures are changing global weather patterns, which threatens food supplies for billions more people. Climate change was also blamed for a literal plague of locuts this week.

Swarms of an estimated two hundred billion insects are destroying crops in Southwest Asia and Eastern Africa. And all of these horrors result from the unchecked burning of fossil fuels. SAM: And now for some Quicker Quickies.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Justice Department announced a racketeering case against the Chinese electronics giant Huawei (HOO-AH-WAY). US, British, and German intelligence agencies have expressed concern over Huawei’s espionage and influence over 5G technology. American agencies wish that only they have back-door access to most internet hardware. A sixteen-count indictment filed in federal court in Brooklyn charged Huawei and affiliates with conspiracy to steal trade secrets from American companies, and cited dealings with Iran and North Korea, two countries facing US sanctions. It looks like Barr decided to help Trump with his trade war to extract more bribes for Trump’s family from the Chinese government.

Trump’s planned visit to India later this month sparked protests in both countries. Four US Senators appealed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over the ongoing crackdown and suspension of democracy in Kashmir by Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. The Senators’ letter urged an end to curfews, communications blackouts, and extrajudicial detentions in the contested Himalayan border state. Meanwhile, in Modi’s home state of Gujarat (GOO-JAH- ROT), at least two thousand five hundred slum residents were set to be evicted or otherwise disrupted by preparations for Trump’s visit. And thousands of people signed a letter protesting the US consul in Mumbai’s recent visit to the headquarters of the RSS, a Hindu nationalist organization inspired by the German Nazi party, which counts Modi as a member.

An investigation in The Nation magazine put names and numbers on an epidemic of hunger strikes in immigration lockups around the country. More than sixteen hundred people have starved themselves in protest of their treatment over the past fifteen years. One hunger striker featured in the report fled fascist pogroms led by the BJP party in India, which is led by Trump’s ally Modi. The refugee man’s asylum application was denied after he entered the US in December 2018, and he has been in immigration detention ever since. For the past hundred days the man has been on a hunger strike. He has lost fifty pounds. ICE responded to the report with lies about its practices. It is a rogue agency that must be abolished.

#AMQuickie: Feb 14, 2020

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 Democratic presidential candidates are bragging about their labor union support. And nobody is showing off their Wall Street cash -- except Michael Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, World health officials released more information about a deadly new contagious disease. Governments all over are beginning to curtail travel.

And lastly, a case of racist policing that shocked even some jaded activists. In Oregon, a police gang squad set up a black man who complained about Confederate flags at work.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

More and more news outlets are calling Bernie Sanders the front-runner in the Democratic Party presidential primaries, after he won the popular vote in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Yesterday, all the other campaigns began to unveil their strategies to overcome Sanders’ early lead.

The next vote is a caucus that takes place in Nevada on the twenty-second of February. The South Carolina primary follows one week later. And then on March three, Super Tuesday, fourteen states will hold primaries. Sanders announced he would visit Denver this Sunday for a rally. Early voting is underway in Colorado.

Yesterday, Sanders faced a challenge over the electoral prize of organized labor endorsements. In Nevada, the leadership of a large and influential Culinary union local made a statement criticizing Sanders supporters. Meanwhile, the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Electrical workers, with more than a quarter-million members nationwide, endorsed Joe Biden. Biden fell farther than anyone in early voting states. Many union locals are expected to endorse Sanders regardless of national leadership.

After her fourth-place finish in New Hampshire, Warren launched a new fundraising appeal. Also, her campaign reportedly canceled more than half a million dollars in advertising in South Carolina. Those ads were set to begin this week.

Michael Bloomberg continued to deploy his wealth to compensate for his long record of racist comments. Honestly, it was hard to keep track of how many things the billionaire businessman apologized to minorities for – just yesterday. A protester stormed the stage of Bloomberg’s rally in Tennessee and shouted, QUOTE this is not democracy, this is plutocracy ENDQUOTE.

Amy Klobuchar benefited from a wave of television coverage that suggested third place is the new first place, and announced a large ad buy in Nevada. And Pete Buttigieg touted an endorsement from an African-American lawmaker in South Carolina.

The World Health Organization announced a name for the disease caused by the deadly new coronavirus originating in Wuhan, China: it’s called COVID-19.

Concern over the spread of the flu-like virus grew as the Chinese government escalated efforts to contain the outbreak, which include expansive quarantines. Other governments in Europe and the Americas took new measures that signaled their growing concern. Diagnoses and fatality numbers continued to rise rapidly in China’s Hubei province, and the top Communist Party official there resigned. The Dalai Lama canceled all of his travel engagements. The government of Singapore reported struggling with public mistrust and rumors spreading online. A large global tech conference in Spain was canceled. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control said some of its test kits for the virus do not work.

A top university public health official from Hong Kong told the press that if COVID-19 spreads unchecked by governments, the disease could reach sixty percent of the human population. Given the reported low-single digit fatality rate of the dease, that is a frightening prospect – especially in countries where the government is barely functioning.

The story is shocking even by the standards of racist police abuses in America. Police in a suburban jurisdiction coordinated with a major metropolitan gang squad to stalk and set up for charges a black man who’d blown the whistle about racism on his job.

The case involved the leadershp of the West Linn, Oregon police, as well as officers from the Portland Police Bureau gang squad. As a favor to a fishing buddy, the former West Linn police chief, Terry Timeus, and his personal posse set up a man for arrest who had no connection their overwhelmingly white suburban jurisidction.

Police secretly recorded their victim at work, coordinated with their counterparts in the city to arrest him without cause, and seized his cash and property without a warrant. Text messages between the officers confirmed their racist intent. But there was more to it.

The victim, forty-eight-year-old Michael Fesser, was also a whistleblower. Fesser had angered his former boss at a Portland towing company by raising concerns about racist harrassment,

such as Confederate flags hanging around the workplace. The towing company owner contacted his friend, the suburban police chief -- and soon enough Fesser was being slandered as a gang member, which provided a pretext for investigation.

The abuses of power took place in 2017 and went to court the following year. They only came to light this week when The Oregonian newspaper published an investigation, based on a six- hundred thousand dollar settlement paid out by the city. Local news, folks! We need it.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Police in Northern Ireland announced charges against four people including a 52-year- old man in the killing last April of a friend of the show, Lyra (LEE-RA) McKee. Lyra was a lively and determined twenty-nine-year-old investigator, writer, and editor who died because she was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time in Derry. A Catholic and out lesbian, she was engaged to be married. Lyra was covering a protest when members of a small I.R.A. splinter group took some potshots at riot police. The killing was denounced by politicians across the United Kingdom and Ireland. Also this week, the pro-unification party Sinn Fein won a plurality of votes in Irish parliamentary elections after running on a left-wing platform.

Donald Trump went off yesterday on the four federal prosecutors who resigned over interference into the sentencing of Trump’s adviser, Roger Stone. Trump called the prosecutors QUOTE corrupt people ENDQUOTE who owed Stone an apology for treating him QUOTE very badly ENDQUOTE. Trump also congratulated Attorney General Bill Barr for intervening on Stone’s behalf to secure a lighter sentence, and effectively taking over as Trump’s personal lawyer. On Twitter, Trump suggested he might pardon Stone as well as the admitted perjurer and former top military intelligence chief Michael Flynn.

Amazon chairman and leading global oligarch Jeff Bezos bought a new house. It was the most expensive property in Los Angeles, at one hundred and sixty-five million dollars. And it cost Bezos one eighth of one percent of his total wealth. It’s not even the first residence Bezos has procured this year. Amazon paid zero dollars in federal income taxes in the year before last. This year, after earning more than thirteen billion dollars in profit, Amazon expects to pay -- well, about what Bezos spent on his new L.A. mansion.

#AMQuickie: Feb 13, 2020

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:

Bernie Sanders wins the New Hampshire primary. Cable news declares him the Democratic front-runner to beat President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Bill Barr gives himself a promotion. He is now Trump’s daddy.

And lastly, human rights advocates are shocked as Trump deports Vietnam War refugees. And so the Republican Party’s racist purges continue.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Bernie Sanders is two for two. Even though the cops shut down his big rally with The Strokes, Sanders won the New Hampshire Democratic Party primary last night. Voter turnout reportedly approached or exceeded 2008 levels. At last count, with more than ninety percent of precincts reporting, Sanders held a narrow lead over Pete Buttigieg -- twenty-six to twenty- four percentage points -- in the Live Free or Die state.

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow interrupted Buttigieg’s election night speech to announce that the network was calling the race for Sanders. In his victory speech, Sanders pledged to carry on the winning streak through Nevada and South Carolina and on to defeat Trump. CNN’s Jake Tapper declared Sanders the front-runner.

Both Buttigieg and the third-place finisher, Amy Klobuchar, hit similar notes. Both placed themselves between revolution and the status quo. Klobuchar called herself the candidate for QUOTE the people in the middle. ENDQUOTE

Elizabeth Warren vowed to stay in the race despite her fourth-place finish -- ten percentage points below Klobuchar. Warren thanked her volunteers, her husband, and her dog Bailey. Fifth-place finisher Joe Biden fled New Hampshire early to give an incoherent speech in South Carolina, where he hopes to salvage his campaign. Michael Bloomberg lied about his record in response to the surfacing of more videos in which he promotes racist policing. Andew Yang dropped out of the campaign, as did Michael Bennet, although it’s not clear how many people actually remembered he was still running. Tom Steyer and Tulsi Gabbard, with results in the low single digits, pledged to stay in the race. Why? You’d have to ask them.

Attorney General Bill Barr gave himself a promotion yesterday: to Emperor. Or, at least, to janitor-in-chief. NBC News reported that Barr put himself in charge of the president’s presonal legal matters. This puts the experienced and well-connected A.G. in a position of great influence over Trump.

The attorney general was critical in the offical cover-up of the Iran-Contra scandal in the ’80s. Now his power is on par with the notorious J. Edgar Hoover. Barr showed his power over Congress last week by helping to get Trump acquited in his impeachment trial. Now Barr has asserted power over Trump’s fate. The president remains under civil and criminal investigation along with many associates, including former adviser Roger Stone.

Yesterday four federal prosecutors who had been working to put Stone in prison abruptly quit their jobs. All four prosecutors had wanted to put Stone in prison for up to nine years. Reports made clear Barr intervened to secure a lighter sentence for the Republican dirty trickster.

In their last – and very bizarre -- filing in the Stone case, the departing prosecutors said their previous sentencing request was excessive. Incredibly, the prosecution punted on Stone’s punishment, and left the question to the judge. Asked about the case, Trump said he had an absolute right to interfere in the course of justice.

Later, Trump interfered once more by attacking the judge in the case on Twitter. The president complained that his associates had been treated worse than the mobster Al Capone.

Trump also asserted his power to interfere in what are typically independent military affairs. Speaking from the White House, the president demanded the punishment of an impeachment witness, US Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman. Military experts described the move as a dictatorial abuse of power.

Human rights groups denounced the Trump administration for deporting thousands of refugees from Southeast Asia. Many have lived in the US for decades.

Trump’s latest ethnic cleansing campaign targets people from Laos and an ethnic group called the Hmong (MUNG). Many Hmong assisted the US military during the Vietnam War and were re-settled with their families to spare them from retribution by the communists, who won that war.

One of the four thousand five hundred Asian-Americans targeted for deportation said, QUOTE The reason we left the country is we’re considered the enemy. ENDQUOTE. Other victims of the new Trump policy said they expected to be persecuted, imprisoned or killed and will

QUOTE not know how to survive ENDQUOTE upon returning to Laos, a sparsely developed tropical country still littered with American bombs and landmines.

There are nearly fifty thousand Hmong people in Wisconsin, a swing state, and some xi times that many around the country. Most are US citizens. Most could still lose a family member over this.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

For decades, the Central Intelligence Agency secretly controlled a Swiss corporation that sold spy gear to more than one hundred and twenty countries. This was revealed in a blockbuster Washington Post report on Tuesday. The CIA cooperated with former West German intelligence in the cryptographic ruse, which allowed back-door access to intelligence secrets around the world – with the notable exception of Russia and China.

According to the Post, the Germans were aghast at how eagerly American spies targeted allies. Just think, all those secrets and more now belong to Donald Trump and Bill Barr.

A widely reported threat attributed to anti-fascists was an utter fabrication, the Federal Bureau of Investigation revealed in new court papers.

The bogus threat in 2017 supposedly targeted a group of pro-Confederate Civil War reenactors in Virginia. But the FBI determined that threatening messges and a pipe bomb cited in the case had in fact been sent by a member of the group, in order to frame Antifa. The original false story appeared in the National Review, among other places. The correction appeared on the website Quartz.

The former first daughter of Angola had her bank accounts frozen in Portugal after allegedly stealing more than two billion dollars from taxpayers.

Angola is a former Portugese colony in Southern Africa, and its former ruler appointed his daughter, Isabel dos Santos, to run the state oil company.

Angolan and Portugese authorities are cooperating on the corruption case. Dos Santos has been seen frequently in the company of celebrities such as the comedian Chris Tucker. The charges she faces are, of course, no laughing matter.

#AMQuickie: February 12th, 2020

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

It’s primary day in New Hampshire, where the Democratic candidates go head to head in the first real election of the primary cycle. Frontrunners Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg will both be looking to put the absolute chaos of the Iowa caucuses behind them, and everyone else is fighting to make up ground.

Meanwhile, Trump also sweeps into New Hampshire for a last-minute rally intended to quote “shake up the Dems a little bit” unquote, making sure that he stakes his claim to a state his team thinks is winnable in the general election.

And lastly, Trump’s Justice Department sues local governments in three states to persecute local jurisdictions that have “sanctuary laws” that limit their cooperation with federal immigration forces. The move is part of a significant escalation by the Trump administration in its war on immigrant-friendly governments.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The first Democratic primary is today, and New Hampshire has already started voting. The three small towns, Dixville Notch, Millsfield, and Hart’s Location hold a midnight vote on primary day each year, casting the first possible ballots.

And when we say small towns, we mean small: so far, Amy Klobuchar is ahead in the New Hampshire primary, with eight votes.

Sanders and Warren each have four, Biden and Buttigieg each have two. Andrew Yang has three, and Tulsi Gabbard has one. So does Tom Steyer. Good for him. Democracy in action, folks.

The rest of the state will get their chance to vote as polls open throughout the morning. A surprise Klobuchar win is probably still a long shot -- the midnight polls aren’t seen as indicative as how the election will go overall.

Instead, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg are currently leading the pack. Sanders fired up supporters on Monday night with a raucous campaign rally and concert at the University of New Hampshire featuring the Strokes and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.

Buttigieg, meanwhile, held a rally in nearby Exeter, where Kevin Coster introduced him, made a Field of Dreams joke, and praised Buttigieg’s civility and thoughtfulness.

The Strokes, meanwhile, launched into their famous anti-police anthem “New York City Cops” as UNH security and police messed with the stage lighting toward the end of their set. Different strokes for different, uh, candidates!

Stay tuned for live coverage of the primary tonight with the Majority Report crew, who will be up late as New Hampshire makes the first real decision of the election.

**The Democrats did not have a monopoly on New Hampshire last night. President Trump swept into Manchester on Air Force One on Monday evening for a rally of his own, bringing out all of his big guns, including Pence and Donald Trump Jr. **

Ivanka, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Steve Scalise, and more of the Trump-Republican rogues’ gallery is expected to campaign for him across the state.

On Monday, however, it was one big episode of the Trump show. The president boasted about his crowd numbers, inspired a “lock her up” chant directed at Nancy Pelosi, roasted the Democrats for hopelessly bungling Iowa, and crowed over his recent acquittal by the Senate.

The Iowa caucuses were a particular pressure point, as Trump attempted to further divide the competitors by pandering to Sanders’s supporters who resent the Democrats’ process in Iowa. Referencing the 2016 primaries, Trump said quote “They are doing it do you again, Bernie, they are doing it to you again.”

The show of force distracts from the Democratic primary, but was also openly aimed at giving Trump a boost in the general. Hillary Clinton carried New Hampshire by just a few thousand votes in 2016, and the Trump campaign thinks they can compete in the state in 2020.

Trump, for his part, again referenced the conspiracy theory that he lost New Hampshire in 2016 because of busloads of illegal voters coming in from Massachusetts. There is absolutely no evidence for this theory but hey, if it works it works!

Trump’s Justice Department sued local and state governments in California, New Jersey and Washington State on Monday over their sanctuary laws, which attempt to protect undocumented immigrants from federal deportation agencies like ICE.

Sanctuary laws like the ones in California and New Jersey often limit the information, such as immigration status, that local authorities like cops and district attorneys can share with federal agencies. T

hese laws allow undocumented immigrants to live with slightly less risk of being arbitrarily deported for minor legal infractions.

Attorney General William Barr has been seeking to strike down sanctuary laws for months, but so far his efforts have been thwarted by various state court systems. Barr’s argument, generally, is that sanctuary laws obstruct the federal government’s ability to enforce its immigration laws. A federal judge in California dismissed this argument the last time it came up, saying that sanctuary laws were quote “permissible exercises of California’s sovereign power.” endquote.

Barr’s end goal appears to be pushing one of his cases against a state or local government into the Supreme Court, which has a conservative majority at the moment.

In the mean time, though, he’s happy to add to the general chaos and misery of the U.S. immigration system, most recently threatening to end the “global entry” program for frequent travelers from New York State, which has also enacted sanctuary laws.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

If you’re a virgin in Virginia, we have good news: sex may not longer be illegal soon. The Virginia House of Commons passed a law on Monday that repeals a centuries-old statute that criminalized sex between two unmarried people. If it passes the Virginia Senate, well, love may no longer be a crime.

The coronavirus has taken such a toll on Mainland China that the country’s massive economy is starting to take a hit, as workers are stranded away from their jobs and factories sit silent.

Prosecutors recommended that President Trump’s former confidant Roger Stone get nine years in prison for lying to Congress and threatening a witness to prevent investigators from looking into the Trump campaign’s use of stolen Democratic documents.

A new bill set to be introduced to Congress on Tuesday would make companies responsible for the plastic waste they create, not consumers. The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act probably won’t get far in the current Congress, but it’s a bold ideological step that signals to environmental groups that at least some Democrats are trying to make a change.

#AMQuickie: Feb 11th, 2020

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 Donald Trump lashed out at public servants Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland, who testified during the House impeachment trial, firing both men from their positions in his administration.

Meanwhile, Ireland’s leftist Sinn Fein party won big in the country’s national elections this weekend according to preliminary results, giving the progressive left a real voice in Irish politics for the first time in decades.

And lastly, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg trade jabs while on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, as the gap between them narrows in polls and the primary looms just one day away.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

President Donald Trump has never seen a high road he wanted to take. On Friday, the president lashed out at two public servants who were subpoenaed during the course of his impeachment trial, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Gordon Sondland.

Sondland, the U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, was fired from his position on Friday. Vindman was also fired from his place at the National Security Council and was escorted from the White House by Security.

To add a further level of insult, Vindman’s twin brother Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Vindman, was also fired from the NSC. Ironically, he was an ethics lawyer there!

The firings are plain, open revenge for perceived slights during the president’s impeachment trial.

Sondland testified under oath that he did think there was quid pro quo involved in the President’s dealings with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and Vindman testified that Trump’s infamous phone call was quote “improper.” This did not go over well with the president.

According to the New York Times, some Republicans stuck up for Sondland, personally asking the President not to fire him because it would look bad, and because Sondland was on his way out anyway. The President, of course, did not take that route.

Why would those senators stick their necks out for Sondland, you may ask? Well, the former Ambassador to the E.U. is a wealthy businessman in his own right with a long history of political donations, largely to Republican candidates and causes. Sondland personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration shortly before receiving the Ambassador post.

Republican Senators did not try to rescue the Vindman brothers, who are career military servicemembers and public servants, not independently wealthy political donors. Funny how that works.

**In an historic election, Ireland’s leftist Sinn Fein party made massive gains this weekend, breaking up the right-wing dominated Irish parliament for the first time in almost a century. **

Sinn Fein, which today functions as a center-left or leftist party in Ireland’s political system, was for years linked to the Irish Republican Army, which allowed its right-wing opponents to largely ostracize it from electoral power for decades.

But on Saturday, Irish voters decided to take a chance of Sinn Fein’s modern democratic socialist policies, handing the party an expected 37 seats in Parliament. Sinn Fein campaigned heavily against Ireland’s high rent prices and corporate kickbacks and tax breaks, positioning itself as the party most in touch with Ireland’s working class. Sound familiar?

For years, control of Ireland’s politics have been passing back and forth between two center-right parties, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael.

Fine Gael is currently in power, but both center-right parties now face a choice of whether to form a coalition government with their rivals or with the left-wing Sinn Fein, giving progressives more leverage in Ireland than they’ve had in years.

Full results in the election are expected Monday or Tuesday, but it certainly appears Ireland’s left has new life.

**Here we go again folks: the last day before a major Democratic primary contest. Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders traded jabs on the campaign trail in New Hampshire over the weekend, as the two prepare to go head to head in the state’s primary on Tuesday. **

Buttigieg has surged since his sort-of-not-really victory in Iowa, but Bernie retains a lead in most polls. Buttigieg pivoted hard to, for lack of a better word, fiscal conservatism, hammering Bernie on the same arguments around the price of Medicare for all, saying that voters quote “deserve somebody who can actually deliver math that adds up.”

Bernie shot right back, pointing out that Buttigieg has taken money from over 40 billionaires and seems intimately comfortable with the political establishment’s financial backers.

Bernie’s communication’s director Mike Casca told NBC News that Buttigieg’s calls for lowering the national debt were quote “a blatant effort to appease his billionaire donors,” endquote, and claiming that Pete was quote ”parroting the same corporate talking points to justify cuts to Social Security and Medicare that have been used for decades.”

Buttigieg and Sanders are by far and away the two frontrunners in New Hampshire, but Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Amy Klobuchar will also be in the hunt for a strong finish to bolster their flagging campaigns after poor showings in Iowa.

All the candidates have events planned across the state for Monday, so be on the lookout for more snipes and jabs flying in between contenders as everyone looks to head into Tuesday with some power.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The Trump administration is due to release its 2021 budget request on Monday -- and it’s a far cry from the lofty promises he made in 2016. Hey, remember when Mexico was supposed to pay for his wall?

Bong Joon Ho’s story of capitalism, class, and social conflict, Parasite, won best picture at the 2020 Academy Awards last night. The director, who has been explicit in his critiques of Hollywood and the ruling classes, also took home awards for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Foreign Language Film.

Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, which is supposed to ferry humans into space and the ISS for decades to come, is still in dire straights, as a NASA probe found numerous inconsistencies and problems at fault for a dangerously-near miss during a test flight in December, which almost resulted in losing the craft.

Renowned Malian musician Ballake Sissoko claims that U.S. customs officials broke his kora, a traditional African instrument that resembles a harp. When Sissoko arrived in Paris after a stint in the U.S., he found his instrument in pieces, accompanied by a note from customs saying the case had been inspected.

And lastly, the Coronavirus hits a devastating new milestone: it has officially killed more people than the SARS virus outbreak in 2002. The Coronavirus is now responsible for at least 908 deaths.

#AMQuickie: Feb 10, 2020

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:

Democratic Party officials keep sending mixed messages about the Iowa caucus results. Can we please speak to the manager

Meanwhile, the FBI promises to crack down on white supremacist terrorism. It’s probably better if nobody tells the president.

And lastly, Donald Trump wants to kick three million Americans off of food stamps. Charities say they won’t have enough food for the hungry.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Many news organizations rely on the Associated Press to make the call on elections. So, many were flustered when the AP finally declared that the winner of Monday’s Iowa Caucuses will forever be a matter of opinion. The AP said it was QUOTE unable to declare a winner ENDQUOTE. Not unwilling -- un-able.

After that announcement yesterday, the Iowa Democratic Party delivered yet another set of final results – these showing Pete Buttigieg with a narrow lead over Bernie Sanders. Thursday morning, Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez declared that he wanted to see a re-canvass in Iowa. Not everyone was sure what that meant. Iowa Democrats complained Perez failed to give them a heads-up. It’s unclear who is calling the shots.

The campaign manager for Bernie Sanders said a re-canvass was not necessary – especially since the initial tallies had not yet been fullly completed. Pete Buttigieg, who was quick to claim victory this week, was also proclaimed the winner last night by CNN during a town hall interview with the candidate.

Although the outcome in Iowa was muddled by some measure of shenanigans, corruption and incompetence, the consequences came quickly. The Andrew Yang campaign laid off dozens of staffers. Amy Klobuchar claimed to have come in second place though no figures backed her up. The Intercept caught Mike Bloomberg his policy proposals. Politico reported that several women of color resigned from Elizabeth Warren's Nevada campaign after feeling tokenized. The Washington Post proclaimed Joe Biden himself to be the problem with his

campaign, as Senate Republicans moved forward with an investigation into the finances of Biden's son Hunter.

So, a less than stellar week for democracy. A worse week for Bidens.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it is finally getting serious about violent racist gangs – serious, that is, about stopping them. In the Trump era the country has suffered waves of mass shootings fueled by hate -- and even targeted killings by neo-Nazi groups.

Yesterday FBI director Christopher Wray told Congressional leaders that racially motivated domestic terrorists are a QUOTE national threat priority ENDQUOTE. This designation, Wray said, puts far-right violent extremists on par with Islamic terrorist groups like ISIS, when it comes the bureau’s priorities.

Wray announced the policy shift in response to questions from the House Judiciary Committee. As of November the FBI said it made one hundred and seven domestic terrorism arrests last year – and several big busts have happened since then, as well.

Hate group experts attributed the bureau’s sudden interest in far-right white supremacist groups in to the discovery that some of those groups in the United States had foreign support -- for instance, from fascists in Russia and Ukraine. Some experts cautiously embraced the FBI’s stronger stance, but caution about the agency’s specific plans and warned of mission creep. After all, the feds still report to Donald Trump.

Three million people, including children, could risk hunger and malnourishment in the United States if the Trump administration gets its way with food stamps. That was the message to Congress yesterday in hearings over proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Trump's rule change would push people off of SNAP benefits by demanding that states include assets like a car or a house in determining eligibility. Struggling families could be forced to choose between food and shelter.

Another seven hundred thousand people are expected to lose benefits in April when another Trump rule change takes effect. But Congress has some say.

The chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy spoke out against the cuts. That’s Raja Krishnamoorthi (RA-JAW KRISH-NA-MOOR-TEE), a Democrat from Illinois. The issue is personal for Krishnamoorthi. He was born in New Delhi and came to America as an infant. His family struggled at first, but thrived thanks to government assistance.

Hunger relief groups say that Trump's SNAP cuts would require private food banks around the country to serve an additional one billion meals per year. As NBC News reports, the food banks expect this would be impossible.

Consider this Trump's gift to America upon his impeachment victory.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Two men were shot by ICE agents in New York yesterday morning. Both victimes were unarmed, and one man was hit in the face. The immigration agents were trying to arrest one man when his brother tried to intervene. Some of the incident was captured on video. The Daily News news says agents first used their Tasers and then fired their guns.

Immigrants rights activists surrounded a hospital where the men were being treated as ICE agents lurked outside. The activists said they feared the agency would try to deport witnesses to the shooting.

Iraq announced it would be strengthening military ties with Russia. The news comes after the Iraqi government asked the US military to pack up and leave after seventeen years of war and occupation. Recent Iranian strikes in Iraq no doubt sped up this decision – and Iraqi leaders made clear that they blamed Donald Trump’s aggression for those Iranian attacks on US positions in their country.

A key Iraqi general praised Russia’s help in fighting ISIS and said Iraq intends to not only procure more weapons from Russia, but coordinate more closely on operational matters. If not the end of the Iraq war, it is certainly marks the total failure of US foreign policy.

With several cities already under total curfew, the Chinese government is setting up QUOTE quarantine camps ENDQUOTE to deal with Wuhan coronavirus.

World health officials have praised China’s swift and drastic public health measures, at least up to this point. But many American and European officials called China’s response authoritarian.

Either way, the news has enflamed anti-Asian racism around the country.

In San Francisco, merchants report a fifty percent drop in foot traffic since local news started covering the virus. News reports blame false rumors spread online and through messaging apps. I blame Mark Zuckerberg.

#AMQuickie: February 7th, 2020

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn