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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

A man shot into a group of civil rights marchers in rural Pennsylvania. Which is pretty emblematic of how this year has been going.

Meanwhile, night two of the Republican National Convention featured Melania Trump and Mike Pompeo. Can you guess which one was criticized for breaking federal rules, and which was being secretly recorded by a former friend?

And lastly, more states are fighting back as the Trump administration monkeywrenches the United States Postal Service. Now New York, New Jersey, and Hawaii have filed a lawsuit in federal court.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

An old white man shot into a mixed-race crowd of some fifty civil rights marchers in rural Pennsylvania late on Monday night, though the incident wasn’t reported by local media until yesterday. Police did not release the shooter’s name but said in a press release that two men were being questioned at a state police barracks in small-town Bedford.

The marchers are on a pilgrimage from Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Washington, DC – a journey of nearly eight hundred miles, on foot. Before the shooting the marchers had taken a break and were preparing to climb a hill. Witness Tory Lowe said marchers caught sight of the man looking out a door, but had no time to react before he began shooting at them from behind. Lowe said in a Facebook Live stream that the man fired at least seven shots from a long gun. “He just came out shooting. There was nothing we could do,” Lowe said.

One marcher was hit in the face. He was reportedly in stable condition yesterday at a nearby hospital. Police said an argument preceded the shooting, but witnesses disputed that account. According to Lowe, QUOTE it was no argument. The video is proof ENDQUOTE.

The marchers set out from Milwaukee on August 4. At least two were arrested on charges of blocking traffic earlier along the route, in Indiana. They hope to arrive at the Lincoln

Monument in DC by Friday, which marks the fifty-seventh anniversary of Martin Luther King Junior’s “I Have a Dream” speech. How little has changed.

Pompeo speech called illegal

Breaking form, Donald Trump yesterday praised CNN for running the opening night of the Republican National Convention more or less uninterrupted. But what he didn’t mention was that ratings were down twenty-eight percent for the RNC as compared to 2016. That’s according to the Los Angeles Times reported. And about three million fewer people watched it than watched the Democratic National Convention last week.

Last night was the second of four nights of planned programming by the Republicans. There was no coverage of how Trump has moved more than two million dollars in contributions to his campaign from those accounts to his private companies, as Forbes reported yesterday. There were, in contrast to the Democratic convention, no past presidents speaking on Trump’s behalf. But there was scandal aplenty. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke to the convention from the US Embassy in Jerusalem. Career diplomats were appalled by the decision, according to CBS News. The Foreign Service has strict guidelines about political activity, which Pompeo ignored. We couldn’t put it better than Democratic Congressman Ilhan Omar, who said QUOTE if there's one thing this administration has shown us, it's a willingness to break the law in broad daylight. Mike Pompeo's participation at the RNC as Secretary of State – from foreign soil, no less – isn't just inappropriate. It's illegal. ENDQUOTE.

Trump’s wife Melania also spoke, from the recently renovated White House Rose Garden. But what’s more interesting is that Melania is reportedly on tape dissing various Trumpworld figures. The tapes were surreptitiously recorded by her former friend and adviser, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who has a book coming out soon. Titled Melania and Me, it’s billed as a tell- all. We’ll let you know the dirt as soon as it’s available.

More states sue USPS

New York state Attorney General Letitia James, joined by the states of New Jersey and Hawaii, and the cities of New York and San Francisco, are suing Donald Trump and his

crony, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, over their sabotage of Postal Service operations leading up to the November election.

It’s the third lawsuit over DeJoy’s disruptions to postal operations. Pennsylvania and Washington State led two multistate lawsuits that were filed last week. All three lawsuits allege DeJoy made the changes without getting them cleared by the postal regulator or seeking public comment as required by Congress, Bloomberg News reported.

In addition to Trump and DeJoy, the new lawsuit led by New York Attorney General James also names the Postal Service itself as a defendant. In a statement yesterday, James said QUOTE this USPS slowdown is nothing more than a voter suppression tactic. Yet, this time, these authoritarian actions are not only jeopardizing our democracy and fundamental right to vote, but the immediate health and financial well-being of Americans across the nation ENDQUOTE.

The lawsuits seek court orders to prevent further changes, in addition to undoing the changes DeJoy already made. Meanwhile, more videos emerged from around the country showing discarded mail sorting machines and postal drop boxes being removed. They’re not even really trying to hide this election interference. It’s all so damned brazen.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

More than half a million people were told to evacuate the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana ahead of Hurricane Laura, a category three storm that is expected to make landfall late tonight or early tomorrow. Winds are forecast to be in excess of one hundred miles per hour and there is a risk of flash flooding, as well. Stay safe, stay dry, and if you’re planning on using one of the official shelters, the authorities ask that you bring two masks for each person, plus hand sanitizer, along with the rest of your emergency kit.

The Kremlin yesterday rejected claims by German doctors that Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a nerve agent. Navalny fell ill last Thursday while on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. His allies are calling for a criminal inquiry and say they don’t trust results from a Russian hospital that found no basis for the poisoning claim.

The New York Times reports that American colleges and universities are cracking down hard on students who hold parties in violation of coronavirus restrictions. Suspensions of individual students, as well as entire fraternities and sororities, are already in the hundreds. Outbreaks stemming from parties are a real problem. The Times has counted twenty-three thousand COVID cases on seven-hundred and fifty campuses since the pandemic kicked off last winter.

Jerry Falwell Junior formally resigned the presidency of Liberty University yesterday, amid a sex scandal. Falwell accidentally copied university leadership on an email with pictures of his wife having sex with a pool boy, reportedly an activity the right-wing Christian leader enjoyed observing several times per year. After the pool boy confirmed the relationship, Falwell said he was resigning, then changed his mind, then changed his mind again, and here we are.

Aug 26, 2020 - AM Quickie

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Corey Pein

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn