Podcasts about writer jack crosbie

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Welcome back to Donald Trump CovidWatch. The president abruptly left Walter Reed Medical Center on Monday evening, announcing in a tweet that he was quote “feeling really good.” We’ll see how that goes for him! Meanwhile, leaked documents show that Exxon Mobile is quietly planning to increase its carbon dioxide output by as much as the ​_entire output of the country of Greece_​ in the next few years, in flagrant disregard for the lives of, well, pretty much everyone who will be affected by global climate change. And lastly, after the courts side with the Trump administration, Iowa invalidates 100,000 ballots, which could throw a major wrench into absentee voting in the state. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Trump Huffs and Puffs Out of Hospital After just three nights in Walter Reed hospital, Trump is free -- headed back to the White House to most likely continue infecting anyone he comes in contact with. On Monday afternoon, Trump fired off the following tweet announcing he would be leaving the hospital. Quote: “Feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!” Sure, that might have something to do with the insane cocktail of steroids and drugs he’s been injected with over the past three days, but it’s enough to get the big man out of the big house, despite the fact that he’s almost certainly still contagious and could very easily relapse. In a press conference outside of Walter Reed, Trump’s medical team claimed that the president was doing fine, saying quote: “Over the past 24 hours, the president has continued to improve. He’s met or exceeded all standard hospital discharge criteria.” endquote. Later, at the White House, Trump appeared to breath heavily after removing his mask while standing on a balcony to wave to cameras. Clearly doing great! The President is still on anti-viral redemsivir [RE DEM SEE VEER] and the steroid he was taking to manage the disease, and three days doesn’t really seem like enough time to completely beat COVID-19, but sure, we’ll just have to take their word for it. Trump also claimed he’d be participating in the October 15 Presidential debate, which is almost laughable, as the Biden campaign would probably want their guy in a hazmat suit to come within 100 feet of Trump at this point. But who knows! October 15th feels like a year away. Meanwhile, the list of infected White House staffers continues to grow -- press secretary Kayeligh McEnany and two other aides tested positive on Monday. And according to the New York Times, the White House is not doing contact tracing. But hey, at least their extremely contagious, completely remorseless boss is back in the office! Exxon Creates New Greece (in CO2) Leaked documents show that Exxon Mobile plans to increase its carbon dioxide output over the next few years by a truly staggering amount. The documents, obtained by Bloomberg News, show that Mobile’s internal projections estimate that it’s CO2 output will jump at least 17 percent by 2025. Given how massive the company is, that increase is as large as the output of the entire nation of Greece. As Bloomberg notes, this isn’t exactly hypocrisy from Exxon, which has never even bothered to pretend it was interested in changing its business model to something that wouldn’t destroy the entire planet. What the documents show is that Exxon’s investment plan for the foreseeable future includes and readily accepts this massive uptick. Essentially, Exxon has decided to double down on its oil and natural gas investments, to the extent that it’s token green energy initiatives will be drowned in a flood of CO2. And Bloomberg reports that the internal numbers don’t tell the full story: they only track the greenhouse gases released by the company’s direct operations. The company’s full impact, when you consider the eventual impact of all of the oil and gas they’re shipping and selling, is expected to be five times that number, for a total that equals the same output of an entire small nation. Iowa Ballot Blooper An absentee ballot blunder in Iowa could screw over as many as 100,000 voters in the state, the Intercept reports. What happened is back in July, election officials in two Iowa counties sent out requested absentee ballots with the Voter ID number already filled in, as most voters don’t know theirs. The GOP promptly threw a fit, arguing that doing so violated a directive from the Iowa Secretary of State. The end result is that the ballots were invalidated, but not before they’d already gone out to tens of thousands of voters across multiple counties. The GOP has been filing similar lawsuits across Iowa and the country as a whole, which creates a massive headache for voters. Many of them will have received an invalidated ballot, but the Intercept reports that their vote won’t count unless they start the process again and request a new ballot. What this means, obviously, is that anyone from Iowa who isn’t up to date on this story or doesn’t pay super close attention to their mail has a good chance of being out of luck when it comes to mail-in voting come election time. If that sounds like you, check your ballot now. Democrats in the state are working to get in touch with affected voters in case their county’s communication’s don’t get through, which is burning a lot of campaign cash and work hours -- and there’s no guarantee they’ll be able to get to everyone. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Chuck Schumer’s quest to slow down the GOP’s Supreme Court nomination is still going slowly, as GOP senators vow to vote in person to confirm Coney Barrett even if they’re infected with Coronavirus. One thing getting lost in all of the White House coronavirus panic: some of the people most at risk aren’t the ghouls in the Trump administration, but the working staff who comprise the buildings’ valets, butlers, housekeepers, engineers and cooks. After a strange website error last month, the CDC website now acknowledges that people can be infected with COVID-19 through airborne transmission. Glad to know things are working on a quick schedule over there! And finally, one good piece of voting news: in Florida, where a landmark ballot measure restored the right to vote for as many as 1.4 million Felons two years ago, a massive voter registration drive is underway to find those voters and let them know their rights have been restored. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today! Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. Oct 6, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Donald Trump has coronavirus, and his prognosis is... well... nobody really knows, and the administration isn’t really talking. As of Sunday night, he was taking joy-rides in a motorcade for supporters outside of the hospital he’s supposed to be quarantined at. Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is pushing for an adjournment in the Senate to postpone the possibility of confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court thanks to the wave of GOP Senators who have fallen ill. Can Democrats whip up the votes to stop him? And lastly, a new investigation by HuffPost found that millions in Federal government loans went to major energy companies that had recently violated environmental rules. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Trump Takes Contagious Joyride After months of denial, false information, and downplaying the seriousness of the crisis, Donald Trump has coronavirus. The president announced his diagnosis late on Thursday night, and has been hospitalized at Walter Reed over the weekend. His medical team and administration, however, have been less than forthcoming about what his actual condition is. Here’s what we know so far, in case you took the weekend to actually log off. Trump was admitted to Walter Reed on Friday. According to his doctors, he had a high fever that day, and on two occasions over the weekend, his oxygen levels dropped enough that he required supplementary oxygen. Trump’s medical team on Sunday tried to play it off like he was fine, but the New York Times reports that the fluctuating oxygen levels and Trump’s treatment with a course of steroids suggest his case may be more severe than he’s letting on. Earlier in the day on Sunday, Trump took a spin around Walter Reed in a motorcade, flaunting quarantine guidelines to have a little joy ride in front of his supporters. Sounds about right. He’s also posted the occasional video updating fans about his condition on Twitter, but we all know just how much his personal testimony is worth. The timeline on when he knew he was sick is also completely unclear. On Sunday night, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump didn’t disclose a positive test he got back on Thursday morning, before he went on a Fox News appearance and while he was still performing normal duties in the White House. In other words, there’s no telling how many people he could have personally infected, but the cluster that probably got him sick is spreading around the administration and GOP higher ranks like crazy. That’s where we’re at as of late Sunday night -- Monday will surely have more updates and speculation. What a time to be alive. Mitch McConnell Loses Votes to Corona The coronavirus cluster sweeping through the top ranks of the GOP might have some pretty significant legislative consequences. Politico reports that Mitch McConnell is going to attempt to call a vote to adjourn the Senate until October 19, ostensibly to protect more Senators from getting infected. But McConnell also wants the Senate’s various committees to keep doing their jobs during this, meaning the Judiciary Committee’s hearings on Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett could continue. This is an obvious ploy to ram forward Coney Barret’s nomination at full speed while denying the rest of the Senate a chance to do much -- and, most importantly, preserving any more GOP Senators from getting too sick to vote her in. Already, two Republican members of the Judiciary Committee have the disease, Thom Tillis and MIke Lee, and another, Ted Cruz, is in quarantine after being exposed to the virus. It’s worth noting that the potential exposure event for basically all of these guys was a relatively mask-less, close quarters ceremony at the White House last weekend when ACB was announced. The question now becomes what the Democrats are going to do to stop this. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is pushing to stop the committees while the full Senate adjourns, which could help stall any vote on Barrett’s confirmation until after the election. With at least 3 GOP senators out with COVID and 3 more in quarantine, McConnell is going to have a hard time getting the votes to push anything through right now, which gives the Democrats some power for once. It’s possible that if Schumer thinks he has the votes, that the Democrats could get a vote to adjourn until after the election, not until October 13. That wouldn’t necessarily block Barrett’s confirmation but would kick the can quite a ways down the road. We’ll see how this plays out on Monday morning. Government Loans Went to Dirty Energy Companies Meanwhile, outside of the COVID pit that is Washington DC, a new report from Huffington Post finds further injustice in the application of the Paycheck Protection Program loans doled out during the pandemic. According to HuffPost, at least five companies who have collectively paid more than $52 million in penalties for violating clean air and other environmental regulations received a whole bunch of that money back from the federal PPP program. Between them, they secured $32 million in loans. Chris Saeger, a spokesman for Washington-based watchdog Accountable dot US said quote: “These companies have a clear history of violating public trust and the law by contaminating the environment in pursuit of profits. Our federal government should not be essentially giving back portions of the penalties they’ve paid, but that’s exactly what the Trump administration is doing through the PPP.” The sector overall got enormous amounts of money. Huffpo reports that as many as 7,000 companies received anywhere from 3 to 7 billion dollars in PPP loans. And remember, this is just the latest example of corruption and mismanagement within the PPP, which doled out millions to companies owned by members of congress and Trump donors. This puts the current bailout fight in new focus, as Trump and the GOP are generally trying to shift even more money from direct relief and bailouts to necessary services and into big corporate slush funds that they can funnel to their cronies. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The previously frozen conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia escalated dramatically this weekend, as Azerbaijani forces shelled the major city of Stepankert and Armenian forces shelled the city of Ganja. The conflict is also a complicated proxy war between forces in the region, as Turkey openly supports Azerbaijan and Russia is generally aligned with Armenia, though it sells weapons to both sides. New York City, the original hotspot of the U.S. coronavirus infection, is adopting new restrictions as a second wave sweeps through certain neighborhoods in the city, further complicating the city’s slow reopening plan. In the affected neighborhoods, public and private schools would shut down alongside all non-essential businesses. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been accused by his own staffers of offenses involving abuse of office, improper influence, bribery, and other criminal acts. Paxton is already under indictment on felony charges related to Securities fraud. If you were wondering where Biden is during all this, his team said late Sunday night that he had again tested negative for coronavirus, after obviously being in contact with Trump during the debate last week. So that’s encouraging for now! That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM quickie today! Stay tuned for more Presidential Health Watch updates on the Majority Report later today. Oct 5, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: House Democrats are doing their level best to push a vote on a new 2.2 trillion dollar coronavirus stimulus bill, but are getting lowballed by the GOP and Trump administration, which claimed it had offered Democrats a $1.8 trillion bill that they then turned down. Meanwhile, mail-in and early voting is off to a rocky start, thanks to GOP efforts to continue sabotaging it in Texas and beyond. There are some bright points, but this is going to be a rough ride. And lastly, Amy Coney Barrett’s record on abortion may be even worse than we feared, as a new report shows she participated in a 2006 campaign that stated that Roe V Wade had to be overturned immediately. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Stimulus Bill Still Stalled Once again, we have a partisan battle over aid to the American people still suffering from a world-altering pandemic. You’ve heard this one before, but here’s where we’re at now. Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats are mobilized to vote on a $2.2 trillion dollar stimulus bill, which is pretty much the least they could be doing. Such a bill stands no chance of making it through the Senate without getting chopped up, of course, but at least it’s something. Republicans, however, don’t want anywhere near that number to go through, and are proposing tiny crumbs as opposed to the Democrats scraps. Remember, the HEROES act in May was $3.4 trillion and even that wasn’t nearly enough. The president, however, ever a wildcard, offered Democrats a $1.8 trillion bill. The Washington Post reports that number was too big for some of the more fiscally insane Republicans in Congress, but what’re they gonna do, cross the president? And of course, it’s still a cool 400 billion lower than what the Democrats want. Trump’s proposed bill, according to the Post, includes $300 billion for a new round of direct stimulus checks and another $300 billion for expanded unemployment at $400 per week. Still less than the $600 keeping people afloat, but better than nothing. That bill also includes allowances for COVID testing, rental protections, and more. But in almost every category, it’s still undercutting what the Democrats want, which is something along the lines of new 1200 checks, 600 a week unemployment, and more than the paltry 250 billion for state-level relief that the GOP is offering. And while they haggle all this out, more and more Americans are getting pushed over their personal financial cliffs. Texas Gov Locks Down Ballot Boxes There’s good news and bad news about the beginning of early mail in voting. Let’s start with the good. According to NBC news, the North Carolina Board of Elections says 300,000 people have voted by mail already, shattering records for the state. Many states are overcoming some early blips to get off to a roaring start with early voting and mail-in ballots. However. There is bad news, and you probably know what’s coming. Republicans are doing everything they can to limit voting access, and the latest example is particularly egregious. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbot issued a proclamation, as of today, closing ballot-drop off stations across the state and limiting them to one per county. That means in Texas, one of the biggest states in the country, each county will have only one ballot drop-off point. For reference, before the proclamation, some counties had as many as a dozen. Abbot claims this is for quote “security” purposes, but the only thing it’s securing is Trump’s fading chances of winning the election. Texas is rapidly becoming a contestable state for Democrats, and Abbot knows it, as does the local Democratic party. Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said quote: “Republicans are on the verge of losing, so Governor Abbott is trying to adjust the rules last minute. Governor Abbott and Texas Republicans are scared. We are creating a movement that will beat them at the ballot box on Nov. 3, and there’s nothing these cheaters can do about it.” ACB's Abortion Views Exposed Amy Coney Barrett is clearly virulently anti abortion like several Supreme Court Justices, but until now, most of them have had the acumen to couch those opinions in conservative legalese. Barret, however, may be the first one to just say screw it and go all out. That’s because a new report by NBC news shows that in 2006, Barrett participated in a two-page ad in the South Bend Times calling for Roe v. Wade to be overturned and ending the “barbaric legacy” of the decision. Doesn’t get more clear-cut than that! And this comes in the wake of Trump, at the debate with Biden, claiming quote “you don’t know her view on Roe v. Wade.” endquote. Well, looks like we do now. What’s more, Barrett did not disclose this fact to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is currently doing its background digging on her before her confirmation hearings. The worst thing is that she’ll probably get away with it entirely -- all of the dirt in the world can’t stop the GOP if they have the votes. Right now, it looks like Barrett’s unsavory optics have put off Mitch McConnell from calling for a vote before the election. But if Trump loses, you better believe the gloves are going to come off and they’ll make a lame duck push to get her on the court. After all, Kavanaugh had multiple women accusing him of violent sexual assault and he’s currently sitting right on that bench. But when or if ACB gets there, it’s good to know what she is right off the bat. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: After the absolute mess of a debate on Tuesday, the Trump campaign is crying foul, accusing the Commission on Presidential Debates of bias and insisting that no rule changes be made to stop the President shouting over his opponent whenever he wants. In other words, more pain and suffering await any brave fools who decide to tune in to the next one. Sound the klaxon: we’ve got an update on the dumbest men alive. The Michigan Attorney General charged right wing scammers Jacob Wohl and Jack Burman with four felony counts, including voter intimidation, stemming from their idiotic scam to set up a robocall to discourage urban voters from casting a ballot in the general election. Several GOP Senators, Including Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Joni Ernst flipped sides and voted with Democrats in a procedural vote on the Trump-backed lawsuit against the affordable Care Act. What this means for the upcoming Supreme Court hearings that could decide the fate of the ACA lawsuit after election day, we’ll see. Donald Trump tried one more mundane little attempt at voter manipulation: including a signed letter in food assistance boxes given out to needy families. Food banks, thankfully, are taking the letters out, as they clearly violate the Hatch Act and are just in incredibly poor taste regardless. That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie Today! Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. Oct 2, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: A new report shows that Donald Trump used Facebook for a massive voter deterrence operation in 2016, targeting up to 3.5 million black voters in swing states with negative ads about Hillary Clinton in an attempt to quote “cultivate hopelessness,” and suppress their votes. Meanwhile, the Joe Biden campaign adds Cindy McCain, widow of late Republican John McCain, to its advisory board. Says about all you need to know about who they’re trying to persuade, doesn’t it? And lastly, new evacuations were ordered on Monday in California’s wine country as two new wildfires set the northern part of the state ablaze. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Trump Used Facebook to Quash Black Votes in 2016 A report by Britain’s Channel Four News alleges that Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign used specifically targeted Facebook advertisements to dissuade up to 3.5 million black people in swing states from voting. The report, which is based on a massive data leak of Trump campaign advertising data, shows that the campaign compiled files on 198 million American voters and then used an algorithm to sort them into categories based on their economic and domestic statuses and other data. One of these categories was called “deterrence,” which effectively meant voters who could be persuaded to stay at home if hit with the right ads. 3.5 million of those voters were black, and many of them lived in swing states like Florida. The Trump campaign then aggressively targeted those voters with negative ads about Hillary Clinton, relentlessly pointing to her admittedly terrible record on race and criminal justice in an effort to, in the words of Dr. Cornell West, quote “cultivate hopelessness” among black voters. What’s more, then-campaign manager Brad Parscale testified under oath that the campaign did not target based specifically on race in its persuasion efforts. The story here is not so much that the Trump campaign did something racist and disenfranchising to black people, as that has been part of the GOP playbook for years. It’s that Facebook gave them the very specific and powerful tools to do so, and they took full advantage of it while denying it to the public. We know already that they’re going to try something similar in 2020, this time perhaps by leaning in to myths about voter fraud and conspiracies about vote by mail in order to cultivate that same hopelessness and confusion among people who just want to make a change. Joe Biden Announces New Advisor The Biden campaign added Cindy McCain, the widow of late Senator and presidential candidate John McCain to its advisory board on Monday, sending an extremely clear signal to the centrists and moderate Republicans that they are welcome in Biden’s Democratic party. McCain had previously endorsed Biden, even going so far as to speak at the Democratic convention. Her husband, for the record, voted with Trump 83 percent of the time while in the Senate. Just listen to what the campaign’s saying about it. Transition co-chair and former Sen. Ted Kaufman said that the campaign was drawn to quote “Mrs. McCain’s experience as a business woman, philanthropist, and longtime advocate for issues impacting women and children,” endquote. Great, we got a businesswoman and philanthropist on board. Never had one of those in the Democratic party before. Look, the move isn’t exactly a surprise. Biden has made it clear for months that he thinks his best chance at winning and preserving the power of his wing of the party is to lean hard into the notion that center-independents and some Republicans will switch sides and vote for him. What that means in practice, however, is that the left is going to have a doubly hard job at convincing the Biden administration to make any real progress while in office. Voting for him will stop some of the acute injustices that Trump has pushed for, but it’s not going to do very much to change the systemic issues that gave rise to the Donald. Wildfires Break Out in CA Again Two new wildfires have ignited northern California’s wine country, forcing new evacuations in a state that has already seen a devastating start to the long fire season. The Zogg Fire in Shasta County and the Glass Fire in Napa and Sonoma Counties have already burned more than 26,000 acres according to the New York Times, and forced new evacuation orders for thousands of people who already suffered a devastating fire in the region three years ago. The state overall has barely begun to recover from the fallout earlier this month, when the majority of the state was blanketed by smoke from dozens of massive fires. Thus far, the fire season across the west coast has left more than 25 people dead, 7,000 structures burned and scorched more than five million acres across three states. It’s important to recognize exactly what’s making these disasters so bad: decades of corporate predation and runaway climate change. And often it’s the most vulnerable who suffer: the latest fires consumed a small community of tiny homes built for formerly homeless people and those suffering from substance abuse disorders, while a nearby senior assisted living center was also forced to evacuate. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The first presidential debate is tonight! At 9 pm Eastern, Trump and Biden will face off for the first time on stage, with the specter of Trump’s new tax scandal possibly giving Biden more ammunition to work with. Who are we kidding, he’s just going to yell that the whole thing is fake and hurl insults. Should be a real good time. CDC Director Robert Redfield got caught blowing off some steam while on a flight from Atlanta to D.C. on Friday, and letting a colleague know what he really thinks of Trump’s taskforce member Dr. Scott Atlas. Redfield said quote "Everything he says is false,” endquote, which would make sense as Atlas is a neuroradiologist with no expertise in infectious diseases or epidemiology, but lots of experience going on Fox News. Global coronavirus deaths passed one million, and so much of it is our government’s fault. Here’s Tom Inglesby, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security: Quote: “This is a very serious global event, and a lot of people were going to get sick and many of them were going to die, but it did not need to be nearly this bad.” A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change showing that human-caused global heating is making the world's oceans more "stable” -- which largely means that temperatures toward the surface stay warmer, creating fertile grounds for more mega storms that gain power over warm water. That’s all for the majority report’s AM quickie today! Stay tuned for the show with Sam later and all our debate coverage. Sept 29, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: The New York Times has Donald Trump’s tax returns, and you’ll never guess what they show. Oh, you guess that they show he’s barely paid any taxes through nefarious means? Well. You’re right. You guessed it. Meanwhile, President Trump has officially nominated Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the GOP is full steam ahead to get her on the bench before he has the chance to get voted out of office. And lastly, Portland Oregon weathers another contentious weekend, even as a far-right rally fizzled. Police continued to crack down hard on protesters, catching journalists and some bystanders in the crossfire. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Trump Pays No Taxes Want to know how much Donald Trump paid in taxes in 2016? $750. He paid about that much in 2017 as well, taking full advantage of a broken system set up to help the rich get richer and greasing the wheels with some underhanded deals along the way. The New York Times published a massive report on Sunday evening based on more than two decades of tax return data for President Trump and his companies. For 11 of the 18 years the Times examined, Trump paid nothing in federal income taxes. He did this, in a large part, by reporting massive amounts of losses every year. Basically all of his signature businesses report losing huge amounts of money. By reporting gigantic losses, he’s been able to keep his tax burden extremely low -- which also helped him get a questionable $72.9 million ​_refund_​ from the government. That transaction is under audit by the IRS. But he’s kept up the billionaire charade by writing off basically all his personal expenses, taking tax deductions on everything from $70,000 in TV hairstyling to aircraft and private residences. The full report is absurd -- there are just so many ludicrously crooked details. The full picture it paints is of a man under a massive amount of debt staying afloat, and in luxury, through loopholes that exist just to protect the super rich. It remains to be seen if it will actually affect voters, but one thing is for sure: the system that enabled Trump isn’t anything new. It’s just that one of its worst abusers managed to get elected president. ACB Nominated to Succeed RBG President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barett to the Supreme Court on Sunday, offering up the Seventh Circuit Judge as his pick to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg. We talked a little bit about Coney Barrett last week, so we’ll spare some of the details. Suffice to say, she’ll be gunning for Roe V Wade, Obamacare, and a whole host of other social and economic landmarks right after that. A recent poll by the New York Times and Siena College showed that 56 percent of likely voters would prefer to have whoever wins the election nominate the next justice, but that probably isn’t what’s going to happen. That’s because as expected, Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans have set up a lightning-fast timeline to get Coney Barrett confirmed, and they most likely have the votes to do it. What the Democrats can do to stop them is still up in the air, but activists are turning up the pressure on leadership to pull out all the stops. Protesters gathered outside of Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer’s home on Saturday to urge the leading Democrat to publicly and vocally refuse to hold hearings to confirm a new justice, use every procedural block they can to gum up the works, and fully commit to ending the filibuster and packing the court the next time Democrats take back the Senate. Hopefully, that’ll be this year. If it’s not, we may see a far grimmer country by the time the Democrats can take back the court again. Portland Cops Plaster Protesters Violence on the streets, much of it perpetrated by the police, rocked the city of Portland again this weekend, as rival demonstrations gave way to street protests that were brutally broken up by Portland authorities. Police presence was aggressive over the weekend because of a large rally organized by the far-right Proud Boys group. But fortunately, a last minute location change for the rally kept it isolated from most counterprotests. Still, there were some skirmishes and assaults when Proud Boys attacked people they suspected of being antifa activists. After the right wingers had gone home, though, the cops returned to their regularly scheduled crackdowns on protesters, arresting more than two dozen according to the Oregonian. In one video captured online by journalist Sergio Olmos, police smashed a cyclist off his bike in the street and arrested him while he screamed that he was an UberEats delivery rider just trying to do his job. In another instance, Portland police knocked 73-year-old photographer John Rudoff to the ground while aggressively arresting and striking protesters with their baton. According to Gregory McKelvey, Rudoff’s friend and the vice Chair of the Oregon Democrats Black Caucus, Rudoff said quote: “I shot the Syrian Refugee Crisis, I shot Paris Protests, I shot Bangladesh, I shot Hong Kong, and it was Portland Police who beat the shit out of me.” AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Clashes broke out on Sunday between Azerbaijan and Armenia, who have been in conflict over the breakaway province of Nagorno-Karabakh [NA GOR NO, KAR AH BACH] for years. Wire reports describe the recent fighting as much more severe than typical border skirmishes, with both sides reporting civilians dead or wounded. ABC reports that Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad nwas taken into custody on Sunday night by Fort Lauderdale Police after allegedly threatening to harm himself and briefly barricading himself in his home. Meanwhile, the Covid pandemic churns on. The World Health Organization warned on Friday that the global death toll from the virus could top two million if world governments don’t take collective action. And finally, zoomers rejoice! A U.S. judge temporarily blocked Trump’s ban on the TikTok app just hours before it was scheduled to go into effect, ruling that TikTok could have a temporary injunction against the ban on downloading the app that was supposed to go through on Sunday night. Sept 28, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: A new report by the nation alleges that Federal authorities used a sophisticated cloning system to tap protesters phones during unrest in Portland, Oregon this summer. Meanwhile, Immigrant detainees are receiving incredibly poor medical and dental care while in government custody -- and a new report by the Democratic House Homeland Security Committee shows that they often face penalties for speaking out. And lastly, the gig economy has truly outdone itself, as a new startup called Civvl (that’s the word Civil, with two V’s for some reason), promises to hire gig workers to carry out evictions, capitalizing on every aspect of the country’s economic recession at once to do basically the most amoral thing possible. Very cool! THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Feds Tapped Portland Phones A new report in the Nation cites two former intelligence officials making a pretty stunning allegation: that Federal agents sent to quell protests in Portland Oregon also engaged in a classified cell phone cloning operation that aimed to lift information off of protesters phones. According to the Nation, the DHS has not come clean about this. Details of the operation are still classified, but the Nation reports that it included interceptions of protesters phone calls by either the DHS or other federal agencies involved, like the Department of Justice. While this would be a shocking weaponization of unwarranted surveillance against citizens exercising first amendment rights, it’s not exactly hard to believe. The Washington Post previously reported that the DHS’s intelligence division was building out dossiers on prominent journalists covering the protests in Portland, and then refused to answer congressional inquiries about them. Another key piece of evidence the Nation cites is an anonymous former official saying that when the DHS’s intelligence wing asked for volunteers to go to Portland, very few hands got raised. The former official said quote: “The fact that they asked for volunteers shows that it was outside the scope of their duties...you only do that if you don’t have the ability to order someone to go, probably because it’s illegal.” endquote. It’s unclear when, or if we’ll get an understanding of the full scope of the federal government’s actions in Portland. It’s even more unclear whether there will be any consequences for the people responsible. ICE Detainees Punished for Speaking Out Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee on Monday issued a devastating report on the conditions for immigrants in ICE detention. The core complaints that detainees are getting insufficient medical and dental care are something we’ve heard for years about ICE. But what the Democrats new findings show is that the fascist agency may have started internally punishing detainees who speak out and ask for better treatment. The report cites eight separate inspections of ICE facilities in multiple states, saying quote. “Conditions at ICE facilities also revealed ongoing problems with cleanliness, use of segregation, and access to legal and language services.” Endquote. What that looks like in practice is distressing. The Washington post notes that the report tells of one detainee in Louisiana who went into anaphylactic shock four times in four months before anyone thought to do a blood test and discover his peanut allergy. And when detainees spoke out, they were threatened. In some cases, the report said guards threatened to lock detainees in solitary confinement if they complained too much or made too many medical requests. ICE claims it’s taking the report seriously, just as it claimed it was taking last week’s allegations of mass hysterectomies being performed on women under its care seriously. We’ll believe it when we see some proof of change. I doubt that’s coming anytime soon. New App is Uber for Evictions Has the gig economy gone too far? Well, yes. Many years ago. But would you believe that it continues, now, to get even worse? A startup called CIVVL launched recently, flying under the radar until a VICE report today explained what it was all about. The company is basically UBER for landlords, but instead of a driver you hire someone to evict your tenants for you. This is brutal, soul-crushing stuff for everyone involved, except the landlords throwing people out on the street of course. The company has been advertising widely on craigslist, according to VICE, with ads that promise steady work due to just how messed up the economy is. Per VICE, one of the ads reads quote: "Unemployment is at a record high and many cannot or simply are not paying rent and mortgages. We are being contracted by frustrated property owners and banks to secure foreclosed residential properties." In other words, CIVVL is taking unemployed people desperate for any paying work and using them to evict other probably unemployed people from their homes, all while taking a cut of what must be some of the dirtiest money imaginable. They’re also spelling the name of their company C I V V L, which somehow makes the whole thing even more depraved because they couldn’t even bother to give their company a name that didn’t sound overtly evil and stupid. VICE reports that CIVVL is actually connected to a larger gig-economy company called OnQuall, that’s CALL spelled with a Q for some reason, which runs a portfolio of similarly misspelled apps like LawnFixr and MoveQwik. To put icing on top, the app charges you a $35 enrollment fee to sign up to be an eviction-deliverer. It’s clear that this company is scraping the bottom of the absolute barrel, but the fact that there are no regulatory protections making something like this illegal is just a testament to how broken this country is. As Chicago’s Autonomous Tenant’s Union put it, the company’s existence is quote: "a frank admission that our housing system is predicated on violence." endquote. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The Daily Beast exposed an anonymous right-wing troll who’s been going on anti-mask rants on the ultra-conservative RedState site: and it turns out he’s a PR guy for Dr. Fauci’s infectious disease agency. Probably not for much longer though! The Manhattan District Attorney’s office suggested in a filing Monday that it had grounds to investigate President Trump and his businesses for criminal fraud. So, we’ll see where that one goes! Could be promising, but we’ve heard that before. The CDC on Monday mysteriously withdrew advice that it had published just days before on its website about the dangers of COVID-19 spreading through aerosolized droplets. Just wiped it right off the site, despite the fact that independent scientists confirm that method of transmission is a risk, right as we’re all about to head inside for the winter. And finally, Louisville, Kentucky’s Interim Chief of Police declared a state of emergency for the police department Monday, cancelling all days off and vacation requests for officers ahead of a big Attorney General announcement in the Breonna Taylor case. The announcement should come some time this week, and it looks like the cops are gearing up for some major backlash. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today! Stay tuned for the full show this afternoon. Sept 22, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died on Friday at the age of 87, immediately kicking off a nasty political dogfight over her successor on the Supreme Court. Trump and Mitch McConnell want to get a new justice on the bench as soon as possible, but do they have the votes? Meanwhile, a new, expansive BuzzFeed investigation dives deep into the disturbing web of dark money funneled between criminal organizations and big banks. Corruption isn’t really a new trend, but some of the details here are shocking. And lastly, Coronavirus cases near 200,000 in the U.S., as Trump makes outlandish promises about a vaccine that aren’t backed up by health officials. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: RBG Replacement Race Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died on Friday at the age of 87. Ginsberg was a legend on the Supreme Court, setting a high standard for razor sharp dissents against her conservative peers’ repressive interpretations of the law. But her passing had been written on the wall for years, and Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump have wasted no time in exploiting it. In statement released to NPR after her death, Ginsburg said: “My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.” The Republicans have turned hypocrite as fast as they possibly can, abandoning 2016 promises to let a late-term Supreme Court vacancy be filled by the next president in a heartbeat as they rush to get the most conservative person possible into Bader Ginsberg’s seat. Trump says he’ll announce his nominee this week, and promises it will be a woman. So far, the most likely candidates are federal appeals judge Amy Coney Barrett, a hard-line Catholic who would likely vote against abortion and to rule against the Affordable Care Act, and the very-slightly more moderate Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Lagoa. Lagoa is a bit less likely to dismantle Roe v Wade, but Trump could go with her in the hopes that she’d help lock in Florida’s electoral votes in November. The big question is when the Senate confirmation vote gets held, and whether or not McConnell has the votes. Both Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins have said they won’t vote on a Justice before the election, but after that, especially in the lame duck period, who knows. And thus the exhausting fight over the Senate’s mythical moderates begins all over again. Massive Leak Proves: Corruption? It's real! An explosive leak of documents to BuzzFeed news has kicked off a massive, sprawling financial investigation into deep corners of the criminal underworld and financial elite. The leak and resulting stories are being referred to as the FinCEN Files. The files themselves are a collection of 2,657 documents, most of which are suspicious activity reports, or SARs. As BBC reported, SARs are not evidence of wrongdoing - banks send them to the authorities if they suspect customers could be up to no good. But what they do show is a massive paper trail between the biggest banks in the world and international organized crime. One of the SARs, for instance, shows how HSBC was slow to act and shut down a known scammers accounts as he orchestrated an $80 million ponzi scheme. And that’s a relatively tame one. BuzzFeed’s reporting found SARs tracking billions of dollars flowing through the world’s largest banks that was used to launder money for drug cartels, organized crime rings, and fund terrorism across the globe. When Banks do flag these operations, they’re sent as SARs to the U.S. Treasury department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FINCEN. But the core of BuzzFeed’s reporting shows that FINCEN often does little more with these documents than pass them on to other law enforcement agencies, and apply fines. It doesn’t shut the banks down, nor does it arrest the people at them laundering the dirty money. This is a huge story and the ramifications of it are going to be echoing around politics and business for years. It might get lost in the news cycle as we go through the election, but for now, it’s a window in to the ways that negligent governments like ours enable the biggest thieves and criminals on the planet -- some of whom work out of corner offices in Manhattan. 200,000 Coronavirus Deaths The Coronavirus pandemic didn’t go away over the summer. And it’s not going away in the fall. The U.S. is rapidly approaching 200,000 total deaths, as the world ticks closer to 1 million. What it is becoming, though, is a political axis that could swing the 2020 election. Trump’s plan, as it has been for months, is to promise a vaccine and an end to the pandemic that he helped enflame before the election. At a news conference on Friday, Trump said quote: “We will have manufactured at least 100 million vaccine doses before the end of the year. And likely much more than that. Hundreds of millions of doses will be available every month, and we expect to have enough vaccines for every American by April.” What he’s doing is basically promising that right around election time, that vaccine is going to hit the streets. U.S. health officials aren’t quite so confident, putting the actual timeline at widespread vaccine availability in the U.S. a few months later, in mid 2021. Meanwhile, we have no idea how bad any resurgence of cases is going to be. Madrid is Spain is about to go under a second lockdown due to a surge in cases, and colleges across the U.S. have emerged as hotspots of the disease after re-opening in the fall. The New York Times reports that there have been at least 88,000 new cases and 60 deaths of coronavirus linked to college campuses thus far, and the nation’s daily count of new cases is starting to climb again after declining for over a month. In short, we have no idea where we’re at on this thing, and the president can’t be trusted. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Remember the strange hullabaloo over TikTok? President Trump approved the app’s strange sale to Oracle and Walmart after a weird pissing war with China. Along the way, he extracted his take: a promise that the company would give $5 billion in new taxes to the government to create some kind of nebulous education initiative. That sound like a slush fund to anyone else? And in everyday corrupt, dangerous news, the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency reauthorized the use of atrazine, an herbicide common in the United States but banned or being phased out in dozens of countries due to concerns about risks such as birth defects and cancer. The Miami Herald’s Spanish-language sister paper was forced to apologize, and blamed quote “internal failures” after it published a paid insert that was a pages-long anti-semitic and racist tirade. Sounds like someone should have uh... checked that one out before sending it to the printer! Mike Pompeo is once again stoking the flames of war with Iran, saying on Saturday night that UN sanctions on the country had been snapped back on. The U.N., meanwhile, said that they had not been. We’re gonna trust the UN on this one. That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam in a bit! Sept 21, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: A shocking whistleblower complaint reveals that an ICE detention facility has been performing a staggering number of hysterectomies on immigrant women, effectively practicing eugenics on a vulnerable population in the government’s care. Meanwhile, the city of Louisville, Kentucky settles with the family of Breonna Taylor, who will receive $12 million. But there’s not dollar price on death, and her killers have yet to face justice. And lastly, Israel signs two landmark agreements to normalize relations with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. But the newfound cooperation will do little to change the suffering of the Palestinian people. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Eugenics at ICE Facility A new whistleblower complaint filed Monday reveals one of the most depraved practices normalized by this country’s barbaric immigration system. The complaint specifically names the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, which houses ICE detainees but is run by a private prison company. It was filed on behalf of several detained immigrants as well as a nurse, named Dawn Wooten, and has multiple women alleging that hysterectomies were overly frequent among detainees. One woman said she’d met five other women who had hysterectomies while being detained in a two-month period between October and December in 2019. What’s worse, the woman told a Georgia nonprofit that the inmates were often sent to see one particular gynecologist outside of the prison. She said quote: “When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they’re experimenting with their bodies.” endquote. The complaint phrases these incidents as quote “jarring medical neglect.” But what it easily sounds like to a layperson is straight-up eugenics. A hysterectomie is major, life altering surgery that permanently removes a woman’s ability to have children -- and in some cases, the complaint alleges that women weren’t even sure why they were having the procedure, according to Wooten, the Irwin nurse who helped file the complaint. She said quote: “We’ve questioned among ourselves, like, goodness, he’s taking everybody’s stuff out. That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector. Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taken their tubes out.” Endquote. The shocking reproductive violence in the complaint makes its other abuses seem almost mundane. According to Wooten, the inmates’ protections from coronavirus are woefully lacking as well. In a statement to Vice News, ICE deferred questions to the Office of the Inspector General, but said that quote “anonymous, unproven allegations” endquote should be treated with skepticism. It’s probably best to take that statement with a healthy dose of skepticism as well. Breonna Taylor's Family Wins Settlement The city of Louisville will pay a $12 million settlement to the family of Breonna Taylor, who was murdered in her bed by police officers. Money does not buy justice, but some kind of remuneration for the shocking crimes committed by the Louisville Police Department is the least the city can do. The agreement was reached quickly, at least in relative terms for this sort of wrongful death suit, coming six months after Taylor was killed, and after over three months of sustained protests throughout the city and country. The city was not required to acknowledge wrongdoing in the settlement. That says about all of it. If you needed more evidence that there’s no real justice here, take this: the New York Times reports that legal experts don’t think there will be any legal charges brought against the officers who killed Taylor. That decision comes from the fact that Taylor’s boyfriend fired a weapon at officers first, believing them to be home intruders, as they burst into the apartment in the dead of night. Lexington’s leadership has agreed to a series of police reforms, many of which are procedural fixes as to how warrants are approved and served. It’s pretty apparent that these are all just a bandaid, like the $12 million in blood money paid out to wash away the crime of another black life lost at the hands of police. Bahrain, UAE, Leave Palestinians High and Dry The Arab world is slowly normalizing its relationships with Israel. On Tuesday, representatives from Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates signed agreements with Israel to establish diplomatic relations and other economic ties. These are the first such agreements Arab countries have made with Israel since Jordan in 1984, but what unites the two groups isn’t exactly an altruistic desire for peace. You can tell that immediately by the fact that the Palestinian people have been almost completely left out of the equation. The agreements only mention the long running apartheid system in Israel in brief, saying they wish for a quote “just, comprehensive and enduring resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.” endquote. In response to the news, Palestinians and their supporters held a hundreds-strong rally outside of the White House. One demonstrator told Al Jazeera that the new accords were a quote “stab in the back” for the Palestinian people. The Trump administration is hailing this as a tremendous victory, of course. Given the relationships in the region, Saudi Arabia could eventually take similar steps, which would be a huge development. But what’s clear is that the wealthy rules of these Gulf states have decided that the economic gains of working with Israel far outweigh their desire to advocate for a just future for Palestinians. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Donald Trump’s Justice Department is coming for John Bolton, and while it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, it still sets a dangerous precedent. The Justice Department is pursuing a criminal investigation as to whether Bolton’s recent book disclosed classified material. As his poll numbers with Latino Voter continue to slip, Joe Biden pulled out his cell phone and played a snippet of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” during a campaign event in Florida. That’s sure to get ‘em, Joe! The New York Times reports that the U.S. Military is pressing for new authority to drone strike terrorists in portions of eastern Kenya, which would mark a new expansion of the forever-growing, forever-lasting war zone we’re fighting in across the globe. The Delaware primary was Tuesday night, and though votes are still being counted as of script time, it looks like Sarah McBride will win the Democratic nomination for a State Senate seat in a safely-blue district, making her the country’s highest ranking openly transgender politician. McBride said quote: “My hope is that this result can help reinforce for a young kid trying to find their place in this world, here in Delaware or anywhere else in this country, that this democracy is big enough for them, too.” That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show. Sept 16, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: An explosive internal memo obtained by Buzzfeed News shows the massive, destructive influence Facebook has had over politics and violent conflict in dozens of countries. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Joe Biden trade barbs over the climate catastrophe, while the president Tweets that he wants to do a four-hour debate with his challenger on Joe Rogan’s podcast. Yep, it’s going to be a stupid kind of day, folks. And lastly, on that note, the stupidest man alive has struck again. A Daily Beast report shows that mega-moron provocateur Jacob Wohl hired an actor to play an FBI agent and pretend to raid his frequent co-conspirator Jack Burkman’s office. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Buzzfeed Catches Huge Facebook Scoop “I know that I have blood on my hands by now.” That’s what Facebook data scientist Sophie Zhang wrote in her last-ever post on Facebook’s internal messageboard before she was fired. Zhang’s post was leaked to BuzzFeed news. The information it revealed is both horrifying and in the public interest. The main gist of the post deals with what Facebook calls “inauthentic activity” around politics and elections. Zhang wrote that her team detected widespread disinformation campaigns and fake account networks at work for various political causes in Honduras, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Bolivia, Ecuador, India, Spain, the United States and others. These cases influenced everything from elections to bloody revolutions and governmental responses to the coronavirus pandemic. Some of them Facebook took action on, some of them they did not, because Zhang said her team was often forced to de-prioritize certain cases due to their own workload. Basically, the people in charge of making sure Facebook doesn’t ruin elections are overworked, and things are slipping through the cracks. Zhang wrote that Facebook leadership often didn’t care much about the democratic process in smaller companies, and only acted when she repeatedly raised the issue internally. All of this led to her leaving the company, and allegedly turning down a $64,000 severance package so that she wouldn’t have to sign a non-disparagment agreement, and could criticize the company publicly. Still, she specifically wrote that she didn’t want it to go public in the event that it undermined Facebook’s attempts to keep the 2020 election safe. But it’s pretty clear that the public deserves to know, largely because Facebook hasn’t been transparent at all about the stuff that it does catch. Biden, Trump... and Joe Rogan? The Trump and Biden campaigns continued their spat over the future of America in the dumbest possible way today: with verbal barbs and promises to go on the Joe Rogan podcast. That’s right everyone we’ve got an update from the dumbest timeline today. Here’s the scene. Trump once again has said quote “I don’t think science knows” endquote, in relation to the causes of the massive wildfires sweeping the west coast. This is stupid, because science does know: it’s decades of negligent policy that has enabled corporate interests to create a rapidly warming, drastically flammable ecosystem that bursts into flame at every possible opportunity. In response, Biden called Trump a quote “climate arsonist,” which means. Well. I’m not completely sure what it means. That Trump is responsible for climate change? Yes, true. That Trump is actively trying to enable the forces who have changed the climate? Also true. Ok, we figured out what it means. You’d almost be forgiven after all that for forgetting that Biden himself has been dragging his feet on climate change for years. Since winning the primary, he’s released a slightly more promising climate plan, but still has obstinately refused to outright denounce harmful practices like fracking. Anyway, all of this culminated in one of the dumbest toplines of the day. Podcaster extraordianer and or sentient stack of hardboiled eggs Joe Rogan offered to moderate a four-hour debate between Trump and Biden. Even better, Trump said he’d be in on Twitter. That means we could have a situation where the Biden campaign, who went after Bernie Sanders for agreeing to go on Rogan’s sometimes incoherent, occasionally bigoted podcast, agrees to do the exact thing to debate the always incoherent, always racist president. Personally I can think of much better podcasts to host a presidential debate. Worlds Stupidest Man At it Again In slightly lighter, somehow even dumber news, we have a new report on the activities of the stupidest grifters alive. We’re talking about Jacob Wohl, of course. Wohl, the famous boy-wonder behind such schemes as “Elizabeth Warren slept with a buff Marine” and “Robert Mueller did sexual assault while also appearing in court in a different state, defying the laws of space and time” is back with another scheme. This time, he staged a fake FBI raid on his scam-partner Jack Burkman’s apartment. The Daily Beast spoke to an actor who says he responded to a Craigslist ad and was paid $400 to wear an FBI windbreaker or shirt and act out a series of scenes inside Burkman’s apartment. Pictures and videos were then sent by a Twitter account under the name of Bev Donahue to various reporters. Donahue is suspected to be an alias for Wohl, who has used fake accounts on basically every social media service thus far. The most embarrassing part is that the Washington Post fell for it, reporting on the raid as if it was real. According to the Beast, Burkman was insinuating that high-level government officials were retaliating against him for his efforts to root out corruption in Washington. Right. The actions of Wohl and Burkman are usually so stupid that they’re harmless, and this case is no exception. But they’re noteworthy if only for the reason that it’s often incredibly hard to distinguish dangerous conspiracy theories from utterly farcical ones, which means that dreck like this often filters into real life politics through major movements like Qanon. One of Wohl’s frequent associates, Laura Loomer, recently won the GOP primary for a Florida cong AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: One more dispatch for WTF-World. Akon, the famous R&B singer, announced today that he is backing a $6 billion smart city in Senegal, called Akon City. Residents inside will use a cryptocurrency called Akoin. You could not make this up, unless you were Akon or his shadowy investor, who may very well be making this up. In slightly darker news, September 14 marked the 19th birthday of the War on Terror. Peace talks between the Taliban and Afghani government are currently underway in Qatar, proving that we’ve accomplished almost nothing but an enormous amount of pain. Astronomers announced something weird on Monday: they’d found potential signs of life on Venus, not Mars. Contrary to the dated cliche about gender binaries, the researchers did not find women hanging out on the inhospitable planet. Instead, they found traces of a gas called phosphine that indicates microbes may be present. Never thought much of that cliche anyway. And finally, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that Governor Tom Wolfe’s coronavirus lockdown orders were unconstitutional, saying that quote “even in an emergency, the authority of government is not unfettered.” endquote It’s not too likely that this will have national implications, as the Supreme Court has upheld California restrictions on religious gatherings and many other courts have upheld similar rulings. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today! Stay tuned for the full show later with Sam. Sept 15, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Donald Trump said the police killing of a self-proclaimed Antifa member and suspected murderer was “retribution,” despite reports that the suspect was not threatening and did not fire at police before he was shot. Meanwhile, the west coast wildfires are driving air pollution off the charts, increasing the misery of people safe in their homes as well as the thousands of displaced evacuees. And lastly, the ambush shooting of two L.A. County Sheriff's Deputies has put the city on edge, as police responded by brutally arresting a clearly-identified journalist reporting on the event. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Trump Says Cop Killing Was "Retribution" Donald Trump added one final escalation to the politically fraught story of Michael Forest Reinoehl, a self-proclaimed anti-fascist who was suspected of the murder of a right-wing protester in Portland on August 29. Last week, Reinoehl was shot dead by federal agents who arrived ostensibly to arrest him. We discussed some of the particulars of this case on Friday: Reinoehl had previously admitted to the shooting of Trump supporter and far-right militant Aaron Danielson, claiming that the killing was in self defense. Police said their killing of Reinoehl was also justified, saying that he quote “produced a firearm” when confronted by officers. But a witness to the shooting told the Washington post that Reinoehl was just walking to his car, eating a gummy worm when officers arrived and shot him without announcing themselves first. In an interview with Fox News on Saturday Trump said QUOTE: “"This guy was a violent criminal, and the U.S. Marshals killed him. And I'll tell you something—that's the way it has to be. There has to be retribution." ENDQUOTE This isn’t a surprising thing for the president to say, at this point. But let’s put it in a bit of a broader context. Earlier in the interview Trump noted that he urged federal agents to quote “go get him,” endquote, referring to Reinoehl. Federal agents did his bidding and gunned down Reinoehl in what were at best murky circumstances, at worst in complete cold blood. Compare this to, say, the arrest of Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old militia member who killed two protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse was arrested peacefully and gently a day after the incident. What Trump is saying here is that the standard of justice applies differently to violent actors on the left and the right. Politically, Reinoehl was an enemy of the president. And Trump’s made it clear that he thinks his enemies deserve death at the hands of the state, no due process included. Smoke Chokes West The wildfires in the west are not letting up, but we’ve moved to a new phase of the disaster. With thousands displaced from their homes and at least 24 dead, even those who are still safe are dealing with the fallout from record-breaking, inescapable smoke pollution. The LA Times reports that ozone pollution levels spiked to their worst point since the mid 1990s this weekend in the city. Meanwhile, in Washington State, air pollution from the wildfire smoke got so bad it temporarily broke the data systems monitoring it, as the computer rejected the values it was taking in as unrealistically high. Visibility in Portland, Oregon, was only 50 feet in some areas. For people living through it, this means respirators or N95 masks are almost essential for going outside. It’s also provoked a massive run on indoor air purifiers, leading some people to try to DIY their own with HVAC filters and box fans. The battle lines are also being drawn in the political fight over the fires as well. Donald Trump and the GOP largely blame the fires on poor forest management and leadership, while Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders have placed the focus squarely on climate change. In reality, it’s a bit of both: fire management has been poor across the West Coast for decades, thanks to an unreasonable focus on fire prevention and suppression in areas that have evolved to burn every few years, but the changing weather and unreasonably high temperatures have also contributed greatly to the fires. And of course, this is all for show, as Biden isn’t exactly the greatest supporter of a Green New Deal, and Trump’s calls for “forest management” are mostly an excuse to deregulate big corporations so they can desecrate more federal lands. LA Sheriffs Rough Up Reporter Two L.A. County Sheriff’s Deputies were shot in an unprovoked ambush on Saturday night, by a gunman who is still at large. The shooting provoked an immediate response from police, who clashed with protesters outside the hospital where the two deputies were being treated, and then went on to rough up and detain a credentialed reporter trying to do her job on the scene. It’s a chaotic situation, so we’ll try to sum it up. There’s three incidents at play here that contribute to the recent tension. On Friday, deputies in riot gear showed up in force and surrounded a peaceful press conference by activists protesting the killing of Dijon Kizzee, a 29-year-old who was killed after officers stopped him while he was riding a bicycle. On Saturday night, an unknown gunman shot two deputies who were sitting in a parked patrol car. After the officers were rushed to the hospital, a small group of demonstrators gathered there to continue pressuring the department on its misconduct. That’s when things got really hairy: as cops pushed the protesters away from the hospital, they also swept up a local reporter, Josie Huang, who works for KPCC and LAist. The Sheriffs roughly detained Huang, who was clearly identified as press and who captured video of herself shouting that she was press to the officers, and then arrested her for obstruction of justice. She was in custody for over five hours. The event has provoked an immediate outcry from press freedom advocates across the country, but it’s not really something out of the ordinary, considering police department’s across the country have been roughing up journalists all summer. The L.A. Sheriffs Department has just made it clear that they don’t particularly care for any part of the first amendment, whether it’s protesters or press. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: After a strange bidding war ignited by tweets from the president criticizing it’s ties to China, the viral video app TikTok will likely sell its American operations to the big tech firm Oracle, if the White House approves. Oracle beat out Microsoft and other U.S. companies to nab the app. Donald Trump held his first indoor rally since June 20 in Nevada on Sunday, showing that while he may have taken a mid-summer break from actively spreading the coronavirus, we are fully back in business this fall. Israel is headed for a second strict lockdown as its coronavirus cases are spiking once again. The country saw over 4,000 new cases in a single day last week, so malls and many other business are shutting down all over again. OSHA, the government agency meant to protect workers, is going easy on big corporations under Trump, slapping a paltry $13,494 fine on Smithfield Foods for its miserable handling of the coronavirus. Smithfield, for reference, ran facilities where more than 1,294 workers caught the virus, and four died. That’s all for the Majority Report’s Am Quickie today! Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. Sept 14, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: The general election is off, with Kamala Harris and Mike Pence hosting deuling events in the battleground state of Wisconsin. All the while, of course, the economic picture continues to get worse and worse for American workers. Meanwhile, yet another massive Trump Truck rally outside of Portland and other right-wing rallies around the state results in violence, as videos show right-wing hate group members chasing down anti-fascist activists with bats and mace. And lastly graduate students at the University of Michigan announce a full-on strike to protest the University’s reopening plans, vowing to use their considerable labor power on campus to shut things down until the school agrees to their demands for more coronavirus protections. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: General Election Kicks Off in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania Labor day is the unofficial start to the general election, as we’re about two months away from voting, so let’s break down how the race is set up for the next week or so. Kamala Harris and Mike Pence hosted dueling events in Wisconsin, which is likely to be a major battleground state again in 2020. In 2016, Trump took the state by just under 1 percent, so it’s almost certainly in play for both parties this year. Last week both Biden and Trump visited Kenosha, the city that’s been rocked by protests since the police shooting of Jacob Blake. The top of both tickets will be in Pennsylvania this week, which is another major battleground. Biden spoke in Harrisburg on Monday, and will be returning Friday to mark the anniversary of 9/11 in Shanksville, where United Flight 93 crashed. Trump’s planning to head there too that day. Here’s what to look for. Kamala’s appearance in Milwaukee in particular is geared at turning out voters, because the Democrats have zeroed in on low urban turnout in the city in 2016 being part of Clinton’s loss. So while the Biden-Harris campaign may not be offering much more in the way of policy than Hillary, they’re at least attempting to avoid some of her electoral mistakes. The president, meanwhile, spent most of Labor day tweeting about everything from Trump boat parades to his denials of the Atlantic story that alleged he referred to dead U.S. servicemembers as quote “losers.” The backdrop to all of this is a steadily worsening economic picture. Analysis by the Morning Consult showed that while some Americans have gotten back to work, those who are still unemployed face dismal prospects of getting another job. To make matters worse, things in Washington aren’t going well. The New York Times reports that a wave of statewide budget cuts is starting to roll through the country in the absence of a new aid package making it through Congress. Look out for both campaigns to try to harness that pain into electoral support over the next few weeks, because that’s how politics works in this country. Trump Truck Rally Round 2 In Portland, yet another massive Trump Truck Rally convened in a suburb outside of the city. Some more aggressive right wing supporters peeled off for a demonstration in Salem, Oregon, which quickly devolved into on-foot mayhem as right-wing demonstrators affiliated with the Proud Boys and other militias or hate groups charged at left-wing protesters while the police looked on. Video shot by journalists at the scene showed armed militia members and Trump supporters charging a group of anti-fascist counter-protesters, overhwhelming on with strikes from a bat. A woman then maced the fallen activist on the ground. This kind of violence is typical for the running battles between Portland protesters and right-wing militias that have raged this entire summer, but the police response in Salem on Monday evening was particularly telling. According to a New York Times reporter on the scene, cops quote “pleaded” with right wing groups to move their lines back toward the designated area for their demonstration. They did make some arrests of right-wingers who singled out and attacked a counterprotester in the park, but largely refrained from deploying the same aggressive, warlike tactics against the Proud Boys and militias that they’ve used for months now against Black Lives Matter protesters. It’s still early in Oregon as of script time. After the last Trump Truck rally, one right-wing demonstrator was shot, so keep an eye out for more incidents as the dust settles on Tuesday. Michigan Graduate Students Strike The University of Michigan’s Graduate Employees Organization, a powerful on-campus union that represents more than 2000 TAs and researchers, voted on Monday to go on strike until the university changes its COVID-19 policies. The graduate students are asking for the right to work remotely, transparency in opening plans, and more money to be diverted from the university’s security budget to it’s covid planning. 79 percent of the union voted to authorize the strike. GEO Secretary Amir Fleischmann told the Michigan Daily that negotiations with the university had ground to a deadlock. Quote: “It’s the feeling of our bargaining team that there was not much more progress to be made at the bargaining table. And that’s why we feel it’s necessary to resort to these tactics. Because the University has shown that it’s not really been willing to compromise on a lot of these issues.” Graduate students are a powerful force on campus, as their labor is relied upon heavily to keep the everyday workings of university classes running. The union plans to picket in person and remotely. The strike is technically a wildcat strike, as the union’s contract and state law prevents public employees from striking. But remember: there are no illegal strikes, just unsuccessful ones. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: A legal observer for Amnesty International was denied remote access to the beginnings of the Julian Assange trial this weekend, raising concerns from some press freedom advocates already worried about the ramifications of Assange’s indictment and incarceration. Assange is accused of violating the U.S. espionage act, and is currently in the trial phase of a hearing which will determine if he is extradited to the U.S. to face punishment there. Jacob Blake has spoken publicly for the first time since being shot seven times by the Kenosha Police department. In a video uploaded by an activist, who spoke to Blake in the hospital, Blake spoke about the nature of his injuries, saying quote: “Every 24 hours, it’s pain — it’s nothing but pain. “It hurts to breathe; it hurts to sleep. It hurts to move from side to side. It hurts to eat.” One of California’s most recent destructive wildfires, the El Dorado fire in San Bernardino County, was caused by an explosive device at a gender reveal party. This would be monumentally stupid even if it was the first time it’s happened -- which it’s not. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte added another instance of callous despotism to his record on Monday by issuing a full pardon to Scott Pemberton, a U.S. Marine convicted of murdering Jennifer Laude, a transgender woman, in 2014. Local human rights groups called Duterte’s pardon a quote “despicable and shameless mockery of justice and servility to the imperialist interests of the United States.” That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM QUickie today! Stay tuned for the full show this afternoon. Sept 8, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: California is once again burning, as new fires rip up national forest in the Sierra Nevadas and the rest of the state suffers a brutal heat wave. Meanwhile, a new report alleges that Trump toady Postmaster General Louis DeJoy pressured employees at his last job to donate to GOP candidates and causes. And lastly, the Trump campaign is increasingly leaning in to white nationalism to claw their way back into the general election race. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: California Burns Again California is once again being hit with a double blow of climate change woes, this time in the form of devastating wildfires and a brutal heatwave throughout the rest of the state. Of course, California isn’t the only state suffering this summer: most of the U.S. west is plagued by fires, including major cities like Denver. But California got hit hard this weekend. In the Sierra Nevadas, the explosive Creek Fire went from a few hundred acres to 45,000 in the span of a weekend. It’s zero percent contained as of Sunday afternoon. The Creek Fire rose up so fast that dozens of hikers had to be airlifted to safety by the National Guard. So far there’s no reports of deaths or casualties, as the residential areas its devastated were evacuated on time. Elsewhere in the state, waves of smoke from previous fires have given way to heat, heat, and more heat. In parts of the LA Basin, temperatures climbed above 115 degrees Fahrenheit. Meteorologists told the LA Times those digits could break all time records in some cities. What the heat wave means is that fire season is nowhere near over. These conditions are only going to get worse in the early fall and come back year after year. DeJoy Gets Caught Doing Corruption Again At this point, open corruption should sort of be the norm for the Trump administration, but it’s always fun when some of the worst characters in it get caught red handed. Up this weekend is Louis DeJoy, Trump’s toady Postmaster General last seen gutting his own agency to appease Republican goals of voter suppression. According to a new report by the New York Times, DeJoy has been corrupt since way before Trump. Multiple former employees at New Breed Logistics told the paper that DeJoy pressured them to make political contributions to GOP candidates and causes, and rewarded them with bonuses if they did so. This is following a report last week that showed that the Postal Service had paid one of DeJoy’s other former companies $286 million since 2013. So clearly he’s been in this game for a while. The latest charge might stick, however, as the kind of corruption taking place at New Breed Logistics might actually be a crime. The difference rests on whether or not investigators can prove that DeJoy’s “bonuses” were reimbursing employee’s donations, instead of just incentivizing them. Democratic leaders have immediately called for an investigation, but who knows if that due diligence will actually happen under Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr. Trump Leans In to White Nationalism Over the weekend, it’s become a lot more clear what Donald Trump thinks his pathway to victory in November in. You probably won’t be surprised to know the answer: it’s white nationalism. The first new red flag came on Friday, when Trump ordered the federal government to cancel contracts that it had paid out for its branches to undergo racial sensitivity training. Trump called such programs, which attempt to change systemic racism by generally teaching people how to not be racist in the workplace, were quote “divisive, anti-american propaganda.” Endquote. He then followed that quote up with another storm of tweets on the subject, saying basically the same thing. So racism is American, being anti-racist is anti-American. Got it. All of this is getting folded into his electoral strategy. As the New York Times points out, the RNC made its token appeal to minority voters with some black and hispanic speakers who claimed Trump wasn’t racist. But the candidate himself has doubled down on racist rhetoric, decrying everything from the banning of the Confederate flag at Nascar races to the Black Lives Matter movement, while simultaneously pushing racist talking points about crime coming for Suburban households. This isn’t a new strategy for Republicans, of course, but Trump has taken it to its most extreme. We’ll find out if it pays off -- to everyone’s detriment -- in November. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: There’s an old labor movement saying: a rising tide lifts all boats. And now for a completely unrelated story: at a pro-Trump boat parade on a lake near Austin, Texas this weekend, five boats sank when their wakes collided to make a turbulent pit of water. No one was injured, so we can all laugh at this guilt free. A newly declassified court ruling found that the F.B.I. had committed “widespread violations” of Americans’ privacy, without warrants in a surveillance program that’s existed since the Bush years. The court then signed off on another year of the program, which let investigators search through email repositories without a warrant. Sounds about right. Northeastern University dismissed 11 students who threw a party in a hotel room despite coronavirus restrictions, and will not refund the tuition they had already paid. Let’s be real: the party was incredibly stupid, but expelling students and keeping their money after charging them over 35,000 for a study abroad program seems wildly harsh. The mayor of Rochester, New York is promising police reform after widespread protests following the release of video depicting the death of Daniel Prude, who died in police custody in March. The promise of change may not do much to sway the protesters on Rochester’s streets, however, as police continue to deploy the standard tear gas, pepper balls, and rubber bullets. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Happy Labor day! Organize your workplace. Sept 7, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: The Trump administration, desperate for political goodwill, is using the Center for Disease Control’s authority to hand down a temporary eviction moratorium for anyone making less than $99,000 per year, but it comes with some other pretty strict qualifications. Meanwhile, Amazon is cracking down on labor organizing and spying on its own employees in unprecedented ways, Motherboard reports, while delivery drivers are leaving smartphones hanging from trees to try to eke out a living from the company’s algorithm. And lastly, Incumbent Senator Ed Markey appears to have fended off Rep. Joe Kennedy III in the Democratic primary. We’ll chat about that and break down some of the other races to watch in the State’s primary. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The Trump administration passed down a temporary federal eviction moratorium on Tuesday night, using the CDC’s quarantine authority to bar evictions for individuals making less than $99,000 a year. There’s a pretty easy way to read this: the looming eviction crisis is so bad that even Trump’s advisors have recognized that if it hits before the election, he’s screwed. Sure enough, the CDC’s moratorium only lasts until December 31. It also requires people to self-identify, basically making an official claim that they can’t pay rent but they’re trying to, and that they meet the required income bracket. And, crucially, it doesn’t convert that rent debt into consumer debt, meaning that you could get evicted right after the moratorium expires in January 2021. In other words, it’s a stopgap measure aimed at preserving some of Trump’s flagging support. Don’t get me wrong, it will still be a major lifeline to families living on the edge, giving them a few more crucial months to figure out a better situation, and it’s a far stronger provision than the original moratorium in the CARES act. But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the crisis -- similar to the payroll tax deferrals we talked about earlier in the week, it basically postpones some of the pain of this recession, rather than alleviating it entirely. Amazon Doing Evil Again Amazon had a huge day yesterday, and by huge day I mean got exposed for doing a whole bunch of evil stuff. So basically a normal Tuesday for them. Let’s take a look at the evil in particular though. Item one: the company is hiring two quote “intelligence analysts” for its security division to track a whole host of threats including protests, crises, and geopolitical conflicts that could affect the company’s operations. So a corporate spy, essentially. But one bit of the job description stands out: according to Motherboard, the job listing mentions “labor organizing” three times. Essentially, the company is hiring private spooks to spy on labor organizers. Which brings us to item two, another scoop by Motherboard: an internal report shows that Amazon is quietly surveilling its Flex drivers and other employees in dozens of private facebook groups. Like many gig-work behemoths, Flex drivers have private facebook groups where they chat about the job and blow off steam, but now it’s on the record that Amazon has plants in pretty much all of those groups making sure none of the pesky working people get any ideas about organizing, protesting, or calling a strike. Bear in mind what these people’s jobs are like. Item three: Bloomberg reports that savvy drivers are literally hanging smartphones from trees near Amazon warehouses in an attempt to get the jump on their competitors. Amazon feeds off of this lowest-possible-fee, dog-eat-dog competitive atmosphere for workers who have been mistreated and underpaid for years, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. We’ll have to wait and see how Obama’s old press secretary Jay Carney, who’s now an Amazon spokesman, wriggles out of this jam! A Kennedy Falls in Massachusetts It finally happened: a candidate with the last name Kennedy lost an election in Massachusetts. Senator Ed Markey appears to have struck down the youngest rising star of the dark Kennedy Dynasty, Joe Kennedy III, in the Massachusetts senate primary. Most networks called the race for Markey on Tuesday night, and as we were scripting this, it wasn’t even close. Markey was up by double digits, giving the much younger and much more nakedly ambitious Kennedy the thrashing his power-hungry family deserves. Unfortunately, the other big progressive race in the state appears to have gone the opposite way. House Ways and Means chairman Richard Neal appears to have beaten progressive challenger Alex Morse, after a contentious, borderline corrupt primary that saw a devastating smear campaign against Morse. Morse bounced back when the Intercept’s reporting exposed the smears against him as fake, but he wasn’t able to oust the incumbent Neal. Other races to watch: Jesse Mermell, a progressive, is in the lead in the open primary to fill Kennedy’s House seat that he left to challenge Markey. Mermell ran a pretty left-focused campaign, but one of her challengers, Ihssane Leckey, looked very promising as well. Keep an eye on that race, as it hasn’t been called as of script time, and the closest rival candidate to Mermell is a big money-funded centrist. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Joe Biden’s campaign is launching new yard signs... in a video game. In the popular Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can now proclaim yourself team Joe. And now all I can think about is how Hillary Clinton said Pokemon Go to the Polls. According to a new book, Melania Trump used multiple private email addresses, iMessage, and the encrypted messaging app Signal while in the White House. Remember when this was a huge national security story when Hillary Clinton did it? Neither do I, because I had a voluntary lobotomy after the 2016 election. In slightly brighter Republican primary news, the Massachusetts congressional candidate who was openly linked to Qanon did NOT win his primary election. So that’s one thing the GOP’s got going for it, I guess. Trump’s personal physician denied that the President experienced a stroke last year during a sudden medical emergency, and denied that Pence had been put on standby if the President had gone into surgery. The allegations were made in, would you guess, a new book about the Trump administration by a New York Times reporter. So that clears all that up, it’s clear the big man is in perfect health! That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM quickie today. Sam’s got you in the afternoon. Sept 2, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: President Trump defended militia member Kyle Rittenhouse, refusing to condemn the two killings the 17-year-old Trump supporter committed in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week. Meanwhile, New York City’s teacher are preparing to strike if Mayor Bill de Blasio doesn’t meet their demands for mandatory testing, which would be one of the largest actions in the ongoing nationwide battle over reopening schools. And lastly, a whistleblower report alleges that the L.A. Sheriff’s Deputy who shot 18-year-old Andres Guardado was quote “chasing ink,” or attempting to join one of the violent gangs that exist inside the Sheriff's department. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: At this point, nobody should be expecting Donald Trump to condemn the things his supporters do, but after last week’s shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the president appears to have thrown his lot entirely behind the right-wing defense of Kyle Rittenhouse. Rittenhouse shot three protesters, killing two, during a chaotic incident in the middle of protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin after the police shooting of Jacob Blake. When asked about the shooting at a press conference on Saturday, Trump leaned into the right-wing narrative that Rittenhouse’s shootings were committed in self-defense, saying quote: “I guess he was in very big trouble. He probably would have been killed,” endquote. Trump also refused to condem the widespread violence perpetrated by his supporters in Portland over the weekend, where a truck convoy of Trump supporters sprayed protesters with mace and shot them with paintballs. Trump referred to his supporters as quote “Peaceful,” and added quote “paint is not bullets.” Those confrontations also ended in violence, when one right-wing militia member was shot and killed in the city on Saturday. The Trump campaign and other conservative voices have sought to blame the increasing violence at protests around the country on Joe Biden, alleging that Biden is somehow supportive of incidents of violence, looting or rioting. But in a speech on Monday, Biden wasted no time in decrying all such behavior. He said quote: “I urge the President to join me in saying that while peaceful protest is a right — a necessity — violence is wrong, period. No matter who does it, no matter what political affiliation they have. Period. “If Donald Trump can’t say that, then he is unfit to be president, and his preference for more violence — not less — is clear.” Trump plans to visit Kenosha on today, so look out for even more dangerous rhetoric from him then. NYC Teachers Prepare to Strike The battle over returning to school is coming to a head in New York City, as the city’s powerful Teachers Union says a strike is still on the table if mayor Bill de Blasio doesn’t meet their demands. The sticking point right now is a mandatory testing program for students and staff returning to school. United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew said quote: “I cannot and I will not back off the fact that I said we would not go back unless independent medical experts gave us a stamp of approval. So it’s not like the mayor is going to convince me not to have a mandated testing program. It’s not happening.” If that wrinkle isn’t ironed out, Mulgrew left the door open for a major labor action, including a strike. The UFT is also pushing for a delayed start to the year, which is supposed to begin on September 10. While many teachers across the country have already been pushed back into classrooms, this battle in one of the largest school systems in the country could set a precedent for other unions fighting for mandatory testing as well. Earlier in the year, Chicago’s powerful teachers’ union, which has gone on strike just last year over contract negotiations, threatened another strike in July if the city did not meet their demands to hold remote classes -- and hours later, got what they wanted. Now, New York is laying the same threat on the table. We’ll see how de Blasio responds. Killer LA Sheriff Was Chasing Gang Ink A new whistleblower complaint claims that the L.A. Country Sheriff’s Deputy who shot 18-year-old Andres Guardado was in fact “chasing ink,” or trying to join an organized police gang that rewards its members for brutality. The fact that there are active, violent gangs inside the LA Sheriffs Department is nothing short of absurd. But Guardado’s killing came after knowledge of the gangs was widespread, which means that the forces inside the department weren’t cowed by external pressure or an FBI investigation. According to the new complaint, Deputy Miguel Vega was trying to get into an exclusive clique inside the Sheriffs Office known as the Executioners. Another deputy, Art Gonzalez, alleged in a sworn whistleblower statement that the Executioners have more than a dozen members with matching tattoos, who often host parties after an officer has shot someone in which they may be inked. In other words, Guardado’s death may have come at the hands of a cop looking to kill someone to buy his way into a gang. Gonzalez, the whistleblower, testified for nearly six hours under oath, according to Spectrum News 1 in LA. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Trump’s environmental protection agency is quietly relaxing another key anti-pollution measure, this time weakening Obama-era regulations on coal waste. The new rules drastically increase the daily thresholds for amounts of toxic elements that plants can release into the water supply. Spain is officially going through a true “second wave” of coronavirus infections, as its rate of infections has been higher than the U.S., France, Germany and most of the rest of Europe in the past week. Spain had a brutal first wave of infections which were only broken by a strict lockdown -- but after a rapid reopening program, the virus is creeping back in. Airlines are making one major change in the attempt to coax customers into flying again: they’re permanently dropping change fees for most domestic flights. Delta, United and American are all following this plan, which will certainly give travelers who have to fly a bit more peace of mind, as it’s clear the actual process isn’t and won’t be safe for a while. In slightly terrifying news, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg officiated a wedding and was pictured not wearing a mask just weeks after being hospitalized for liver cancer. The bride claimed that quote “we tested negative,” but still. Probably not a great risk to take. Sept 1, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Protesters in Portland clashed with a pro-Trump truck caravan in a night of violence that left one right-wing militia member dead. Meanwhile, The U.S. passes 6 million coronavirus cases, and California becomes the first U.S. State to hit 700,000. California’s infection rates are falling, though, but other states with smaller populations continue to spike. And lastly, President Trump has made a big deal about his payroll tax deferrals, but new data shows that when the tax man does come knocking in 2021, workers are going to get slammed. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: One person was shot dead during a chaotic night of protests in Portland, Oregon on Saturday. The circumstances around the shooting are still unclear -- it happened near a parking garage away from the main protests. The victim was wearing a hat with the logo of Patriot Prayer, a far-right militia that has squared off with Black Lives Matter protesters and other anti-fascists in Portland. Portland Police say they’re trying to find out who was responsible for the shooting but released no information yet. Earlier in the night, a huge convoy of Trump supporters drove into the city, largely in pickup trucks, streaming Trump 2020 and thin blue line flags. They then proceeded to antagonize Black Lives Matter protesters in the city, spraying mace and shooting them with paintballs. Far-right counter-protesters have attacked protesters in Portland repeatedly in the past weeks, brandishing or firing guns on multiple occasions. Any of that nuance is sure to be stripped from the conversation, particularly after the politically-charged shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin last week. President Trump has used the incident to double down on his fascist rhetoric and enable more far-right escalation, saying that quote “the people of Portland won’t put up with no safety any longer.” endquote, and criticizing Portland’s embattled mayor Ted Wheeler. Some far-right groups have already jumped to conclusions over the shooting, saying the loss of one of their own means civil war with the left. It’s hard to say what the next week has in store, but more violence could well be on the way. US Hits 6 Mil COVID Cases The United States passed 6 million confirmed coronavirus cases on Sunday, according to the New York Times. California now rules the bleak coronavirus charts with 700,000 confirmed cases in the state. However, that number belies a slightly more positive story for the state: the infection rate is falling, and of course California’s massive population always means it’s going to have more cases than most. Other states are still struggling, however. Louisiana has the highest number of cases per 100,000 people in the country, with over 3,100, according to the Times. Outbreaks continue to spread, especially in schools and universities that have resumed in-person classes. But recent data shows that the rate of infections might be slowing slightly -- new daily cases have been going down since the end of July. The next worry is how quickly -- and how safely -- we’ll be able to get a vaccine. The FDA commissioner recently said his agency might be willing to approve a vaccine before phase 3 human trials had been completed, which is obviously a risk. It’s one that could save lives if the vaccine works, but is also being pushed for heavily by the Trump administration, which is desperate to get some kind of solution on the table before the election. And as we know from Trump’s handling of the pandemic, human life matters far less than political capital. Payroll Tax Payback Looks Grim President Trump made a big deal about suspending payroll taxes during the height of the pandemic, meaning that workers got to skip at least one regular subtraction from their take-home wage. But instead of abolishing the tax, Trump just deferred it, and new data confirms that when we have to pay that tax back retroactively, things are going to be bleak. The Treasury department on friday indicated that employers would be on the hook to pay back the postponed payroll taxes in 2021, meaning that they’d be taking even more out of workers’ paychecks then than they would have normally. What Trump’s cuts are doing then is giving a short-term boost to paychecks, which will certainly be appreciated by some, at least until it’s all owed in a year. After the election, of course. To make matters worse, guess what payroll taxes usually fund: Social Security and Medicare. So in one move, Trump is putting stress on the budgets of essential services for just a temporary relief to workers. If Trump eventually decides to cut the tax whatsoever, it will give most workers a bit of a bump in take-home pay -- but at the cost of those same essential services. Since Republicans have been looking to gut those programs for years, this seems like the perfect plan to add a whole lot more uncertainty to the mix. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Rep. Steve Scalise sank to a new low on Sunday, publishing a doctored video that manipulated the words said by ALS-afflicted healthcare advocate Ady Barkhan. In the footage, Barkhan appears to ask Biden to redirect funding for police to healthcare. In reality, Barkhan, who uses a digital voicebox, didn’t say the words “for police” -- Scalise just added them in to fit his twisted narrative. Arizona State University’s College Republicans have become one of the first formal political groups to throw their lot all-in behind Kenosha murderer Kyle Rittenhouse, holding a fundraiser for him and telling a newspaper journalist who called that they quote “do not speak to journalists with pronouns on their Twitter page,” endquote. Classy group of people, clearly. A small number of U.S. troops doing... something??... in Syria this week were injured in a skirmish with Russian forces, allegedly after the two groups crashed their vehicles into one another. U.S. officials said there wasn’t any actual shooting, but still. Yikes. And finally, the Director of National Intelligence’s office informed the Senate and House that it would no longer be doing in-person briefings relating to election security, limiting Congress’s ability to ask hard questions of the people running security for the November election and striking yet another blow to transparency overall. Not a great sign! That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today, stay tuned for the full show this afternoon. Aug 31, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: The RNC kicked off tonight with, who would have guessed, a controversy, as Trump narrowly decided against holding an illegal gathering in DC and went forward with plans to accept his party’s nomination from the White House, rather than a politically neutral site. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, protests erupt after police shot Jacob Blake, a black man, seven times in the back while he was attempting to get back in his car. Blake survived, but the outrage over his clearly unjust treatment caught on video has rocked the city of Kenosha. And lastly, California is once again burning, as exhausted firefighters battle 625 active blazes across the state. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Here we go everyone, it’s the RNC. After last week’s Republican-lite convention put on by Joe Biden and the Democrats, it’s time to watch the full-fascist party put on their show. Night one did not disappoint: Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside of their mansion, leaned hard into false rhetoric that the Democrats would hand over citizens to criminals. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel praised Trump’s support of housewives and moms, and diaper-boy Charlie Kirk leaned in to his alt-right roots by making a pitch for Trump that included the words “Western Civilization.” You can see where that one’s going. But all of this gabbling is mostly just window dressing. The more interesting story of the convention, like we mentioned yesterday, is the GOP’s full-throated endorsement of Trump without any concrete policy goals. Late Sunday night, the Trump administration released a list of “goals” for a second term, which include everything from moon bases to intensely repressive immigration lists. The Republican party is on board with this till the bitter end. The other theme is that the normal rules will not apply to this party or this President. On Monday, the White House constructed a stage in the Rose Garden, preparing for a big event on Thursday when the president will formally accept the nomination. It’s technically against ethics rules for the president to do partisan activities like campaigning on federal property, but Trump has decided that, like so many other laws and norms, doesn’t apply to him. It’s all just part of him testing his limits to see just how far he can go. We’ll see on November 5th whether or not that’ll extend to free and fair elections, and we’ll see what other buttons Trump tries to press at the RNC the rest of this week. Jacob Blake Shooting Fractures Kenosha In Wisconsin, a new shocking incident of police violence has thrown a small city into turmoil, as massive protests and civil unrest erupted after police in Kenosha shot an unarmed black man seven times in the back. The victim, Jacob Blake, was shot as he was attempting to get back into his car, which his three children were inside. He’s in stable condition in the hospital, miraculously. But his shooting was captured on video, and within hours the city was on fire, as angry residents torched garbage trucks, parked cars, and looted businesses downtown. On Monday, the state deployed 100 national guard members and set an 8 p.m. curfew for the city to crack down on protests. Blake was allegedly trying to break up a fight between two women when police arrived on scene, and appears to attempt to leave the situation as police yelled and pointed their weapons at him. As he attempted to get back into his car, an officer grabbed his shirt and shots rang out. The city is still on edge, and while the police immediately opened an investigation, it doesn’t look like there will be an easy resolution anytime soon. California Fights Over 600 Fires California is on fire, as it is every year around this time. But due to the drastic effects of global climate change, every year seems worse than the last. Right now, firefighters in the state are battling upwards of 625 active fires, including two of the biggest fires the state has ever seen. Together, over 1.4 million acres of land in the state have burned. Many of the fires are sparked by lightning strikes, as dry fuel loads go up like matches during dry summer thunderstorms. And of course, vulture capitalists have found a way to use the catastrophe to get richer: Common Dreams dot com reports that one hedge fund has added $3 billion to their coffers by buying up insurance claims. Thanks to the megafires nearby, Oakland and much of the Bay Area is choked by smoke, closing state parks and schools already plagued by the pandemic. Another thing weakened by the pandemic: the prison labor California and other states often use to fight wildfires. Thanks to early release programs aimed at releasing prisoners from the COVID-traps of the prison system, much of the state’s captive wildfire labor force is home, and not behind bars. The prison labor system is an abusive form of modern slavery, which the most recent fires have exposed as an integral part of California’s response to wildfires. Clearly, the state needs a better system, because this is only going to get worse. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Kellyanne Conway announced she would leave the White House at the end of August, citing the need to focus on her family. It’s probably no coincidence that her daughter, who has promoted leftist causes on social media, has been publicly seeking emancipation from her parents, claiming that she’s disgusted with her mother’s job. Researchers in Hong Kong confirmed the first case of coronavirus re-infection, raising concerns that having the virus will only make you resistant to it for a limited period of time, not indefinitely. The patient is asymptomatic and doing fine, but definitely appears to have caught two different strains of the virus months apart. Hamas leadership in the Gaza strip reported the first cases of community spread of coronavirus, raising fears that the disease could rip through the blockaded, mostly captive populations there, who are underserved by healthcare networks. Trump’s National Labor Relations Board announced last Friday that criticizing an employer’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic was not protected speech in the workplace, meaning companies could fire workers for speaking out. That means that under Trump, brave organizers like Amazon warehouse worker Chris Smalls can be axed with no government backup, just for trying to keep their coworkers safe. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today! We’ll have more pre-recorded content for you this afternoon, as Sam and the Team are still on a well-deserved break. Aug 25, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: It’s night one of the Republican National Convention, featuring an even more deranged lineup of GOP stooges than the DNC had last week! Trump will be speaking every night. Here’s what to look out for. Meanwhile, the Trump administration pushed the FDA to authorize blood plasma treatments from recovered COVID patients to treat active cases of the disease, despite warnings from some scientists that the process needed more study. And lastly, as federal aid expires, millions of Americans are sinking deeper into debt, hunger, and evictions, according to a new report in the Washington Post. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The RNC starts today, and here’s what you’re in for: Trump, Trump, and more Trump. The speakers lineup includes almost every Trump you can think of: Don Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Ivanka Trump, Tiffany Trump, Melania Trump, and of course Donald himself, not once but every single night. Other hits include, we’re not kidding: the Covington Catholic kid who went viral during an altercation with a Native American protester, the St. Louis lawyer couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter Protesters, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, one of the few pro-gun parents of a child who died in the Parkland massacre, and the Republicans’ only black Senator, Tim Scott. The interesting thing about the convention this year as well is that the RNC is just not adopting an official platform in any way, basically signaling that whatever Trump wants to do is fine with them. This isn’t exactly unexpected, but it’s telling that the GOP as a whole has decided against any sort of concrete policy goals, trusting that Trump will basically just do his thing and accomplish most of what they want anyway. So much for the myth of the reasonable Republican. The convention starts Monday night and will run through Thursday. COVID Plasma Treatment Pushed Through FDA For weeks, the Trump administration has been hammering the FDA to get some kind of coronavirus treatment approved, seeking to get the good PR by floating one miracle cure or another right before the election. Now, it appears they’ve found their in: blood plasma from recovering patients used to cure those still suffering from the disease. The treatment, known as convalescent plasma, got emergency FDA approval on Sunday, after days of pressure from the administration. Previously, top federal scientists had delayed FDA approval because they thought it needed further study, according to the New York Times. They’re probably not wrong: the Times reports that randomized clinical trials have not proven that convalescent plasma works. That didn’t stop Trump from touting the treatment as quote “very effective”endquote at a press conference on Sunday, and saying quote: “This is a powerful therapy that transfuses very, very strong antibodies from the blood of recovered patients to help treat patients battling a current infection.” endquote. And unlike other treatments that focus on medications, convalescent plasma treatments obviously depend on blood donations, which can’t exactly be mass produced. The next step in this is the Trump administration pushing forward a vaccine before the election, which it has openly said it wants to do, perhaps as early as September. Of course, the earlier we can get a vaccine the better, but do we really trust the Trump administration not to rush something potentially unsafe or ineffective through the process for political gain? Sure sounds like the kind of thing he’d want to do. Report Shows Economic Ruin Ahead For a few months, the federal government kept most Americans’ heads above water -- but the life rafts are gone, and now we’re starting to sink. According to the Washington Post, 29 million adults reported not having enough to eat in late July, as expanded unemployment benefits started to end. During the same period, 15 million renters reported being behind on rent payments. Trump’s new $300 per week unemployment expansion will only last a few weeks, and when it’s gone, the Post reports that poverty levels could rise to above Great Recession levels if the government doesn’t do more to help. Another thing the Post story shows is that the additional $600 a week that Bernie Sanders and other Democratic leaders fought for had a huge effect on keeping people afloat. Zach Parolin, a researcher at Columbia University, told the Post that 17 million people would have dropped below the poverty line without direct intervention from the Government. Progressives wanted an even bigger investment, of course, but it goes to show that even what we were able to get from the Trump administration and Republican Senate had a huge impact. As all that phases out, we’re looking at dark times for a lot of Americans, unless Congress can get its act together and find a way to push forward more aid. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Tennessee’s right-wing Governor Bill Lee quietly signed off on a bill that makes camping on state property a Class E felony, directly targeting the Black Lives Matter protesters who have been camping outside of the Tennessee Capitol Building. And with a felony charge, those protesters could lose their right to vote. Protests in Belarus against dictator Alexander Lukashenko are only growing, as massive crowds gathered in Minsk on Sunday in defiance of the leader’s violent crackdowns. Lukashenko, meanwhile, was pictured while arriving in the capital by helicopter wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a rifle, so it’s pretty clear what kind of signal he’s sending to his people. Remember the whole mess over TikTok a few weeks back? A new report by the Wall Street Journal alleges that Facebook ManBoy Mark Zuckerberg led a lobbying campaign highlighting the dangers of Chinese-backed tech companies like TikTok, which may have helped prompt the Trump administration’s weird crusade against the app. And guess what? Facebook-owned Instagram is now trying to make waves with a TikTok competitor. California’s massive wildfires could worsen this week as the state prepares for lightning and wind storms over the next week, which could spark new blazes. 1.3 million acres have burned across the state in the last month. That’s all for the AM Quickie today. Sam and the Majority Report crew are out this week, but we’ll have plenty of pre-recorded content to keep you going. Aug 24, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is backpedaling as fast as possible after finally facing some Congressional pushback, and now claims that his aggressive cost cutting measures will be rolled back before the election. Meanwhile, it’s night two of the DNC, which is now basically just the RNC from 2004 -- we’ve got Colin Powell up tonight and a tribute to Cindy McCain, while the party quietly eliminates language that calls for an end to fossil fuel subsidies. And lastly, the GOP led Senate Panel, after much hemming and hawing, reveals some pretty conclusive evidence in the Russiagate scandal. Maybe now we can move on? THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW There is a small light at the end of the fascist tunnel for the Post Office, as public pressure appears to have cowed Trump lackey Louis DeJoy. DeJoy, the postmaster general who previously ordered aggressive cost-cutting measures that crippled the already-struggling agency’s ability to do its jobs, now claims he will roll back some of those cuts until after the election, to quote “avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail.” endquote. Unfortunately, it’s a bit too late for that: we all know the score. But the blatant nature of DeJoy’s corruption appears to have provoked enough backlash that things might slightly change. Like many of Trump’s corrupt schemes, this one appears to be partly undone because the administration didn’t quite dot the “i”s and cross the t’s legally. Two states, Washington and Pennsylvania, have filed lawsuits against the government to challenge DeJoy’s policies. Per CNN, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson claims Dejoy quote “acted outside of his authority to implement changes to the postal system, and did not follow the proper procedures under federal law.” DeJoy’s cost cutting measures like slashed overtime, reduced office hours, and processing facility closures would be postponed, but we know that’s not going to be enough -- we’re going to have to pump way more funding into the agency rather than just stop the bleeding**:** DNC Night 2: Party Like It's the RNC '04 Night two of the RNC, sorry, I mean DNC, but honestly, it’s getting hard to tell at this point. On Tuesday, Biden’s GOP buddies included Colin Powell, who has endorsed Democrats in the past. Powell has also, of course, lied to the American public in order to sell us on the Iraq war, but we can’t hold that against him. If supporting the Iraq war were a disqualifying factor in Democratic politics, of course, Joe Biden wouldn’t be the nominee. But he is, and plenty of Democrats are pleased about that. Biden formally got the nomination tonight, beating Bernie Sanders in the official delegate count. Progressive Rep. AOC was one of two speakers who nominated Sanders, not Biden, which immediately caused something of a centrist panic online. What they don’t realize is that AOC’s speech is a traditional formality when there’s a runner-up candidate like Bernie whose name is still on the convention’s ballots. AOC used her time well, giving a forceful, short speech shouting out several progressive causes and problems with the country, like the looming eviction crisis, that have until now gone unnoticed by the Democrats and Republicans at the convention. Meanwhile, in a blink-and-you’ll miss it moment, the Huffington Post reported on Tuesday that the DNC had quietly dropped language from its party platform that demanded an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Says a lot about whose votes they’re gunning for. And on that note -- we also heard from Cindy McCain, who spoke about her husband’s long friendship with Biden. That sounds lovely for them. McCain presence fit the issue of national security that other speakers, like former Secretary of State John Kerry, also spoke on -- hyping up Biden’s steady hand over the military, which in context basically means he won’t tweet at Iran as much but might bomb them anyway. To close out the night, Jill Biden spoke as a character witness for her husband, who joined her briefly at the end of her speech. We’ll surely be seeing a whole lot more of them as the week goes on. Senate Finds Russiagate Dirt A massive Senate report on Tuesday confirmed what most sane people already knew: Trump campaign officials in 2016 had contact with Russian intelligence officers, Kremlin officials and other Russian nationals. Russiagate isn’t the only reason Trump won the 2016 election, of course, but Tuesday’s report shows that even the GOP-led Senate has been forced to admit that members of the Trump campaign actively sought Russian help, and the Russians, in some cases, provided it. The Senate report, like Robert Mueller’s exhaustive, exhausting investigation, stopped short of calling the contacts “collusion,” but that’s basically just semantics. What the new report shows is that Paul Manafort buddy Konstantin V. Kilimnik was in fact a Russian intelligence officer, and that Kilimnik had ties to the Russian government’s election interference operations. Russiagate can be a fraught topic on the left, as it’s been used as a cudgel and a crutch by liberals trying to find a scapegoat to blame for botching the 2016 election and dooming the country to at least four years of Trump. But you don’t have to go full Red Scare to acknowledge the facts that the Mueller investigation and the new Senate report show. Maybe once we’re all on the same page, we can move on and make sure neither the foreign interference or the embarrassing loss to a fascist candidate ever happen again. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES Notre Dame University has become the latest college to rapidly shut down after opening for the school year, canceling in-person classes after an outbreak. Michigan State and UNC-Chapel Hill both took similar steps almost immediately after starting classes. Seems like... maybe opening schools isn’t the right idea right now. Well folks, it actually happened. Notorious weird islamophobic troll Laura Loomer won her primary in Florida’s 21st congressional district. The 21st is heavily Democratic, so it’s highly unlikely Loomer will actually win, but it’s sure setting up one hell of a surreal general election. Elsewhere in Florida’s primary, the Bernie Sanders-backed candidate for Ninth Circuit State Attorney, Monique Worrell, won election and will replace departing Democrat Aramis Ayala. Worrell is a staunch criminal justice reform advocate, and is now in a position to really change lives in the state. And finally, cops in Portsmouth, Virginia are doing their level best to sideline a progressive prosecutor from handling cases relating to the vandalism of Confederate monuments. The same cops, of course, are pushing for felony charges for civil rights leaders and public defenders who participated in protests that damaged the statues. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for more DNC madness with the full show this afternoon. Aug 19, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: We just wrapped up night one of the Democratic National Convention, featuring Republican John Kasich, Republican Meg Whitman, and surprise, a few actual Democrats. Bernie Sanders was there too. Here’s what went down. Meanwhile, new details in the strange story of Alex Morse’s Congressional Campaign show that the Massachusetts Democratic Party conspired with and urged College Democrats to delete communications records that allegedly outlined their campaign to smear Morse with sexual impropriety. And lastly, Donald Trump finalizes a plan to open up an Arctic nature sanctuary to oil and gas drilling. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The DNC kicked off Monday night and oh boy. Well. We’re one night down at least. For some reason, the Democrats front-loaded their convention with a line of Republican speakers, including abortion and unions opponent John Kasich, Quibi CEO and former Republican Rep Meg Whitman, and more. Eventually, some actual Democrats did speak, but there wasn’t much in the way of political platform. Instead, Images of black people hugging cops followed by testimonials from the families of George Floyd and Eric Garner. Andrew Cuomo went on and pretended his mistakes didn’t kill thousands of Americans in New York City. The DNC did give runner-up Bernie Sanders a chance to speak, and he wasted no time, giving the first substantive discussion of Biden’s platform. It was pretty depressing to hear him champion Biden’s health plan, which is very much not Medicare for All, but you can tell the guy is just trying to do his part in beating Trump. He sucked it up for Hillary and he’ll do it again. Michelle Obama, the night’s headliner, closed out the evening with an impassioned speech about Biden’s merits and the value of empathy, which was pretty effective in striking a contrast between what the Trump campaign and RNC will offer. But will the vague emotional tone get the Democrats across the finish line? We’ve probably got two more days of it at least, so I guess we’ll find out! Mass Dems Plotted Against Morse A new report by the Intercept shows some shocking new details in the strange smear campaign against Alex Morse, a progressive candidate for Congress in Massachusettes’s Democratic Primary. The Intercept reports that the executive director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, Veronica Martinez, told student leaders that UMass Amherst to delete communications records between them and the state party. The offending messages could implicate that the party organized the strange purity scandal around Morse. The initial scandal was always strange. Morse, who is in his early 30s and openly gay, was accused of sleeping with students at UMass, where he was an adjunct professor. But none of the students made accusations that the sex was anything but consensual. Several days later, the Intercept reported that members of the Massachusetts college democrats association had a long-running scheme to smear Morse with rumors of sexual impropriety. Now, the new reporting shows that the Massachusettes state party may have been in on it too. The context here is that Morse is an open progressive who’s running to take down Rep. Richard Neal, the chair of the powerful Ways and Means committee. The state’s primary is on September 1, but even throughout the strange scandal the Morse campaign’s internal polls show them within 5 points of Neal. After the victories of Jamal Bowman and Cori Rice against longtime Democratic incumbents, it’s pretty clear that some party insiders are willing to stoop to some pretty low lows to make sure some centrists keep their seats. Trump Lets Big Oil into Arctic The Trump administration finalized a plan to turn over the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas developers, overturning decades of protection for the country’s largest remaining stretch of wilderness. Advocates quickly denounced the move, obviously, because it’s a gift to environmentally destructive companies that can’t wait to savage the land. Steve Blackledge, senior conservation program director for Environment America, said quote: "The door is being flung wide open for oil and gas drilling to impose irreversible harm to one of America's iconic spaces. Claims that this thoroughly invasive industrial work can be done in an environmentally responsible way are either naive or, even worse, cynically deceptive." That pretty much sums it up. According to Common Dreams, Blackledge said Trump’s interior department’s plans for the region were quote “wrongheaded and tragic.” Opponents are sure to challenge the move in court, but if Trump gets a second term, we can imagine far more of the same. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Common Dreams reports that according to new research, just 12 billionaires have now amassed a combined wealth of 1 trillion dollars. Some of the top of that list, like Jeff Bezos, have seen their net worth skyrocket by dozens of billions of dollars even in the midst of the pandemic. California’s Death Valley hit 130 degrees Fahrenheit on Sunday, which, if confirmed, would be the region’s hottest temperature since 1913. Climate activists warned that unless we make some changes soon, that record will get broken a whole lot sooner this time. According to the Mississippi Free Press, 71 of the state’s 82 counties are now reporting coronavirus outbreaks in schools, with more than 2500 students and teachers in quarantine. For many schools, it’s only the second day of classes. And finally, Postmaster General LaJoy has agreed to testify before the House on August 24, as Democrats pressure the Senate to come back and get a deal to save the post office on the table. Will it work? Let’s not go there just yet. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. Aug 18, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Donald Trump’s war on the postal service continues, and the House agrees to reconvene to try to fight back as distressing reports filter in of the agency removing post office boxes from streets. Meanwhile, a new report shows that the Trump administration has been using a private security company to detain migrant children and their families at major hotel chains before ejecting them from the country. And lastly, protests intensify in Chicago, Stone Mountain Georgia, and Portland Oregon, as Black Lives Matter protesters clash with right wing nationalists and fascist cops alike. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called her part of Congress back late on Sunday night, saying that the Democrat-led House of Representatives would meet in order to pass emergency legislation that would help save the U.S. Postal Service before the November election. Trump has been systematically destroying the Post Office for months, using his pet Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to gut the organization in order to cast more doubts on nationwide voting by mail. So far, according to the Washington Post, DeJoy has used absurd cost cutting measures to slash post carriers’ overtime and other strategies to get the mail on time, as well as removing physical inventory like mail-sorting machines and making it so mail-in ballots are no longer automatically sorted as priority mail. Reporters and social media users in multiple cities reported the Postal Service physically removing its own letter boxes from the streets as part of a scaling-back process. According to CNN, the agency says it will stop this practice for at least the next 90 days, which is good news for the election, but it’s completely clear the DeJoy is trying to demolish any chance of a workable mail-voting system before Trump goes up against Biden. The House is back in session this week to pass a bill putting a band-aid on this, but you can imagine how far that’s going to get with the Republican Senate. At least they’re trying. Trump Keeping Migrant Kids in Hotels A new report by the New York Times shows that despite the catastrophic pandemic, the Trump administration is still finding new and depraved ways to treat immigrant families on the border. According to the Times, government data and private court documents show that the Trump administration has massively increased detentions of migrants in private hotel chains before deporting them, often placing children as young as a year old under the supervision of transportation workers not licensed to provide child care. At first glance, this doesn’t sound so bad: a hotel room is likely far more comfortable that the dystopian concentration camps that the Trump administration is also using to detain kids and adults on the border. But as the Times notes, this is all being done by a private security company called MVM Inc, which is completely outside of the scope or oversight of normal government operations: there’s no accountability or transparency here. The new wave of expulsions are justified under Trump’s new pandemic border rules, which is basically just kicking people out of the country en masse, including unaccompanied children, without any thought to the consequences or the condition of the people under their care. The Times reports that under the new policy, most children just put on planes and sent back to their home countries, though some get turned over to child services in Mexico, which often forces parents into confusing, desperate searches to track them down. Protests Continue in Portland, Chicago, Stone Mountain Widespread protests continued to rage across the country this weekend, with major actions in Portland, Oregon, Stone Mountain, Georgia and Chicago, Illinois. We’ll run down some of the major events. In Portland, far-right members of the Patriot Prayer and Proud Boys clashed with protesters and allegedly fired a gun, while other members dueled with paintball guns and mace. Some reports on social media suggested that a small plastic pipe bomb was tossed as well. In Stone Mountain, Georgia Black Lives Matter counterprotesters faced down a smaller contingent of white nationalist three-percenter militia members who had applied for a permit to hold a rally in the park, ostensibly to defend the massive Confederate monument there. In both of these places it looks like the far right is getting more and more bold in pushing for conflict with protesters. And in Chicago, the police cracked down hard on protests and again blamed outside agitators for escalating demonstrations, despite evidence that the cops used aggressive tactics like kettling and baton charges. Chicago Police claim that 17 officers were injured during a protest on Saturday. There’s no clear accounting on how many protesters have been hurt so far, of course. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The big story this week we didn’t get to up top is that the Democratic National Convention starts this week. Because pretty much everything in Milwaulkee is canceled, DNC officials are going to try to juggle hundreds of different live streams to keep the atmosphere festive and lively for... well, whoever’s actually watching. Tune in! What could go wrong. In case you were wondering how the rich and famous are faring through all this: a new report by the New York Times shows that the wealthy elites are throwing parties in the Hamptons and other wealthy enclaves where private, lightning-fast coronavirus testing happens at the door, provided you can pay. Gee, I wonder who’s going to get the vaccine first when it comes out? In a surreal turn of events, a Government Accountability Audit shows that Acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf, as well as deputy secretary Ken Cuccinelli may have been illegally appointed to their positions by the Trump administration. These are the guys ordering many of the federal goons breaking up protests, who may not even legally deserve the authority they’re abusing. And finally, the Trump administration is planning to jack up the costs involved with becoming a U.S. citizen in the fall, as part of a systemic push to keep poorer immigrants out of the country. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. Aug 17, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Biden will announce his VP pick tomorrow, or maybe he won’t!. Also, AOC at the DNC, Trump wants to break the law at Gettysburg, and more: we’re doing a politics funbag at the top of the night. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s administration is circulating a proposal that would crack down on immigration on the Mexican border to absurd levels, even preventing some legal citizens from entering the country if they’re suspected of carrying the coronavirus. And lastly, Chicago police say they’ve arrested over 100 after a night of chaotic protests and looting broke out on Sunday following a fortunately non-fatal shooting by the police. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Joe Biden has selected a vice presidential running mate. Or maybe he hasn’t! Either way, he’s not telling, but that’s not stopping literally anyone from speculating wildly. Take the New York Times, for instance, published a full story on Monday basically saying welp, he’s talked to everyone! Now the decision will come... some time. It might be today, but other people think it might be wednesday. And no one knows who it’ll be, though Kamala Harris, Susan Rice, and Elizabeth Warren are all in the running, along with a handful of others. Anyway, let’s move on to more concrete news: the DNC. Against all odds, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is getting a speaking slot, playing opener to Bernie Sanders. Kinda wild the DNC took this long to announce that, considering they had literal Republican John Kasich all lined up weeks ago. Over on the Republican side, Trump is planning some more breaches of decorum and possibly the law: he wants to accept his party’s nomination at Gettysburg. But that’s a major breach of ethics, as doing partisan business on federal property is generally seen as a no-no. He’ll probably end up doing whatever he wants! In the final miscellaneous event of note today, Trump was rushed out of a press briefing by the Secret Service after a shooting outside of the White House. Secret Service agents allegedly shot someone after a disturbance near the fence. Trump walked back into the briefing after a few minutes, perhaps in an attempt to save face from the time he got caught hiding in the presidential bunker during protests. Trump May Try to Stop Citizens at Border LUCIE: The Trump administration is reportedly considering its harshest immigration restriction yet, in this case circulating a proposal that would preventing some legal citizens from entering the country from Mexico if they’re suspected of carrying the coronavirus. That Trump is singling out the Mexican border isn’t surprising, but it is open evidence that there’s nothing behind this order other than blatant racism. It would have literally no effect on cases in the U.S., as the disease is spreading unfettered in our own communities here, but would largely make the lives of latino Americans and their families incredibly difficult on the border. What Trump is doing with this order is again trying to use Mexico as a scapegoat for all his problems. He figures if he can blame rising coronavirus on Mexico, it’ll distract some of his core base from realizing how utterly he failed them this year. And he’s clearly willing to do whatever it takes to do that, including barring U.S. citizens from their own country. Keep in mind, he might not have the legal authority to do it, of course, and none of this is law yet. But if it does come down, we all know what it’s for. Chicago Protests Flare Up In Chicago, a day and night of confusion on Sunday ripped up parts of the city, as protesters took to the streets after reports of a police shooting. On Monday, Chicago police said they’d arrested over 100 people, and that 13 cops had been injured during the demonstrations, which also spilled over into widespread looting. Part of the community’s fury on Sunday night was driven by mistaken rumors, that said the police had shot dead a 15-year-old boy. However, authorities claim that the police were fired upon by a 20 year old suspect, who they shot but did not kill. The suspect is reportedly in stable condition at the hospital. The suspect’s brother, however, denied that his sibling fired at the police in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the looting was quote “straight up felony criminal conduct,”and quote “an assault on our city” endquote, but it’s pretty clear that the public’s relationship with the police is so strained it could boil over at any second, which is always going to cause collateral damage. Chicago police closed down roads and streets in the business district that saw much of the looting and in downtown Chicago on Monday night as well. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Belarus also erupted in protests after its strongman leader Aleksandr Lukashenko won a ludicrous 80 percent of the vote in a highly sketchy election and then cracked down on dissent. Lukashenko’s police have brutally attacked protesters and arrested at least 14 journalists for covering the demonstrations. NCAA football players are undergoing a remarkable organizing push under two joined campaigns, hashtag #WeAreUnited and #WeWantToPlay, which unite two groups of players pushing for a college football season to go ahead, but only if the schools involved commit to stringent coronavirus prevention protocol and support for the athletes involved. It’s not quite a college football players union yet, but it’s getting there. The newspaper guild members of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette voted overwhelmingly, 88-31, in favor of authorizing a strike at the paper. If the News Guild leadership signs off on it, it’ll add a huge weapon to the arsenal of a group of journalists who have been fighting their owners’ anti-union lawyers over a new contract for three and a half years. A freak storm packing 100 mile per hour winds, known as a “derecho” swept across the Midwest on Monday, snapping trees and flipping vehicles across Iowa, Indiana, Michigan and other regions, leaving several injured and thousands without power. Just a sneak peak of what climate change has in store! Aug 11, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

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

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Donald Trump flies to Ohio for a rally, right as the state’s governor tests positive for coronavirus. Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Tish James files a lawsuit to dissolve the National Rifle Association on grounds of rampant corruption and financial crimes. And lastly, a wild story out of LA: Sheriff’s deputies organized in “secret societies” that functioned like street gangs cost the county $55 million in settlements for their corrupt and brutal behavior. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Donald Trump flew into Ohio today just in time to not meet with Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, because DeWine had just tested positive for COVID-19. DeWine, to his credit, has been far more aggressive against the coronavirus than many of his fellow Republican governors. After testing positive, he headed home to self-isolate and did not meet Trump at the airport. Trump then gave a planned speech on reopening the economy in Cleveland, but used most of his time to rail against Joe Biden, saying the former vice president was in favor of quote: “No Religion, no anything -- hurt the bible, hurt god. He’s against god, hes against guns, he’s against energy, our kind of energy, I don’t think he’s going to do too well in Ohio.” endquote. Trump said Biden wants all those things because he’s following quote “the radical left agenda,” endquote. Buddy, we wish Biden was following the radical left agenda! Unfortunately, he very much is not. This is pretty much the attack line that the Biden campaign must be expecting, and if that’s the best Trump can bring, it’s clear he’s just grasping at straws and trying to play the hits. Guns and God? Sure, that stuff is catnip for conservatives, but at a certain point people have gotta realize they’ve heard it all before. NY Sues NRA New York Attorney General Leticia James filed a lawsuit aiming to dissolve the National Rifle Association, a huge target that has been under fire for months with allegations of financial impropriety and open corruption. What can I say, if you’ve got the shot, take it. Gun puns aside, the lawsuit is a huge step that represents a culmination of years of diligent reporting by Propublica and nonprofit newsroom The Trace, which broke story after story detailing the NRA’s internal chaos and corruption. James’s suit, according to the New York Times, accuses the N.R.A. and executives like Wayne LaPierre and John Fazer of “violating numerous state and federal laws” by kicking back some $64 million of organizational funding to enrich themselves and their friends and family over the past 3 years. The NRA is a nonprofit chartered in New York City, so this is basically James’s wheelhouse. Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., filed suit against the N.R.A. and it’s charity wing, which is based in DC instead of New York. It’s not going to be a quick fight, however: the legal battle is expected to take years, so the NRA will surely play a role in the 2020 election, as they have every other year. But it is a strong opening volley against one of the most noxious political forces in America. LA Sheriffs Also in Gangs Our last story today isn’t so much breaking news as it is a shocking reminder of how dirty police forces in American routinely get. According to the LA Times, a group of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies cost the county and their department $55 million in court settlements over a decades-long period, as they formed organized, aggressive secret societies that glorified brutal policing and operated like street gangs. IN the last 10 years alone, the county has paid out at least 21 million to these groups’ victims. They gave themselves names too: different groups were called things like “the Vikings,” “Regulators,” “3000 Boys” and “the Banditos.” They operated out of jails and sheriff’s department stations for years, acting with impunity throughout the tenures of multiple top LA County Sheriffs. The Times reports some of the gangs even had tattoos and “earned their ink” by breaking inmates bones. Take the biggest case the department was forced to settle: Francisco Carrillo Jr. was jailed for over 20 years before his murder conviction was overturned in 2011. He was arrested when he was 16 by members of the Department’s white supremacist Lynwood Vikings gang, who he later alleged in a lawsuit had manipulated witnesses to pick him out of a lineup. John Sweeney, an attorney who has represented families of people killed by deputies said quote: “I think it’s a willful failure. For some reason, they pride themselves, the Sheriff’s Department, on having these violent cliques I guess to show the public who’s the boss. But, you know, what it does is just fosters a horrible relationship between the community that these sheriffs serve.” AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Mark Zuckerberg is facing some serious pushback from his employees, who asked him at a public forum on Thursday whether he would stop Donald Trump using the service to contest the 2020 election, according to Buzzfeed News. Facebook took down a Trump campaign post yesterday for misinformation, but has a track record of wimping out on bigger issues. The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that fear of COVID-19 is not a good enough reason to vote absentee, striking a nasty blow against vote-by-mail in that state. If a deadly pandemic isn’t good enough, what is? Congress has abandoned us, as Politico reports that Senators went home at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday and the House is out of session next week. They could get called back, but if they’re heading to home states it means a coronavirus relief bill is still a long way off. The State Department’s special envoy to Iran, Brian Hook is quitting, and being replaced by basically the worst possible person for the job: Eliott Abrams, one of the most bloodthirsty warhawks to ever grace the halls of power in Washington. Catch the Majority Report LIVE early today at 10:30AM ET! August 7, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: New details shed more light on the dangerous negligence that caused the catastrophic Beirut explosion yesterday. Meanwhile, stimulus plan talks stall between Democrats and Republicans, and Biden decides to skip an in-person appearance at the Democratic Convention in Milwaulkee. And lastly, Iowa finally overturns its ban on voting for people with felony convictions. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The explosion in Beirut yesterday was catastrophic beyond what most of us can imagine. At least 135 people are dead and thousands are injured, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of people whose homes were destroyed by the blast. The details coming in paint a pretty damning picture of neglect by Lebanon’s government, which has repeatedly struggled to provide for and guide its citizens through refugee crises, pandemic, economic strife and everyday city management in its largest metropolis. Here’s what we know: the main explosion was caused by a massive store of ammonium nitrate, that had been left lying in a warehouse in Beirut’s port for more than six years. According to the New York Times, port officials made several requests to Lebanese courts to get the stockpile moved, but got nothing back from the government, even when they warned of the danger. The blast has devastated several of the capital city’s most prosperous and lively neighborhoods, causing as much as $3 billion in damage in a country that is already deep in a financial crisis. And the human toll may be far worse than just the casualty numbers. Brian Castner, lead weapons investigator for Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Team said the blast was quote “the biggest explosion in an urban area in decades. The human impact of it is the important thing, and it affected people a dozen kilometers away.” All told, the Times reports that some 300,000 people may be displaced from their homes. That’s a staggering number, considering that roughly 1.5 million, or over 30 percent of Lebanon’s total population are already refugees from the Syrian war and other conflicts. Congress' Stalled on Corona Relief Let’s check in briefly with the government’s response to the coronavirus. We’ll keep it brief, because it doesn’t look pretty. Republicans and Democrats are nowhere near an agreement, as of Wednesday evening. The holdup now appears to be a dispute over funding the Post Office. How the fight is playing out is pretty simple: pandemic cutbacks to the Post Office have resulted in mail delays, for obvious reasons. The GOP is then using those delays to say that the Post Office doesn’t deserve more funding, and simultaneously to cast doubt on mail-in voting. Basically, they’ve crushed the Post Office and are using it to mess with the election. Democrats want $3.6 billion in the new aid package to make sure mail-in voting goes smoothly, but of course the GOP is against it. Congress is also still haggling over an extension to the increased unemployment benefits, which is basically like juggling with people’s entire lives as the jobless rate continues to climb. To top it off, the GOP is also fighting against aid measures that would help state and local governments stop laying off public sector workers. As far as the election itself goes, it’s looking like nothing we’ve seen before. Joe Biden announced on Wednesday that he wouldn’t be traveling to Milwaulkee for the Democratic National Convention, and will instead deliver his acceptance speech from his home state of Delaware. Three months to go, people. Buckle up. Iowa Gives Felons Voting Rights There is some good news on the horizon, however! On Wednesday, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, a Republican, ended the state’s draconian ban on voting rights for felons. Most importantly, it stipulates that people with felony convictions can vote regardless of outstanding fines and fees, one wrinkle that less scrupulous Republicans have used to try to deny voting rights in Florida. Unfortunately, they still don’t get the right back until they’ve completed their sentence and parole, so there’s still work to be done. And the order doesn’t apply to people with felony homicide convictions. Still, it’s a pretty significant step toward justice in a state that’s been without it for too long. The next step, activists say, is pushing to make the order an official part of the Iowa state constitution, so it can’t be undone by another executive order from a more punitive governor. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Remember the whole scandal at the State Department including investigations into Secretary Mike Pompeo? Well it just got a bit more suspicious: acting Inspector General Stephen Akard is leaving the organization just three months after the Trump administration forced out the last Inspector General. Seems like someone doesn’t want any inspecting going on. Common Dreams reports that watchdogs are up in arms after pharmaceutical giant Moderna announced plans to charge between $32 and $37 per dose for a COVID-19 vaccine it’s developing, after receiving massive amounts of funding from the U.S. federal government. Twitter banned the Trump campaign from tweeting and forced it to delete a post on the campaign’s account that included a link to a Fox News clip claiming that children were quote “almost immune” from COVID-19. Facebook took similar steps, outright deleting the video from its service. Secretary Ken Cuccinelli said that the DHS was quote “moving rapidly to replace” endquote the intimidating camouflage uniforms worn by federal officers during protests in Portland, after widespread backlash against federal cops dressing up like invading soldiers. We’ll see just how rapidly they move to make that change. That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show this afternoon. August 6, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: A massive explosion in Beirut, Lebanon’s port area has killed over 70 people and injured hundreds more in the city, which was buffeted by the blast’s enormous shockwave. The cause of the explosion is still unclear. Meanwhile, some key primary races are heating up, as mail-in ballots continue to be counted in elections in Michigan, Kansas and several other states. But so far, it looks like Rep. Rashida Tlaib has fended off her primary opponent from 2018, back for round two. And lastly, 13 college football players in one of the most competitive leagues in the country are threatening to sit out the upcoming season unless their schools change inadequate coronavirus policies, taking a bold stand against the powers pushing for unpaid athletes to put on a fall season without the right support. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: An enormous explosion rocked the city of Beirut, Lebanon on Tuesday evening, killing at least 78 people and injuring hundreds more. The explosion followed a raging fire and smaller blast in the city’s port area, where Lebanese officials said explosive materials had been stored. It’s unclear what the disaster’s initial cause was. The blast was enormous and its shockwave shattered windows and cracked walls miles away from the epicenter. The area around the port was ravaged, including several hospitals which were so damaged they had to send their existing patients to other centers already overwhelmed by victims of the blast. The Lebanese government said that a large cache of ammonium nitrate, a chemical compound used to make both fertilizer and explosives, had been stored in the area for years after it was captured. The New York Times reported that an accidental detonation of a large quantity of ammonium nitrate was behind a similar explosion in Texas City, Texas in 1947 that killed 581 people. President Trump told reporters that his military leaders quote “seemed to think it was an attack” endquote, despite the fact that Lebanese officials had not confirmed or speculated that the blast was deliberate. Primaries for Tlaib, Kansas, and More Amidst all this, the U.S. still held primary elections on Tuesday, although with mail-in voting we may not know the results for a few days. Some races are pivotal on a national scale. In Michigan, Rep. Rashida Tlaib faced another primary against her 2018 opponent, Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones. Tlaib beat Jones by around 900 votes that year, but this year had the weight of the Democratic establishment on her side, despite her outspoken stances as part of the House’s young progressive caucus, and has a pretty commanding lead as votes continue to be counted. In Missouri, meanwhile, Justice Democrats-backed activist Cori Bush appears to have pulled off a massive upset against 20-year incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay. Clay had the party establishment’s full backing, however, but has been sitting making little waves on a safe House seat that he effectively inherited when his father retired. Bush lost in 2018 by 20 points, but fought to a huge victory, winning by just over 4,600 votes late on Tuesday night. Some of the Republican primaries are interesting as well. In Kansas, for instance, former Secretary of State Kris Kobach tried to out-Trump his rivals in a contentious Senate primary. Mainstream Republicans were terrified of him winning, because he was a reviled figure that he might put what’s usually a pretty safe seat in danger of going blue in the general. It looks like he’ll fall short of that bid though, as fellow Trump-supporter Peter Meijer is way ahead. Again, mail in voting means there may not be quick or easy calls to elections like we’re used to. Trump has been railing against the practice for weeks, but abruptly changed his tune when he saw that he was in danger of losing Florida, telling voters to request mail-in ballots and insisting that it was safe in that state. If his lies about election security are fooling anyone, it’s pretty much their own fault at this point. College Football Players Stage Protest Across the country, resistance to Republican leaders and greedy college executives alike is coming from an unlikely group: Division 1 football players. 13 players from the PAC-12 conference, one of the largest football leagues in the NCAA, announced on Tuesday that they would opt out of the coming season and refuse to play until their schools had addressed systemic failings in their coronavirus response. The PAC-12 protest is the latest in a series of developments where organized athletes are punching above their weight to put pressure on their schools and local governments. In Mississippi, governor Tate Reeves announced that he would enact a statewide mask mandate, saying quote: “I want to see college football. The best way for that to occur is for us all to realize is that wearing a mask, as irritating as that can be & I promise I hate it more than anyone watching, is critical.” endquote. College football! The one power that can actually make Conservatives hellbent on sabotaging themselves see sense. And remember it’s not just state governments that these players are up against. The Pac-12 protest is more about forcing schools to actually take care of their athletes’ safety, especially considering, you know, they aren’t paid at all for their incredibly valuable labor. The season itself is completely up in the air, as schools face losing out on one of their biggest revenue drivers if the epidemic doesn’t get under control in their states. Jaydon Grant, a senior defensive back at Oregon State, did not mince words. Quote: “The people who are deciding whether we are going to play football are going to prioritize money over health and safety 10 times out of 10.” Endquote. Here’s hoping that more players start to speak up and actual hold their schools -- and governments -- accountable. In an ideal world, they wouldn’t have to, but that’s where we’re at. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: New York City’s health commissioner resigned on Tuesday after a very public clash with hapless mayor Bill de Blasio, citing her quote “deep disappointment” with the mayor’s handling of the virus. Dr. Oxiris Barbot [ox-sear-riss bar-bow] said that De Blasio had not used the city’s quote “incomparable disease control expertise” endquote well enough during the pandemic, which killed more than 20,000 residents. In a wild, bizarre, and shocking sideshow of an interview with Axios’s Jonathan Swan, President Trump floundered hopelessly when confronted by facts on coronavirus, beefed with the late John Lewis who quote “didn’t attend my inauguration.” His best moment came when he sputtered quote “you can’t do that” when Swan directly refuted his bogus coronavirus claims. As schools reopen across the country, teachers have had enough. Small but widespread protests took place across the country as teachers used the hashtag #DemandSafeSchools to protest against in-person teaching. The coming school year spells almost certain suffering for students and teachers alike as the disease continues to ravage most of the country’s states. And finally, the Republicans appear to be weakening in negotiations on the next coronavirus relief package, as Mitch McConnell said he might be willing to accept an extension of the vital $600 per week unemployment insurance benefits if Democrats would compromise in other areas. It remains to be seen what the final bill will look like, but Congress is running out of time. That’s all for the AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show this afternoon. August 5, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: The GOP is seeking to obliterate expanded unemployment benefits from the next coronavirus aid package, asking for a two-thirds cut to the past plan of $600 a week as millions of Americans face the possibility of eviction at the end of the month. Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez continues to push back against the military’s student to soldier pipeline by introducing a proposal that would end federal funding for military recruitment in middle and high schools around the country. And lastly, The DNC held a virtual meeting on Monday afternoon to approve a party platform before the national convention, and you’ll never guess what happened to an amendment supporting Medicare for All. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The GOP is looking for a major, drastic cut in unemployment benefits in the height of the pandemic, seeking to reduce the $600 a week keeping millions of Americans afloat to only $200. The GOP cuts will, of course, hit low-income Americans the hardest. Their replacement plan is just $200 a week, or a payment that caps at 70 percent of a person’s prior income before they lost their job. The current unemployment benefits end on Friday. All of this is coming as millions of renters stare down the barrel of another month’s rent, this time with no restrictions on evictions after the federal moratorium expired on Friday. According to CNBC, one estimate found that up to 40 million Americans could be evicted during the crisis. John Pollock, coordinator of the National Coalition for a Civil Right to Counsel told CNBC quote: “It’s like nothing we’ve ever seen.” endquote. Pollock said there were 2.6 million evictions in 2016, and we could be looking at that many in August of this year alone. One study found that up to 40 percent of renters could be in danger of eviction if the unemployment benefits vanish. In states like West Virginia, where large low-income populations are already living on the edge, that number jumps to as much as 60 percent. All of this now goes into the crapshoot of negotiations between the Administration, the GOP Senate, and Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats. The Democrats claim they’ve been ready to negotiate for weeks, but the GOP is pushing things down to the wire. Military Recruiting Could Change For the past week, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has been firing shots in a new legislative war on predatory military recruiters. The process is playing out in the fine print of a House appropriations bill on military funding. On Monday, AOC proposed an amendment to the bill that would bar the military from using federally designated funding to conduct recruitment in middle and high schools. Multiple studies and reports have show over the years that the military disproportionately targets poorer communities for recruitment, and has since 9/11 drastically stepped up recruitment in schools thanks to a series of laws passed in the Bush administration. Last week, AOC introduced a similar bill that would prevent the military from using congressional funds to maintain a presence on video game livestreaming platforms like Twitch, where multiple branches had recently started esports teams aimed at enticing young gamers. These amendments are a long way from laws -- it’s unclear now if they’ll even get a vote on the full House floor. But they do show that elements of the progressive wing are starting to look critically at the way the military gets its manpower, and how its current practices often only further inequality in our society as a whole. DNC Ditches Medicare for All The DNC held a virtual meeting on Monday to approve a policy platform ahead of the planned convention in Milwaulkee. The platform itself isn’t much of a surprise -- it’s largely a middle-of-the-road jaunt that makes nods to some progressive points of view without actually endorsing them in any way. Where the drama played out, however, is when progressive elements of the party tried to push for explicit endorsements of the causes they favor -- and got shot down, hard. An amendment to the platform to fully support Medicare for All was sunk 125 to 36, with 3 abstentions among committee delegates. The body also shot down language that was more forceful in condemning Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. One of the strangest examples, however, came with an amendment proposing marijuana legalization, something that is massively popular among Democratic voters. The committee, however, doesn’t appear to represent those voters, and shot down the amendment. The DNC claims the platform is the most progressive it’s ever put forward, but that’s clearly a pretty low bar. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Major League Baseball’s season, which pushed ahead despite widespread problems with coronavirus, is already falling apart: after just four days, a team had a major outbreak, with 14 members of the Marlins testing positive. Maybe... we’re really not ready for sports. For an update on Portland: the Trump administration is sending more federal agents to the city to reinforce the multi-agency force currently battling Portland residents outside the city’s federal courthouse every night. Legendary civil rights icon John Lewis is lying in state at the U.S. Capitol. Trump has told reporters he won’t be attending the memorial events, after publicly feuding with Lewis during his life. Remember that next time the Right starts to cry about civility! California’s Attorney General is investigating Amazon’s labor practices, according to a new court filing, taking a closer look at the company’s policies for safeguarding workers from coronavirus. Per the LA Times, San Francisco Department of Public Health and California’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health have also opened investigations. July 28, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: U.S. coronavirus cases passed 3 million on Tuesday, a grim milestone that we flew past a breakneck speed, as Florida’s ICU’s start to hit capacity all at once and the president uses his time to officially withdraw the country from the World Health Organization and push to reopen schools. Meanwhile, a new report by the Intercept shows that oxycodone death-dealer Purdue made political contributions even after it went bankrupt, showing that there are no depths too low for the Sackler family of murderers. And lastly, Tucker Carlson launched a wave of aggressive, racist attacks against Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Rep. Ilhan Omar, who dared to suggest that the U.S. supports a quote “system of oppression.” THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The coronavirus hit a grim new milestone on Tuesday: 3 million cases in the United States alone. According to CNN, the country averaged almost 50,000 new cases per day last week, more than double the rate of a month ago. Texas alone reported more than 10,000 cases on Tuesday. Trump’s head of the coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, noted that the Administration hadn’t expected the massive community spread among young people, who had generally been pretty diligent about social distancing. Put this all together, and we’ve got a horrifying summer ahead. The Trump administration, meanwhile, is following through on its flailing attempts to pass the buck to the WHO, formally announcing on Tuesday that the U.S. will leave the international organization. It’s still a mostly empty threat: the U.S. won’t back out until April of 2021, so if Trump loses in November, Biden or whoever ends up in the Oval could just keep us in. But Trump’s not content to just sabotage U.S. participation in international organizations -- he’s actively making the crisis worse at home. The new benchmark the Trump admin wants is for schools to reopen in the fall, which is a step that many schools do not want to do. Yesterday we talked about the completely absurd student visa rule, which the New York Times reports could be part of Trump’s plan to exert pressure on schools to offer in-person classes. In other words, he’s holding schools’ students hostage in deportation purgatory to try to force them to reopen in a pandemic. Just so we’re clear about what’s going on here. Bankrupt Purdue Bankrolls Politicians Purdue Pharma, the drug company owned for years by the Sackler family, is one of the most evil corporations in the world. That much is not really up for debate at this point: for decades, Purdue almost singlehandedly created the modern U.S. opioid crisis by aggressively marketing their deadly narcotic oxycodone to any patient who had so much as a toothache. Last September, Purdue filed for bankruptcy, the product of a mountain of lawsuits filed by cities seeking some sort of justice for the addiction epidemic it unleashed on their streets. But the Sacklers pulled a fast one on the plaintiffs, making off with over 10 billion in company funds. According to a new report by the Intercept, the drug giant still had enough left over to make political donations. The Intercept reports that Purdue gave $50,000 to both the Democratic Governors Association and the Republican Governors Association in December of 2019, months after filing for bankruptcy, and right on time to sway politicians as states debate whether or not to put more taxes on opioids. To date, only 5 states have implemented a tax on opioids. The 50 grand to Dems and Republicans might not seem like much, but remember that Purdue was donating much larger sums to parties involved in these decisions before it got sued into oblivion. The company itself may be bankrupt, but the Sacklers are doing just fine, and their billions will surely keep growing, fed by the blood of the American working class. Tucker Carlson Does Racism Again Tucker Carlson is at it again. And by “it,” we mean racism and general bigotry. Imagine that! The latest controversy swept up both Rep. Ilhan Omar, a favorite target of the ruling racists in the country, as well as Sen. Tammy Duckworth. It all culminated in an unforgettable Tucker moment in which he put up photos of Omar and Duckworth side by side with a full-screen chyron stating quote “We have to fight to preserve our nation and heritage.” Endquote. That’s only ten words, but it’s pretty close to white nationalist America’s favorite 14-word slogan. It started on Monday night, when Carlson mocked Duckworth for saying that we needed to have a national conversation over the removal of racist Confederate monuments. Carlson acknowledged Duckworth’s military service, but then called her a quote “deeply silly,” “unimpressive person,” and suggested that she hates America. Duckworth, who lost both of her legs in Iraq, shot back on Twitter, asking Carlson to quote “walk a mile in my legs.” Carlson wasn’t cowed, and dragged Ilhan Omar into the already-stupid hating American controversy on Tuesday night, after the congresswoman said in a press conference that America had a quote “system of oppression.” All of this led to the unforgettable chyron during Tucker’s show on Tuesday night. There’s some context to this: Duckworth is reportedly on the long or maybe short list for Biden’s VP slot, and Omar is one of the racist Conservative press’s favorite targets. Linking the two of them is probably advantageous to everyone, like Tucker, who wants to see Trump get a second term. Let’s uh... make sure that doesn’t happen, especially to see the look on Carlson’s face. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: July 8, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Another day, another pipeline bites the dust. A district court ordered that the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was fought for years by indigenous activists, must be shut down and emptied of oil by August 5, pending a fresh environmental review. Meanwhile, Trump passed down one of his most spiteful and pointless immigration orders yet today, ruling that students in the U.S. whose universities were switching to online classes would have to return to their home countries until their schools resumed in-person learning. And lastly, new data that the New York Times had to sue the government to get shows the horrifying racial inequalities in the coronavirus pandemic, and all the while, states are still struggling to perform adequate testing. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Courts Slap Down Dakota, Keystone Pipelines It’s only Tuesday, and it’s already been a massive week for environmental and indigenous activists fighting the big oil and gas companies trying to skewer their lands with destructive pipelines. On Sunday, two energy giants canceled the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and on Monday, a district court struck a massive blow against the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Dakota victory is huge. Here’s how it went down. A D.C. district court essentially struck down a prior federal permit that allowed the pipeline to continue flowing while the Army Corps of Engineers did an extensive environmental review. The new ruling is that the pipeline has to shut down and drain itself of oil by August 5, following early court decisions that said the government hadn’t done its full due diligence in figuring out how destructive the pipeline would be. For the indigenous activists who put their bodies on the line for years at Standing Rock, this is a much needed reprieve. The Texas energy company that owns the pipeline said it would file a motion to stay the decision and keep the oil flowing, and potentially appeal the case to a higher court. But even further up in the courts, activists can’t stop winning. In another huge decision yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump Administration’s request to go ahead with construction on parts of the Keystone XL pipeline that had been blocked by a federal judge in Montana. The Keystone pipeline got held up when a Federal judge deemed that the government had violated the endangered species act. It’s pretty clear that these pipelines wreak havoc on the land they go through. But it’s also clear that oil companies are willing to spill as much blood and oil as they need to to get their payday. But if activists keep winning the battles in court, there may be some way to stop them. Trump Kicks Out Foreign Students The Trump administration added yet another ridiculous, destructive immigration policy to it’s long list on Monday. The policy was a subtle one that flew under the radar of a lot of major media coverage, but is going to have a profound effect on thousands of students around the country. On Monday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it would no longer honor visas for non-immigrant students whose universities are only offering online classes in the fall semester. ICE says that those students either have to go back to their home country and take online classes, or transfer to a university that offers in-person classes. For students who have physically moved to a new city or country to study, this is clearly a ridiculous proposition. It’s ICE literally turfing students out of their homes and saying that because their classes are online, they have no reason to be in the country. If students don’t comply, ICE’s announcement threatened to start deportation proceedings. This is obviously going to cause havoc on universities, particularly research institutions with a large number of foreign students who contribute to laboratories that have already been disrupted by the coronavirus. It also serves no practical purpose: kicking out students who have already been here isn’t going to make our already-out-of-control domestic pandemic any better. It’s just pure vindictive spite from the Trump administration, on a level that we should expect by now but that isn’t any easier to swallow. NYT Sues CDC for Corona Data We’ve known for some time that the coronavirus pandemic was hitting some communities harder than others, but for months, the largest and most important source of data was absent. The CDC was being tight lipped about their data -- so quiet, in fact, that it took a lawsuit for them to cough it up. The New York Times sued the CDC for a full accounting of the pandemic, and the data they got back shows that Black and Latino people have been disproportionately ravaged by the disease, despite their location in the country or age groups. In other words, it’s not about urban versus rural: the disease is hitting communities that are already underserved by health care systems, impoverished, or otherwise isolated from the care and resources they need. In America’s racist system, those communities are black and brown. According to the Times, federal data showed that Black and Latino americans are three times as likely to get the disease as white people. All of this comes as testing remains a struggle in many metropolitan areas. The fresh wave of cases across the country has left even increased testing resources stretched thin, and it doesn’t show any signs of letting up. Texas topped 200,000 cases, just 17 days after topping 100,000 cases. Many other places in the country don’t look much better. Unless we get realistic about who’s being hurt by this disease and what we have to do to help them, the country is resigning itself to thousands upon thousands more deaths. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: New data shows that while most of the government’s small business loans went to restaurants and car dealerships, President Trump’s personal lawyer and multiple high-profile lobbying firms also all took a cut of the federal pie. The Supreme Court ruled that states can abolish faithless electors, or electoral college voters who decide not to cast their ballots for the candidate their state selects. A better system would be abolishing the whole electoral college, but sure, we’re getting there. Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, declared a second, six-week lockdown on Tuesday, citing “unsustainably high numbers of new cases” of coronavirus. The city had previously started to reopen, only to see cases start to skyrocket again. And their outbreak was nowhere near as bad as the one here, for the record. Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro is once again displaying symptoms of coronavirus, and was tested for the disease on Monday. He’s presided over one of the worst outbreaks anywhere in the world (outside of the U.S.), and multiple members of his inner circle have already had the disease. His administration said they should have the results back on Tuesday, so we’ll see how they decide to play it from here. That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Sam’s out on vacation, but the Majority Report team will have more live-to-tape content lined up later this afternoon. July 7, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Trump leaned into nationalism and the culture wars in events across Fourth of July weekend, although he appeared to flounder in front of lackluster crowds and a strange, sad party at the White House. Meanwhile, the ongoing protests in Seattle suffered yet another tragedy on Saturday, when a driver plowed through protesters on a closed section of Interstate 5, killing one person and seriously injuring another. And lastly, two of the nation’s largest utility companies announced that they would be canceling the construction of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a destructive natural gas line that would have hacked its way through the Appalachian trail. It’s a huge win for environmentalists, who have been suing the project into oblivion for years. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Trump Grasps for Nationalism We’ll start today with a quick wrap-up of Donald Trump’s weird, sad weekend, which kicked off on Friday night with a jingoistic rally in front of Mount Rushmore aimed almost entirely at stoking racial and cultural resentment among his white base before election day. In other words, business as usual. But let’s pull a quick snippet from the Rushmore Rally to illustrate just where he’s coming from. During the rally, he said quote “this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution,” endquote. He then continued, saying that the left’s goal was to quote “end America.” endquote. The rest of the speech leaned into similar themes: the end of western civilization, calling on the American people to stop their history being taken away from them, all that kind of stuff. You can see how that directly ties into the bigoted arguments like “heritage not hate” that racists use to try to justify monuments to the confederacy. Trump followed the Rushmore speech with a strange party on the White House grounds, complete with fireworks, a military flyover, and a Navy band singing songs from the Lion King. Pretty surreal stuff, in other words. It’s worth putting all this stuff in context: Trump is absolutely floundering right now. His poll numbers compared to Biden are circling the drain, per a new Monmouth poll that came out last Thursday Even his most stable age groups, like the 50-64 demographic, are starting to slip away -- He’s down 5 points in that group. He’s clearly hoping that by ralling the fires of white nationalism he can scare people into re-electing him. And in the mean time, he seems to be distracting himself pretty well with golf -- visiting one of his courses for the 273rd time on Friday. Protester Killed By Car in Seattle Seattle’s protest movement suffered another violent tragedy this weekend, after a protester was killed and one other seriously wounded after a driver plowed through a demonstration on Interstate 5. The murdered protester was identified as 24-year-old Summer Taylor. Another protester, 32-year-old Diaz Love, is in serious condition. The driver was identified as Dawit Kelete, 27. The authorities don’t have any guess as to motive at the moment, but regardless, it’s another tragic loss that’s part of a frightening trend of protesters being killed while participating in the broader social movement against police brutality. In Louisville, for instance, on protester at a vigil for Breonna Taylor was shot and killed in late June. Throughout the protests, multiple people have been killed by police; in the same city, cops shot a local barbecue owner while enforcing a curfew in the early nights of the protests. Seattle has also suffered more than its share, as shootings plagued the autonomous zone set up by protesters in the city center. Seattle police announced that they would no longer let protesters march on Interstate 5 as a response to the deaths. Conservative media, unsurprisingly, has focused almost entirely on vandalism, like burning Wendy’s, and overlooked the fact that Americans are literally dying for the cause on the streets. Environmentals Smack Down Pipeline To close out our main stories today, we’ve got a huge environmental victory to share. A few months back we talked about the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a major natural gas line that was poised to slash through the Appalachian trail and numerous communities along the way. On Sunday, Duke Energy and Dominion Energy, the two power companies trying to build the pipeline, announced that they were canceling the project, saying that it was taking too long and costing too much to build. These delays and price spikes are the direct result of lawsuits filed by environmental activists and dedicated protesting against the pipeline. The energy companies themselves admitted that the lawsuits had driven the pipeline’s expected costs from around four and a half billion dollars when it was announced in 2015, to a whopping 8 billion dollars. The environmental lawyers did not mince words: they’re definitely rubbing this one in. Gillian Giannetti, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council said QUOTE “As they abandon this dirty pipe dream, Dominion and Duke should now pivot to investing more in energy efficiency, wind and solar — that’s how to provide jobs and a better future for all.” The victory was so crushing that Dominion Energy is getting out of the industry altogether, selling its gas transmission and storage assets to a firm linked to Berkshire Hathaway. So the rich are probably still getting richer, but today, it’s environmentalists that get the win. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The Aurora Police Department fired three officers who took mocking chokehold selfies outside of a memorial for Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old slain by police. Interim Chief Vanessa Wilson called their actions quote “a crime against humanity and decency.” Donald Trump’s favored Senate Candidate to take on Democrat Doug Jones in Alabama used to be a hedge fund manager -- and it turns out he wasn’t very good at it. A New York Times report on Sunday found that Tommy Tuberville was sued by his investors for fraud, and his business partner was sentenced to ten years in prison for various shady financial crimes. Sounds like Trump’s kind of guy! Iran acknowledged a destructive fire at one of its major nuclear fuel plants, which it says will set its nuclear program back months. Iran and some unnamed intelligence officials say that Israel planted a bomb in the facility. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time Israel or the U.S. for that matter had attacked the Iranian nuclear program. While the rest of the country was celebrating July 4th, the U.S. military was once again on the move: Two aircraft carriers are on their way to the South China Sea in a significant show of force, ostensibly to stage a rival boat party to China’s planned military exercises in the region. Because sure, we might as well throw more armed tension on top of a global pandemic. Why not! That’s all for the AM Quickie today. Sam’s on vacation this week, but keep tuning in to the Quickie -- we’ll keep you posted on what’s going on in the world every morning. July 6, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: The Russian government allegedly placed bounties on American troops in Afghanistan, hoping to provoke the Taliban and other extremist fighters to further enflame the endless conflict there. New reports show that Trump was briefed months ago about this, and did, well, nothing. Remind me why we’re even in Afghanistan anymore? Meanwhile, the Supreme Court struck down a Lousiana law that could have decimated the state’s remaining abortion clinics, thanks to Chief Justice John Robert’s switch to side with the liberals. He’s still a conservative, so don’t take this as any more than a lucky break. And lastly, the Kentucky Senate primary between progressive Charlie Booker and establishment darling Amy McGrath in Kentucky is still too close to call, but should be resolved later today when the last of the state’s absentee ballots are counted up. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Russian Bounty Boogaloo A new story involving the Russians and America’s neverending war in Afghanistan is sweeping through the media. Here are the broad strokes: multiple outlets have now reported that starting as early as 2019, the Russian military was offering bounties to the Taliban and other extremist groups in Afghanistan for successfully killing U.S. troops. The U.S., of course, has been half-heartedly trying to negotiate and uphold a peace deal with the Taliban, but it makes sense that Russia would want to throw a wrench in that process by any means necessary. But the scandal now has become when, exactly, the Trump administration was aware of the fact that a foreign power was putting out hits on its troops. The Trump administration has stressed that the president wasn’t briefed on the issue, but several reports say that’s B.S. The Associated Press reports that quote “top officials” in the White House were aware of the intelligence report way back in 2019. The New York Times, meanwhile, reports that our spies gave Trump himself a written briefing on the matter in February. Russia, of course, denies putting out the bounties. Sure. If Trump knew about it month or even a year ago, many Republicans and Democrats in Congress are understandably pissed off that he didn’t do anything or respond in any way. The problem is there’s no real winner here: if Trump knew about it and did nothing, that sucks, but at the same time, Trump’s response to Russia’s action could have been disastrous. He can’t exactly be trusted to put out a logical, measured response, let alone a decent one, like, say, just getting all of our troops out of Afghanistan in the first place. Warhawks will want to weaponize this story to goad the U.S. to further conflict with Russia, or Afghanistan, or whoever else gets in the way, which we should have learned by now is a bad idea. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a mess, but it’s almost certainly going to dominate headlines for the next few days, so keep an eye out for updates. John Roberts Temporarily Rescues Abortion Rights The Supreme Court delivered its second shock ruling in as many weeks on Monday, as Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the Court’s four liberal justices to strike down an abortion law in Louisiana. If upheld, the law could have reduced the state to a single solitary abortion clinic, and obvious massive barrier to a woman’s right to choose in the state. Roberts’ decision to side with the liberals enraged conservatives: Ted Cruz, for instance, ranted about Roberts’ quote “political gamesmanship,” endquote. But before we get too hopeful, it’s useful to look at why Roberts made the decision he did. Sure, he sided with the liberals on this one case, but not really for altruistic reasons. The law in question was almost identical to a Texas law the Supreme Court rejected in 2016. Roberts only voted against the Louisiana law because of stare decisis -- the theory that courts should be bound by their past decisions. But what he also did was point the way that conservatives could write a more legally sound law that would get through the court, and crush abortion rights that way. This is similar to Robert’s ruling on the DACA program, which he upheld last week. He sided with the liberals, but only because the conservative case was so legally sloppy he didn’t want to rubber stamp it. In other words, Roberts is just telling the conservatives who want to do more fascism toward immigrants and women that they need to do their homework and get back to him. For now, abortion clinics in Louisiana are safe, relatively speaking. But if the courts stay in Roberts’ hands, it’s only a matter of time before the conservatives come for them again. Kentucky Primary Too Close to Call Elections aren’t one-night affairs anymore, and Kentucky’s Democratic Senate Primary has lasted a whole week. The race, between progressive Charles Booker and the former fighter-pilot, Democratic establishment darling Amy McGrath, is way, way closer than anyone thought it would be. A few months ago, it looked like McGrath had the whole thing locked up, with a massive campaign warchest and the endorsement of pretty much everyone who’s anyone in the Democratic old guard. But with just weeks to go before the election, Booker started surging, as people realized there wasn’t much to Amy besides a fat wallet of DNC cash. Booker, meanwhile, stepped up during the nationwide protests against police brutality and continued to push his progressive, medicare-for-all and universal basic income platform. Now, the two are neck and neck. As of early Tuesday morning, McGrath is up by under 3,000 votes, and there’s still a ton of absentee ballots to count. Booker has been crushing it in in-person voting, but the worry is that some of the mail-in ballots were cast before he got his big surge in momentum. Most of the absentees that are still out are from Fayette and Jefferson Counties, the state’s most populous areas. The county election boards are expected to convene early Tuesday morning to tally up final results, which should be announced sometime in the late morning today, but could very well get pushed to the afternoon. You know how these things go. I’m sure we’ll be discussing it on the full show this afternoon. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: China passed a sweeping, controversial new law that gave the mainland government a massive amount of power to crack down on dissent in Hong Kong, a move which is almost certain to enflame the massive protest movement there. This would be a huge change for Hong Kong, which until now has largely existed with civil liberties the heavily repressive Chinese government denies the rest of its people. In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city council appear to have agreed on a budget that sort-of-not-really cuts $1 billion from the NYPD’s budget. Activists warn though that the bill is mostly a load of B.S. aimed at shuffling money around, and not actually defunding the department. Elsewhere in out-of-control police, Aurora, Colorado’s local CBS outlet reports that at least three Aurora Police officers are under investigation for taking inappropriate, disrespectful photos after violently breaking up a peaceful vigil for Elijay McClain, a young man who was killed by the same department last year. Officers reportedly re-enacted the chokehold that killed him. And lastly, big pharma continues to take lives for money, as Gilead Sciences announced an absurd price of around $520 per dose of a new coronavirus treatment drug. Advocates claim the drug could be produced for as little as $1 a dose, but you can’t tell that to the capitalists in charge of healthcare in this country. June 30, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Donald Trump retweeted, then deleted, a video of a clash between elderly protesters and senior citizen Trump fans at a retirement community, in which one of the Trump supporters clearly and loudly chants white power. Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter protesters weathered a weekend of violent attacks, as a man shot into a crowd of demonstrators in Louisville, Kentucky, and a driver plowed through protesters outside of Tampa, Florida. And lastly, tensions are boiling over at coronavirus testing sites in hard hit states like Arizona, Florida, and Texas, as panicked crowds jostle through long lines to get a test. Meanwhile, VP Pence is still pushing the lie that increased case numbers are just a result of increased testing, not an explosion in the virus. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Trump Tweets White Power Clip Look, by this point we all know Donald Trump is a white nationalist. The evidence is overwhelming at this point. But in case it’s not, let’s present the latest data point! This weekend, Trump retweeted a clash between geriatric protesters and elderly residents of The Villages, a 98 percent white enclave of Florida where 56 percent of the population is over the age of 65. Just so you know what we’re dealing with here. In the video, a procession of tricked-out golf karts covered in Trump signs and flags rolls past several counter-protesters. The key moment of the video is when a protester yells “where’s your white hood” at a Trump kart, and the man inside shakes his fist and yells “white power, white power!” Trump retweeted the video and added quote “Thank you to the great people of the Villages!” endquote. Just so you know where he stands! The administration’s response to this scandal has been about as dumb as it gets, of course. Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said the President quote "did not hear the one statement made on the video,” endquote. That’s almost believable except for the fact that the white power part is literally 8 seconds in. We know Trump has a short attention span but come on. And even if he didn’t hear it, the White House didn’t even bother to say “yeah, our bad,” or decry the statement itself. They’re pretty much cool with that! What this ends up as is another explicit endorsement of white nationalism for Trump’s white nationalist supporters to run with, and another idiotic, not-so-plausible deniability excuse for the press office’s talking heads to run with. Where are we at the end of it? With a white nationalist in the White House, still Protesters Weather Attacks Protesters demonstrating against police brutality weathered a striking weekend of violence, as various elements of the country’s racist core started to rear their heads against them. In Louisville, a gunman opened fire on a peaceful protest, killing a photographer and injuring one other. In a strange turn, the gunman, Steven Lopez, had also previously participated in protests, and the shooting appears to have been over a dispute he had with another participant. Bystanders shot back at him, wounding him in the leg, and he was arrested at the hospital later that evening. In Tampa, meanwhile, a driver plowed through protesters in Hyde Park, carrying one who landed on his hood for several feet. When he eventually stopped, police arrested the protester and not the driver, setting up an extended, tense protest at the nearby jail. Things defused when it turned out that the protester had been taken to the hospital, not the jail. That wasn’t the only vehicle incident this weekend: a video that surfaced on social media late Sunday night appears to show a Detroit Police Department vehicle driving aggressively through protesters, bowling them over in the street, reportedly causing a handful of injuries. In New York City meanwhile, the NYPD resumed their violence against protesters, pepper spraying and charging a crowd of protesters in Washington Square Park who were protesting and celebrating Pride weekend. Nice of them to commemorate Stonewall with more police brutality! And in perhaps the strangest example of violent posturing, two homeowners in the St. Louis area showed up on the front driveway of their megamansion to brandish guns at protesters walking by, repeatedly pointing the weapons at protesters in the street and yelling at the crowd. Luckily, they didn’t squeeze any rounds off, but judging by the instantly historic photos of the event, it was a pretty near miss. Coronavirus Overwhelms Testing Centers Last up for tonight: the coronavirus outbreak. The New York Times reports that testing sites in several states are being overwhelmed by a large number of scared patients, as the worldwide death toll tops 500,000. In Texas, Florida and Arizona, the Times reports that some patients have been turned away from testing sites that simply can’t keep up with the demand. Those who make it in have to deal with pushing, yelling, and massive overcrowding, which certainly isn’t going to make things any better. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t get tested: if you think you’ve been exposed to the disease, testing is the way to protect everyone around you. But check in with local networks to see what the wait times are like. Nationwide, Coronavirus cases have gone up 65 percent in the past two weeks. The virus is surging all over the country, and it may be even worse than our data suggests. The CDC released a report last week that warned that infections could be ten times worse than we think in many regions. Keep in mind that the Administration’s big lie on this is that the increase in cases is only due to an increase in testing -- that there isn’t actually a massive surge, it’s just that we’re testing more. This would only make sense if the rate of positive tests was holding steady, but guess what, it’s not: in Texas, for instance, the rate of positive tests has gone up from 4 percent to 13 percent in the past month. By now, you all know the drill: wear a mask. Stay at home if you can, and keep your distance from others if you can’t. And if it’s at all possible, get the test. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The number of forest fires in Russia’s vast Siberian region has increased fivefold, according to Russia’s aerial forest fire management authority. It’s almost certainly a sure sign of climate change, considering much of the region has faced record-hot temperatures that have neared 100 degrees Fahrenheit. A quick check in with the Senate shows that Mitch McConnell is still hammering the judiciary with more and more conservative judges, getting his 200th confirmed by the Republican-held Senate last week. That’s a pretty grim reminder that even if we get Trump out in November and or take back the Senate, there’s just so much work left to do to pull the country left. CNN’s Van Jones fully sold out to the Trump administration, according to an explosive report by the Daily Beast. The CNN political commenter allegedly chatted with Jared Kushner about the administration’s new, lackluster police reform order, and then went right on CNN and praised it, without disclosing that he helped set it in motion. The NAACP, meanwhile, said Trump’s order showed that he had quote “no intention of advancing these critical reforms.” Endquote. Apparently Van disagrees. John Hickenlooper, now running for Senate in Colorado after a limp attempt at the Presidency, is facing calls from Indigenous activists to drop out of the primary, after photos surfaced of him wearing a native headdress at a racist event called the One Shot Antelope Hunt. He faces a more progressive opponent Andrew Romanoff in Colorado’s election on Tuesday. That’s all for the majority report’s AM quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam later this afternoon. June 29, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Tuesday was election day in both Kentucky and New York, where voters mostly embraced vote-by-mail, with some hiccups. We’ll take you through the big primary races at stake. The European Union is considering banning travelers from the United States, claiming that our government’s abject failure to control the coronavirus presents a direct risk to its own member states. And lastly, guess what? More corruption! A federal prosecutor is expected to tell the House today that the highest levels of Trump’s Justice Department pressured lawyers to cut Roger Stone a break during the notorious con-man’s trial, mostly because he was buddies with the President. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Bowman Blasts Off New York may have pulled off the second major progressive upset of an incumbent Democrat in as many election cycles. In the state’s 16th House District primary, Jamaal Bowman seems almost certain to beat incumbent Eliot Engel, an entrenched centrist who serves as head of the House Foreign Relations Committee. Engel had been completely checked out of the race until it was too late, at one point getting caught on a hot mic saying that he wouldn’t even be there if he didn’t face a primary challenger. But oh boy, did he get a challenger. Bowman is a middle school principal backed by Justice Democrats who racked in the support of AOC, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and a whole host of other progressive figures. Meanwhile, the entire establishment rallied to try to save Engel’s seat, including Hillary Clinton. As of Wednesday morning, it’s not looking so good for the incumbent, who was elected in 1988. Bowman is currently up by around 25 points, a huge lead despite the fact that there are still a ton of votes to count thanks to vote-by-mail. Bowman took a victory lap anyway on Tuesday night, saying quote: Bowman, speaking earlier tonight at a not-quite-victory-yet party: "Eliot Engel -- I'll say his name once -- used to say that he was a thorn in the side of Donald Trump. But you know what Donald Trump is more afraid of than anything else? A black man with power.” We won’t know the real outcome for a few days most likely, but right now Bowman’s in a very, very good spot. Let’s talk about some of the other races while we’re at it. AOC crushed her primary, beating her weak challenger with over 70 percent of the vote. She’s sure to get another term, but it was always hard to see her losing that seat anytime soon. In New York’s 15th district, openly-gay city councilman Ritchie Torres has a double-digit lead over his nearest competition in a wide-open primary. In Kentucky’s primaries we’ve got an interesting race. Progressive Charlie Booker is down by 8 points or so to the centrist wing of the party’s handpicked candidate Amy McGrath. The winner there will challenge Mitch McConnell for his Senate seat -- definitely a tall order, but a race the Democrats really want to hit hard in November. Again, still a lot of votes left to count. E.U. Doesn't Want U.S. The European Union is poised to give Trump a taste of his own closed-border medicine, as it considers whether or not to ban Americans from traveling to its member states due to the government’s complete failure to control the coronavirus pandemic. The New York Times viewed a couple of early draft lists of who will or won’t be able to go to the EU as international travel starts back up over the next few months, and right now, Americans are on the chopping block. That would put us on the same level as Russia and Brazil, two other countries ruled by open fascists who have decided to let the disease run rampant through their people. Some of this could be petty payback by the E.U. leadership in Brussles, which was reportedly furious when Trump banned most EU citizens from traveling to the U.S. in the early days of the pandemic. This would effectively be an extension on a travel ban that’s been in place since the middle of March. The EU is going to open back up to travel on July 1 to pretty much everywhere else, including China and many less-developed countries than the U.S. Right now, it’s not looking good that we’ll make it on the list: cases are surging across the country, throwing a massive wrench in reopening plans in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona. With that in mind, the E.U. is probably smart to keep Yankees away for the time being. DOJ Goes Corrupt for Stone Roger Stone is one of the most fascinatingly weird figures associated with the Trump administration, and seems to function as a magnet for the dumbest attempts at corruption possible. Today a federal prosecutor is expected to tell members of the House of Representatives that the non-partisan government officials prosecuting Stone were pressured by some of the senior-most Department of Justice officials to give Stone a break. In other words, Trump’s pet AG Bill Barr tried to get Trump’s buddy Stone a cushy deal, and it didn’t work. Aaron Zelinsky, an assistant U.S. attorney in Maryland who previously served on former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team, and another DOJ employee are both expected to tell the House that Barr ordered them to do Trump’s bidding. This isn’t surprising in the slightest, but it is one of the most blatant instances of corruption the Trump administration has gotten up to lately, which is a pretty high bar to clear. According to a copy of Zelinsky’s prepared remarks obtained by the Washington Post, Barr and DOJ leaders wanted prosecutors to quote “to water down and in some cases outright distort events” endquote, in order to give Stone a break. Their reason, Zelinsky wrote, was that Stone had a relationship with the president. Cool! Honestly, there’s not much Trump has to lose by just throwing out a pardon to Stone. It’s not like he’s being subtle about things at this point, might as well go ahead and pull the trigger. What’s gonna happen, the House impeaches him again? We all saw how far that got in the Senate. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: A new poll by the Associated Press shows that a vast majority of Americans favor a number of key police reforms, including body camera requirements and use of force guidelines. These measures don’t fully address the systemic problem of police violence, but it’s clear that the public is coming around to the fact that the status quo just doesn’t work anymore. Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser ordered the dispersal of an autonomous zone occupied by protesters on Tuesday, sending in riot cops who deployed pepper spray. DC’s autonomous zone is one of several small areas of protester-occupied space in cities around the country modeled on Seattle’s original community near a police precinct. Minneapolis’ Police chief said in a statement that Derek Chauvin’s killing of George Floyd was murder, noting that Chauvin had recently attended training in how to restrain suspects without preventing them from breathing. Sounds like maybe more training and reform aren’t what the police system needs, if the murders won’t stop. And finally, the White House Correspondents Dinner, a strange excuse for DC politicos to lick each other's boots that should have died long ago, will be canceled this year due to the coronavirus. Spare a thought for all the cable news types who won’t get to do mild dunks on the Trump administration this year. June 24, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

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

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Donald Trump threw a rally in Tulsa on Saturday evening, and it was a total dud. Coronavirus concerns and some shrewd maneuvers by teens on social media combined to make the administration think it was getting a record crowd, when only a few thousand showed up. Meanwhile, Trump made it official and fired Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, who’s prosecuted several cases against his inner circle. And lastly, even the White House admits that the fall could bring a very dire spike in COVID-19 infections. Cases are on the rise in 18 states already, and the projections for coming months don’t look good. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Teens Help Sink Trump Rally Donald Trump tried his very hardest to get another hit of that old rally feeling this weekend, but fell massively short. The massive crowd the Trump team was predicting in Tulsa on Saturday didn’t really show up. Before the rally, Trump’s campaign boasted that it would completely fill Tulsa’s BOK Center, which seats more than 19,000 people. On the day of, only 6,200 showed up, according to Tulsa’s Fire Marshal. Part of this huge gap might have to do with a massive social media prank pulled by teenagers on Tiktok and Korean pop music fans, who directed followers to sign up en masse for spots at the rally to make the campaign think they were pulling huge numbers. Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale appears to have bought it hook line and sinker, claiming last monday that they’d gotten more than one million requests for a ticket. Those fake registrations wouldn’t have necessarily taken spots from Trump fans, as the rally was free and you could just walk in -- no mask required!. Still, they certainly delivered an ego-blow to the Trump baby-brigade, who spent most of the weekend blaming protesters and trolls for keeping attendance low. Sure, it’s a far cry from an electoral victory, but anything that makes that moron-in-chief feel shame is probably a net win. Trump Fires Berman Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, is out. Why is he out, you may ask? Well, Berman had the inconvenient habit of investigating and prosecuting several members of Trump’s inner circle, including former legal fixer Micheal Cohen. Trump has been gunning for Berman for a while, and late on Friday night, his pet Attorney General Bill Barr tried to get Berman to step down. Berman refused, forcing Barr into an awkward position -- he’s not used to direct defiance. Barr was trying to replace Berman with a transparent Trump crony, SEC chairman Jay Clayton, last seen golfing with the president in New Jersey last weekend. Berman wasn’t having any of it. So Barr had to go above his head, instead saying that Trump was firing Berman instead of just replacing him. Berman agreed to go this time, because instead of Clayton, his longtime deputy Audrey Strauss would be taking over. Strauss is ostensibly an actual public servant, like Berman, so it’s highly possible that Barr will be coming for her next, but for the time being she’s promised to continue Berman’s investigations. The New York Times reports that Barr wasn’t able to strongarm Clayton into the spot because multiple Republican Senators indicated that the corruption apparent was too obvious even for them, and they wouldn’t confirm him. Man, if what you’re trying to pull is too sketchy for Lindsey Graham, you’re really doing something wrong. Government Braces For Fall Covid Spike The coronavirus is still spreading and in some cases increasing drastically. California reported 4,515 new cases on Sunday -- the highest increase in a single day in that state. 12 other states also hit their record for new cases in the past week. What this means is that this thing is going to hit the rest of the country hard, despite the fact that it’s a bit more under control in hot zones like NYC. But the parts of the country who reopened way before their peak show no signs of attempting to put new restrictions in place, meaning things are going to get much worse. While Trump is convinced the whole thing is going to go away, Peter Navarro, the White House director of trade and manufacturing policy said on CNN that the government is quote “doing everything we can,” endquote to get the country ready for another spike in the fall. It’s hard to take a quote like that at face value considering the administration’s abysmal record so far, but at least someone in the building is willing to admit there’s still work to do. The good news is overall deaths are still down. But new infections have risen 15 percent nationally over the last two weeks, which means the toll could start to climb back up as patients get sicker. Epidemiologists now aren’t saying the disease will come in waves, but continue to spread like a quote “forest fire” endquote. Epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm told NBC quote: “I don’t think this is going to slow down. I think that wherever there’s wood to burn, this fire is going to burn it.” And if there’s one thing Trump’s shown so far, it’s that he doesn’t care who he feeds to the flames. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department shot and killed 18-year-old Andres Guardado on Thursday. Guardado was working as a security guard at an auto shop, and ran from police who showed up responding to reports of a man with a gun. Deputies pursued him and killed him, claiming he was armed. His killing has sparked a fresh round of protests across the city. The New York Times reports that after Derek Chauvin was arrested for the murder of George Floyd, the superintendent of the jail he was taken to ordered only white officers to supervise him. According to complaints filed by multiple staffers of color, the superintendent prevented them from even being on the same floor as Chauvin, solely because of the color of their skin. A new, strange detail emerges from the devastating shooting rampage in Nova Scotia, Canada in April. According to Macleans, the shooter withdrew $475,000 Canadian dollars in cash using the same procedures the Canadian police use to get cash to confidential informants -- but the cops there claim they had no “special relationship” with the killer. And finally, it was the hottest day ever recorded in the Arctic circle on Saturday, as Verkhoyansk, Siberia hit 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The reading hasn’t been fully verified yet, but either way, that kind of heat in the Arctic circle is a pretty dire warning that despite our other global woes, climate change is only getting worse. That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today! We’ll have some slightly more fun topics this afternoon than the earth’s gradual heat death and police brutality, so keep your eyes on YouTube and your favorite podcast app for the show. June 22, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: In a stunning 6-3 decision led by a conservative justice, the U.S. supreme court ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights act protects gay and transgender people from workplace discrimination. Meanwhile, new audio obtained by the New York Times shows that Vice President Mike Pence urged state Governors to repeat a B.S. claim about coronavirus infection rates in order to make the White House’s complete failure look a little less bad. And lastly, a new report by the Intercept shows that Eliott Engel, the dinosaur Congressman from New York’s 16th district, has been taking dark money from a GOP linked group in order to fight off an insurgent primary campaign by a progressive middle school principal. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Supreme Court Sides With Trans Rights The Supreme Court ruled on a historic set of cases on Monday that firing an employee for being gay, lesbian or transgender violates the 1964 civil rights act. The court took into account two lawsuits over discrimination of gay men and the case of Aimee Stephens, a transgender woman who was fired from her job after she came out to her employer. Stephens died in May, but her estate continued her case. The decision was shocking, as Trump’s two Supreme Court picks had basically locked in the majority of the court to the conservative side. But both Chief Justice John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch voted with the more liberal members of the court, leaving only Alioto, Clarence Thomas and of course, Bret Kavanaugh, to dissent. Gosuch, who was Trump’s first appointment, wrote the majority’s opinion. But as we mentioned in yesterday’s quickie, this doesn’t mean trans rights are safe from the Trump administration -- last week, the administration made a rule change that severely endangered trans rights in respect to discrimination suits connected to healthcare. The Trump administration has made it very clear where it stands on trans issues, and the three conservative judges who dissented also made it clear which side they’re on. If you want an example, look no further than the court’s other major decision today: to not hear any cases on the doctrine of “qualified immunity,” which has served to protect police officers from facing consequences for mistakes they made on the job. Gorsuch and Roberts sided with liberals on the Equal Rights Act decision, but if their votes are what the greater struggle for progress relies on in the future, we’re still in a shaky place. Pence Pushed Coronavirus Lies Meanwhile, the liars in Trump’s inner circle just can’t stop. According to audio obtained by the New York Times, Vice President Mike Pence personally encouraged state governors to spread a debunked claim about the relationship between widespread testing and coronavirus infection rates. The claim is basically that upticks in infection rates are just a result of us discovering more cases through testing, and don’t represent the virus actually resurging. But experts have found that the rate of cases is increasing faster than the increase in testing. Pence, or whoever writes his talking points, surely knew this, but they pushed it on governors anyway, asking them to QUOTE “Encourage people with the news that we’re safely reopening the country.” ENDQUOTE. Pence minimized all this, of course, because human life clearly doesn’t matter when the big strong president’s optics are concerned. This is what the Administration’s response has always been: claiming that everything was fine, claiming that they were doing great when things were clearly proven to be not fine, and eventually just claiming that the whole crisis is over and we won. None of these things are true, of course. The virus is rising in 22 states, and we have a long road ahead even in places where the curve has flattened out. But it is helpful to have concrete examples of how far the Trump administration is willing to go to preserve its image. Engel Takes Dirty Dark Money New York Rep. Eliott Engel, the current head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is in deep trouble in his primary for re-election. And a new report by the Intercept shows he’s willing to accept pretty much any help he can get to win -- even if it comes from the Republicans. Engel represents New York’s 16th district, which is safely blue. But his primary opponent is a young, energized middle school principal named Jamaal Bowman. Bowman has recently picked up a number of high profile endorsements including AOC, Bernie Sanders, and the New York Times. Engel, meanwhile, got Hillary Clinton’s endorsement on Monday, and other establishment Democrats figures are circling the wagons around him. According to a new report by the Intercept, Engel’s campaign is benefitting from a weird dark money chain by a GOP-linked super PAC. The group, called Americans for Tomorrow’s Future, isn’t spending directly on his campaign, probably because it also funnels money to overwhelmingly Republican causes including Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign. Instead, Americans for Tomorrow’s Future gave $100,000 to another Super PAC, Democratic Majority for Israel, which is in turn doing attack ads on Bowman. Pretty shady stuff if you ask me! If the GOP is this interested in making sure Engel keeps his seat, maybe he’s not the best representative of the so-called opposition party. Just a thought. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: A man shot a protester at a demonstration in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Monday night, following a confrontation in which protesters attempted to tear down a racist monument to a spanish Conquistador and were opposed by an armed far-right. Police responded to the scene and arrested members of the militia, and then faced off with protesters instead of taking their statements as to the shooting. It’s unclear if the shooter was a member of the militia, but this is sure to be a big story today, keep an eye out for more details as they come out. The New York Police Department is eliminating the massive force of plain-clothes police officers that make up the force’s anti-crime teams, which have been responsible for numerous shootings and accusations of excessive force over the years. The officers aren’t getting fired of course, just reassigned, so it remains to be seen how much of a real reform this is. After making a big splashy statement by painting Black Lives Matter on 16th street, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser has decided that well, that’s as far as she’s going to go. In an interview with NPR on Monday, she said she was still committed to her original budget, which proposes a 3.3 percent increase in the DC police’s funding. North Korea is making a ruckus again, threatening to send troops into the Demilitarized Zone with South Korea if defectors don’t stop sending leaflets over the border. Early on Tuesday morning, South Korean authorities reported that the North had gone a step further, blowing up the joint liaison building where the two countries had previously negotiated. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. June 16, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: In Atlanta, a police officer shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, who fell asleep in his car in a Wendy’s drive-through on Friday night, touching off another round of furious protests across the city, despite some promising steps to reform around the country. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases are on the rise in 22 states, as the disease’s first wave never really ended in many states. And lastly, amidst national unrest, the Trump administration continued its assault on vulnerable Americans, scrapping Obama-era nondiscrimination protections for Trans and nonbinary people, non-English speakers, and people seeking abortions. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Another Death in Atlanta As nationwide protests continue, this weekend brought yet another tragedy in Atlanta. On Friday night, Atlanta police officers shot and killed Rayshard Brooks after an extended interaction in a Wendy’s parking lot. Brooks’ death was caught on video both by bystanders and by the officers’ body cameras. Brooks was detained by officers after falling asleep in his car; he said he was within walking distance of his sisters’ house and could just go home. When they attempted to arrest him, he struggled, eventually taking one of the officers’ Tasers and running away on foot. Officer Garrett Rolfe pursued him and shot him three times in the back. Rolfe was fired on Sunday. Shortly after the shooting, Atlanta’s police chief, Erika Shields, resigned. The other officer involved, Devin Brosnan, has been placed on administrative leave. It’s hard to know what to say at this point. There have been nationwide protests against police brutality for two and a half weeks, but Black Americans are still dying in the street. The highly charged political climate is having other potential fallout as well. In California, two black men have been found hanging from trees in the past 10 days within 50 miles of one another. The cops ruled both to be suicides, but both families have doubts, and are urging the authorities to make a full investigation. What all this is showing is that we have a very long road to changing the system. Still, there are some baby-steps of progress already: in San Francisco, for instance, Mayor London Breed announced that police officers will be replaced with trained social workers for non-criminal emergency calls. This is one part of the big change many advocates say needs to happen before everyone in our country is free: stop sending people with a gun to address situations that don’t call for violence. We can only hope that more cities follow suit. Coronavirus Comeback Meanwhile, the country’s other crisis is starting to get worse. The CDC reports that the coronavirus death toll could be as high as 140,000 by July 4, according to the New York Times. The rate of infection is rising in 22 states, staying level in 8, and decreasing in the rest. CDC officials say the spikes is caused by states opening up too early in many cases. While the news cycle has shifted to cover the vital protest movement sweeping the streets, the coronavirus is still ripping through many communities. In New York City, where things were looking up, Governor Cuomo is now threatening to slow the next phase of his re-opening plan if people aren’t careful about masks and social distancing. What’s interesting is CDC experts say the risk of spreading the disease is less at an outdoor protest where most attendees are masked, than at, say, an indoor Trump rally where no one is required to have a mask. And sure enough: Trump is making everyone who shows up to his June 19 rally sign a waiver that says they won’t sue if they get the disease. All of these signs point to the disease continuing to disrupt us on a major scale for months on end. Trump Tears Up LGBTQ Protections It’s a familiar refrain at this point: while massive changes are happening to the rest of society, the Trump administration is trying to slip more unjust policies under everyone’s radar. This week, it’s a new rules package that overturns Obama-era anti-discrimination protections. Trump’s new rules eliminate language that protected transgender people from being discriminated against in healthcare coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Under Obama, the language specified that it was illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their sex, which was ruled to be all encompassing across the sex and gender spectrum. But Trump is trying to change the rule to make “sex” in that context only mean men and women. ACLU deputy legal director Louise Melling was furious, saying quote: "This is deadly and all of us should be outraged. This is beyond heartless." Endquote. The end result of this rule change is that it could make it more difficult for transgender people to access health care -- they could be turned away or denied a procedure, like a transgender man being denied or charged more for ovarian cancer treatments. Trans people are already vulnerable to this kind of lack of access, and of course Trump is making it worse -- it’s our job to make sure he doesn’t get away with it. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: e New York Times endorsed Jamal Bowman, the middle school principal challenging entrenched dinosaur Eliott Engle for the Democratic nomination in New York’s 16th Congressional district. The Times’ endorsement is the latest high profile win for the progressive Bowman, who has also picked up the support of Bernie Sanders, AOC, and NYC public advocate Jumaane Williams. Senate candidate Kris Kobach, a former Kansas Secretary of State known for his staunch opposition to any gun control laws, had four firearms stolen from his vehicle over the weekend. To be fair, with things as they are in Kansas, he should have no problem replacing them. Denver Riggleman, a freshman Representative from Virginia, appears to have lost his seat in the primary election to Bob Good a strict “biblical conservative,” who blasted Riggleman over officiating a same-sex marriage. The upset may be a boon to Democrats, however, as Good neglected to correctly file the paperwork to appear on the November general election ballot. He may still get on it, but it’s clear the bible-basher isn’t running the tightest ship in the game. And to close us out this morning, Trump’s strange appearance at the West Point Graduation ceremony has raised some questions about his health. Trump appeared to struggle to drink water during the speech, and slowly tottered down a very short ramp off the stage. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. June 15, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Georgia’s primary election devolved into an absolute mess on Tuesday, as voters and poll workers reported major problems with new voting machines and extremely long lines in a state that has struggled with overt voter suppression by the ruling Republican party for years. Meanwhile, Donald Trump falsely accused the 75-year-old protester who was brutally injured by Buffalo, New York police of being a quote “Antifa provocateur,” further pushing the baseless conspiracy that blames widespread protests on far-left radicals. And lastly, protesters in Seattle establish a quote “autonomous zone” on the city’s Capitol Hill, created when police abandoned their embattled East Precinct after days of demonstrations outlasted the cop’s brutal response. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Georgia Primary Mess It was election day in Georgia on Tuesday, and across the state, people struggled to vote. Georgia has a particularly troublesome history with voter suppression, and this election cycle was no different. Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Georgia, told the New York Times that she got 84 text messages complaining of voting problems just 10 minutes after the polls opened at 7 a.m. The main problem this time around appears to be the voting machines, which appear to have failed on a widespread scale, as well as new delays caused by sanitizing the machines and social distancing, which led some in-person voters to wait six to seven hours. If you remember, this is the same state where Bryan Kemp won the race for Governor after leading widespread voter roll purges during his time as Georgia Secretary of State. Kemp’s own Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, ostensibly mailed everyone in the state a vote-by-mail ballot, but some people said they didn’t get them, and were forced to vote in person. Raffensperge blamed the long lines and voting delays on poll workers not knowing how to operate the new machines. Shouldn’t it be his job to, you know, teach them? The chaos is bad for Georgia’s primaries, which will set the ballot for a lot of consequential state house and national offices in November, but it’s even worse as an omen for how that election will go. Georgia is expected to be a battleground state between Trump and Biden in November, and it’s clear that the Republicans are already testing out the various suppression measures they’ll use to keep it from being a fair fight. Case in point: many of the delays and issues were worst in the two counties that comprise metro Atlanta, which lean Democratic. And it wasn’t just Georgia: voters in South Carolina’s primary yesterday also reported long lines at polling stations. This is definitely going to be a nationwide trend in November, and it’s important that we recognize what it looks like before it happens. Trump Claims Elderly Pacifist is Antifa Donald Trump sank to, well, not his lowest point of the current news cycle, but certainly a new depth on Monday, when he said that the 75-year-old man critically injured by Buffalo police during a protest was a quote “Antifa Provocteur.” endquote. In reality, Martin Gugino is a long-time peace activist, who marched in the Buffalo Black Lives Matter protests and demonstrated for many other causes over the years. On Thursday night last week, Buffalo police shoved him to the ground so violently that he cracked his head on the concrete. He’s still in the hospital. That didn’t stop Trump from tweeting on Tuesday that Gugino was connected to a conspiracy theory promoted by the president’s new favorite source, One America News Network, that alleged Antifa were trying to knock out police radios with scanner devices. This obviously makes no sense whatsoever: Neighbors, friends, and fellow activists described Gugino as an inquisitive, gentle and friendly person who loved to attend speaking events at the local radical bookstore and was once asked to critique student presentations for an environmental studies class at the University at Buffalo. Gugino is still in a delicate state in the hospital, as friends say he’s still in immense pain whenever he sees bright light or moves his head. He may not consider himself antifa, but it’s pretty clear that he’s not on the same side as the fascists that nearly killed him. Seattle Protesters Set Up Autonomous Zone Protesters in Seattle have won a victory of sorts, setting up a semi-autonomous zone outside of police control in the vicinity of the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct. The cops abandoned the precinct on Monday, evacuating most of their supplies and reportedly moving in a mobile shredder unit to destroy documents. The Seattle Police has been particularly brutal with protesters, waging battle with rubber bullets, flash bang grenades, pepper balls and massive amounts of tear gas night after night, despite elected officials’ promises to push them to de-escalate. But protesters have weathered it all, creating their own riot shields and steadfastly returning to the area around the precinct night after night to protest, according to Capitol Hill Seattle. Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan says that the police’s retreat from the East Precinct was a deliberate attempt to de-escalate the strategy, and protesters have filled the void of violence by creating a strange, peaceful autonomous zone in the blocks surrounding it. On Tuesday afternoon, the Capitol Hill Seattle blog reported that the protesters have used abandoned police barricades to block off sections of the area to traffic, creating a twisting maze and setting up tents to keep themselves dry when it rains. Activists also reportedly planned to stay the night on Tuesday night. The conservative rumor mill, however, is convinced that antifa means to burn down the precinct, whereas leftist protesters worry that right wing agitators or the cops themselves are going to try something to incite more blame. Either way, it’s a fascinating development to how the protests are remaking urban spaces and challenging the police’s role and presence in our cities. Keep an eye on this story today to see how the autonomous zone shakes out. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The boutique fitness world is in turmoil as CrossFit’s CEO Greg Glassman stepped down on Tuesday after telling gym owners that quote “we’re not mourning for George Floyd.” His comments provoked many gyms, which pay money to the global CrossFit brand to use its trademarks, to separate themselves from the system. Vincent D’Andraia, the NYPD officer who was captured on video violently shoving a young woman to the ground, has been arrested and charged with assault. New York prosecutors are considering bringing misconduct or criminal charges against as many as 40 other NYPD officers in connection to their behavior at the protests. The U.S. may be slowly reopening, but around the world the coronavirus is on the rise, particularly in Latin America, where many countries are being pushed to the brink by rising cases. On Sunday, new cases reached a global high at 136,000, mostly in that region and parts of South Asia. And finally, remember Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, the so-called Democrat running against AOC in the primary for her seat in Congress? You know, the one who criticized AOC for living in a quote “luxury apartment” in DC? Turns out, she has a $40 million investment portfolio. AOC was a bartender until 2018, so it seems like Caruso-Cabrera probably shouldn’t try to pull the working-class card on here there. That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show from Sam this afternoon! June 10, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Joe Biden’s campaign said today that he is against the notion of defunding the police, which is a pretty good indicator of how much things would actually change for black people under his presidency. Meanwhile, Propublica reports that Capital One and other major debt collectors are still coming after thousands of Americans, despite the economy-crushing pandemic. And lastly, the much-needed aid set aside in the coronavirus relief CARES act for food banks and other key social welfare programs is way, way delayed: billions of dollars are still sitting around while needy people and programs starve. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Joe Biden’s campaign was never going to be on the far left of police reform, but a spokesperson for the presumptive Democratic nominee made it official on Monday: Biden opposes defunding the police. This is slightly more coherent, but still consistent with Biden’s past comments on the subject, in which he suggested that the police perhaps shoot people in the leg instead of killing them. On Monday, campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates offered up this absolutely nothingburger of a statement to NPR. QUOTE: “Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded. He hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change, and is driven to ensure that justice is done and that we put a stop to this terrible pain." ENDQUOTE. Great, glad that’s out of the way. But what would Biden support? Probably something along the lines of the new legislation introduced on Monday by Democrats in Congress, who marked the occasion by doing a photoshoot wearing traditional Kente cloth. The package is definitely a step further than democrats have proposed before, calling for widespread reforms that include removing legal protections that enable police abuses, new restrictions on cops using deadly force, among others. But the key word there is still reforms -- the bill stops short of meaningfully changing the way police departments are funded and run in America. On the surface, things would probably get a little better, but all the systems that got us to this point stay right in place. Can’t think of a better analogy for the Biden campaign than that! Capital One Keeps Chasing Debt Working Americans have had a hard go of it during the coronavirus pandemic, which created an economic recession that has destroyed service industry jobs and forced layoffs in so many other industries. But according to a Propublica report, the predators at the top of the capitalist food chain haven’t stopped hunting: lenders like Capital One are continuing to garnish hurting Americans’ wages, if they’re lucky enough to still have a job. They’re helped along by a court system they created, which allows credit card companies and other lenders to exact millions of dollars in judgements which are then paid out by seizing debtors wages. According to ProPublica, states like New York passed down orders that suspended new wage garnishments, but have failed to give relief for ones leveled before the virus hit. The New York City Bar urged Governor Cuomo for a moratorium, but so far he hasn’t done it. The New York State courts told Propublica that wage garnishments continued because they were quote “existing orders were considered essential matters.” endquote. That’s right -- credit card companies managed to make taking people’s wages an essential service. The Propublica story has several testimonies from people affected by this practice, and shows how a credit card balance of a little as $1,900 can hang over people’s heads for years with the big banks breathing down your neck. The banks and collection agencies made generic comments to Propublica that they were trying to go easy on people affected by COVID-19, but it’s pretty clear where their priorities lie: in getting back what they’re owed no matter what it does to people struggling to pay the bills. Congressional Relief Going Nowhere Fast The federal government was supposed to help during all of this -- but like most things passed down through Congress, it hasn’t exactly gone smoothly. According to the Washington Post, food banks, nursing homes, childcare facilities, firefighters, and a whole list of other essential social programs have only received shreds of the money ostensibly allocated to them by the CARES act. Let’s look at some numbers, per the Post. Congress allocated $850 million for food banks, but less than $300 million has made it to them yet. It allocated 9 billion for community development block grants that can fund elder care, child care, health facilities and the like. So far, only $250 million has made it to specific programs. Of the $100 million of that was earmarked specifically for nursing homes not a penny has gotten spent. Same thing for the $100 million FEMA was supposed to use to get more PPE for firefighters. It’s a little unclear what the specific problem is here: Democrats aren’t saying that the Trump admin is slowing down the funds on purpose, just that the federal bureaucracy in general is really bad at getting things done on time. What’s missing, they say, is any sense of urgency -- while the meager stimulus checks with Trump’s name on them got out the door quickly, the nuts and bolts of actual economic stimulation is still mostly just sitting around. Who knows, maybe by November we’ll have someone new in charge who can get the wheels turning. Hopefully by then it won’t be too late. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The leadership council for the Writer’s Guild of America, East, a major union that represents workers at many of the biggest digital media organizations, voted unanimously on Monday to urge the AFL-CIO to disassociate itself from the International Union of Police Associations, arguing that organized labor shouldn’t put up with the abuses of cop unions any longer. Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd, appeared in court for the first time on Monday, where his bail was set at $1.25 million. He’s charged with second degree murder and second degree manslaughter, and faces 40 years in prison. Add another line to the protests’ list of incremental accomplishments: the New York State Assembly passed the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act 140-3 on Monday. While we’re waiting for systematic reform, the more bills passed the better. And finally, the upheaval in media continues, as both the editors in chief of Bon Appetit Magazine and Refinery 29 stepped down on Monday. The former was pictured in blackface at a party, and both had been accused of running organizations that were hostile to non-white employees for years. June 9, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis city council pledged to disband the city’s police department, following over a week of worldwide protests against police brutality. Meanwhile, New York City, the hardest-hit region of the U.S., is starting to take baby steps back toward normalcy, beginning phase one of reopening as the coronavirus epidemic begins to subside. And lastly, New York Times Opinion section editor James Bennett resigned today after admitting that he didn’t even read Senator Tom Cotton’s racist, misleading, and downright dangerous op-ed about deploying troops to police American cities. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: In a historic, almost-unprecedented move, the Minneapolis city council announced on Sunday that it had a veto-proof majority of members pledged to disband the city’s police department. In a written statement, City Council president Lisa Bender said QUOTE: “It is clear that our existing system of policing and public safety isn’t working for so many of our neighbors. Our efforts at incremental reform have failed.” ENDQUOTE. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said he opposes disbanding the department, which earned him a chorus of boos and jeers on Saturday night. But if the city Council goes through with their plan, it’ll be out of his hands. The question now is what community safety will look like in the absence of the MPD. The city council hasn’t offered any specifics. Camden, New Jersey, famously disbanded its police force in 2013, but then re-hired most of the officers in a new county-wide organization focused on community policing. It was a big improvement, but definitely shied more on the side of reforming, rather than abolishing, a deeply broken system. In other words, the organization might change, but a lot of the cops probably aren’t going anywhere. New York City, after bungling nearly every other aspect of the government response to the protests, is also planning some reform. Mayor Bill de Blasio finally backed down and lifted the city’s arbitrary curfew, and just in time, as he was about to get sued by the New York Civil Liberties Union. Big de Blas also committed to diverting a token amount of funding from the NYPD’s absurd $6 billion budget to social services. He didn’t say how much, but we’re pretty sure it won’t be enough. What we’re seeing all over, however, is that the direct action of widespread protests is truly making an impact. NYC Re-Opening New York City felt the effects of the coronavirus harder than anywhere else in the country, but after 22,000 deaths and more than 200,000 cases, the city is very slowly starting to lift its lockdown restrictions. On Monday, the city will start phase one of its reopening, which allows construction, manufacturing, and retail to start up again. Retail stores will still operate in a limited capacity -- you probably won’t be able to browse like before, but they’ll do curbside and in-store pickup for most orders. After initially failing to control the disease’s spread, New York’s leadership has poured money into testing and contact tracing. The New York Times reports that new cases are down to about 500 per day. Next down the line is phase two, in which New Yorkers will finally be able to get a haircut again, and most offices will open, given social distancing can be enforced. The problem is the damage has largely already been done. Because the city and state’s leaders failed to get out in front of the disease, New York’s lockdown has been crushing for businesses, axing 885,000 jobs. The city’s economy isn’t expected to really rebound until 2022. New York Times Editor Resigns The New York Times Opinion section has been controversial for years, but last week, it finally jumped the shark -- and now the section’s top editor is taking a hike. James Bennett, the editor of the Times’ Opinion section, resigned on Sunday after his team published a deeply flawed, largely inaccurate, and incredibly racist op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton. The op-ed, titled quote “Send in the Troops,” endquote sent the Times’ newsroom into a frenzy, seeing as it misused historical comparisons and spread blatant fake news in order to make the case that the U.S. should send in the military to inflict further violence on protesters across the country. The Times usually has a pretty strict wall between the reporters and journalists in its newsroom and the opinion-havers in Bennett’s section. But the Cotton op-ed was a step too far, sending the newsroom into open revolt, as the Times’ notoriously buttoned-up employees threw down the gloves and started firing back, posting a unified message on Twitter that running the Cotton piece could directly endanger Black staff members. It turns out, Bennett didn’t even read the op-ed before it was published. His supporters -- the usual cast of conservative big-brains -- are trying to paint this thing as another censorship of right-wing voices scenario. You can sort that one out for yourself, but know that Cotton’s piece claimed that police had quote “borne the brunt” of the violence in the recent unrest, which he blamed on antifa. And it’s not like turning down Cotton’s essay is denying him a platform -- he’s literally a sitting U.S. Senator. Times Opinion has some great, thoughtful, incisive writers, but it’s also got people like climate change denier Bret Stephens and college-obsessed PC-culture critic Bari Weiss, not to mention the dusty old guard of David Brooks and Thomas Friedman. That’s all to say it’s definitely ripe for a change. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The ghouls at the White House are still doing what they do best. On Friday, Trump signed a proclamation handing over 5,000 square miles of previously-protected waters off the coast of New England to commercial fisherman. Common Dreams reports that activists are worried the move will put several endangered species and delicate ecosystems at risk. According to the Seattle Times, a man drove into a crowd of protesters on Sunday evening, then got out and brandished a gun, shooting and wounding a protester who tried to stop him. In the same city, police ran rampant again, covering streets in tear gas just days after they’d promised to stop using it for a month. Speaking of protesters, one thread to follow is that crowd size is not in any way dying down. Protests in New York City, LA, and several other major cities were absolutely massive today, according to anecdotal reports on social media. It’s hard to estimate crowd size when there are dozens of protests across a city in a single day, but one things’ for sure: they were big. Cops in Austin, Texas posted pictures of a massive pile of thank-you notes, which they claimed were from quote “several community members to include kindergartners and Austin families.” Endquote. Funnily enough, many of the cards were addressed in the same handwriting, and all of the kindergartens in Texas are still closed because of coronavirus. Since the protests started, the Austin Police Department has shot two people in the head with beanbag rounds. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show this afternoon. June 8, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Mass protests against police brutality continued across the country on Monday night, as Donald Trump ordered State governors to quote “dominate” protesters and seek retribution, threatened to invoke the insurrection act, and tear-gassed peaceful protestors so he could do a photo op. Meanwhile, a private autopsy confirms what everyone who’s seen the traumatic video of George Floyd’s death could tell: asphyxiation was at least part of the reason he died. And lastly, two spots of progress throughout the chaos: The police chief in Lousiville, Kentucky has been fired after it was revealed that two of his officers who murdered a store owner early Monday morning did not have their body cameras on. And in New York, lawmakers are already moving to repeal a law that shields police disciplinary records from the public. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The gloves are off and Donald Trump is out for blood. In a call with state Governors today, Trump was unhinged, raving that protestors were quote “going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.” endquote. He followed quote: “Someone throwing a rock is like shooting a gun. You have to do retribution. You have to arrest people, and you have to try people, and they have to go jail for long periods of time.” Bear in mind, this is coming from a guy who is deeply, deeply scared. Earlier on Monday, Trump tear-gassed a group of peaceful protestors near the White House so he could walk to St. James Cathedral and hold up a bible in the air. Literally, that’s all he did -- wandered over and held up a bible. At one of his deranged press conferences later Monday, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection act, which would allow him to deploy active duty troops to inflict further violence on protestors. That hasn’t happened since the 1992 Rodney King riots in L.A. Even mayors and governors in the blue states are cracking down in support of the police. L.A. moved up its curfew to the absurd hour of 1pm on Monday, and NYC instituted an 11pm curfew despite plans for mass demonstrations. Autopsy Confirms Floyd Was Suffocated A private autopsy ordered by the family of George Floyd indicates what all of us pretty much already knew: he suffocated to death at the hands of police. Dr. Allecia M. Wilson of the University of Michigan and Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner, found that Floyd died both from the knee on his neck and the other officers compressing his lungs as they held him down. A lawyer for the family said: QUOTE: “Not only was the knee on George’s neck a cause of his death, but so was the weight of the other two police officers on his back, who not only prevented blood flow into his brain but also air flow into his lungs,” ENDQUOTE. This appears to fit with recently uncovered security footage that shows other angles of the arrest. The New York Times published a video investigation of the event that in one image shows another officer, obscured from sight in the main video, also pressing on Floyd’s back while Derek Chauvin held him down. So far, Chauvin is the only one who’s been arrested, although the three other officers clearly contributed to his murder. And even their chief isn’t denying it -- in an interview on CNN on Sunday, MPD chief Medaria Arradondo said that Floyd might not Louisville Chief Out, NY Law on Chopping Block Progress on police brutality has been slow to say the least, but the recent round of protests appears to be moving the needle ever so slightly. Or, at least acknowledging that there is a needle? We’ll take what we can get. In New York, lawmakers are reportedly flirting with the idea of getting rid of a longstanding state law called 50-a, which hields police personnel records from public view. It’s absurd that these anti-transparency measures are even on the books in the first place, so getting them out of here would be a huge step for some semblance of justice, and good precedent for other states. The other bright point is in Kentucky, where the Lousiville police chief has been summarily ejected for his enabling of a reckless and violent department, particularly in the case of a shop owner killed by police early on Monday morning. Chief Steve Conrad probably will never face charges, but it’s good to see a head rolling at the highest level. Two of his officers shot a business owner in the wee hours of Monday morning, and did not have their body cameras on, a serious breach of policy. The killers have been placed on Administrative leave, so we can only hope they face some actual consequences as well. We’ll either look back on these steps as the first inklings that things were getting better, or as a false hope of progress in an increasingly authoritarian state. Time will tell. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: A new watchdog report found that the IRS has neglected to audit a large portion of rich people who haven’t filed tax returns, which means the government is missing out on billions of dollars in revenue. In other words, the government can’t even bring itself to enforce the pitiful amount of taxes it’s supposed to collect from the rich. Great going. Facebook employees organized a virtual walkout on Monday, taking the day off from work to protest Mark Zuckerberg’s complete inaction on moderating Donald Trump’s violent posts. It’s the first walkout in Facebook’s history. A white nationalist group got caught posing as Antifa on twitter. According to NBC news, the white nationalist group Identity Evropa [EUROPA] posed as a national antifa group in order to incite violence. This is an old tactic, and one that usually fails almost immediately, and this time was no different. A federal judge denied a right-wing group’s request to block the use of absentee mail-in ballots in Virginia, handing a major victory to voting rights groups. If the law holds against future challenges, it’ll mean that anyone in Virginia can use an absentee ballot without needing an excuse, effectively legalizing vote-by-mail. May 27, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Massive protests against police brutality swept across the country this weekend, and in almost every major city the police responded with disproportionate, indiscriminate violence, attacking protestors, bystanders and journalists almost every weapon in their arsenal save for live rounds. Meanwhile, Donald Trump declares Antifa a terrorist organization, making it the official position of the U.S. government that fighting fascism is an illegal act. That would make them the fascists, then. And lastly, Trump announced on Friday that the U.S. is terminating ties with the World Health Organization, as the worldwide death toll from the novel coronavirus approaches 375,000. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The police are out of control. In almost every major city in America, widespread protests broke out on Friday night and continued through the weekend in response to the murder of Minneapolis resident George Floyd at the hands of the police. Local police in nearly every city responded with indiscriminate violence, taking their cues from the bloodthirsty cops in Minneapolis. In New York, police pepper sprayed crowds at Brooklyn’s Barclays center on Friday night and beat protesters in the street, setting off multiple clashes throughout the city that continued on Saturday and Sunday nights. Protesters burned multiple police vehicles, but came off far worse in the clashes, as cops rammed them with cars, beat them with clubs, and arrested hundreds. Mayor and failed Presidential candidate Bill de Blasio’s own daughter was arrested with the protestors, which didn’t stophim from siding with the cops in a public statement. Speaking of an incident in which the NYPD rammed protestors with cars, he said quote: “If those protestors had just gotten out of the way we wouldn’t be talking about this situation.” ENDQUOTE. In Louisville, seven people were shot during the first night of widespread protests on Friday, though no one was killed. Police claim they weren’t behind the shootings. Demonstrations in Dallas saw chaos as well, as a man rushed protesters with a machete. In Salt Lake City, a man with a bow and arrow tried to shoot at protesters, who then burnt his car. And in Minneapolis, a tanker truck tried to ram through protesters occupying a highway. Throughout it all, the police continued an all-out offensive on both demonstrators and the press, firing rubber bullets and pepper balls directly at journalists in multiple cities. So where’s our leadership? Well, in Washington D.C., protesters set fires near the White House on Saturday night, forcing the Secret Service to turn off the building’s exterior lights and fire tear gas at protesters. Meanwhile, Donald Trump hid in the underground bunker reserved for terrorist attacks. Joe Biden is largely silent, and many of the country’s governors or mayors are convinced the protests are being fueled by quote “outside agitators,” because they’re desperate for any excuse to not examine their own failures. The police are the only ones in power, and they’re just using it to inflict pain. Trump Names ANTIFA Terrorists While hidden in his bunker below the White House with all the lights off on Sunday, Trump tweeted that the U.S. government would be quote: “designating ANTIFA as a terrorist organization.” Endquote. The wording here is important, mostly because it doesn’t mean anything legally -- the United States doesn’t have a domestic terrorism statute, so it can’t designate a homegrown group as a terrorist organization. It also doesn’t mean anything because ANTIFA just stands for anti-fascist -- it’s not one organization or group. It’s more of a shared ideology and commitment to direct action against fascists. The proclamation comes hand in hand with the government’s insistence that much of the protesting has been inspired by outside agitators, a conspiracy that NBC News found had little bearing in fact. But try telling that to Trump. It’s clear from this tweet that the president is paving the way to start cracking down on organized leftism, and scapegoating a familiar conservative media boogeyman at the same time -- which will surely be weaponized as protests continue across the country. If Anti-fascists are considered terrorists, the U.S. might as well up and change the stars on its flag to a different symbol. U.S. Cuts Ties to WHO And lastly, even outside of the massive crisis of police violence, Trump’s government continues its slow erosion of every international norm we’ve ever worked to build. On Friday, Trump announced that the U.S. would be terminating all ties to the World Health Organization, putting the cap on a months-long campaign to malign the international organization and deflect blame for his own abysmal leadership. We’re just a few thousand deaths away from 375,000 worldwide. More than a quarter of those -- over 100,000 -- are in the U.S. There’s no way that’s the WHO’s fault, but Trump is grasping at straws and willing to drag the world down with him. The U.S. provided $893 million to the WHO in 2018 and 2019. Hopefully, Trump won’t be in office long enough to really blow out the organization’s budget, but there’s no way around it: the U.S. cutting off the WHO will be disastrous for global public health. Fortunately, it’s not like we’re in any kind of massive pandemic that’s expected to keep happening as new diseases arise. Oh wait AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The New York Times has a new exhaustive video breaking down the moments of George Floyd’s death, which adds much needed context to the traffic stop that led to his murder, thanks to security camera and other witness videos that show how the police breached their own policy multiple times. Protesters lit fires in the Daughters of the Confederacy building in Richmond, and defaced a statue of Robert E. Lee while they were at it. Couldn’t have happened to two nicer and more important parts of our country’s heritage, could it. A new Washington Post and ABC News poll shows Joe Biden ahead of Donald Trump by 10 percent, 53 to 43 percent, as the president’s approval rating continues to drop during the pandemic. That said, there’s still a long way to go until November. Democratic incumbents are massively out-raising Republicans in key House races coming up in November, and the GOP is pretty worried that it’s losing any shot of taking back the House. Money in politics may be a fundamentally broken game, but hey, at least the slightly-less-bad party is winning? That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. June 1, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Minneapolis police killed George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in a horrific incident captured on video Monday night, which shows an officer kneeling on Floyd’s neck as he struggles to breathe. Widespread protests broke out across the Twin Cities on Tuesday night, which law enforcement responded to with more violence, firing tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. Meanwhile, Amazon’s high-powered PR unit sent around a pre-prepared script and news package to local stations across the country -- and at least 11 of them fell for it, airing the uncritical segment just as the company wanted it. And lastly, President Trump launches into the conspiracy theory that MSNBC Host Joe Scarborogh killed a staff member while he was a Congressman, and Twitter made the weakest possible response, despite the pleas of the staffer’s surviving husband. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The Twin Cities area of Minnesota erupted on Tuesday night following the tragic killing of an unarmed black man by police the previous day. On Monday night, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd after kneeling on his neck for several minutes, all of which were captured on video by a bystander. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Chauvin had previously been involved in multiple shootings over his 19-year career, wounding a suspect in one. Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said on Tuesday afternoon that Chauvin and other three officers who were on scene for Floyd’s death had been fired. But that action didn’t stop massive protests breaking out across the Twin Cities area, as thousands took to the streets to call for justice. The cops, however, reacted about how you’d expect: meeting protestors with force, firing rubber bullets, marking rounds and tear gas into crowds that battled them for hours in the rain. Floyd’s death was one of the most brutal captured on tape. In the video, Chauvin kneels directly on Floyd’s neck for an extended period of time while Floyd and several onlookers plead for Chauvin to release the pressure. Floyd eventually passes out, after saying quote “I can’t breathe, they’re going to kill me.” endquote. He was pronounced dead in the hospital. Mayor Frey said he had originally been stopped on suspicion of forgery. That’s all it took for the police to murder him in broad daylight. Local News Parrots Amazon PR Amazon’s PR machine has kicked into overdrive during the coronavirus crisis, in large part due to the fact that it has fired organizers within its ranks left and right while neglecting its already oppressed workforce. While diligent reporting by Vice News, the New York Times and others has held Amazon’s feet to the fire, other outlets… aren’t doing so great. On Sunday, Amazon sent around a prepared news segment specifically crafted to show the company in the best possible light. Most reporters, like Zach Rael at Oklahoma City’s ABC affiliate KOCO, who first publicized the pitch on Twitter, brushed it off. Rael, for example, instead asked Amazon to let journalists into the facility to do a story for themselves. But reporting by Courier Newsroom found that at least 11 stations around the country fell for the obvious PR job and ran the story exactly as Amazon scripted it, with anchors repeating the spokesperson-provided lines verbatim. The story is a troubling reminder of what our media could look like if corporations are allowed to completely control the conversation. There’s already a shortage of critical reporting in the country, and even the best-funded outlets often fall in line with what’s comfortable for the various powers that be. It’s just usually not this obvious. Twitter Delivers Weak Rebuke of Trump A strange, chaotic news day wouldn’t be complete without the president spreading conspiracies and lies online -- and it looks like Twitter, his platform of choice, isn’t willing to do much to stop him. On Tuesday, Trump again tweeted several references to the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, a congressional staffer for then-Representative Joe Scarborough. Trump and Scarborough have been feuding over the usual petty cable news crap for months, and recently the president has decided to bring up the popular conspiracy that Scarborough was involved in Klausutis’s death. In a letter published in the New York Times, Klausutis’s husband plead for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to delete Trump’s tweets about the conspiracy. In response, a company spokesperson mustered up a pitiful response, expressing some token sympathy and saying QUOTE: “We’ve been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward.” That means effectively nothing, obviously, but the company did take one concrete step. Late into Tuesday afternoon, it attached two advisory tags to Trump’s tweets -- not the ones about Kausutis, but instead Trump’s lies about vote by mail. The tags merely redirect users to Twitter’s news page for vote-by-mail stories and urge them to “get the facts.” Great job everyone, they fixed it. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The white woman who attempted to call police on a black man birdwatching in Central Park has been fired from her job at the investment bank Franklin Templeton. The woman, Amy Cooper, implied that she would use the police to inflict violence on the birdwatcher, repeatedly mentioning to the operator that he was “African American.” The altercation started after the man asked her to leash her dog. Four Uber and Lyft drivers in New York filed suit with the New York Taxi Workers Alliance against Gov. Andrew Cuomo, arguing that the state had failed to provide drivers with unemployment benefits. A 2018 decision ruled app-based drivers should be classified as employees and eligible for unemployment, but the drivers say the state is failing to process their claims quick enough to help them pay the bills. Congress’s pandemic EBT program, an emergency relief measure intended lessen child hunger during the pandemic, is way behind schedule and application, according to the New York Times. Congress approved the act in Mid March -- in Mid May, the Times reports only 15 percent of the kids it was supposed to feed are getting what they need. And finally, the Trump Justice Department is closing insider trading investigations into three U.S. senators previously caught trading stock they may have had advance tips on due to their position on Congressional committees. The only one still under investigation is GOP Senator Richard Burr, the former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee -- but the other three appear to be getting off scott free. Funny how that works! That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Catch the full show this afternoon. May 27, 2020 - AM Quickie HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Republicans have declared all-out war on vote-by-mail, suing the California government over its plans to mail out a ballot for the November general election to every voter. This is the hill they’re going to die on, so be ready. Meanwhile, Trump’s decision last month to declare meatpacking plants part of the country’s critical infrastructure is having predictable consequences, as the virus rips through massive factories that are failing to track the number of sick employees. And lastly, in a deranged demonstration started by gun rights activists in Kentucky, protestors hung an effigy of Governor Andy Beshear in front of the state capitol building, lashing out against the Democratic leader’s public health measures. Very normal country we’ve got here! THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Every election cycle, the Republican party does whatever it possibly can to suppress voting, particularly among demographics it can’t win. The reason for this is simple: Democrats have the numbers, and Republicans know the only way they can win nationally is to keep turnout low and hope to squeak by in the electoral college. This year, it’s now clear what their main attack will be: voting by mail. On Sunday, the Republican National Committee filed suit against the state of California to stop its government from distributing vote-by-mail ballots to ever voter in the state for the November election. The Republican argument is that voting by mail quote “invites fraud” endquote. There’s no evidence that vote-by-mail or voting in general invites fraud, but that’s what they’re going with. According to CNN, the GOP is spending more than $20 million on various attempts to block vote-by-mail nationwide. This lawsuit is aimed at California, but as every state prepares to figure out how to administer the November election and mitigate the risks of COVID-19, we’re bound to see many more battles like this along the way -- so keep an eye on California to see if the GOP’s lawsuit makes it anywhere in the courts. COVID Grinds Through Meatpacking Plants In the month since Trump declared America’s meatpacking plants part of the country’s critical industry, things have only gotten worse for the working people on the line. The New York Times reports that hundreds of meatpacking plants across the country are being tight-lipped about their coronavirus cases, refusing to publish the number of employees who have fallen ill. State and local officials also won’t give or don’t have the data. The CDC estimates that at least 5,000 meatpacking workers across the country have gotten the disease, but last week one nonprofit estimated that there could be as many as 17,000 cases in the industry. The fact that the big corporations are keeping mum about the stats doesn’t look good, because it only benefits them to keep things quiet. As more and more workers get sick, it could cause the shortages that keeping the plants open was supposed to prevent -- one study estimated supply drops of 35 percent and price increases for whatever’s left. To give you an idea of what the government thinks of all this, on CNN on Monday Kevin Hassett, a senior economic advisor to the president, said quote “Our human Capital stock is ready to get back to work,” endquote. That’s right -- he referred to the people putting their lives on the line in the same terms as the animals they butcher. That about says it all. Protestors Hang Beshear Effigy The ill-advised protests against public health measures reached a new, surreal height in Kentucky on Sunday, when a group of gun-rights protestors got agitated about Governor Andy Beshear’s policies and decided to hang him in effigy. The protestors strung up a stuffed dummy with a picture of Beshear’s face on it in a tree on the Capitol lawn. A freelance journalist, Gary Seavo James, got the whole thing on video. He told CNN that the effigy was a final extreme act even though many people had already left the protest, calling it quote “chilling.” Beshear has been relatively evenhanded in his approach to public health, relaxing restrictions on his state very gradually compared to some of his fellow governors in the midwest and south. The protests against these measures are limited -- polling shows that these are mostly a very loud minority. But hanging Beshear in effigy is a good signifier of the level these people are playing on -- their goal is to polarize and further inflame the discourse around the issue in the hopes of forcing more people to take a side. Seeing as the president appears to be mostly on their side, it could work -- which makes it all the more important for the rest of us to stay the sane and rational course of maintaining social distance and not toting guns around government buildings. Big ask, I know, but that’s not the move right now. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The first of two oil tankers from Iran has arrived in Venezuela to alleviate the country’s dire gas shortage, brought on both by the dysfunction of the authoritarian Maduro regime and crippling U.S. sanctions on the country, which have largely harmed its civilian population. The move was strongly opposed by the Trump administration, which has pushed to further cripple or even overthrow Maduro’s government, pushing Venezuela even closer to Iran. Progressive influencer Shaun King’s strange money troubles continue to mount -- after raising a significant subscriber base bringing in up to $1.5 million a year, King’s latest venture into journalism has failed to materialize, according to a new report by the Daily Beast. The project, called the North Star, has largely fallen apart, according to more than half a dozen former staffers, who called King, in so many words, an incompetent control freak. Joe Biden made his first public appearance in an unannounced visit to a veterans park near his home in Delaware, where he and his wife Jill placed a commemorative wreath. Both wore masks, which quickly inspired a truly dumb take by Fox News analyst Brit Hume, who implied that Biden looked stupid in the mask. Got him! And finally, a royal commission in Australia found that the summer of devastating brushfires caused an estimated 445 deaths and hospitalized 4,000. The deaths are more than four times the country’s death toll from coronavirus to date, highlighting how dire the climate crisis is outside of the pandemic currently dominating headlines. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. #AMQuickie - May 26, 2020 HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. are approaching 100,000, as experts warn of a second wave sweeping the country and the President responds by banning travel from Brazil, and pretty much nothing else. Meanwhile, in Florida, a federal judge delivered a massive victory for voting rights, ruling a draconian, racist law that forced felons to pay fines in order to vote unconstitutional. And lastly, Joe Biden went on the Breakfast Club, a hugely-popular, nationally-syndicated radio program, and you’ll never guess what happens next. Spoilers: he said something cartoonishly stupid and racist. In that respect, he’s truly a match for Trump. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The U.S. is about to reach a grim milestone in the coronavirus pandemic -- 100,000 deaths. The number is staggering in its own right, especially as it didn’t have to be this way. Trump’s latest action on Saturday was to ban travel from Brazil, citing the fact that it had the third highest number of cases in the world -- and ignoring the fact that the U.S. is already number one in the world. The president then spent the rest of the weekend playing golf and throwing tantrums on Twitter, as usual, rambling about Obamagate, mail-in ballots, and Hillary Clinton. Let’s take a look at the few words he’s said lately that matter: Trump insisted last Thursday that he won’t shut the country down again, even though experts worry that we’re going to see a second wave of the virus -- or just a perpetual continuation of the first wave -- as states start to re-open. Lockdown orders are usually the purview of state governors, of course, but what Trump is signaling here is that he’ll likely give flak to any governor who tries to crack down on the virus if things start to get out of hand. And we’re already seeing some distressing trends across the country: the Washington Post reports that the disease is already starting to surge in rural areas even as it slowly wanes in major metropolitan areas like New York City. We’re still at the beginning of a long fight, and the President and his ilk are doing everything they can to pretend that they’ve already won. Voting Rights Victory for Florida Felons On Sunday, a federal judge resoundly struck down one of Florida’s worst voting laws, and singlehandedly paved the way for thousands of felons to reclaim their right to vote. The fact that many federal prisoners -- people who are literally wards of the State -- cannot vote is a peculiar injustice in American society. But even those states that allow felons to reclaim their right to vote often impose restrictions or further punishments on citizens after they get out. In 2018, Republicans in Florida passed a restriction that said felons have to pay any and all court fees or fines they’re responsible for to get back their right to vote. Judge Robert L. Hinkle, who presides over a district court in Tallahassee, wrote that imposing this condition creates quote “a tax by any other name,” endquote on these citizens’ right to vote. The implications of this are huge -- the 2018 fine rule was itself an attempt by Florida Republicans to keep felons from voting, even after the state gave them back their right to vote through an Amendment that year. This was a sneaky way to do it, as few voters knew that every felon also gets slapped with hundreds of dollars in fines and fees as their case goes through the court. But fortunately, Judge Hinkle saw through the obvious injustice at play here. And now thousands of prospective voters may be back on the rolls, and likely not very predisposed to vote for the party that stripped them of their right in the first place. Biden Decides Who's Black And now, let’s check in on the Joe Biden campaign. On Friday morning, Biden himself stopped by the Breakfast Club, a huge radio show hosted by emcee Charlamagne Tha God that’s considered a cultural touchstone for black America. That’s about all the context you need -- If you haven’t heard the quote, brace yourself. In the final minute of the interview, Biden leaned forward and said QUOTE: “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.” ENDQUOTE. This is, as you can imagine, not a great thing to say in any context. Biden had been forced to play defense for much of the 18-minute interview, thanks to Charlamagne’s confrontational questions about his atrocious record on busing, marijuana, and the 1994 crime bill. This is probably exactly why the Biden campaign tried to prevent the candidate from going on the show for so long -- according to Charlamagne, they repeatedly tried to send a black surrogate on the show instead of Biden. Eventually, though, the campaign caved to pressure and sent the candidate himself. And this is what happened. It’s almost like he may not be the right guy for the job. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The actress Lori Loughlin pled guilty on Friday in the obscene college admissions case, which hauled in several B and C-list celebrities and other various rich people on charges of wire and mail fraud for their roles in buying their childrens’ way into prestigious colleges. It’s not exactly justice for years of a discriminatory education system leaving behind millions of deserving children, but hey, it’s a start! As if Murder Hornets weren’t enough to deal with, the CDC issued a warning on Sunday that the rat populations of major cities are becoming more and more aggressive -- mostly to each other, as their usual steady supply of leftover restaurant food has been interrupted by the pandemic. It sounds funny and dystopian, but you know something’s gone truly wrong when even the rats are feeling the pain of a crisis. After a few months of pandemic-enforced peace, major street protests broke out in Hong Kong on Sunday, as protestors lashing out against the authoritarian mainland government’s new proposed security legislation, which would tighten its grip over the semi-autonomous region. Mitt Romney spends a lot of his time cosplaying as an honorable person, but new reports in Politico Common Dreams suggest that the Republican Senate could be trying to slip a bill gutting social security benefits into the next coronavirus relief package. He can tut-tut Trump all he wants, but we all know what team he plays for in the end. That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Catch the full show with Sam this afternoon. AM Quickie - May 25, 2020 HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Donald Trump abruptly announced that he was taking Hydroxychloroquine, the malaria drug that is completely unproven to treat the coronavirus. Whether or not he’s actually taking the drug is still up in the air, but this is definitely the president’s strongest endorsement of a potential quack cure to date. Meanwhile, new evidence uncovered by House Democrats shows that Donald Trump’s firing of State Department Inspector General Steve Linick was even more corrupt than previously thought. Surprise! There’s an arms deal with Saudi Arabia involved. And lastly, a Massachusetts drug company reports promising results in its first limited human trial for a coronavirus vaccine. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Donald Trump took a swan dive into the deep end of the pseudoscience pool today, publicly announcing that he is taking hydroxychloroquine, the unproven malaria drug he and other conservatives have said can treat coronavirus. Trump did not say that he HAD coronavirus, but claimed he’d been taking the drug for about 10 days as a precaution after being exposed to the virus. Listen to this doofus: QUOTE: “All I can tell you is, so far I seem to be OK. I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories. And if it’s not good, I’ll tell you right. I’m not going to get hurt by it.” ENDQUOTE Trump’s personal physician, Sean P. Conley, appears to be going along with this, saying in a statement that ENDQUOTE “After numerous discussions he and I had for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.” ENDQUOTE You’ll notice that this statement does not actually confirm that Trump is taking the drug. For all we know he could be making stuff up again -- but what’s more important is that he’s once again promoting an unproven and possibly dangerous drug from the biggest podium in the country. Not great! Meanwhile, the Administration is also waging war with the World Health Organization, as Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar fired shots at the international organization, blaming its response in China for costing lives. Late Monday Night, Trump joined in, threatening to permanently pull funding from the WHO unless it started serving America’s interests. We have a president promoting unreliable drugs and a government that utterly failed millions of dead, distraught, and jobless Americans, so are we really one to talk about the WHO’s mistakes? Linick Was Investigating Saudi Arms Deal Outside of the pandemic, Trump’s latest blunder into crony corruption might be even worse than we thought. Yesterday Lucie told you about Trump’s firing of State Department Inspector General Steven Linick, his latest unceremonious axing of a key watchdog supposed to keep his administration in line. Linick was allegedly investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a whole host of policy violations, like making staffers walk his dog and pick up his dry cleaning. But on Monday, Senate Democrats reported that they had discovered Linick was investigating something far more serious: Pompeo bulldozing past Congress to push through the Trump administration’s controversial arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Pompeo and Trump pushed the Arms deal through despite widespread uproar by both Republicans and Democrats over Saudi Arabia’s killing of Jamal Khashoggi [JEMEL KHA-SHOCK-GEE YT pronunciation link] and their brutal, indiscriminate war in Yemen, using an emergency declearation to basically override Congress’s protest. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliott Engel said Monday that aside from the dog-walking, Linick was investigating that quote “phony declaration.” The end result of all this is largely the same: Trump will probably skate. But the implication is that if Congress actually manages to nail the Administration on the Saudi arms deal, which was one of Trumps rare moves that notable members of both parties disagreed with, it could give them slightly more leverage the next time the President tries to sell millions of dollars of guns to a country that murders journalists on a whim. Vaccine Trials Show Promise Developing a vaccine is not a quick process, as everyone currently stuck inside their house or apartment can probably tell you. But the combined efforts of basically every virologist on Earth are getting some results. Moderna, a Massachusetts drug company, announced on Monday that the first vaccine to go through human testing appears to be safe and able to stimulate an immune response. In other words, it’s not hurting the people who get it, and it’s fighting the disease. Granted, this is a really small study: eight patients, injected with two doses each of the experimental vaccine. It’s going to need much, much larger trials before we know if it’s the real deal. The gross part, however? When Moderna announced the news, its stock price soared -- and turning the hunt for a cure into a capitalist rat race is sure to leave a lot more bodies than if we had a functioning healthcare system that could work on this thing together, outside the bounds of the free market. The government does have a hand in things though: The New York Times reports that Moderna produced the vaccine in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the last sane man left in Trump’s corona crew, is leading the clinical trials -- so it’s nice to know that while Trump is gabbling about ingesting miracle cures, someone behind the scenes is still doing the actual work. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: A new report by the San Francisco Chronicle shows that the country’s immigration courts are utter chaos right now, with hundreds of thousands of cases delayed due to the pandemic, and compounded by the federal government’s haphazard response. In China, another flare up of the disease forced the government to slam down harsh lockdown restrictions on over 100 million people in the Jilin province, highlighting just how serious proper containment of the disease is. Meanwhile, several U.S. states are throwing caution to the winds and re-opening everything. Rebekah Jones, the data scientist who designed Florida’s helpful, easy-to-access COVID-19 dashboard for tracking the disease has been fired because she refused to censor data on behalf of the government, which is preparing to re-open the state. In a heartfelt note to her colleagues and members of the public, Jones noted she would quote “not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency,” in their new data releases. Attorneys for Ahmaud Arbery confirmed on Monday that the video which depicts Arbery’s murder at the hands of two white men is more than 4 minutes long, meaning that Arbery was pursued for much longer than originally reported. If that’s not a premeditated murder, I don’t know what is. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for Sam with the full show this afternoon. May 19, 2020 #LEFTISBEST HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: The Trump administration fired yet another key watchdog from the government, this time giving the boot to the State Department Inspector General that was investigating Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Not too subtle, is he? Meanwhile, Betsy DeVos is also doing some corruption in plain sight, by funneling coronavirus relief funding to private and religious schools that she’s long tried to foist on the Federal government. And lastly, there may be some hope in weakening big Tech’s grasp over, well, everything: according to several reports, the Justice Department and several state AGs are planning to level an antitrust case at Google sometime in the next few months. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: Donald Trump fired yet another key federal watchdog on Friday, eliminating yet another check on his administration’s ability to do whatever it wants, regardless of those little things called laws. On Friday, Trump fired State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, the main watchdog in charge of making sure State Department officials are playing by all the government’s rules. Guess what Linick’s latest project was? Investigating Mike Pompeo. According to NBC News, Linick was investigating Pompeo’s alleged use of State Department staffers to carry out personal duties -- everything from walking his dog to picking up his dry cleaning -- which is a pretty big breach of policy for public servants. This is all part of a trend, remember? He canned Christi Grimm at Health and Human Services after she issued a report criticizing his coronavirus response, and also fired Michael Atkinson, the inspector who handled the whistleblower report that got him impeached. It’s pretty surreal that Trump can just do this with little to no consequences. Congressional Democrats say they’re investigating, but what’re they going to do -- impeach Trump all over again before November? Not at the pace Pelosi and Schumer move, so it’s more than likely Trump will get away with putting one more watchdog to sleep. DeVos Does Corona Corruption Schools may be closed, but fortunately Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has been hard at work during the pandemic. Unfortunately, her job is mostly corruption. According to the New York Times, DeVos has been pushing parts of the massive $2 trillion coronavirus relief effort into her pet projects, which are private and religious schools. The New York Times reports that DeVos used $180 million of the $30 billion plus allocated in the CARES act to push states to create quote “microgrants” that parents can use to pay private school tuition. And universities didn’t escape her bias either: she funneled most of a $350 million fund set aside to help struggling colleges straight to small, private, and often religious institutions, even if they didn’t need the money. In one case, the Times reports, a tiny private college that has a full website claiming that it isn’t a cult, got almost half a million dollars. I don’t know about you, but there aren’t a lot of public universities that have to debunk cult rumors on a regular basis. Maybe we should make sure federal money is going to them! And not, you know, cults. DeVos might have to wait a bit to get her claws on the next round of money. Google Antitrust Case Brewing It’s basically a fact of life now that Google owns, and will make money off of, almost every possible revenue stream based on the internet. That’s what used to be known as a Monopoly, which is a great thing if you’re playing the capitalist dystopian board game but not so great of a thing if you’re, you know, trying to exist in real life. Fortunately, federal and state regulators may be on the brink of filing an antitrust case against the internet giant. According to CNBC, the case will likely focus on Google’s advertising business -- something it has wielded iron-clad control over to the massive detriment of many industries that rely on ads for money. Both the Federal Department of Justice and the Attorneys General of several states are expected to join in on the suit, following a multi-state investigation. It’s hard to overstate how big such an investigation would be -- this would be one of the biggest antitrust actions by the federal government since the 90s. The investigation is likely trying to build a case around some truths that we all know: Google has way too much power over the way we shop, search, and speak online. Breaking up its grasp over the advertising industry can only be good for people who don’t want to welcome in a Silicon Valley owned world order anytime soon. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: A Washington Post report confirms one of the most tragic and predictable effects of the coronavirus pandemic: truly essential transit workers are paying the price. One NYC bus driver told the Post that by his count, 129 transit workers have died of COVID, and the distressing trend is playing out in cities all over the U.S. We’re moving swiftly towards full dystopia: according to the Intercept, the federal government has ramped up spending on security and police, even writing orders for new riot gear for some security forces at Veterans Affairs facilities under a specific justification that cites the pandemic. Despite recent turmoil, including a horrific terrorist attack at a maternity hospital, U.S. officials say they’re on schedule to keep pulling forces out of Afghanistan as part of an agreement with the Taliban. Officials say we’ll be down to 8,600 troops by July 15 and will be abandoning five bases. It’s only about 19 years too late. A U.S. district judge smacked down infamous Pharma bro Martin Shkreli’s [SCHKRELLY] petition to be let out of prison in order to put his expertise as a pharma bro to use on a coronavirus cure. Judge Kiyo Matsumoto, in a no-nonsense ruling, said that Shkreli’s ask was the kind of quote “delusional self-aggrandizing behavior,” that put him in jail in the first place. Points for trying though! That’s it for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie Today. Stay tuned for the full show with Sam this afternoon. May 18, 2020 #LEFTISBEST HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: House Democrats unveiled a massive, $3 trillion relief package on Tuesday -- but once again, all that money leaves out relief for working people and provides a way for corporate lobbying groups to get small business loans. And that’s before the Republicans even got to work on it! Meanwhile, Democrat Christie Smith lost the special election for former Rep. Katie Hill’s seat in California’s 25th district, falling to a Republican defense contractor. In case that wasn’t bad enough, Democrats also picked up a loss in the special election for Wisconsin’s 7th district. And lastly, Joe Biden’s campaign may have signed its first actual progressive: per CNN, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has agreed to co-chair a task force on climate change for the Biden campaign, clearly hoping that she can push for some positive changes from inside the rusty Biden machine. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW It’s unfair to say that you can never count on Nancy Pelosi for anything. If you’re a corporate lobbyist, for instance, you can certainly count on her to have your back. House Democrats under Pelosi’s charge unveiled a new massive coronavirus relief package on Tuesday, and while it once again skips vital, people-first relief like direct payments or mortgage and rent suspension, it DOES include specific provisions that let corporate lobbying firms apply for federal bailout money. So that’s great for them, at least! For almost everything else, the bill is another miserable disappointment. Here are the scraps: $25 billion for the Post Office, which is sorely needed, but will likely be first on the Republican chopping block; one more round of measly $1200 stimulus checks for adults making less than $75,000, and some kind of hazard pay for frontline workers. There are some feeble stabs at other relief, but the whole thing is so thoroughly means-tested it’s hard to tell who it will actually help. Again, this is the starting point. Republicans haven’t even begun to strip this thing for parts yet. Pelosi is expected to push it through the House on Friday, at which point it will go to Mitch McConnell’s Senate, which is already howling that it goes too far and spends too much. There are Representatives yelling at Pelosi to do better, like Rep. Pramilla Jayapaul, but if the Speaker decides her corporate lobbyist bailout bill is going forward, we’ve seen time and time again there’s little that the lonely progressive caucus can do to stop it. Democrats Lose in CA and WI To add injury to insult, Democrats also lost two elections on Tuesday. In the special election to fill Rep. Katie Hill’s seat in California, Democrat Christy Smith lost to Mike Garcia, a Republican former pilot who most recently worked as a defense contractor. Smith and Garcia will get an almost immediate rematch, as both say that they plan to run for the seat in the November general election. The results in this round aren’t great: early on Wednesday morning Garcia was up by double digits. Part of that probably has to do with turnout. The special election sent out vote-by-mail ballots to every voter. As of Monday, tracking data showed 40 percent of Republicans had sent theirs back in, compared to only 27 percent of Democrats. Democrats also lost another contentious special election in Wisconsin’s 7th district. This one, to fill former Rep. Sean Duffy’s seat, wasn’t supposed to be close, but analysts were looking at it to gauge relative party enthusiasm in the swing state going into the general. Trump carried the district by more than 20 points in 2016; Duffy won it in 2018 by 22 points. Democrat Tricia Zunker lost to Republican Tom Tiffany, but only by about 15 points, which means the gap is closing, marginally. In a general Presidential election, Biden is up just three points over Trump in the state. But that’s assuming we even get an election. On Tuesday, milksop son-in-law Jared Kushner said he was quote “not sure I can commit one way or the other” to having the General election in November. It’s long been a worry that Trump would try to postpone the election if he thinks he’s going to lose, and while nobody’s outright saying it yet, Kush-boy’s wishy-washy response doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in democracy. AOC Joins Team Biden Joe Biden appears to have opened the door a tiny, tiny crack to the progressive wing of the party. That might be giving him too much credit, but here’s one good thing at least: the campaign has managed to convince Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to co-chair a task force on climate change. A spokesperson for AOC confirmed to CNN that she was involved with other members of the Climate Justice community. Sure, some on the left will probably shout at her for being a sellout, but if Biden is to be the nominee, it can only be a good thing if someone with a proven track record of standing up to the establishment is in a position to hassle him over climate change. She certainly hasn’t pulled any punches in prior statements, saying quote “if Biden is only doing things he's comfortable with, then it's not enough," endquote in an interview with the New York Times last month. The bigger question is what will happen to the task forces -- which were first announced when Bernie Sanders endorsed Biden -- in the event that the former VP actually does beat Trump in November. AOC will surely work hard to lay the groundwork, but then it’s still a leap of faith that a Biden administration won’t ice her out after that. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: In a recent court filing, the FBI accidentally let slip a major state secret: the identity of a Saudi embassy official in Washington who was suspected of helping two of the hijackers on 9/11. It’s the first on-record confirmation that the FBI believed it had found a link between the Saudi Embassy and the hijackers, which could have major ramifications for a lawsuit against the Saudi government brought by families of 9/11 victims. The coronavirus has been detected for the first time among some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Refugee camps in both South Sudan and Greece’s Aegean Islands reported cases, meaning that the disease could soon compound the already dire refugee crisis worldwide. A new study estimates that over 100,000 small businesses have been forced to shut down permanently since the beginning of the pandemic, according to researchers at Harvard, University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois. The researchers estimate that is roughly 2 percent of all small businesses in the country. And lastly, Rep. Greg Stube, one of the biggest goons in Congress, owned himself in delightful fashion this week, when he introduced a bill specifically targeting Rep. Ilhan Omar over campaign spending on her now-husband’s company. What he didn’t realize is that the bill’s sloppy wording would also prohibit President Trump’s re-election campaign from spending any money at Trump properties as well, something it is certainly dying to do. Oops! That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Stay tuned for the full show this afternoon! HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Donald Trump stormed out of a strange, deranged, and racist press conference today after rambling about Obamagate and telling an Asian-American reporter she should quote “ask China” her question. Just another Monday for the big wet baby-boss. Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Fauci prepares to tell the Senate a hard truth: that the U.S. will face even more death if it opens up too soon. And lastly, big-brain inventor boy Elon Musk is having one hell of a meltdown May: after suing Alameda County for keeping his car factory closed, he’s restarting production in defiance of official orders and allegedly bullying his employees into going back to work alongside him. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW Donald Trump threw a classic tantrum at a strange press conference in the Rose Garden today, after multiple reporters challenged him with actual questions. The show started when Phillip Rucker of the Washington Post asked the President to specifically identify the crime that he thinks Barack Obama committed in “Obamagate.” Trump launched into a completely nonsensical, meaningless response, finishing with: QUOTE “You know what the crime is, the crime is very obvious to everybody, all you have to do is read the newspapers -- except yours.” ENDQUOTE Things moved from simply deranged to openly racist when CBS News’ Weija Jiang, who is Chinese-American, asked Trump why he was treating the pandemic like a quote “global competition.” Trump shot back quote: “Maybe that’s a question you should ask China.” CNN’s Kaitlin Collins then moved in to ask a question, and the press conference derailed from there, as Trump fled the stage when Collins continued to press him. This may be classic idiocy from the crybaby-in-chief, but Trump was clearly rattled afterwards, repeatedly firing off on Twitter about how fake news was colluding against him. Meanwhile, the White House has mandated mask use for all of its staff to control the coronavirus cases in its ranks, with the exception of Trump, who won’t be wearing one. To top it all off, Trump’s recent planned visit to an American facility that was producing protective equipment had to be scrapped, as the factory’s management were worried a Presidential delegation could expose their workers to the virus. That’s right -- the President and his inner circle are now more exposed to the virus than the workers who make the masks Trump refuses to wear. Fauci's Warning Dr. Anthony Fauci is at least trying to mitigate the Trump Administration’s disastrous coronavirus policy, but who knows if it’ll be enough. Today Fauci is set to testify before the Senate, where he plans to state that Americans will go through quote “needless suffering and death” endquote if they country relaxes its restrictions too quickly. And so far that’s exactly what’s been happening. States have been slowly casting off social distancing and isolation measures for weeks, which has researchers extremely nervous, especially as many places haven’t controlled the virus as tightly as some European countries that are also opening back up. France, Spain, Germany and Italy all loosened lockdown restrictions after weeks of strict isolation, letting their citizens go grocery shopping without permits, gather in small groups, and even visit gyms in some areas. It’s both an encouraging sign for the future and a massive warning, as the virus threatens to come back at any moment. Just look at Wuhan, the epicenter of the global pandemic, where officials reported six new cases in one neighborhood in the last few days. Experts think that if the U.S. opens up too soon, the second wave of the virus won’t even wait for fall -- it’ll flare up in a series of surges. And because the virus often lays dormant for a while, a period of calm after a state re-opens could just mean that a deadly reckoning is on the way when newly-infected patients need hospitalization. Fauci will do his best today to convince the Senate of this fact -- and then brace himself for the fallout from the Oval Office. Musk Meltdown Trump wasn’t the only one having a good old-fashioned meltdown yesterday. Big-headed billionaire Elon Musk just celebrated the birth of his ridiculously-named seventh child, but that hasn’t stopped him from throwing an absolute fit over California’s cautious re-opening policies. Musk announced on Twitter on Monday that his Tesla vehicle factory in Fremont, California would start production again in defiance of Alameda County’s rules. The county health inspector has repeatedly told Musk that he wanted to work together to get the factory open again on May 18, but six days was too long to wait. Musk claimed that he would be quote “on the line” with his workers, and said that he would be first to be arrested. The difference of course is that Musk is a literal billionaire, and all of these workers’ boss. He’s also been allegedly coercing them to show up to work by saying that despite county rules, previously furloughed workers will be on “unpaid leave” if they don’t come in. Musk and Tesla are also suing Alameda county over the plant’s shutdown. His main gripe is that the county kept Tesla’s plant shut down despite a statewide exemption for transportation business to stay open, which Musk thinks should apply to his luxury car factory. The county, meanwhile, says it’s been trying to work with the company to put together a safe reopening plan. But whatever efforts they’ve made weren’t good enough for Musk, who has built a career off of doing things his own way at all times, even when they’re illegal. At least he hasn’t called anyone a pedophile this time. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Lis Smith, the Democratic mastermind behind Pete Buttigieg’s always-on air campaign, suggested that Joe Biden should put on a live show in the videogame Fortnite, just like rapper Travis Scott. We’ll let that idea speak for itself. Doctors Without Borders, the famous international medical organization usually found providing aid on battlefields and disaster-stricken countries, is deploying a team to the Navajo Nation in the American Southwest, to help treat a hard-hit community. The U.S. looks more and more like a failed state every day. Judicial Watch, the right-wing legal gibberish organization most notable for putting its weirdly ripped president Tom Fitton on TV, has decided to dabble in a little bit of vote suppression. The organization filed a suit at the end of April intended to strong-arm several Pennsylvania counties into an aggressive voter purge, which the ACLU warns could strip eligible voters of their right before the November election. The Los Angeles City Council recently passed a law that allows tenants to sue their landlords if they violate the city’s order suspending evictions during the pandemic. Councilman Bob Blumenfeld said the law was about quote “giving the tenants a big stick.” endquote. That’s what we like to hear, Bob. HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Coronavirus has taken hold in the White House, after Vice President Mike Pence’s spokeswoman -- who is also Stephen Miller’s wife -- became the latest person working in West Wing to test positive. Fear is understandably spreading through the halls, per recent reports. Meanwhile, Joe Biden is reportedly putting together a coalition of quote “Republicans for Biden,” which he says includes “major officeholders.” On the bright side there’s no way any of that could go wrong and he’s sure to open the same door to progressives any day now. Let’s stay optimistic! And lastly, a huge win for the budding labor union at Hearst magazines. Hearst’s fully unhinged leadership has done everything they could to fight their employee’s union drive with the Writers’ Guild, but the NLRB shot down their complaints on Friday, setting the stage for a long-awaited vote on the union THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The White House has coronavirus, and there’s a very good chance it has spread to Donald Trump’s inner circle. Here’s what we know so far: one of Donald Trump’s personal valets tested positive for the virus. So did Katie Miller, Vice President Pence’s spokeswoman and wife of Stephen Miller. We knew the valet was positive last week, but Miller’s positive test only came out late on Friday. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that other West Wing staffers are now scared to go to work, but are still reporting for duty. And isolation protocols aren’t exactly being followed -- many staffers who came in contact with Miller or the valet are still showing up to meetings. Pence is not quarantining, even though he was almost certainly exposed. Maybe he thinks he can pray it away, but regardless, he’s putting the rest of his staff at risk. Per the Times, Trump is still refusing to wear a mask, but is starting to get cranky when people get too near him. And everyone realizes the hypocrisy of telling states to ditch social distancing guidelines while the White House frantically tests and contact-traces. Dr. Anthony Fauci, however, is at least doing his best to not catch the virus. Fauci will enter a modified quarantine after coming into contact with one of the infected staffers; he’s set to appear before a Senate committee on Tuesday, but will do it over video conference. Fauci has long been the only rational adult in the room, but now hopefully he’s in a very different room, by himself, and not anywhere near the West Wing plague den. Biden Goes Republican Joe Biden is reportedly assembling a crack team of Republicans, including some quote “major officeholders” endquote, to help him get elected. Biden let slip that this Republicans for Biden movement was growing in an Instagram Live video at the end of April, but the Daily Beast tracked down some high-profile NeverTrump Republicans who confirmed that the campaign had something up its sleeve. The Beast reports that this might look like either an external PAC or an internal operation where a couple Republicans join the campaign publicly. Either way, the whole thing seems half-formed and ineffective -- in other words, perfect for the Biden campaign! What this tells us, of course, is that Biden would rather play Charlie Brown with the Republicans’ football make any sort of actual overtures to the progressive wing of the party. He’ll spend millions of dollars to get what probably won’t amount to anything more than a boilerplate endorsement from a dweeb like Jeff Flake, but can’t even pretend he’d consider the idea of passing Medicare for All if Democrats took back the Senate during his Administration. The whole thing is a joke. And meanwhile, Democrats in the House aren’t doing much better. Per an Axios report, Nancy Pelosi is currently rolling up her sleeves to get down to the absolutely ludicrous business of “means testing,” relief packages and unemployment expansions to prevent people quote “abusing the system.” Officials are now predicting that the unemployment rate will surpass 20 percent next month, and this is what the Democrats in power are worrying about? Hearst Bosses Fall to Labor Law The National Labor Relations Board just smacked down the greedy, money-grubbing bosses in charge of Hearst Media, handing a major victory to the magazine chain’s union movement. Hearst employees have been working to unionize with the Writers’ Guild of America, East, for more than six months, and the company bosses have pulled out all the stops to break them down. We’re talking cartoon-villain stuff here: the Hearst bosses tried to classify six union employees as management, and made up new meaningless categories for its portfolio of magazines to try to split up the union into six different bargaining units. They also tried one of the dirtiest tricks in the anti-union handbook -- claiming that their employees already had a union, based on a potentially illegal “company union” set up by bosses. The Trump-led NLRB hasn’t exactly been a friend of organized labor. But even it was forced to admit that the Hearst management’s tactics weren’t going to fly. The NLRB threw out all three of Hearst’s main arguments and is now ordering that a union election go forward with an in-person OR by-mail vote. Seeing as there’s no better way to build support for a union among employees than trying and failing to break it up in a comically evil fashion, the road forward looks pretty good for Hearst’s battle-hardened workers. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: A new whistleblower report shows that the federal government passed up on an offer from an American company to manufacture up to 7 million N95 masks per month all the way back in January, a move which could have saved countless lives which were endangered during the country’s dire shortage of protective equipment. Georgia’s Attorney General is seeking a federal probe into local law enforcement’s handling of the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, after two local prosecutors recused themselves from the investigation in what quickly became a farcial miscarriage of justice. A new report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation predicts that up to 43 million Americans may lose their health insurance as a result of the pandemic recession. At this point every day in an employer-provided insurance system is an utter travesty. More than 70 people in Wisconsin who said they had attended a “large gathering” have now tested positive for the coronavirus. Coincidentally, a recent protest against stay-at-home laws at the Wisconsin capitol recently attracted 1500 people, though state officials can’t confirm that all of the 70 plus cases originated there. This would be an extremely funny example of karmic justice, except that each of the morons who caught it there could have spread the disease to untold numbers of innocent people. That’s all for the AM Quickie today, stay tuned for Sam and the full Majority Report this afternoon. HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: As more and more states begin to open for business, scientific models clearly show U.S. deaths from the coronavirus continuing to rise. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government says it has captured two Americans allegedly involved in a strange, clumsy attempt to infiltrate the country and capture its leaders. And lastly, an Amazon Vice President Tim Bray resigned from the company today, in protest of the online shopping empires’ treatment of warehouse workers and white-collar dissenters alike, several of whom have been fired in recent weeks. THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: The coronavirus is still spreading throughout the country, but you wouldn’t know it by the widespread plans to begin opening states. According to a report by the New York Times, the president’s own administration is predicting a rise in the country’s death rate as a result. By June 1, 3000 people a day will be dying from the disease, according to new government modeling. FEMA also predicts that by the end of May, there will be 200,000 new cases every day. For reference, right now there are about 25,000 new cases per day. That hasn’t stopped many governors from beginning to open up businesses in their states. Missouri Governor Mike Parson has even given the green light for concerts and other large gatherings to resume, with some social distancing rules in place. But really -- social distancing at a concert? Meanwhile, the White House has barred members of its hand-picked coronavirus task force, and their aides, from appearing before Congress, unless they get the express approval of the White House chief of staff. Clearly, Trump doesn’t want anyone talking to the lawmakers tasked with keeping him accountable. Nor does he want to help the world: the U.S. contributed precisely zero dollars to a recent international fundraising event to support research into a vaccine. And beyond the deaths, it’s also clear that the Federal relief meant to bail out small businesses is woefully inadequate. Congress’s last $310 billion expansion of the Paycheck Protection Plan is already half-committed, just one week after it was released. This is an institutional failure on every level, and the people responsible will likely escape the consequences. To be fair, they’re not even trying to hide their evil anymore. Take it from Chris Christie, who said QUOTE “There are going to be deaths no matter what,” ENDQUOTE which is apparently fine by him. Mercs Fail to Invade Venezuela There was once a time when the United States was relatively proficient at overthrowing Latin American leaders, but it appears to have passed. Now, who knows what we’re doing. On Monday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced that he had captured two American citizens who were allegedly part of an armed operation to infiltrate the country, incite a rebellion and capture its leaders. The two men appear to be affiliated with a Florida-based mercenary company called Silvercorp, according to the company’s owner, a former Green Beret named Jordan Goudreau. Gourdreau wasn’t exactly subtle, claiming that he was launching quote “Operation Gideon” on Sunday with the stated goal of toppling Maduro. They then allegedly attempted to invade Venezuela in speedboats, but were stopped off the coast in a gunbattle with Venezuelan forces, who knew they were coming. For what it’s worth, both the state department and the Venezuelan opposition under Juan Guidao want nothing to do with these guys. Goudreau says he’s got a lawyer in Venezuela and is currently begging the State department for help getting his men out. Obviously, the facts around this are murky to say the least and it’s already a pretty wild story, but stay tuned for what the Trump Administration’s response will be: at this point, it could be pretty much anything. Amazon VP Quits in Style Cracks are beginning to show at Amazon. On Monday, Tim Bray, a Vice President and distinguished engineer at the company quit, torching the company on his way out for its firings of several white collar and warehouse employees who protested its response to the coronavirus pandemic. Over the past few weeks, the company has fired multiple warehouse workers who spoke up about their working conditions and at least two white-collar tech employees who tried to organize their colleagues to support warehouse workers. Bray did not mince words when placing the blame directly on the company, calling Amazon cowards in polite and impolite terms, and noting that all of the fired employees were either people of color, women, or both. "At the end of the day, it's all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker, what with mass unemployment and (in the U.S.) job-linked health insurance. So they're gonna get treated like crap, because capitalism. Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective strength." Sounds like Bray has a pretty good grasp of what’s going on at Amazon and across the country as well. Pity they couldn’t keep him around, but it’s clear he’s going to move on to better things. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: The NRA is being forced to lay off dozens of staffers, cut pay, and scale back its fundraising after the coronavirus exacerbated the organizations already-chaotic financial situation. Couldn’t have happened to nicer folks. Shortly after Trump made meat processing plants “critical infrastructure,” 373 workers at a Triumph foods plant in Missouri tested positive for the disease. Almost all of them were asymptomatic, meaning they could have shown up to work just find and continued to spread it. The Senate claimed that it could not legally turn over records requested by the Biden Campaign that could pertain to Tara Reade’s allegations against him. The campaign requested them as an attempt to be transparent, so now they can throw up their hands and shift the blame to the Senate. Clever. And finally, after San Diego County made it mandatory for citizens to have face coverings in public, a man was photographed wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood while shopping in a Vons supermarket. He was asked to remove the hood, but refused to do so until he was in the checkout line. That’s all for the Majority Report’s AM Quickie today. Catch the full show with Sam later on. HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Jack Crosbie PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn