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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Donald Trump moved to suspend new work visas, barring hundreds of thousands of workers from getting jobs in the U.S. as skilled workers and seasonal laborers that drive massive parts of our economy.

Meanwhile, multiple reports show that a U.S. army soldier plotted a terrorist attack on his own unit after joining a neo-Nazi satanist group.

And lastly, less than two weeks after NASCAR banned any display of the Confederate Flag at their races, Bubba Wallace, the only black driver in the competition’s top tier, found a noose in his garage ahead of the Geico 500.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Trump Pulls Visas

Donald Trump made another stupid, destructive immigration policy on Monday, moving to suspend broad categories of new work visas and extend restrictions on new green cards in order to further make our country into an isolationist state.

This one has Stephen Miller written all over it, obviously: the ban blocks both skilled workers here on the H1-B visa as well as seasonal or temporary workers like students on work-study, hospitality workers, and many others.

All told, it could keep around 525,000 people out of the country for at least the rest of the year.

Miller has been pushing for a policy like this for years, using the familiar racist argument that anyone coming here to work from another country takes American jobs away. In reality, the move is only going to hurt American businesses, who often depend on the visa system to recruit talent from abroad.

Trump is also reportedly planning changes to existing immigration laws that would further persecute people applying for asylum in the U.S., making it even harder for them to get a work permit after they’ve fled violence in their home country.

It’s all pretty much more textbook closed-border fascism at work, and he’ll keep doing it as long as he’s in office.

The bright side is that like most of Trump’s hasty immigration plans, most of these changes can be challenged in the courts, so expect to see more lawsuits soon.

U.S. Soldier Helped Satanist Nazis

Federal Prosecutors accused a U.S. army soldier on Monday of taking part in a criminal conspiracy to murder members of his own unit and other military personnel alongside a satanic white-supremacist group.

That may sound like the devil’s version of mad-libs, but it’s all in the report. According to an indictment released Monday, Private Ethan Phelan Melzer gave confidential information to a group called the Order of the Nine Angles. O9A is a British occult Nazi group that’s popular with the U.S.-based white-supremacist milita Atomwaffen, which has also recruited current or former U.S. service members.

Their deal, broadly, is worshiping Hitler, although their founder at one point converted to Islam and said nice things about Al Qaeda. The ideology may be a bit inconsistent, but their thirst for violence isn’t.

Per the indictment, the O9A people said their plans were quote “literally organizing a jihadi attack” on U.S. troops.

Melzer allegedly shared info relating to his own unit’s movement, location and security, hoping to help the Nazi satanists plot an ambush during the units upcoming deployment to Turkey. Unfortunately, one of the people he was chatting with was an FBI informant.

Their plan wasn’t to attack the unit themselves, but instead pass the information to a Turkish terrorist group with the intention of dragging the U.S. into another bloody, costly and endless war.

Fortunately for, well, everyone but the Nazi satanists, they were not successful.

NASCAR Noose

The top level of NASCAR racing, one of the most popular sports in the country, has precisely one black driver: Bubba Wallace. On Sunday, he found a noose in his garage, right before the Geico 500 race in Talladega, Florida.

Wallace has resisted engaging with the more racist elements of NASCAR fandom for years. But after the killing of Ahmad Aubry, the New York Times reports that he felt compelled to push back, wearing Black Lives Matter shirts before races and pressuring his fellow drivers to speak up.

Two weeks ago, NASCAR finally banned the Confederate flag from being flown at any of its events.

This decision was met with appreciation from some fans, of course, but others, well. On Sunday, someone with access to his garage left a noose there. NASCAR has opened an investigation, and the garage reportedly had security cameras, but it’s still a grim sign for the sport as a whole. As Wallace said quote:

“Today’s despicable act of racism and hatred leaves me incredibly saddened and serves as a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society and how persistent we must be in the fight against racism.”

Wallace finished the race in 14th, after making a strong push for the lead in the race’s second half. At the finish line, he left the car and walked toward the crowd, right fist raised

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said on Monday night that the city would move to reclaim the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, the autonomous section of the city that had become a police-free haven for protestors, but unfortunately was the site of two shootings over the weekend, one of them fatal. It’s unclear how this process will go, but considering the Seattle Police have been brutal with protesters so far, it probably won’t be pretty.

The Nashville Tennessean fired an ad manager who somehow approved a full-page, extremely racist, utterly incoherent anti-Muslim ad in the paper’s Sunday print edition. A sales executive flagged the ad for review, but the manager let it in the paper anyway. If you’ve seen a picture of it, you’ll understand immediately why that was such a bad call, it’s completely unhinged.

Saudi Arabia will severely limit the number of people it allows to participate in the Hajj, the traditional journey to Mecca that is one of the five pillars of Islam. Almost 2 million people traveled to the Kingdom last year to participate, this year the government says only “very limited numbers” will be allowed in due to the coronavirus pandemic.

An off duty LAPD officer claimed he found a tampon in his Starbucks Frapuccino, joining the proud tradition of cops screaming bloody murder about their food being sabotaged. They’re usually just lying, of course, like the viral story of the NYPD officers who thought they’d received poisoned milkshakes.

That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned with the full show with a still mustache-free Sam this afternoon.

June 23, 2020 - AM Quickie

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn