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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Intensive care units are filling up with coronavirus patients across the country. Which means that some of the sick people aren’t going to get the care they need.

Meanwhile, Texas Republicans want the United States Supreme Court to overturn the presidential election in four other states. And Donald Trump wants every Republican in Congress to sign on to the case.

And lastly, New York’s massive state pension fund is divesting from fossil fuels companies. Experts say it could push more major investors to follow suit.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The death panels are coming. More than a third of Americans live in areas where hospitals are running critically short of intensive care beds, according to federal data analyzed by the New York Times. And one in ten Americans lives in an area where intensive care beds are either completely full, or fewer than five percent of beds are available. At these levels, maintaining existing standards of care for the sickest patients may be impossible.

The new data shows that some areas – like Amarillo, Texas, Coral Gables, Florida, and Troy, Michigan – are seeing rates of serious illness from Covid-19 that approach the levels seen in New York City during the worst weeks of the spring. Political leaders in many states are ramping up measures to try to slow the spread, the Times reports. Governor Michelle Lujan (LOO-HAN) Grisham of New Mexico, where ICUs are full across the state, is expected to soon announce that hospitals can ration care based on who is most likely to survive.

Survival rates from the disease have improved as doctors have learned which treatments work, the Times says. But hospital shortages could reverse those gains, risking the possibility of increasing mortality rates once again. There is some evidence physicians are already limiting care, according to Thomas Tsai, an assistant professor of health policy at Harvard University. For the last several weeks, the rate at which Covid-19 patients are going to hospitals has started decreasing. That suggests that there’s some rationing of care as hospitals remain full, Tsai told the Times. The best way we can ease the burden on hospitals is to stop the spread – so stay home or else mask up.

Texas Election Lawsuit 'Absurd'

No matter how hard he scrubs, the stink of failure clings to Donald Trump. Reuters reports that an attempt by Texas Republicans to have Trump’s election loss upended by the US Supreme Court is almost certain to fail. Texas on Tuesday sued Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in a case brought directly to the high court. The suit asks justices to throw out the voting results in those four states. It argues that changes made by the states to expand mail-in voting amid the pandemic were unlawful, Reuters reports.

Election law experts who called the lawsuit laughable. Rebecca Green, a professor at William and Mary Law School in Virginia, told Reuters that Texas does not have legal standing to challenge how other states handled the election. She said QUOTE It is so outlandish. It is totally contrary to how our Constitution mandates that elections be run. The idea that a state could complain about another state’s processes is just absurd ENDQUOTE.

Trump said yesterday on Twitter that he'll intervene in the case, which was filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Meanwhile, a Republican congressman who filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit said yesterday that Trump is anxiously awaiting a list of lawmakers who support the effort. The Washington Post reports that Trump called Congressman Mike Johnson of Louisiana yesterday morning. Trump asked Johnson to request that all Republican members of the House and Senate join their brief. In a letter to colleagues, Johnson said they are not seeking to litigate particular allegations of fraud – no doubt because the allegations are bogus. Rather, the Post reports, they are urging the Court to conduct a careful, timely review of the allegations. Seeing as how the Court just declined to hear another of Trump’s baseless election complaints, that’d be a big surprise.

Finally, the Post reports, the Nevada Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Tuesday night to reject an appeal from Trump’s campaign to overturn the state’s election results. Loooooser!

Fossil Fuels Divestment Spreads

Know any rich people? Let them know that the world’s wealthy will need to reduce their carbon footprints by a factor of thirty to help curb climate change. The figure comes from findings published yesterday by the United Nations Environment Program and reported in the Washington Post. Currently, the emissions attributable to the richest one percent of all people account for more than double those of the poorest fifty percent. Shifting that balance will require swift and substantial lifestyle changes, the Post says, including decreases in air travel. But there are also changes that only institutions, not individuals, can make. And some are.

According to the New York Times, one of the world’s largest and most influential investors – New York State’s pension fund – will drop many of its fossil fuel stocks in the next five years. It will also and sell its shares in other companies that contribute to global warming by 2040, the state comptroller said yesterday. With $226 billion in assets, New York’s fund holds sway over other major investors. Its decision to divest from fossil fuels could help push global markets away from oil and gas companies, experts and activists told the Times.

One thousand two hundred and forty six institutions have committed to shedding their investments in fossil fuels, the Times reports. Sixty thousand individuals have also divested. The total combined value of their portfolios is $14.1 trillion. The movement to dump fossil fuel stocks began as an effort to make an ethical statement and to cast polluters as pariahs, much like the push to divest from apartheid-era South Africa. But as the market shifts, coal and increasingly oil and gas have become riskier investments. It was bound to happen eventually – and hopefully not too late.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

NBC News reports that immigrant and child advocates are increasing pressure on President-elect Joe Biden. They want him to commit to allowing parents separated from their children at the border by the Trump administration to return to the US to be reunited. Biden has said he would establish a taskforce dedicated to reuniting separated families, but his transition team has yet to reveal detailed plans. Get on that, Joe!

Trump is facing a rebellion among Congressional Republicans over his threat to veto the annual Pentagon spending bill, Politico reports. A House vote on Tuesday night suggests

Trump’s veto will be overridden, which hasn’t happened to him before. Well, there’s a first time for everything.

Cuba said this week it has attracted $1.9 billion worth of foreign investment over the past year despite tighter US sanctions. Reuters reports that Cuba has reduced obstacles to foreign investment. For example, only projects regarding extraction of natural resources and public services will now require a majority Cuban stakeholder. What would Che say?

The Federal Trade Commission and more than forty states accused Facebook yesterday of becoming a monopoly by buying up its rivals to illegally squash competition, the New York Times reports. The prosecutors called for Facebook to break off Instagram and WhatsApp, and for new restrictions on future deals. Great, now when do we start redistributing Mark Zuckerberg’s personal fortune?

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

DEC 10, 2020 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn