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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

The Greater Depression keeps getting... Greater... Again. Unemployment keeps rising, and government aid isn’t coming as promised for tens of millions of Americans.

Meanwhile, inmates and immigrants in federal custody are suffering perhaps more than any other group in this pandemic. Civil rights groups warn that racist far-right think tanks are pushing the White House to let COVID-19 spread among minority and foreign-born prisoners.

And lastly, Joe Biden makes his opening bid for the support of Democratic Party progressives and Bernie Sanders’ base: two quarters, three pennies, a nickel, and some lint. Oh, and thirty-year-olds can have health care in... thirty more years.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, said yesterday that America’s economy is deteriorating with alarming speed. Hey, someone noticed! At least seventeen million Americans lost their jobs in the three weeks ending last Friday. That's more than the total job losses over the two-year duration of the most recent recession. The total comes after the latest unemployment filings were announced. They showed 6.6 million new claims last week alone. And as we previously reported, the national figures are an undercount because state unemployment systems are overwhelmed. And many millions more, including children, will lose their employer-provided health insurance as a result of these layoffs. Kind of a huge problem during a pandemic!

Small businesses were supposed to be able to apply for emergency federal loans. But it’s seems very little of the $350 billion promised in a recent Congressional spending package is actually reaching small business owners. Up to $2 million was supposed to be available to borrowers, but those who can get their paperwork approved are being offered $15,000 each – not close to enough to maintain their payroll. Republicans are seeking to come to the rescue of people suffering from problems they created. And depending how Democrats respond, they may be offering ideas pilfered from Europen liberals. A GOP Senator from Missouri, Josh

Hawley, yesterday proposed a bill that would have the federal government cover up to eighty percent of worker wages for the duration of the coronavirus emergency.

Things aren’t great for those who still have jobs, either. Especially for those who can’t work from home. Eighty employees at a single Smithfield meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls, South Daokta, tested positive for the coronavirus. Sick Smithfield workers reportedly accounted for one-fifth of the cases in the state. The local paper, the Argus-Leader, says the company saw its first coronavirus case March 26. But it stayed open. Yesterday, only after state health officials held a press conference, the company said it would close the plant for three days. Speaking of meat, there is a chicken wings surplus, because March Madness has been canceled. Millions of pounds of wings could go to waste. Crops are also reportedly beginning to rot in the fields. If you know a wholesaler, or a farmer, you might be able to score a deal.

ICE policy spreading coronavirus:

As bad as coronavirus has already been for the working sick and newly unemployed, it’s a living nightmare for several million people who live and work in America’s jails and prisons. At a federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, where five people have died from COVID- 19, there was a riot Wednesday night, reported yesterday. Guards used chemical bullets and tear gas on prisoners, who are forced into situations with coronavirus carriers and have restricted access to medicine.

The situation may be even uglier for thousands of people, including children, in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that far-right think-tanks have been pushing the government to keep COVID-19 sufferers in ICE detention regardless of circumstance. Unknown numbers of people in ICE concentration camps are already dying as a result of the pandemic. Now it seems the Donald Trump administration wants to make sure the deadly disease spreads among refugees, asylum seekers, and separated families who committed no crime.

The groups pushing this cruel and genocidal policy are known to be influential inside the White House, according to the civil rights group’s report. The SPLC and the American Civil Liberties Union have sought an emergency injuction in US district court in Washington, DC, seeking the release of asylum seekers. It was also reported yesterday that federal immigration authorities denied due process to at least ten thousand immigrants as a result of

the pandemic. So minorities targeted by Trump’s racist policies may face a choice: get sick and die in custody without medical treatment -- or get sick in custody, then deported, then who knows what. Some choice.

Biden pitch offends progressives:

The presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee, Joe Biden, made what his campaign and some media reports called his first gesture for the support of progressives who supported Bernie Sanders, who ended his campaign this week. But many Sanders supporters weren’t sure if that gesture was an open hand or an extended middle finger. People really shouldn’t be shaking hands, anyway. A polite wave will suffice. Social distancing!

What was the Biden campaign’s first offering to progressives? First, lowering of the age for Medicare eligibility from sixty-five to sixty years old. Sanders campaigned on free Medicare for All, regardless of age or income. He also ran on a promise to cancel all outstanding student debt. Biden yesterday offered a student debt forgiveness plan with a major asterisk. It would cancel debt for QUOTE low-income and middle class people who have attended public colleges and universities ENDQUOTE. Historically black colleges and universities would also be included. Some economists noted that the plan would not help people who attended for- profit universities, one of the fastest-growing and most predatory areas in higher education. There are further restrictions on income and other vague caveats in the plan.

A Sanders adviser told the Washington Post that Biden’s overtures are made with good intent. And that a lot is at stake. However, don’t expect Bernie to run around touting Joe’s plans just yet. The plan is to QUOTE give them space ENDQUOTE so Biden can make his own best case. Separately, it was reported that Sanders will cover, through November, the health insurance of some five hundred campaign workers who are losing their jobs. The Sanders team will also receive salaries through the end of May. It is, of course,unclear what a dollar will buy when June finally rolls around, one thousand years from now.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

For the third time since March, a member of Germany’s far-right A.F.D. party discovered that his car had caught fire. The most recent case involved a local parlimentarian for A.F.D. in Berlin. No one has been injured. The party is blaming left-wingers for the vandalism, although police have not endorsed that theory. More Volkswagen defects?

The iconic Mad Magazine cartoonist Mort Drucker died yesterday. No cause of death was reported, but he was at his home in Woodbury, New York. He was 91. Drucker grew up in Brooklyn. In addition to his instantly recognizable celebrity caricatures in Mad, he drew newspaper strips, movie posters, and books, including a few coloring books starring John F. Kennedy and Oliver North.

At least one trade war might be winding down. The oil exporters’ cartel, OPEC, along with Russia and a few other countries, reached a tentative agreement to cut production and raise oil prices. Donald Trump spoke with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Saudi Arabia’s King Salman after that meeting, but said he didn’t know the result. Lying, or just out of the loop?

The Chinese Professional Baseball League, based in Taiwan, will be putting robot mannequins in the front row at games. You know, instead of people. The league’s season starts this week, but without spectators, on account of the plague. Congratulations to the marketing department of the Rakuten Monkeys, currently, it seems, a team without a sponsor.

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

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn