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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

Health experts say the second wave of coronavirus infections isn’t coming – because the first wave never really stopped, it just got bigger. And the editor of an esteemed medical journal accuses Donald Trump of a crime against humanity.

Meanwhile, online video shows New York police making a kidnapping-style arrest during a protest in Manhattan. As federal troops reportedly prepare to withdraw from the Pacific Northwest, the Homeland Security Department’s camoflage-clad goons look for fresh targets.

And lastly: Silicon Valley executives take some heat in a Congressional antitrust hearing. But does this Congress really have the wherewithal to hold powerful corporations accountable?

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

Dozens of places around the world are reporting record numbers of new coronavirus cases, the Washington Post says. The surge in cases has arrived weeks after these places squashed the curve and reopened their economies. Japan, Israel, Lebanon, and Hong Kong have reported record new cases. Belgium and Spain are among those reimposing restrictions. As one epidemiologist explained to the Post, the pandemic is like a fire that leave embers everywhere. When people relax their vigilance, it takes off again.

The United States, Brazil, and India account for two-thirds of new cases in the past week. Deaths in the US passed one-hundred and fifty thousand yesterday, with an average of one thousand virus-related deaths per day over the past week. No one state or city represents the epicenters. There are, instead, multiple epicenters. According to experts interviewed by the New York Times, there is no longer any point in doing contract tracing in most states, because the virus is so widespread. Everywhere across the country, people of color are suffering disproportionately. California and Florida continued to break records in terms of COVID-19 deaths. Workers in agriculture, factories and food processing facilities are being hard hit.

The editor of the respected Lancet medical journal, Richard Horton, has a new book out in which he accuses Donald Trump of a crime against humanity for his handling of the pandemic. In a White House press conference yesterday, Trump again defended a quack

doctor he promoted on Twitter. The doctor, Stella Immanuel, is also a pastor who believes that demons make people sick by having sex with them in the night, and that alien DNA is being used in medical treatments. Would you believe it, she also has a coronavirus miracle cure to sell you, and it’s the same one Trump was hawking for months. Trump again told reporters yesterday that he was very impressed with the quack, Doctor Immanuel. There’s no mystery why we’re in such bad shape. Our leadership is both corrupt and insane.

Police Execute Kidnapping in NYC

The Wall of Moms protest movement that began in Portland, Oregon is spreading around the country, the Times reports – to Oakland, California; Aurora, Colorado; Missouri, North Carolina, Alabama, Texas, Chicago, Maryland, New Mexico and beyond. Yesterday morning, Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced that federal troops would be withdrawing from Portland starting today, after negotiations with Vice President Mike Pence. However, Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf quickly contradicted that statement, saying that federal troops would stay put until their job was done. Their job, apparently, is to gas and shoot into crowd of people exercising their First Amendment rights, and lock up any suspected anarchists. Washington State leaders announced the other night that the feds would withdraw from Seattle, a claim that Wolf did not contradict.

However, the Justice Department announced that its so-called Operation Legend would expand to Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Legend is not the only operation involving increased federal presence in cities. It’s unclear how much of the mixed messaging around federal deployments is a result of incompetence and miscommunication within the administration, and how much is deliberate and intended to confuse and demoralize protesters. Whatever Chad Wolf or Attorney General Bill Barr says, abundant accounts from reliable local news sources show that protesters are the real targets of federal force at this time. The feds are reportedly telling regional leaders they want state and local police to finish the job of clamping down on Black Lives Matter protests. As we have seen this week in New York, local cops can be fast learners indeed. Online videos showed NYPD officers grab a young transwoman named Nikki Stone off a Manhattan street and throw her into a van as nearby BLM protesters screamed in terror. The incident resembled another recent federal kidnapping in Portland, except it took place in broad daylight. After New York politicians at all levels began demanding answers, the NYPD said Stone was a wanted

suspect. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez tweeted: QUOTE Our civil liberties are on brink. This is not a drill. There is no excuse for snatching women off the street and throwing them into unmarked vans. To not protect our rights is to give them away. It is our responsibility to resist authoritarianism ENDQUOTE.

Congress Berates Tech Execs

Silicon Valley was on the defensive yesterday, as chief executives from top ech companies appeared before Congress for a hearing on antitrust. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google’s Sundar Pichai all appeared before a House Judiciary subcommittee via video link, according to the Washington Post. Rhode Island Congressman David Cicilline (SISS-ILL-EEN) framed the hearing by saying that the Big Tech companies were disruptive in harmful ways and risked not only business competition but the future of democracy itself. Cicilline said QUOTE “Our founders would not bow before a king. Nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy ENDQUOTE. Congressional questioning was at times inept, with one member asking why Republican emails always seemed to wind up in the spam folder. But when Democrats were on point and pressing the tech executives about substantive antitrust issues, they dodged the questions and claimed ignorance or forgetfulness.

Separately, Holocaust survivors around the world joined a campaign that launched yesterday asking Zuckerberg to remove denialist material from Facebook. The campaign, organized by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, plans to release one video per day under the hashtag No Denying It. Each will feature a Holocaust survivor asking Zuckerberg to remove hate speech from the website, along with Holocaust denial pages, posts, and groups, according to the Los Angeles Times. Zuckerberg has refused to meet personally with the survivors, instead sending deputies.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Four hundred thousand Puerto Ricans were without power yesterday, hours before a tropical storm was forecast to hit. Executives and workers for the bankrupt utility company reportedly could not agree what caused the blackout. Take care down there.

On Trump’s orders, twelve thousand US troops are preparing to leave Germany. That’s approximately one-third of the longstanding US force in that country. Some six thousand will remain stationed elsewhere in Europe with the rest reportedly coming home.

State media in Belarus reported the capture of a Russian mercenaries purported to work for the notorious Wagner Group. More than thirty Wagner mercenaries were said to be arrested near Minsk, allegedly on a mission to destabilize the country ahead of a presidential election next month. President Alexander Lukashenko is seeking a sixth term and has, according to Agence France-Presse, jailed his leading rivals ahead of the vote.

After a thirty five-day investigation, police detectives in Los Angeles, California determined that a Starbuckers worker did not place a tampon in an officer’s drink. Detectives concluded the object in the officer’s coffee was a cleaning rag that had fallen in his cup by mistake. Case closed, good show boys.

That’s all for the AM Quickie. Join us as Jamie Peck and Matt Binder take over the Fun Half this afternoon on the Majority Report.

July 30, 2020 - AM Quickie

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn