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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Elected officials in Oregon say Donald Trump has sent armed forces to invade their state as a reelection stunt because he wants to look tough. Activists on the street share details of their kidnapping by federal forces without insignia who drive unmarked vans.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden comes nearer to closing his fundraising gap with Trump, who is still the star of a reality show in his mind. His latest campaign shakeup got highly dramatic, as if the real world that the rest of us live in wasn’t exciting enough.

And lastly: Barcelona cracks down on landlords who leave their properties vacant in the middle of a housing crisis. If they don’t find tenants, the city takes over the property – simple.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Did Donald Trump just invade an American city? A sitting governor and a US Senator seem to think so, along with a whole lot of residents. We told you yesterday about apparent federal forces snatching people off the street and throwing them into unmarked vans. Today we have more details thanks to the local press in Portland, Oregon, which Trump has made the showcase of his supposed law and order reelection campaign – though it looks more like a campaign of state terror by any old right-wing dictatorship. A victim of one of those federal abductions told Oregon Public Broadcasting that after being thrown in a van he was detained for several hours, blindfolded by his own hat. Only later did the kidnapping victim learn he was inside a federal courthouse. No explanation was given. He thinks he was detained for wearing black while walking near protests downtown.

Acting Department of Homeland Security secretary Wolf was in Portland yesterday to observe or oversee the assaults on protesters. Wolf published a raving, error-riddled statement in the afternoon blaming local leaders for letting a violent mob of anarchists run rampant. Again, it is police who are out of control. Wolf said vandalism at a courthouse was an attack on America. If America is under attack, it is by Trump and his goons. Federal officers shot a protester in the head this week and fractured his skull. Local elected leaders have not asked for their help, and outright told them to leave the city. In a characteristically weak statement, Portland Mayor

Ted Wheeler said he wished the feds weren’t there. Others were more forthright. Oregon Senator Ron Wyden said Trump and Wolf are QUOTE weaponizing the DHS as their own occupying army to provoke violence on the streets of my hometown because they think it plays well with right-wing media ENDQUOTE. Senator Jeff Merkley said Wolf should leave the city rather than inflame the situation. Governor Kate Brown said Wolf was on mission to provoke confrontation. And former Portland Democratic Socialists of America Chair, the novelist Cari Luna said as follows: QUOTE Hey, America! The feds are here in Portland, grabbing folks off the streets and throwing them into unmarked vans! It’s real. It’s happening. Your city is next. What are you going to do about that? ENDQUOTE. Zakir Kahn, the board chair of the Oregon Council on American-Islamic Relations, said plainly that the Trump administration is attempting to take over Portland. And that about sums it up.

Biden's Fundraising Is Up

Joe Biden had another quarter of increased fundraising, according to new campaign finance filings reported by the New York Times. From one point of view, the extra fundraising is a mark of improvement in the Biden campaign. From another, it’s a sign of increased influence on the presumptive Democratic nominee by powerful monied interests that are arrayed against positive change.

Trump still leads Biden in fundraising with $295 million now in the bank. But Biden has come a lot closer to closing the gap. Biden reported $242 million cash on hand at the beginning of this month. He started April with only $60 million. Biden’s biggest donors included powerful financiers, Silicon Valley billionaires, and Hollywood producers.

Despite Trump’s cash advantage over Biden, the his reelection campaign has been a shambles. This week he replaced his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, with another adviser, Bill Stepien. According to Politico, Trump orchestrated a dramatic pass the torch ceremony, described by two attendees as an emotional affair. It sounds like Trump thinks he’s still doing The Apprentice, as thousands die every day from coronavirus and his armed agents run amok in the cities.

Barcelona Expropriates Lazy Landlords

The city of Barcelona, Spain, is warning big landlords that they need to fill vacant units or else their property will be annexed and put to productive use. According to Bloomberg News: the city’s housing department wrote to 14 companies that collectively own 194 empty apartments, warning that if they haven’t found a tenant within the next month, the city could take possession of these properties, with compensation at half their market value.

Once the city owns the empty properties, it plans to rent them out to lower-income tenants as public housing. In addition to forced sale below market value, landlords with vacant properties could face fines of up between one hundred thousand and one million dollars.

Many of the vacant properties are owned by the successors to speculators who went bust in 2007. City housing commissioner Lucia Martín told a Spanish newspaper QUOTE We are not here to expropriate. What we want is for apartments to be rented ENDQUOTE. Seems reasonable enough. Why not here?

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Former Trump adviser and longtime Republican dirty trickster Roger Stone appeared on Alex Jones’ Infowars yesterday to sign what he said were official documents from the White House commuting his sentence. Media Matters said Stone thanked several right-wing media figures including Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. So all those guys are happy.

Morgues are filling up in Texas and Arizona, so officials are turning to refridgerated trucks to store the bodies of pandemic victims. The chief medical officer of one health system in San Antonio told reporters that there are only so many places inside a hospital to put corpses. Funeral homes are also out of space, according to Ars Technica.

The Polish opposition is challenging election results that showed a narrow victory for the incumbent right-wing president, Andrzej (AND-RAY) Duda. The formal protest to the Polish supreme court reportedly seeks to delay the certification of the election long enough for it to be declared invalid. According to the New York Times, the opposition cites longstanding problems with election integrity.

A longtime incumbent Brooklyn assemblyman, Felix Ortiz, lost reelection to a young candidate endorsed by the DSA, the Working Families Party, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Ortiz represented the fifty-first district, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge, since 1994. He lost to Mitaynes, who migrated to the US from Peru as a child, and works as a tenant organizer.

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

July 17, 2020 - AM Quickie

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn