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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