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TODAY'S HEADLINES:
The House of Representatives could vote as early as Tuesday on new articles of Impeachment against the President, charging him with inciting the riot that briefly took over the Capitol building last week.
Meanwhile, the widespread social media crackdown on far right-wing apps, pages, and organizing spaces continues as big tech firms finally decide to purge some outspoken fascists from their services.
And lastly, the coronavirus vaccine rollout is still a mess, and contrasting stories from Florida and New York show that state governments have a delicate needle to thread in the absence of Federal leadership.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
The House of Representatives could vote as early as Tuesday to impeach President Donald Trump for the second time.
The new article of impeachment was introduced by Representatives David Cicilline of Rhode Island, Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Ted Lieu of California. It charges Trump with quote . “willfully inciting violence against the government of the United States.” endquote.
So far, 210 of 222 Democrats in the House have signed on. Meanwhile, more and more reps from either side of the aisle are calling for Trump’s immediate resignation, including two Republicans. Of course, there’s absolutely no way that will happen, but still.
If the House does vote to impeach, though, there’s almost no way that Trump will actually be removed from office. And it’s also unlikely that we’ll see action on that front for weeks, if not months.
Nancy Pelosi has indicated that she would wait to forward the impeachment on from the House to a Senate trial until after Biden’s first 100 days in office.
There’s two reasons for that: she says she doesn’t want to distract from his first days in office with a big Senate trial, which, sure, whatever, but it also means that Trump could face an actual Senate trial on charges of inciting violence with a Democrat-controlled Senate.
Knowing our Democrats, chances still seem low that Trump will actually pay for his crimes, but we’ll see how things shake out over the next few weeks.
Silicon Valley Finds its Spine
Our great tech overlords have finally discovered their spine -- or perhaps the recent bloodshed at the U.S. Capitol has finally made doing the right thing the safer choice.
Over the weekend, Apple removed right-wing social media app Parler from its service, as did Amazon and Google. This follows the end-of-week purge of both Donald Trump’s personal accounts on Twitter and Facebook, as well as those of thousands of right wing agitators and overt fascists. Even Parler had to take down some posts when people like Trump-linked lawyer L. Lin Wood started calling for Mike Pence to face a firing squad.
It’s worth noting that all of these platforms had literally years to make these moves. The far right has been organizing widely on all of these apps and services since before Trump was elected, often by the algorithms of tech giants like Facebook.
Conservatives’ response to this has been the familiar refrain: tears and whining about how they’re being censored.
It’s especially dumb when it comes from elected officials like Trump himself, who literally has the biggest media platform in the world at his disposal regardless of whether or not he can send tweets from his gilded bathroom.
Vaccine Rollout Still Varied
The coronavirus vaccine rollout is still a slow, uneven process across America, as states struggle to figure out best practices in the absence of clear federal leadership.
It appears that we’re seeing two big mistakes. In New York, for instance, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s harsh penalties and strict guidelines meant that many doses of the vaccine languished on shelves because healthcare professionals couldn’t find enough eligible people to give them to.
In light of widespread criticism, Cuomo has finally relaxed some of these restrictions, widening the pool of people eligible to get the vaccine so that more doses can be administered as soon as possible.
But in Florida, the opposite problem is happening. The New York Times reports that the state’s distribution system is disorganized, and its eligible population is huge: everyone over the age of 65 is eligible for the vaccine, and thanks to the state’s huge elderly population, demand is way over supply.
Vaccines distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis to those groups draw massive lines and often result in people being turned away.
The hope is that the Biden administration will seek to immediately sort out this situation with some kind of clear federal program. It’s wild to think, of course, how much easier all this would be if the U.S. had some kind of consistent, universal health care system administered by the Federal Government. Maybe we’ll have it in time for the next pandemic.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
St. Louis’s Board of Alderman’s public safety committee voted 6-1 last week to endorse a contract with an Ohio-based company that does aerial surveillance of cities, meaning the city’s residents will be subjected to low-altitude planes surveilling them at any time and passing information to authorities.
In Barcelona, city officials are taking a hard line against landlords with vacant rental units, saying that unless they’re filled, the government will take over their properties for half their market value and rent them out to low-income tenants. Sounds like a great plan for places like New York City, where luxury apartments sit unused and thousands of families struggle to find homes.
JP Morgan Chase, perhaps belatedly realizing that its massive donations to political candidates are not the best look right now, has said it will pause PAC donations to both Republicans and Democrats for the next six months, as if a brief break from destroying the political system with dark money will make things better for everyone.
An early sign of hope from President-elect Biden, who on Saturday called to set aside deficit concerns and embark on a massive federal spending campaign to prop up the economy. We’ll see if he makes good on that, but if he does he’ll have one key ally in the Senate: Bernie Sanders, who will likely be the new Budget chairman.
That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today! Sam will be with you in a few short hours.
JAN 11, 2021 - AM QUICKIE
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Jack Crosbie
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn