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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau agree to close the US-Canadian border to most travel due to the coronavirus pandemic. Trump claims new powers to nationalize industry, but so far he’s proven unwilling to stop medical shortages.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is deciding what to do with his presidential campaign. Maybe he could assign a few tech-savvy Zoomers to help Joe Biden, who is canceling fundraisers due to technical difficulties.

And lastly, the US economy has been thrown into chaos as a result of the coronavirus, with stocks collapsing and unemployment soaring. Signs from abroad suggest it’s going to get worse very soon, with death tolls growing from Europe to Africa and beyond.

#AMQuickie: March 19, 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:

Joe Biden won the primary elections in Illinois, Arizona and Florida by a landslide on Tuesday, effectively shutting down Bernie Sanders’ chance to mount a comeback against the party establishment’s chosen candidate.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration and Congress are planning on direct cash payments to every American to offset the economic effects of the coronavirus -- which progressives worry may be insufficient to stop the working class’s bleeding.

And lastly, a new report out of the United Kingdom has shocked world leaders by suggesting that the death toll and catastrophic effects of the virus could be much worse than scientists initially feared.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Tuesday night once again belonged to Joe Biden. The former Vice President won primary elections in Illinois, Florida, and Arizona, despite more chaos and the threat of contamination at the polls.

Biden’s surging victories mean the Sanders campaign has almost no route to winning the nomination. Biden won by double digits and sometimes much more in each of the three states that voted.

The election process, once again, was extremely messy. Voters reported long lines, polls not stocked with hand sanitizer and other vital virus-prevention tools, and even unopened precincts.

Ohio, for its part, did not hold a primary, instead postponing its election until June at the last minute in defiance of a court order. The DNC responded to this with characteristic grace, threatening that states which held their primaries after a June 9 cutoff would have their delegates slashed.

In short remarks as polls closed, Sanders sought to put the focus back on his priorities for the country. It seems like once again, Bernie will return to tilting at the Democratic party’s windmill, and hoping that he can use the rest of his time in the race to drag Biden toward the left however he can.

The new bipartisan tactic to offset the terrible effects of the coronavirus for U.S. workers is cold hard cash.

The Trump Administration and high-ranking members of both political parties in Congress put forward plans to deliver Americans immediate cash payments to account for missed wages during lockdowns, quarantines, and the economic recession that is sure to follow.

But while everyone agrees that the American people need some help, the devil as always lurks in the details. Mitt Romney’s plan, which Trump expressed support for, is to give every American an immediate $1,000 cash payment.

This, of course, would be just a band-aid compared to what American workers have lost.

As progressives noted early on, mainstream Democrats are actually at risk of being outflanked by the Republican plan if they insist on some kind of overly-complicated means-tested plan that only serves certain people, instead of just outbidding the Republican plan and ensuring that any direct relief is coupled with student loan and other debt forgiveness.

Fortunately, a group of Senators led by Cory Booker, Michael Bennett and Sherrod Brown put forward a plan to send every American $2,000, with no means-testing and additional payments later in the year. Bernie Sanders’ campaign put out an even more ambitious plan calling for $2000 payments every month.

Whatever Congress decides, they better do it fast. Brown’s state, Ohio, saw 11,995 unemployment claims on Sunday, and 36,645 on Monday. The Sunday before that, when bars and businesses were still open across the country, there were only 536.

The worst coronavirus news comes last, unfortunately. In a new report released to the public on Monday and shared with world leaders in the UK and U.S., researchers warn that the death toll from the coronavirus could reach the millions in the U.S., completely overwhelming healthcare systems many times over.

The report, conducted by researchers at the Imperial College of London, appears to be one of the factors that finally made the Trump White House start taking the virus seriously.

Its key finding is that extremely dreastic restrictions on work, schools and social gatherings may be necessary for up to 18 months, until a vaccine to the virus can be found.

Researchers warn that anything short of this could result the virus still spreading at rates that would overwhelm health care systems in any developed country in the world. The strict social restrictions were the only way to keep it within manageable levels, although the study noted that they could be relaxed for short periods at intervals and then reinstated if cases began to flare up again.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Niall Ferguson, told the New York Times quote: “We don’t have a clear exit strategy. We’re going to have to suppress this virus — frankly, indefinitely — until we have a vaccine.”

There’s no way around it -- this will likely mean long-standing changes to everyday life. But the core of the strategy for beating the disease is still social distancing and mitigating personal risk, steps which we have already begun. It just may last a lot longer than anyone hoped.

One point of light from a miserable night across America: Marie Newman, an outspoken progressive, beat anti-abortion incumbent Rep. Dan Lipinski in the Democratic primary for Illinois’s Third congressional district. Newman’s victory is the first major win for progressive activist group Justice Democrats since Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s historic election in 2018.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

In news that should surprise no one, the Trump administration is using the current crisis to do even more fascism, conducting ICE raids in the LA area amidst coronavirus lockdowns, and taking steps to close down the southern border to migrants, citing fears of the virus, while simultaneously shutting down asylum hearings and immigration interviews.

New York’s Attorney General suspended all medical and student debt collection until April 16, a policy that will hopefully convince other states to enact similar relief for their constituents.

And finally, Senate Democrats introduced a new bill to repair the gaps in the House’s woefully incomplete paid leave legislation, which House Democrats made even weaker earlier Tuesday. We’ll see how the Senate’s bill fares on Mitch McConnell floor.

That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay safe and healthy out there

#AMQuickie: March 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:

Trump sets new guidelines for limiting the spread of the coronavirus, as local jurisdictions lock down even more.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine defies a court’s decision and orders polling places to close on Tuesday, postponing the state’s primary election for fears of spreading the virus.

And lastly, Congress prepares to fight over bailouts. Are they for needy Americans suffering under the strain of a pandemic? Nope, they’re for the cruise and casino industry.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

President Donald Trump finally appears to be taking the novel coronavirus pandemic seriously -- clearing the lowest possible bar we could set.

In a live press conference on Monday afternoon, Trump announced new federal guidelines for managing the spread of the disease. They include basically the same rules for social distancing we should all know by now: avoiding groups of more than 10 people, refraining from traveling whenever possible, and often closures of bars, restaurants and other public spaces.

The rules are not mandatory, however: instead, Trump is largely leaving that discretion up to local jurisdictions, which are responding with varied levels of strictness. Seven counties in the San Francisco Bay area have gone on full lockdown, instructing residents to quote “shelter in place” and avoid all non-essential trips outside of the home.

Trump claims a nationwide lockdown on the scale of Italy won’t happen in the U.S., but it’s hard to tell if that’s a good or a bad thing -- if it’s necessary to stop the spread of the virus, we don’t exactly want a president to refrain from making the call because it looks bad politically. It’s just another sign the guy in charge may not know what he’s doing.

In a conference call earlier, Trump also sprang a fast one on local governments: he told state governors that they should not wait for federal help for much-needed medical supplies like ventilators, and should instead quote “try getting it yourselves.” Very reassuring!

The Democratic primary election is, you guessed it, in chaos today. Four states were due to vote: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio. But Ohio’s Governor is convinced the public health risk is too much to hold a primary, and is instead trying to put off physical voting by any means necessary.

On Monday, Ohio Governor Mark DeWine announced that he would order polling stations across the state to be closed on Tuesday, in open defiance of a court order that said it was too late to delay the election, a step that states like Kentucky and Georgia have already taken for their upcoming primaries.

In a statement, DeWine said quote: "It is clear that tomorrows in person voting does not conform and cannot conform with these CDC guidelines. We cannot conduct this election tomorrow."

It’s a bit unclear what happens now: DeWine said that the Ohio Secretary of State would petition the courts to quote “extend voting options.” DeWine wants to move the primary voting deadline back to June, when he hopes that people will be able to safely go the polls.

DeWine is a Republican, but he’s absolutely got a point: there really isn’t a safe or responsible way to ensure that busy polling stations don’t contribute to the spread of the disease.

Election officials in Arizona, Florida and Illinois disagreed, however, issuing a statement that their primaries would go on and be conducted in accordance with CDC guidelines for sanitizing voting equipment and limiting exposure at polling stations.

What does this mean for Biden and Sanders, both of whom will be looking to pick up delegates tomorrow? It means it’s an absolute mess. Sanders’ national press secretary Briahna Joy Gray has been publicly supportive of limiting in-person voting in today’s primaries, but it’s unclear what the conflicting orders and fear of the virus will do to turnout for either candidate.

With the Arizona, Florida, and Illinois elections going on as planned, we’ll just have to wait till the results start to come in to see.

President Trump is considering bailing out some of the most vulnerable and vital people in America: casino owners, airline tycoons, and oil and gas executives. See, you thought we were going to say “service workers,” but nope. Not in this administration!

According to the New York Times, lobbyists from the gambling industry have joined their voices to those in the cruise ship, airline and oil industries in asking the government for emergency help due to lost business from the global pandemic.

Congress will take up the case this week, as assistance for these specific industries is expected in the next aid package, which could come to the floor today. The Trump admin has already helped bail out the oil and gas industry, and the luxury travel and gambling industries want in as well.

This is the next major test for Congressional Democrats, after they resoundingly failed to pass an adequate paid sick leave bill in the last package of aid, instead leaving in huge holes for major corporations to go on treating their employees like dirt.

Will Nancy Pelosi fight to have bailouts, tax breaks, rent freezes or eviction protections included for actually vulnerable people in the next package of aid? We’ll see, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The government of Spain nationalized all private hospitals in the country, adding them to its public healthcare network to unify its response to the coronavirus and treat as many people as possible. Nice that they have that option!

California Governor Gavin Newsom, in an executive order, waived portions of California laws around residential and commercial evictions, giving hurting businesses and people more time to recover from the coronavirus recession without fear of being put out on the street.

In one of the most surreal stories from the global pandemic, a house full of reality TV contestants on Germany’s Big Brother have been insulated from the outside world for nearly the entire duration of the crisis, and have no idea of its extent. The producers plan to tell the cast in a live-aired episode on Tuesday night.

A court in Ohio ordered the release of hundreds of at-risk prisoners from county jail this weekend, in a move the ACLU said should be considered around the country, as prison populations are particularly vulnerable to the spreading coronavirus. The ACLU is also suing a Seattle-area ICE center for the release of vulnerable detainees.

That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show this afternoon, and stay healthy and inside if you can!

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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The rapid spread of the coronavirus across the U.S. makes Social Distancing a necessity -- and in many places, that means some pretty major changes to daily life.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders faced off in their first one-on-one debate, clashing over their voting records on Social Security and multiple other issues, while CNN’s moderators did little to referee the fight.

And lastly, Nancy Pelosi’s paid sick leave bill, passed in a rush as part of a coronavirus aid package, covers only 20 percent of American workers, leaving gaping holes in the most vulnerable sections of the economy. Typical.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The coronavirus’s rapid spread through the United States provoked some widespread and drastic measures this weekend. In major metropolitan areas, bars and restaurants cut their attendance or closed outright, often by order of their local governments.

In New York City, which has seen over 300 confirmed cases and 5 deaths, all restaurants and bars will be forced to operate via delivery only starting Tuesday. For most of the country, this may become a benchmark, and for good reason.

Closing public spaces won’t be fun, but it will help with something public health experts call “social distancing.” The term may sound overly academic, but what it really means is staying the hell away from other people as much as possible.

You don’t have to live in constant fear, but what you should do is limit your social interactions as much as possible and spend as much time as you can at home.

The idea is to try to “flatten the curve,” or spread out the spike in new cases of the virus to an extent that they don’t overwhelm our already-precarious healthcare system.

The cautionary tale here is Italy, which saw its country’s fortunes turn in a flash as it went from isolated hot spots of cases to a full country lockdown in less than two weeks.

We might not have gotten to this point had the U.S. instituted robust testing measures and established proper quarantine policies early on into the outbreak. But instead, the Trump Administration waffled around until it was too late, and now we all have to pay the price -- especially the millions of service workers who will feel the economic impact of the social shutdown right away.

And of course, it’s not those workers who will get a bailout -- Trump’s more concerned about the cruise ship bosses and airline CEOs.

So when this crisis is all over, make sure to splurge on the tip.

Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden went head to head for the first time on Sunday night with nobody, except a typically feckless CNN moderating team on stage to separate them.

The two candidates went at it from opposite ends of a small stage in CNN’s DC studio, with no live audience to mitigate possible exposure to the coronavirus.

The sharpest exchange of the night came over Social Security, as Sanders hammered Biden on his voting record on Social Security.

Biden floundered, and on several occasions outright lied about his support for the bankruptcy bill that left Americans drowning in medical debt, and on his past comments on cutting social security and other entitlements.

Bernie, delivering a luddite’s killing blow, implored the Amercian people to quote “go on the You Tube” and look up Biden’s past comments on the Senate floor.

It’s true! You can find all sorts of good things on the You Tube, including many, many instances of Joe Biden voting against the American working class. You can also find the Majority Report with Sam Seder. What a world.

Nancy Pelosi this weekend passed an expansive coronavirus relief package through the House, which included a paid sick leave bill that would ensure workers who fall sick have at least some time to recover from work. The only problem? The bill only covers a fraction of the actual workforce.

Pelosi celebrated the bill, even though any reasonable labor leader would consider it a massive failure.

The bill covers only 20 percent of the workforce, and the biggest corporations running aren’t beholden to it. Companies with more than 500 workers are exempt, and companies with fewer than 50 employees can apply for hardship exemptions from the Trump administration.

Why was it written that way? Well, because Republicans asked for it. In return for bipartisan support, House Republicans insisted on the exemptions, knowing that they could keep their corporate overlords happy and keep flogging the “small business” rhetoric they use every day.

And Pelosi fell for it, hook line and sinker, declining to use her majority in the House to push for anything more radical.

The Senate will take up the legislation today, so stay tuned to see if any Democrat in that body decides to stand up to the Republican’s crisis capitalism.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The New York Times reports that Donald Trump may be using the frantic coronavirus news cycle to slip in a pardon to disgraced National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Exploiting a crisis for open cronyism? So unlike him.

The man who bought almost 18,000 bottles of hand sanitizer with the plan to sell them at marked-up prices online donated his entire stash on Sunday, right after the Tennessee Attorney General began investigating him for price gouging.

Donald Trump’s chaotic European travel ban caused massive lines, crowds, and delays at U.S. international airports as tourists and ex-pats rushed to get home in uncertain times, creating a fertile breeding ground for the virus.

Youth activists with the climate strike movement are keeping the momentum going online, swapping out street protests for online social media campaigns from home. With widespread school closures around the world, they’ve got a whole lot more bored teenagers to draw on, and that could be pretty formidable.

The Trump administration allegedly tried to persuade a German biotech firm working on a coronavirus vaccine to move its work to the U.S.. According to one anonymous source, the company was offered a quote “large sum” endquote of money to make sure the U.S. got the vaccine first. Sound like Trump to you? Yep.

I’m Sam Seder, and that’s all for the AM Quickie today. Check back in this afternoon for the full Majority Report.

#AMQuickie March 16, 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:

Donald Trump’s coronavirus response has caused a historic market crash. The growing list of pandemic cancelations may soon include national elections.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders warns of casualties on the scale World War Two and calls for emergency measures. Joe Biden promises help for job creators, and Trump seeks extraordinary powers to curtail liberties.

And lastly, a resurgent global fascist movement exploits the crisis, and German intelligence says the country’s democracy is at risk. Maybe not just theirs.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the world and it may only be the start. The New York Times published satelitte photos showing what were purported to be new mass graves in Iran. A number of high and mid-level officials in the Islamic Republic were reportedly ill with COVID-19, although leaders pursued a policy of denalism and delay that has led to five hundred reported deaths with ten thousand reported cases. International experts said Iran had one of the worst government respones -- until yesterday.

The director of the Harvard Global Health Institute told reporters Iran’s theocratic government was handling the coronavirus much better than President Trump. Harvard’s Ashish Jha (AH- SHEESH JAW) said the US response was QUOTE an unmitigated disaster that the administration has brought upon the population, and I don’t say this lightly. ENDQUOTE

The corporate oligarchs and institutional funds whose investments comprise the financial markets believed that dire assessment over the Trump administration’s assurances. The New York Stock Exchange yesterday suffered the biggest drop since so-called Black Monday in 1987. Last night Trump sent an incoherent Tweet blaming Joe Biden for thousands of deaths during the swine flu epidemic more than ten years ago. So don’t expect a rebound today.

Across the US, people are flooding social media with pictures of the results of panic buying in local grocery stores. In Canada, a couple of self-described hustlers bragged to a newspaper

that they’d made more than $100,000 reselling Lysol wipes after clearing out Costco.

A Johns Hopkins University website tracking coronavirus cases across the US and the globe went down for hours yesterday without explanation. Many public officials and journalists had been relying on it for updates. As we said yesterday, the truth may be classified.

Per reports there is virtually no systematic testing going on in the US despite pleas from doctors. Official numbers will be far behind the true spread of the virus and the disease. Cancelations and closures continue, including at schools. Check your local news sources. National hockey, college basketball, and Major League Baseball joined the National Basketball Association in postponing their seasons. In the United Kingdom, the national electoral commission recommended postponing elections. Like I said, this is the beginning.

The Democratic presidential candidates released their plans for dealing with the pandemic. Each was characteristic of the candidate who proposed it. Joe Biden proposed some limited measures to expand testing and provide targeted relief to select groups. Bernie Sanders called for dramatic state action unseen for generations.

In a widely covered speech, Sanders said the US could face casualties exceeding the armed forces in World War Two. Critics called him alarmist, but those estimates were in line with indpendent and international public health estimates. According to the Department of Defense, more than four hundred thousand American service members died in that war.

The Vermont Senator laid out what he called an appropriate crisis response: full national mobilization. Price controls on necessary goods. Debt cancelation. A moratorium on evictions, foreclosures, and utility shut-offs. Food, shelter, and medicine for everyone who needs it. Financial assistance for workers -- including part-time and temporary workers, gig economy workers, and undoumented laborers – as well as for businesses. An immediate declaration of national emergency by the president, and Congressional action in the face of executive branch incompetence. Sanders said, QUOTE Now is the time for solidarity ENDQUOTE.

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s plan was more restrained, calling for free testing, more procurement of supplies, and emergency paid leave. Biden said we need to QUOTE keep credit flowing to our job creators ENDQUOTE.

Trump is doing worse than nothing. He said he would consider shutting down travel within and between states but gave no details. He appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner to take charge of pandemic response, apparently over Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s last scapegoat. Kushner reportedly believes the virus is a problem of QUOTE psychology ENDQUOTE. Yesterday Trump rammed through a $1.5 trillion bank bailout, like nothing seen since the 2008 crash – and enough to pay for Bernie Sanders’ entire student debt forgiveness plan. The market wasn’t buying it, and still falling after Trump’s announcement.

Finally, The Nation reported on the Trump’s administration’s reliance on a George W. Bush- era plan claiming extraordinary executive powers during a pandemic. The operating Customs and Border Patrol plan assumes viral pandemics QUOTE challenge the essential stability of governments and society ENDQUOTE and alludes to the construction of QUOTE tent cities ENDQUOTE. Civil liberties advocates are very worried.

The resurgent far right is using the escalating international crises to consolidate power and push its agenda wherever possible. The European Union announced a scheme to pay some $2,200 to refugees in camps on the Greek islands to turn around, cross the sea and return home. Of course, the refugees have no homes to go back to. The EU is calling it a program of QUOTE voluntary return ENDQUOTE.

In Germany, the federal domestic intelligence agency placed the far-parliamentary party, A.F.D., under surveillance. German intelligence reportedly considers the far-right party as a threat to the country’s democracy, which dates to 1990. Again: German intelligence fears the country may lose democracy to a rising fascist organization with seats in the parliament.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Bernie Sanders won the California primary. The vote took place on Tuesday and results announced yesterday. Sanders won all but a handful of California counties and more than 1.6 million votes, compared to 1.3 million for Biden.

US proxy forces in Syria denied bombing Iranian-backed forces, despite the existence of independent video. Before the bombings that officially did not happen, a rocket attack in Iraq killed two American and one British solider. Iraqi journalists heard American troops screaming and saw them fighting fires. The Pentagon ceased press briefings months ago.

The Intercept revealed new details about the extent of US involvement in a scheme to prosecute former Brazilian president Lula de Silva, who was released from prison last year. The new documents show Brazilian laws and international treaties may have been violated in a scheme to coach witnesses in Lula’s ginned-up corruption trial. The outcome favored US over Brazilian interests. Would we have it any other way?

US military whistleblower Chelsea Manning was released from jail, a day after she was reported to have self-harmed while in what advocates called coercive detention. We wish her the best.

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

#AMQuickie: March 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:

World health officials in Europe declared a global pandemic over the coronavirus yesterday morning. In the evening, Donald Trump announced a European travel ban.

Meanwhile, the ultra-wealthy retreat on private jets to remote island bunkers. Workers from Rome to Chicago are going on strike and demanding compensation during curfews.

And lastly, Bernie Sanders challenges Joe Biden to explain how he’d convince Americans under fitfty to bother to vote for him, based on the issues. Also, for some reason, Senate Republicans decided to give Biden a break on their open-ended neptoism investigation.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

For anyone who was waitiing for some kind of major announcement from the world’s foremost authorities, they’ve made it official. The World Health Organization yesterday declared a pandemic over the coronavirus.

Global and independent public health experts have issued fairly consistent guidelines – with the exception of Donald Trump’s political appointees. The White House is now classifying as secret its meetings with top federal health officials, pharmaceutical companies, and banks over the coronavirus. Foremost among the best advice we can find: Wash your hands thoroughly. Avoid unnecessary travel, close contact, and large crowds. Especially avoid hospitals, nursing homes, and other such places. Think of the most vulnerable. Do not go to work if you have even a mild cough and have traveled. We will do our best here and on the Majority Report to get you vital information, but accurate local information will be crucial in the weeks and months ahead. Check the WHO for updates as well as your city, county, and state government websites, nearest local newspaper or public radio station. Follow their social media accounts. Do not rely on secondhand information.

And be careful with the federal government. Trump and his cronies continue to lie to three hundred million Americans about the extent of the global pandemic. Yesterday Trump turned to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for advice on the coronavirus. The President himself announced new measures in an Oval Office speech last night.

Ahem -- he sounded a litlte hoarse.

Trump is banning inbound and outbound travel from Europe for at least thirty days. This takes effect Friday, March 13. The restrictions do not apply to the United Kingdom, where Trump’s ally Boris Johnson holds power, and which is no longer part of the European Union. Trump blamed EU leaders for QUOTE seeding ENDQUOTE the virus in America and said he was taking QUOTE action ENDQUOTE on Europe.

This is more about foreign policy realignment and trade war than it is about public health. German leader Angela Merkel’s speech yesterday frankly had a lot more useful information. For instance, she said seventy percent of the population would likely be infected. International health experts are virtually unanimous in condemning the slack US response. Trump is doing little more than closing borders and ramming bailouts through Congress for his friends and donors. He said QUOTE This is not a financial crisis. This just a temporary moment of time ENDQUOTE. Temporary, like the stability of the United States.

Pandemic impacts are beginning to hit North America. The stock market crashed again, more than twenty percent in a month. A recession will likely follow. The Guardian reported that many super-rich people were flying to their panic bunkers in New Zealand. Waves of layoffs were beginning in ports, travel, dining and service industries. Pro basketball is canceled.

In the US, the burden of public health response is falling to city and state leaders from Washington, DC to Washington State. Lower jurisdictions are taking it upon themselves to cancel large public gatherings, close schools, and provide economic and housing relief to at least some who need it. It is not playing out well everywhere. Atlanta canceled its state of the city address at the request of its QUOTE sponsor ENDQUOTE, Coca-Cola. Elsewhere in Georgia, indigent coronavirus patients were being relocated to a disused state park called Hard Labor Creek, once featured on the TV show Ghost Hunters. They say it’s haunted. Journalists and lawyers warned of a looming civil rights disaster in jails and prisons. An emeregency soap drive for prisoners was underway in New York. The teachers union in Chicago is demanding measures for students and families, including adequate cleaning supplies, more paid sick days, citywide meals on wheels for students, as well as internet access and computers for when campus is shut down. Further demands include debt and rent relief as well as suspensions on mortgage payments.

These measures are similar to those adopted in Italy, which is under a national lockdown. Even there, workers are striking when measures impose excessive burdens.

India and El Salvador also began restricting travel.

Despite rally cancelations by the Democratic candidates and now Trump, the 2020 presidential campaign continues.

Bernie Sanders addressed his supporters as well as the media in a speech yesterday. Sanders vowed to carry on his campaign and argued he would be the stronger candidate to face Trump. He acknowledged losing the delegate count to Joe Biden but said his campaign was winning in two crucial areas.

First, polls show voters favor his agenda. Second, he was vast majorities of voters in their twenties, thirties, and forties. Still calling Biden his friend, he challenged the former vice president to address the issues that matter to those voters in a debate still scheduled for Sunday night, as of this writing.

Sanders also appeared on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last night. As for Biden, he announced a coronavirus advisory committee, days after Sanders held a panel on the issue and hours after Trump announced his speech to the country.

And a key Senate Republican committee chairman suddenly and unexpectedly canceled a planned supboena into an impeachment- related investigation into Biden family business dealings in Ukraine. Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson said he was indefinitely postponing any Biden supboenas QUOTE out of an abundance of caution ENDQUOTE. What does he know that we already don’t?

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A judge sentenced the formerly respected, or should we say widely feared, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to twenty-three years in prison yesterday.

In addition to his extensive record of rape, stalking, and abuse, the jury heard how the producer had said actors who crossed him, like Jennifer Aniston, should be killed. Prosecutors also produced a note from Harvey’s brother Bob, who wrote to say he did not believe his brother was innocent on eight-two .

This will not be easy for many people to hear. Lawyers for the US military Iraq war whistleblower Chelsea Manning said she was recovering after attempting to take her own life in jail. Manning has been held on contempt charges and has a federal court hearing set for Friday. Supporters call it coercive incarceration and are calling for her release.

Organizers of the CPAC conservative political conference spurned Republican Senator Mitt Romney this year over his support for impeachment. But according to a new report by the Southern Povery Law Center, CPAC organizers welcomed white supremacist Republican House Rep. Steve King of Iowa. Officially, King was not on the program. But the SPLC said King gave a talk at a panel on QUOTE free speech ENDQUOTE featuring a noted Austrian fascist and Islamophobe who was convicted of hate speech in 2011, among other far right figures. For what it’s worth, this year’s CPAC may have been the vector for one of Donald Trump’s multiple known exposures to coronavirus-infected persons.

A man who sent credible death threats to Democratic House Representative Ilhan Omar was sentenced to one year in prison. Fifty-six-year old Patrick W. Carlineo, Junior, called Omar’s office last year and said he would put a bullet in her skull. Our forefathers would have done the same, he said. Omar wrote the juge and asked him to show leniency. She wrote, QUOTE The answer to hate is not more hate; it is compassion ENDQUOTE.

That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report, but please, wear a mask if and when you call in with updates from your area.

#AMQuickie: March 12, 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:

Joe Biden won a few more states in yesterday’s Democratic Party primaries, but his supporters are more and more worried about exposing him to voters. And the Bernie Sanders campaign is not giving up.

Meanwhile, both Biden and Sanders are canceling rallies due to coronavirus fears. Donald Trump says there’s nothing to worry about, but folks -- would you believe it -- he is lying.

And lastly, schools and businesses are closing as the federal government suppresses coronavirus testing. Many businesses and state authorities are taking action in the absence of federal leadership, but experts say that won’t be enough to contain COVID-19.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

It was not the night supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders hoped for. Voters in six states voted on their prefered Democratic candidate to run against President Donald Trump yesterday in the largest contest since Super Tuesday early this month.

Former Vice President Joe Biden won by large margins in Mississippi and Missouri. He also won Idaho. Elections officials in Michigan said they were unable to count all the absentee votes and would delay an announcement until today. Reports from the scene showed three- hour lines full of young people in some precincts after polls had closed. But in order to win there, Sanders would need to claim an overwhelming majority of votes that have not yet been counted. Which is one reason why all the major news networks called Michigan for Biden last night, but newspapers were more cautious. The Sanders campaign did not concede the state and says it expected its margins to grow through the night and into today.

Sanders beat Biden in North Dakota. In Washington State, he and Biden were virtually tied according to the latest counts this morning. Officials there are predicting a record turnout,

which could benefit Sanders. But the overall picture is that Biden’s delegate lead after Super Tuesday continued to grow.

Biden called for unity as his establishment supporters called on Sanders to drop out. Biden's big day of campaigning marked by an interaction in Michigan where he told a factory worker to shut up and threatened to slap him after the man asked biden a question about gun control. Biden supporters including House Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and political consultant James Carville went on CNN to say the Democratic Party should effectively shut down the primaries, cancel future debates, and limit Biden’s contact with voters and the press. The thinking is that the more voters see of Biden, the less they will like him. Which is strange because it is an argument Trump might make.

Politics is already being affected by the coronavirus pandemic, which is shutting down commerce, travel, education, and disrupting lives while threatening to provoke an economic crash on top of the health crisis. Top independet epidemelogists said yesterday the US was perhaps a week and a half away from scenes of empty streets and overwhelmed hospitals such as in Italy, which enacted an unprecedented national curfew.

Both Sanders and Biden canceled upcoming campaign events in Cleveland, Ohio, on account of the pandemic. The Sanders campaign said future events would be considered on a case by case basis. The president’s rally schedule is still on track. Trump’s mouthpieces, such as Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Rush Limbaugh, said the coronavirus was a Democratic Party conspiracy to interfere his reelection. The president himself said yesterday QUOTE Just stay calm. It will go away. ENDQUOTE. Leading infectious disease experts compared the likely impact of the pandemic to the devastating 1918 flu.

At the same time he denies the crisis, Trump is taking advantage. The White House is seeking new subsidies for the fossil fuels industry, which was especially hard-hit in this week’s stock market crash. And yet, the administration remains committed to cutting the Centers for Disease Control.

House Rep. Matt Gaetz, one of dozens of Congressional Republicans exposed to coronavirus at CPAC, told a Florida newspaper he self-quarantined by sleeping in his car in a Walmart parking lot. This was after he met Trump aboard Air Force One. In the United Kingdom, a member of parliament who tested positive for the virus was reportedly in close contact with Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Like Trump, he’s been downplaying the virus in public while no doubt obsessively washing his hands in private.

Politics aside, coronavirus dominated the news as the potential scope and rapid growth of the pandemic became impossible to ignore for hundreds of millions of people.

More than fifty universities in North America have moved classes online. Elite private schools such as Harvard and Yale began sending students home, but many state schools were carrying on as normal. Conferences and other events were being canceled around the world. Coachella is postponed. In New York, a Council on Foreign Relations event titled Doing Business Under Coronavirus was canceled for fear of contagion. Target announced it would be limiting customers’ purchases on many items. Rationing has come to American strip malls.

Confirmed US cases passed the one thousand mark. But more reports emerged of Trump’s CDC preventing widespread testing. Federal officials gave gone so far as to tell doctors who tested patients without prior approval to QUOTE cease and desist ENDQUOTE testing, per The New York Times. To be clear: to help Trump politically, officials are suppressing the truth about a dangerous pandemic, which will lead to thousands of preventable deaths. Scientists told the Los Angeles Times that coronavirus cases in the US are well above the official tally. If the federal government continues to prevent testing, that will continue to be the case.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Thousands of public school teachers and staff in St. Paul, Minnesota, went on strike yesterday. Their union is demanding more funding for student mental health services,

multilingual interpreters, and special education funding. Solidarity with striking workers everywhere!

The Federal Bureau of Investigation believes that a neo-Nazi terrorist group called The Base that was running training camps and preparing for civil war in the remote Pacific Northwest might have been directed by Russian intelligence. The theory, floated in The New York Times, builds on earlier reporting about the group by the Guardian and the BBC. Separately, the Russian parliament yesterday changed the constitution to allow president Vladimir Putin to stay in power through 2036.

A US Customs and Border Patrol agent was charged with smuggling sixteen bricks of cocaine in his carry-on luggage from the Virgin Islands into Atlanta. Federal prosecutors claim the forty-year-old white male agent, Ivan Van Beverhoudt (BEAVER-HOOT), was carrying his government-issued handgun, which allowed him to bypass security screening. Being a police officer is an increasingly popular career choice for criminals.

Pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was charged with drunk driving in his home state of Texas just after midnight on Tuesday. Police arrested Jones following a domestic dispute that included physical violence, according to an affidavit. Jones responded to the charges on his show by criticizing his breathalyzer test and saying he had QUOTE basically one beer... I did not have zero buzz. Zero ENDQUOTE. Tell it to the judge pal.

That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us this afternoon on the Majority Report, where we’ll no doubt be arguing about what all of these stories add up to.

#AMQuickie: March 11, 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:

As the U.S. struggles to prepare for the full weight of the coronavirus, President Trump is planning to take care of the important things: tax relief for airline corporations and hotel chains affected by the global panic.

Meanwhile, it’s Super Tuesday, again. Sort of. Six states will vote or hold caucuses today, which will set the stage for the next phase of the presidential race between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

And lastly, the city of Detroit announced that it would stop shutting off residents’ water during the coronavirus crisis, ending a frankly barbaric practice for the time being.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The economy is in the tank, and the Trump administration still has no idea what to do about it.

On Monday, Trump advisor Larry Kudlow announced that the administration was considering tax relief policies for industries most affected by the disease, like travel and hospitality companies.

Hard-hit countries like Italy have adopted similar policies, attempting to correct for the mass cancelations of major events and for even more drastic measures -- the Mediterranean country restricted movement across the entire country on Monday, have adopted similar policies.

In the U.S., things aren’t quite that bad yet -- not that we’d know if they were. The Atlantic reports that the country’s testing capabilities are still quote “dangerously limited” endqoute.

But regardless of the severity of the disease, bailing out the cruise ship CEOs is a drop in the bucket considering the rest of the economy is imploding.

Stocks are spiraling, oil prices saw their sharpest decline since the first Iraq War, and working people around the country are mostly waiting to see how it will all blow back on them.

Trump, for his part, has not said he will stop holding campaign rallies, despite the risk of infection at large gatherings. Now that’s the mark of a man who really cares about his fans.

**It is a slightly-less super Tuesday today, with six states making the decision between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. **

Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, and Washington will all hold primaries, and North Dakota will try their hand at another dreaded caucus. The polls, thus far, do not look great for Sanders: he’s down by a lot in Mississippi and Missouri but could have a shot at an upset in Michigan.

Things are much closer in Idaho, Washington and North Dakota, where it’s pretty much anyone’s game.

Sanders got a boost on Monday as the Working Families’ Party, Justice Democrats, and several other progressive groups finally consolidated their endorsements. Still crickets from Elizabeth Warren, however.

The contrast between the candidates couldn’t be more clear. Take the current pandemic sweeping the nation: Sanders hosted a roundtable discussion with medical experts in Detroit on Monday afternoon, talking through solutions and management strategies for dealing with the coronavirus.

Biden, meanwhile, declined to answer questions about the disease, saying he would be quote “happy to talk about that later.” endquote. Well, it’s later, and all we’ve seen is a boilerplate statement about quote “risk mitigations.”

Biden did, however, allegedly float the idea of putting billionaires like Jaime Diamond and Mike Bloomberg on his cabinet.

That’s where we’re at going into today’s voting -- we’ll of course have more to say about the primary results as they come in later today.

The city of Detroit is finally turning the water back on. For years, the city has been manually shutting off the water to residents who cannot pay their city water bills, depriving them of a service that people literally need to live.

This policy has affected an estimated 100,000 households between 2014 and 2018. The U.N. at one point declared it an insult to human rights according to Abdul El-Sayed, a former head of the city's health department.

Activist groups have been lobbying the city for years to stop the practice, and it finally has, deciding that trying to strong-arm money from people too poor to pay their bills was less of a priority than making sure people have the means to combat coronavirus transmission.

City officials everywhere are telling residents to wash their hands frequently: but that doesn’t work so well if you don’t have running water.

The Coronavirus Water Restart Plan will start on Wednesday. The state of Michigan will cover the $25 water restart fee, but residents will have to pay $25 to continue the service after the fact.

They won’t, however, be liable for missed payments until after the crisis is over. And from what we know of the virus, that could be quite a while.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

A Missouri judge overturned the conviction of Jonathan Irons, who was tried as an adult in 1998 when he was 16 and sentenced to 50 years in prison on shaky evidence for a burglary and armed assault. Irons’ case attracted the attention of WNBA star Maya Moore, who has been working to help free Irons’ for years.

It is day 363 of Chelsea Manning’s detention for refusing to participate in a grand jury investigation into her original leak of U.S. military secrets in 2010, and a petition at FreeChelsea dot com just passed 63,000 signatures attempting to release her from another potential nine months in jail.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Fifth Third Bank on Monday, alleging that Bank employees opened bank accounts and credit cards for their customers without their consent in order to hit their sales targets. The CFPB is seeking a civil financial penalty and for full compensation for the defrauded customers.

Radical rock band Rage Against the Machine made a rare showing of solidarity with the government on Monday, posting the lyrics to their song “Killing in the Name Of” as an example of what to sing while washing your hands and joking on Twitter that on this occasion, it’s best you do what they tell ya.

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

#AMQuickie: March 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:

The Coronavirus is beginning to shut down parts of the United States, leading to mass cancelations major events and states of emergency in several cities. And Trump isn’t helping!

Meanwhile, Joe Biden gets a new major endorsement, as former presidential candidate Kamala Harris raced to bury the hatchet she lobbed at Biden in the June debate last year. Bernie Sanders countered with an endorsement of his own as a slate of new primary contests looms tomorrow.

And lastly, Congress has its own Coronavirus scare. While this is but a blip in the disease’s larger impact on the world, it’s sure keeping Ted Cruz busy!

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The U.S. is starting to feel the effect of the coronavirus, and it’s unclear how much our system of healthcare, education, and just life overall can bear.

The issue with the disease isn’t so much the death rate -- though there is that -- but the strain it puts on already-fragile economic and social systems around the country. For example: Austin, Texas’s government canceled the city’s South By Southwest festival this weekend, one of the biggest events to get the axe yet.

While it may seem silly to mourn yuppie tech conferences, cities like Austin and their working class residents often rely heavily on the tourism revenue of big events like this, striking a blow to people’s livelihoods that has nothing to do with the Wall Street guys’ plummeting stock prices.

Elsewhere around the country, public schools and some universities are starting to close or begin video-conferencing for classes to attempt to limit the spread of the virus.

Government officials in hard-hit Washington state are now just trying to mitigate the disease, rather than contain it -- slow it down enough that the hospital system can keep up.

And all the while, the U.S.’s testing infrastructure continues to be miserable: we have 500 confirmed cases and 22 deaths, which is likely just the beginning.

So where’s the president on all this? Certainly not helping!

Trump has done everything from suggest that the virus will magically disappear in the summer to vastly overstate the CDC’s testing capabilities.

On Sunday, the Associated Press reported that Trump overruled public health officials who wanted to directly tell elderly or physically infirm Americans not to fly on commercial airlines, instead opting for softer language.

The White House denied fiddling with the language, but it’s pretty clear that the confusing responses coming out of the Executive Branch are quite literally going to get people killed.

But as the world gets sicker and sicker, we’ve still got a primary going on. Joe Biden had a good weekend, picking up an endorsement from Kamala Harris.

Harris, of course, earned her most memorable moment in the campaign cycle when she absolutely destroyed Biden over his record of opposing busing. How nice: two former enemies, who are now friends, because they really don’t want a socialist to win. And who knows -- there might even be a cabinet position in it for Harris.

Sanders also scored a prominent endorsement over the weekend: Reverend Jesse Jackson, the long-time civil rights activist and former presidential candidate.

Both the Biden and Sanders campaigns are actively courting black leaders like Jackson and Harris before the slew of primaries on Tuesday.

Polling in those states does not look good for Sanders. A Data for Progress poll on Sunday night showed Biden up by 30 percent in Missouri and over 50 percent in Mississippi.

But the Sanders campaign will have plenty of chances to get back into the game regardless of what happens on Tuesday, starting on March 15 in the next debate. The two camps are already butting heads: team Sanders accused the Biden team of pushing host CNN and the DNC to agree to a seated debate, instead of a standing one.

The two leading candidates are 77 and 78, so this is what it’s come to: who can score points by being the most willing to stand up for several hours.

Coronavirus has reached, well, not quite Capitol Hill. But two members of Congress are worried they may have been exposed. Sorry, we’re underselling this a bit: Ted Cruz is in quarantine. There.

Both Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar have placed themselves and some of their staff under self-quarantine after they both came into contact with a person who later tested positive for coronavirus at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Gosar wasted no time in making the whole thing racist, of course, repeatedly referring to coronavirus as quote “The Wuhan Virus” in his public statement instead of using its widely accepted, non-stigmatized names.

The person who tested positive for COVID-19 has not been named, but allegedly shook hands with both Cruz and Gosar. Gosar, for his part, said that he shook hands with and hung out with the individual for an extended period of time. Neither report any symptoms.

Cruz says he plans to stay in Texas for 14 days before returning to Washington. We’re sure everyone on the hill is just crushed.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The details of the U.S. peace deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan are still, for some reason, being kept a secret. The Taliban have read the deal, but many U.S. lawmakers have not -- raising huge questions as to what the timeline for actually ending that war is.

Andrew Romanoff, an outspoken progressive endorsed by several major climate organizations, claimed victory in the Democratic caucuses for one of Colorado’s Senate seats, beating former Governor and presidential candidate John Hickenlooper. If the results stand, he’ll challenge incumbent Republican Cory Gardner in November.

The New York Times reported on Saturday that Erik Prince, the mercenary brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, hired former American and British spies to train right-wing dingbats from Project Veritas to infiltrate Democratic congressional campaigns and organizations that were quote “hostile” to president Trump.

The ACLU is asking the Supreme Court to take up a case involving Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson. The case, involving an object thrown at an unnamed police officer by someone who was not McKesson, may set a dangerous precedent for people being sued by the police simply for being at a protest where the laws were broken.

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

#AMQuickie March 9, 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:

Elizabeth Warren ended her presidential campaign and told supporters to choose righteous fights. Bernie Sanders held a large rally and welcomed Warren’s supporters.

Meanwhile, American families fear what the future holds for their elderly relatives in nursing homes as the coronavirus kills another person in Washington State. Donald Trump’s response is a disaster in the making.

And lastly, after two decades, Americans could be held accountable for war crimes in Afghanistan. The Hague has opened a major new investigation.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren announced the end of her presidential campaign yesterday. Thanking supporters, she urged them to QUOTE choose to fight only righteous fights ENDQUOTE.

In 2016, Warren chose not to make a presidential endorsement. Yesterday she sent no clear signals favoring Sanders or Biden. Last night on MSNBC, Warren told Rachel Maddow, QUOTE It’s just gonna be a little longer before we have a woman in the White House... It doesn’t mean it’s not gonna happen soon ENDQUOTE.

Bernie Sanders, at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona, commended Warren for a strong, issues- oriented campaign and welcomed her supporters. He said, QUOTE I think they will find many of the issues Sen. Warren campaigned on are exactly the issues we are fighting for ENDQUOTE. Sanders called for equal pay for women and an end to starvation wages. He shushed his large crowd of supporters from booing Joe Biden, who he called a decent guy with a very different record than his own. For instance: Biden supported the Iraq war, disastrous trade deals, and cuts to Social Security.

Sanders’ campaign touted its overwhelming Latino support in California with new endorsements and ads featuring testimonials. In Arizona, Sanders spoke to the issue of Trump’s deportations in a way Biden cannot. Sanders said, QUOTE My father came to this

country without a nickel in his pocket. Couldn’t speak a word of English. I will not accept the continued demonization of immigrants in this country. ENDQUOTE.

Once upon a time, Republican Party operative Karl Rove touted the Latino vote as the future of American politics. Yesterday he was in the Wall Street Journal touting three-time presidential campaign loser Joe Biden as the future of the Democratic Party. Thanks, Karl. Also yesterday, Biden misrepresented his record on Social Security cuts, suggesting he’d never supported them. Maybe he forgot?

At his Phoenix rally, Sanders linked his Medicare for All proposal to the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic. He said the crisis makes the absurdity of our healthcare system more clear. As anxiety spreads along with the virus, the Trump administration continues to duck the most basic questions about its public health response.

It’s been clear for days that Trump has muzzled the Centers for Disease Control. Yesterday officials totally dissembled when confronted by reporters about the lack of testing in the US. South Korea has been ten thousand people per day, whereas mere hundreds had been tested over weeks in the US. Even taking measures on a far greater scale than the US, Korea has been unable to contain the spread of COVID-19 though human-to-human and surface contact.

Washington State, hardest hit in the country so far, reported its thirteenth fatality yesterday. Official there said they’d received only half of the emergency medical equipment they requested from Trump’s CDC. Families with elderly relatives infected with coronavirus in nursing homes expressed fears that their parents might die alone and under quarantine.

The US refused entry to a number of Canadian citizens who had visited China, where the new coronavirus originated. Both Mecca in Saudi Arabia and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem were closed on account of the virus. Los Angeles Marathon oragnizers said the event would go on, but that people should practice QUOTE social distancing ENDQUOTE to avoid unnecessary human contact. Back to Twitter, then!

The International Criminal Court yesterday ruled that its chief prosecutor could open an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan. The Donald Trump administration was reportedly furious over the news. That’s because, after nearly two decades of war and occupation, war criminals from the United States could be made to answer for their actions in Afghanistan.

The ruling was made on appeal in The Hague. It reversed the decision of a lower court in the international tribunal. The US Congress does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction in this matter, although a new president could change this as a matter of practice.

The ICC prosecutor’s office has said it can prove US forces QUOTE committed acts of torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, rape and sexual violence ENDQUOTE in Afghanistan – and also at C.I.A. black sites later in Europe. The ICC investigation will also consider abuses by the US-backed Afghanistan government as well as the Taliban. Human rights organizations in Afghanistan and beyond hailed the ICC ruling over US objections.

The news about fresh war crimes investigations comes soon after Trump announced a new deal with the Taliban – an announcement soon followed by more fighting.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Turkey and Russia agreed to a cease fire in the Syrian city of Idlib. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian president Vladimir Putin hashed out terms in a six-hour session in Moscow, followed by a joint appearance. It is unclear how long the cease fire will hold. Separately, Turkey deployed one thousand special forces police officers to its border with Greece. Border guards in Greece have been attempting to force thousands of Syrian refugees back to Turkey after Erdogan sent them on to Europe. Not a great situation.

Federal prosecutors have charged former United Automobile Workers union president Gary Jones with embezzlement of union funds. More than dozen people have already pleaded guilty in the UAW-Fiat Chrysler corruption probe. The government isn’t ruling out taking over the union. Newly unsealed filings claim Jones spent $1 million of UAW money on meals, golf trips, cigars, and clothing. Must’ve been good cigars.

An immigration judge in Tennessee ordered the deportation of a 94-year-old German citizen who’d been living in the US since 1959. Former Nazi concentration camp guard Friedrich Karl Berger has received a German government pension all this time. In response to the ruling, he told a reporter, QUOTE this is ridiculous. I cannot believe it ENDQUOTE. A check in the mail every month for life and a ticket to Europe, what a punishment.

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

#AMQuickie: March 6, 2020

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn