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TODAY'S HEADLINES:

President Trump used executive orders to push extensions to unemployment benefits and other economic measures while Congress was deadlocked this weekend. But his big showy orders aren’t likely to trickle down to working people anytime soon -- and his planned cuts to social security and medicare are even worse.

Meanwhile, schools are reopening across the country, and the coronavirus is already starting to spread among them. In one school in Georgia captured in a viral photograph last week, local reports say nine cases have already cropped up.

And lastly, protests are building in Lebanon against the corrupt government many hold responsible for the devastating explosion last week. And sure enough, that same government is cracking down, hard.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

President Donald Trump took executive action on Saturday, signing four executive orders supposedly aimed at stimulating the economy. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to note that most of them are just back doors to gutting social programs and preventing working Americans from getting what they deserve.

The four orders look like they address needs of a desperately hurting public. The first delayed payroll tax collection for people making under $104,000. Note that it just delayed the tax, not waived it, so while it’ll mean a little more money in people’s pockets, it’s not going to do much in the long run.

To make matters worse, payroll tax cuts are what feed medicare and social security, and progressive activists are worried that Trump’s cuts to them are just a back door to slashing those programs further down the line. And sure enough: Trump said in a press conference Saturday that if re-elected he’d shoot to eliminate the payroll taxes entirely.

The second order extended unemployment benefits at $400 a week, $200 less than the $600 per week figure that most out of work people were collecting before. But Trump is trying to take the Federal government’s share of this out of the DHS’s disaster relief fund, sidestepping Congress and draining vital funds all at once. There’ll probably be a legal challenge.

The third order says that top officials, like the head of health and human services and the CDC director, can quote “consider” whether or not to enact a ban on evictions. But it doesn’t actually ban evictions, doesn’t allocate any more money to help renters, and basically does nothing. Great.

The last order defers student loan payments until December 31, at which point the money is due again. Seeing as this crisis doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, it’s unclear how much that’ll help.

As Democrats pointed out, all of this could have been avoided if the Senate had actually considered the HEROES act passed by the House almost two months ago. But because the GOP’s in charge, we get some half-assed executive orders serving as bandaids at best, and further wounds at worst.

Back To School COVID Surge

The new school year is starting, and some students are, shockingly, back in the classroom. This is having and almost immediate tragic result.

Let’s look at the numbers. The New York Times reports that at least 97,000 children tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks of July alone. Imagine what’s going to happen to that number as thousands of them go back to in-person school in Florida.

You may have seen a photo floating around the news and social media last week, which showed a jam-packed hallway at a Georgia high school. The school had claimed that masks were encouraged but not mandatory, because there was no way to enforce it, despite the fact that schools enforce dress codes all the time.

And guess what: Six students and three staff members have now tested positive, all of whom were present at school in the past week.

This is just one very easy example of what’s going to happen all over the country if in-person school continues this year. It’s going to feed kids and their teachers into a meat-grinder of diseases. Sure, the kids do tend to fare slightly better with the disease than older adults, but there will be deaths, especially among the teachers who will be exposed again and again.

Reopening a school is almost certainly condemning at least some of your students and staff to death, but officials across the country are going ahead with it anyway.

Lebanon Protests Corrupt Government

Lebanon is fed up. After government neglect and corruption effectively caused the massive explosion that devastated the city of Beirut last week, its citizens have taken to the streets in massive protests against the government.

Protests began on Saturday and continued through Sunday, as angry demonstrators pelted the outside of the country’s parliament building with rocks. The government responded by cracking down with tactics that would seem familiar to any American after this summer: tear gas, batons, riot gear.

Waves of protesters stormed the foreign ministry, the environment ministry and the economy ministry, and occupied the Banking Association building. The latter group is held responsible for part of the country’s worsening economic crisis.

So far a handful of politicians have resigned, but nowhere close to the 43 needed for the government to official change. 21 people are still missing after the blast, and 153 are confirmed dead, according to the Guardian. Search and Rescue teams have given up on finding any more survivors.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

The post office is still in dire straits: Common Dreams reports on a Friday Night Massacre at the end of last week, in which the Trump crony postmaster general ousted several top executives. As funding for the beleaguered agency and vote-by-mail battles go on, keep an eye on this story this week.

Alex Morse, a progressive mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts who’s running to unseat longterm Democrat Richie Neal in the state’s primary next month, is currently weathering a strange morality scandal, as critics bring up his consensual relationships with college-age men, some of them students, while he was mayor and a lecturer at UMass Amherst. Morse isn’t accused of anything, per se, which makes the whole situation shaky.

Joe Biden still does not have a VP pick! But he might have one soon. He’s got a virtual fundraiser event set for Monday, which is including a press pool, and could be when he’s making the announcement. Or not! We’ll see.

Protesters in Portland aren’t letting up, once again setting a small fire at the police union headquarters on Sunday, which cops quickly declared a riot, sparking another night of running arrests and street clashes.

That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show later today!

Aug 10 2020 - AM Quickie

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn