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Folks! The AM Quickie podcast is taking a break. Take a listen for some important updates from Sam and Lucie about what the AMQ team will be doing to bring you the news in the meantime. Thanks so much for listening and for all your support! #leftisbest
AM QUICKIE
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITERS - Jack Crosbie & Cory Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
The Biden administration strikes its first significant deal with Republican members of Congress, and it’s for an infrastructure package. But progressive Democrats say the deal doesn’t offer enough to win their support.
Meanwhile, the search for answers begins after a terrifying and sudden residential building collapse in Surfside, Florida. The death toll is uncertain but as many as ninety nine people are missing.
And lastly, a new analysis of government data shows that almost everyone who’s dying of the coronavirus in the United States now is unvaccinated. Which means those deaths don’t need to happen at all.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
This report from the political sausage factory comes from the Washington Post. President Joe Biden signed off yesterday on a bipartisan agreement crafted by ten senators that would pump hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending into infrastructure projects across the country. We have a deal, Biden said alongside the five Democrats and five Republicans who had negotiated for weeks on a package to revitalize the nation’s road and transit systems, while upgrading broadband and investing in other public-works projects. The proposal was crafted by Senators Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio; Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona; and eight others in the Senate. The new agreement is nowhere near as expansive as the $2.2 trillion American Jobs Plan, Biden’s own infrastructure measure that he detailed in April. But Democratic leaders have made it clear that they hope to push through a separate package encompassing priorities such as climate initiatives, paid leave and expanded education.
The Post says the bipartisan agreement will spend $973 billion over five years, with $579 billion of that being new spending. That includes $312 billion for transportation projects, $55 billion for water infrastructure and $65 billion for broadband. The Congressional Progressive Caucus polled its ninety five members on the infrastructure package and found a strong majority prepared to vote against the bill without a separate package that moves simultaneously and includes key priorities, such as funding for eldercare, expanding Medicare, and affordable housing. Because bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake helps no one – except a few politicians.
Cause Unknown In Florida Condo Collapse
This report of crumbling infrastructure comes from the Miami Herald. Lightning streaked the skies yesterday afternoon as search-and-rescue teams picked their way through a pile of rubble nearly two stories high – the remains of a collapsed twelve-story condo – hoping to hear the cries of survivors. As many as ninety nine people are reported missing. The oceanfront Champlain Towers South Condo crumpled with a bang a little after 1:30 am, trapping an unknown number of sleeping residents inside the wreckage. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava called it, "a terrible, terrible nightmare." Footage of the sudden collapse looked eerily similar to a demolition, minus the flash of explosives. The cause is unknown, with one expert deeming it "an oddity of biblical proportions."
According to the Herald, nearly twelve hours after the collapse, the death toll was uncertain. Officials confirmed at least one death, and said thirty five people were pulled from the wreckage, with ten injured people treated at the scene and two sent to a hospital. Officials estimated that fifty five units were involved in the collapse. Surfside Commissioner Eliana Salzhauer said the building was undergoing a required forty-year recertification to ensure its structural integrity, and that the building’s roof was being redone. It is unknown if any construction activity contributed to the disaster. President Biden said it’s up to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to declare a state of emergency so federal resources, including FEMA help, can be deployed. Here’s hoping they find more survivors.
Vaccines Drive Down Covid Fatalities
We’re in a new phase. The Associated Press reports that nearly all Covid-19 deaths in the US now are in people who weren’t vaccinated. It is a staggering demonstration of how effective the shots have been. It’s also an indication that deaths per day – now down to under three hundred – could be practically zero if everyone eligible got the vaccine. An AP analysis of government data from May shows that breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people accounted for fewer than twelve hundred of more than eight hundred and fifty three thousand Covid-19 hospitalizations. That’s about zero point one percent.
The AP analyzed figures provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC Director Doctor Rochelle Walensky said on Tuesday that the vaccine is so effective that nearly every death, especially among adults, is, at this point, entirely preventable. She called such deaths particularly tragic. About sixty three percent of all vaccine-eligible Americans – those twelve and older – have received at least one dose, and fifty three percent are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. Experts predict the preventable deaths will continue, with unvaccinated pockets of the nation experiencing outbreaks in the fall and winter. In Arkansas, which has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the nation – with only thirty three percent of the population fully protected – hospitalizations and deaths are rising. To the extent that people aren’t getting vaccinated because they can’t get paid time off, that must be addressed, so we can beat Covid once and for all.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
The Guardian reports that a First Nation in Canada’s Saskatchewan province is treating a defunct residential school as a crime scene following the discovery of seven hundred and fifty one unmarked graves. The total of unmarked graves discovered in the past month is about one thousand, with experts predicting more will come as provincial governments announce funding to help Indigenous communities conduct their own searches. This reckoning is long overdue.
Politico reports that the Biden administration unveiled a raft of measures to prevent people who lost income during the pandemic from losing their homes yesterday, including by extending nationwide eviction and foreclosure bans until July 31st. Maybe it’s time to commit to keeping everyone in their homes permanently – sound good?
According to the Washington Post, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced yesterday that the House will form a select committee to investigate the January 6th attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, one month after Senate Republicans blocked an effort to form a bipartisan commission. The panel will provide recommendations to prevent similar attacks in the future. Keeping Donald Trump’s movement far from power should help.
The New York Times reports that Rudy Giuliani faces the possibility of disbarment after a court ruled yesterday that he made demonstrably false statements while fighting the results of the 2020 election on behalf of Trump. The New York State appellate court suspended Giuliani’s law license after finding he had sought to mislead judges, lawmakers and the public. Better late than never!
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 25, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
The wheels of justice keep turning for those charged in the January 6th assault on the US Capitol. An Indiana woman has become the first to be sentenced, and a member of the Oath Keepers pleads guilty while agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors.
Meanwhile, following the grim discovery of hundreds of buried Indigenous children at residential schools in Canada, the United States government will investigate what happened to Native American children in this country. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the historical probe this week.
And lastly, a socialist nurse has defeated an entrenched Democratic machine candidate in the race for mayor in Buffalo, New York. Don’t call it a miracle – it’s a sign of the times.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
This courtroom update comes from the Associated Press. An Indiana woman yesterday became the first of nearly five hundred defendants to be sentenced for the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol – and she avoided time behind bars. Anna Morgan Lloyd of Indiana was ordered by a federal judge to serve three years of probation, perform one hundred and twenty hours of community service and pay $500 in restitution after admitting to entering the Capitol. She pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor charge under a deal with prosecutors. Lloyd, forty nine, apologized to the court, the American people, and her family. At her sentencing, Lloyd said she was ashamed the day became "a savage display of violence." In seeking probation for Lloyd, prosecutors noted that she was not involved in any violence and destruction. Lloyd was invited by her hairdresser to drive to Washington to hear Donald Trump speak. US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth said he was giving her a break, but didn’t want others to think that probation – and not a stiffer sentence – would be the norm.
Also yesterday, the AP reports, Graydon Young, a member of the Oath Keepers extremist group, pleaded guilty to charges in the insurrection and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in a major step forward for the massive investigation into the insurrection. It was also the first guilty plea in the major conspiracy case brought against members of the Oath Keepers. Something tells me their sentences will be a bit stiffer.
U.S. Will Probe Native Schools Abuses
This look at our national traumas comes from the New York Times. The United States will search federal boarding schools for possible burial sites of Native American children, hundreds of thousands of whom were forcibly taken from their communities to be culturally assimilated in the schools for more than a century, the interior secretary announced on Tuesday. The initiative is likely to resemble a recent effort in Canada, where the discovery of the remains of two hundred and fifteen children at the site of a defunct boarding school rekindled discussion of the traumatic history and treatment of Native populations. Addressing a virtual conference of the National Congress of American Indians, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said the program would "shed light on the unspoken traumas of the past, no matter how hard it will be." The forced removals were a result of the Civilization Fund Act of 1819. In the years after the law was enacted, residential boarding schools were established across the nation and used to house relocated Indigenous children, suppressing American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian cultures.
The Times says the new program, called the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, will identify the facilities and sites where there may have been student burials. It will also mine records that were kept by the department, which had oversight of the facilities. A final report will be sent to Secretary Haaland by April 1. And there’s no question it will make for painful but necessary reading.
Socialist Victorious In New York
Amazing news here, in case you missed it on the Majority Report. NBC News reports that a socialist candidate in Buffalo, New York, defeated the city’s four-term mayor in a major upset in Tuesday's Democratic primary. India Walton beat Mayor Byron Brown, fifty two percent to forty five percent, with one hundred percent of precincts reporting. The Associated Press called the race late yesterday morning. Walton told MSNBC yesterday, "I believe we won because we organized. We have a message of care love and hope that is resonant with working class Buffalo." If Walton, thirty nine, wins the general election in November, she will become the first socialist mayor of a large American city since 1960, when Frank Zeidler left office in Milwaukee. Her chances of winning are high since Buffalo hasn’t had a Republican mayor since 1965.
According to the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, Walton is a a nurse and community organizer. She had the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America as well as the Working Families Party. She campaigned on a platform of boosting affordable housing in the city and reforming the criminal-justice system. Brown, a former state senator, had been entrenched as Buffalo's mayor since he was first elected in 2005. A longtime ally of Governor Andrew Cuomo, Brown served a stint as the chairman of the state Democratic Party before relinquishing the post in 2019. Now that’s one hell of an upset – and a big win for the American left!
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
The Guardian reports that the antivirus software entrepreneur John McAfee has been found dead in his cell in Spain, hours after the country’s national court approved his extradition to the United States. He was wanted on tax-related criminal charges that carry a prison sentence of up to thirty years. The Spanish authorities say it was suicide.
The Tampa Bay Times reports that Governor Ron DeSantis on Tuesday signed legislation that will require public universities to survey students, faculty and staff about their beliefs. The measure does not specify what will be done with the survey results. But DeSantis suggested budget cuts could be looming if universities are found to be "indoctrinating" students. As if he needed an excuse to make cuts!
NBC News reports that the US Supreme Court yesterday limited the ability of union organizers to enter the private property of growers in order to reach farmworkers in California. In a six-three decision, the court said unions violate the Constitution when they enter a grower's private property without paying. Which is outrageous, because California enacted its rules on this because farmworkers often live on their employer’s property.
According to CBS News, dozens of cows escaped a slaughterhouse in Southern California and roamed free for over an hour on Tuesday, injuring four people. One of the animals was fatally shot by deputies after authorities said it charged at a family. That ending is sad and somehow predictable, but at least those cows went down fighting.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 24, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
A leaked U.S. military document describes socialists as terrorists and lists them alongside neo-Nazis and the far right, according to a report by the Intercept.
Meanwhile, Motherboard reports that the Teamsters union is about to announce a coordinated nationwide effort to organize Amazon workers.
And lastly, the U.S. appears to have seized Iranian news sites under suspicious circumstances
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
The Intercept has a shocking, yet somehow predictable report from the U.S. military today.
According to a leaked document, soldiers are being told that anarchism and socialism both represent so called terrorist ideologies.
The document, according to military sources interviewed by the Intercept, is part of a longer training manual designed for the Navy’s internal police. It’s part of the military’s wider internal push against extremism inside its ranks.
The Intercept reports that a section of the training document subtitled “Study Questions” includes the following question: “Anarchists, socialists and Neo-Nazis represent which terrorist ideological category? A source told the Intercept that the correct answer was quote “political terrorists.” endquote.
This is basically the what we all worried about when the military announced it would crack down on domestic extremists in its own ranks. Puting socialists, and even anarchists, on the same level as neo-Nazis and far-right groups who actively wish harm against other Americans doesn’t make any sense.
But it does help push resources and the power of the status quo into suppressing leftist thought. As one anonymous military official told the Intercept::
“It’s just ineffective training because whoever is directing the Navy anti-terror curriculum would rather vilify the left than actually protect anything. Despite the fact that the most prominent threat is domestic, right-wing terror.”
Teamsters Take Aim at Amazon
Motherboard reports that the Teamsters union, one of the largest and most powerful forces in organized labor, is about to get serious with Amazon.
The Teamsters are expected to announce publicly today that they’ll be embarking on a coordinated, nationwide effort to unionize workers at Amazon.
Randy Korgan, the Teamster’s National Amazon Director, said in a video obtained by Motherboard that the union would quote “build the types of worker and community power necessary to take on one of the most powerful corporations in the world and win. That video was set to play at the Teamsters convention on Tuesday, and on Thursday, delegates from Teamsters local unions will vote on a similar resolution, which Motherboard reports should pass comfortably.
That resolution will create and fund a specially designed Amazon Division within the Teamsters, to aid Amazon workers in unionizing and defend standards in the logistics industry. But unlike the massive NLRB election in Bessemer, the Teamsters plan to take on Amazon with a more guerilla warfare strategy. Motherboard reports that the union is going to try to apply direct pressure wherever possible, with work stoppages, petitions, and other collective action.
The hope is that it also cuts down the opportunities Amazon has to throw its massive pocketbook into anti-union campaigns, like it did in Bessemer.
Details on the rest of the program are still scarce, but Motherboard reports that the union says it has committed “tremendous resources” to the effort.
U.S. Seizes Iranian Websites
The U.S. government seized dozens of American website domains connected to the government of Iran on Tuesday, saying that they were connected to disinformation campaigns.
The AP reports that the domains of a handful of sites, including Iran state television’s English-language arm Press TV, redirected to a federal notice saying the sites had been seized by the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security, Office of Export Enforcement and the FBI.
A U.S. official anonymously told the AP that these sites were linked to disinformation campaigns, but otherwise the reasons for their seizure is unclear. Iran tightly controls much of its state media, as do many other countries. And though it’s not a perfect comparison, there’s plenty of disinformation coming out of our own news sources as well.
What that means is this action is most likely a shot in a broader conflict with the Iranian government. Actions like this don’t usually happen in a vacuum, especially considering the ongoing international talks about Iran’s nuclear program and the country’s new hard-line president.
This story was still developing as of script time on Tuesday evening, but we may have a clearer picture of what this means for Iran’s relationship to the U.S. in the coming days.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
The Daily Beast reports that back in 2019, Donald Trump asked his advisors and lawyers what the FCC, courts, and the DOJ could do to mess with or mitigate SNL, Jimmy Kimmel and other TV hosts, proving that once again that he was the thinnest skinned president we’ve ever had.
The LA Times reports that a top aide to LA’s mayor Eric Garcetti mocked labor icon Dolores Huerta in a private facebook group, and has been placed on administrative leave -- just in case you’re wondering what people in the halls of power think of activists and social justice leaders.
BuzzFeed News reports that The Biden administration will let immigrants sent or deported to Mexico without a court appearance under a Trump-era policy seek entry into the U.S., a major change for some families stuck in immigration limbo for months if not years.
Joe Manchin said on Tuesday that he would vote to open debate on the Democrats Voting Rights bill, which he previously said he didn’t support. This isn’t an endorsement of the bill, just a vote to move procedure along, however, so we’re really not far from where we were last week.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE, 23, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Jack Crosbie
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
The Supreme Court yesterday struck down another challenge to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. But it also said American companies can benefit from child slavery in Africa, so, you know, hold your applause for the honorable Justices.
Meanwhile, audio recordings reveal that Bolivia’s right-wing coup leaders were organizing yet another plot against the pro-democracy politician who won last year’s election. And this time they planned to go big, and bring in hundreds of mercenaries from the United States.
And lastly, US health officials announced a $3 billion program to speed up research on a pill to fight the coronavirus in people who’ve already been infected. The research could also help stop future pandemics in their tracks, which, after all we’ve been through, is an obvious win.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
This legal news comes from the Washington Post. The Supreme Court yesterday said US chocolate companies cannot be sued for child slavery on the African farms from which they buy most of their cocoa. But the court stopped short of saying such a lawsuit could never go forward. Six African men sought damages from Nestlé USA and Cargill, alleging that as children they were trafficked out of Mali, forced to work long hours on Ivory Coast cocoa farms and kept at night in locked shacks. Their attorneys argued the companies should have better monitored their cocoa suppliers in West Africa, where two-thirds of the world’s cocoa is grown and child labor is widespread. The companies asked the Supreme Court to toss the lawsuit, arguing that courts in the United States are the wrong forum and that the applicable law permits such cases against individuals but not corporations. The court’s splintered decision was written by Justice Clarence Thomas.
Also yesterday, the Post reports, the Court dismissed the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, saying Republican-led states do not have the legal standing to try to upend the law. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the court’s seven-to-two decision, which preserves the law that provides millions of Americans with health coverage. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra called the court’s decision, "a victory for all Americans, especially people with a preexisting condition." It’s a bittersweet victory, though, because I can’t stop thinking about those child slaves.
Recordings Expose Bolivia Coup Plot
Here’s some retro Reagan-era intrigue! The Intercept reports that a top official in the outgoing Bolivian government plotted to deploy hundreds of mercenaries from the United States to overturn the results of the South American country’s October 2020 election. The aim of the mercenary recruitment was to forcibly block Luis Arce from taking up the presidency for MAS, the party of former Bolivian President Evo Morales. The plot continued even though Arce, a protégé of Morales, trounced a crowded field, winning fifty five percent of first-round votes. Disagreements between ministers and divisions within the armed forces appear to have undermined the plan. It was never executed.
According to the Intercept, Arce’s eventual victory last fall was a stunning rejection of the right-wing shift overseen by coup leader Jeanine Áñez. The Bolivian right wing, however, was not ready to relinquish power. A recorded call with Áñez’s defense minister sketches a coup plot even more flagrant than the one in October 2019. Several of the plotters discussed flying hundreds of foreign mercenaries into Bolivia from a US military base outside Miami. These would join forces with elite Bolivian military units, renegade police squadrons, and vigilante mobs in a desperate bid to keep MAS from returning to power. Two US military sources confirmed that Special Operations had gotten wind of the Bolivia coup plot. But nothing ever came of it, they said. All those out-of-work Yankee mercenaries will just have to wait until the next time a leftist wins a Latin American election.
US Funds Anti-covid Pill Research
This promising health news comes from the New York Times. The US government spent more than $18 billion last year funding drugmakers to make a Covid vaccine, an effort that led to at least five highly effective shots in record time. Now it’s pouring more than $3 billion on a neglected area of research: developing pills to fight the virus early in the course of infection, potentially saving many lives in the years to come. The new program, announced yesterday by the Department of Health and Human Services, will speed up the clinical trials of a few promising drug candidates. If all goes well, some of those first pills could be ready by
the end of the year. The Antiviral Program for Pandemics will also support research on entirely new drugs – not just for the coronavirus, but for viruses that could cause future pandemics.
According to the Times, Doctor Anthony Fauci, a key backer of the program, said he looked forward to a time when Covid-19 patients could pick up antiviral pills from a pharmacy as soon as they develop Covid-19 symptoms. Fauci’s support for research on antiviral pills stems from his own experience fighting AIDS three decades ago. In the 1990s, his institute conducted research that led to some of the first antiviral pills for HIV. Even if the next generation of pills doesn’t arrive for a few years, scientists say the research will be a good investment. Imagine a future where Covid is no big deal. It’s nice!
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
CBS News reports that the House yesterday approved a bill to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force in Iraq, a measure which has the backing of the White House. The bill now goes to the Senate, where Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said he will bring it to the floor for a vote this year. Next we need a bill to make everyone who supported that stupid war publicly apologize.
The Washington Post says today will be a holiday for federal employees following President Joe Biden’s signing yesterday of legislation making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in Texas. Employers who don’t honor this holiday are now officially on notice.
Speaking of Texas: The Associated Press reports that Texas will now let people carry handguns without first getting a background check and training, becoming the latest and largest on a growing list of states to roll back permitting requirements for carrying guns in public. Republican Governor Greg Abbott called it a measure of freedom and self-defense. It’s more like self-harm.
Politico reports that a little-known GOP candidate in Florida was secretly recorded threatening to send a Russian and Ukrainian hit squad to a fellow Republican opponent to make her QUOTE disappear ENDQUOTE. During the call, William Braddock repeatedly warned a conservative activist to not support Anna Paulina Luna in the Republican primary for a Tampa Bay-area congressional seat because he had access to assassins. Look out, Texas – here comes Florida!
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 18, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
A new report says eight million Americans are at imminent risk of getting thrown out of their homes. President Joe Biden could spare them with the stroke of a pen, but he hasn’t yet made a move to do so.
Meanwhile, research shows the country’s richest families have done spectacularly well during the pandemic. That’s in part because they still aren’t paying their fair share of taxes.
And lastly, months after the Capitol insurrection, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers are strapped for cash and bleeding members. Where’s Daddy Trump when you really need him?
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More Americans will be homeless very soon, this report from CBS News suggests. Even as the nation rebounds from the pandemic, more than two million homeowners are behind on their mortgages and risk being forced out of their homes in a matter of weeks, a new Harvard University report warns. Most of the homeowners at risk are either low-income or families of color, said researchers behind the 2021 State of the Nation's Housing report. Congress has dedicated $10 billion to help homeowners get caught up on payments, but it’s unclear if that funding will make it to families before foreclosure notices arrive. Separately, millions more renters are on the brink of eviction, the researchers found. Census data show that six million households are still behind on rent and could face eviction at the end of June, when federal eviction protections expire. The Center for Disease Control order halting some evictions, and federal liminations on foreclosures for federally backed housing, both expire on June 30. Advocates have pushed for the Biden administration to extend both, but there is no indication an extension will happen.
CBS reports that more than seven million homeowners took advantage of the foreclosure moratorium passed as part of the Cares Act last spring. The provision was extended by the Biden White House. As of March 2021, most of those homeowners have started repaying lenders. But that leaves about two point one million still behind on their mortgages. Biden must act now to keep these families, including renters, housed.
Richest Families Gained $136B During Pandemic
This status check on the rich and useless comes from the Guardian. Ten of the US’s richest families, including the Walmart family and the dynasties behind industries including candy and cosmetics, saw their assets balloon over the pandemic, with a shared increase in their combined net worth of over $136 billion in fourteen months. That’s according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies published yesterday. The report details how these families have not only increased their wealth by billions in the last year, but have also worked to ensure the system supports this exponential growth over decades. In 1983 the Walton family, who founded Walmart, were worth $2.15 billion. By the end of 2020, the Waltons had a combined net worth of over $247 billion, an inflation-adjusted increase of four thousand three hundred percent. The wealth of the Mars candy dynasty increased by three thousand five hundred percent over the same period.
According to the Guardian, Chuck Collins, a co-author of the report, said these families weren’t just making more money, they were also getting better at putting it out of reach of taxation. The report outlined several proposals to curb this wealth accumulation, including the Make Billionaires Pay Act, a proposal introduced in 2020 to institute a one-time sixty percent pandemic wealth tax on billionaires. But more must be done, Collins said, to stamp out tax loopholes, offshore tax havens and certain trusts that allow families to hide their wealth. Or we could simply eat the rich.
Proud Boys In Poor Shape
This delicious update on Donald Trump’s loyal foot soldiers comes from the Wall Street Journal. The far-right group the Oath Keepers is splintering after board members accused the founder of spending its money on hair dye, steaks and guns. The leader of the Proud Boys, choked off from the financial system, is printing Black Lives Matter T-shirts to make money. The finances of the two most visible groups with members involved in the January 6th riot at the US Capitol are sputtering. Leaders are low on cash, struggling with defections and arguing over the future. The Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys have seen more than three dozen of their members arrested in connection with January 6th. Within both groups, an escalating crackdown and the departure of Trump from office has spurred new levels of disarray.
The Journal reports that Oath Keepers membership has dropped eighty percent from its peak. The organization had less than $10,000 in its bank account as of April. Bank records show thousands of dollars of Oath Keepers funds spent on goods and services in Montana, where founder Stewart Rhodes lived until recently. That includes $12,000 at an auto-repair shop, $886 at a bar, and $229 at a lingerie shop called Alley Katz Nighties ’N‘ Naughties. The Proud Boys aren’t faring much better. Members have turned to cryptocurrency, local credit unions and alternative payment brokers to replace a mainstream financial system that has largely cut them off. There’s a lesson here, folks: anti-fascist organizing gets results!
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
Politico reports that the US and Russia will return their ambassadors to Moscow and Washington, DC, respectively, following President Joe Biden’s summit with Vladimir Putin yesterday. They concluded their summit, which Putin called constructive, earlier than expected, after about four hours with breaks. Coulda been a Zoom call!
The AP reports that Israeli aircraft carried out a series of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip yesterday. There were no immediate reports of casualties. They were the first such raids since a shaky cease-fire ended the war with Hamas last month. The new Israeli government is not off to a great start.
NBC News reports that Minnesota authorities charged the driver of an SUV that plowed into a protester-filled intersection with second degree murder. The Sunday crash killed one woman and injured another person. Nicholas D. Kraus, thirty five, is jailed on $1 million bail and is scheduled to appear in court today. He has a lot to answer for.
The Associated Press reports that the US Education Department yesterday expanded its interpretation of federal Title Nine sex protections to include transgender and gay students. The move reverses Trump-era policy and stands against anti-transgender proposals in many states. Here’s hoping this new directive holds back the tide of discrimination in those Republican states that are trying their hardest to persecute transgender students.
AM QUCKIE - JUNE 17, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
Nuclear weapons are high up on the agenda as the presidents of the United States and Russia meet today. Former top military commanders and diplomats from both countries have been urging the leaders to cooperate to reduce the size of nuclear arsenals.
Meanwhile, emails just released by House Democrats investigating the January 6th Capitol insurrection show how Donald Trump tried to get the Justice Department to help overturn last November’s election. The details are as loopy as you might imagine.
And lastly, two of the biggest states, New York and California, have lifted many pandemic restrictions thanks to progress in their vaccination campaigns. Covid will be with us for a long time, but public health measures are working, and the return to normalcy is happening just about on schedule.
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This read on the day’s big diplomatic news comes from Politico. Expectations are low that Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin can reach any significant accommodation during their first presidential summit today in Geneva – with one possible exception: nuclear arms control. Washington and Moscow have publicly expressed a desire to use the summit to reestablish formal talks on the issue. In the days leading up to the tense meeting, ex-defense chiefs, foreign ministers and retired nuclear commanders from both nations also proposed a series of steps the two leaders could take to help constrain the world’s deadliest arsenals. Those steps range from a simple pledge to resume regular negotiations, to a more ambitious public commitment to reduce current arsenals as a goodwill gesture.
Politico says no one is banking on detailed agreements to emerge from Geneva. The definition of strategic threats has only grown more complex now that cyber attacks, political warfare and other forms of mischief can destabilize entire nations. But both governments have been striking a similar tone in recent days on the nuclear front, at least rhetorically. National security adviser Jake Sullivan expressed the administration’s desire to get back to a regular dialogue with Moscow on nuclear matters. Sullivan’s comments came a day after
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also hinted at a desire to reach common ground on nuclear issues. The two countries may never agree on some things, but if Biden and Putin can agree to keep a lid on the nukes, that’s no small victory.
Trump Pressured Rosen On Election
This deep dive into Donald Trump’s outbox comes from the Washington Post. Trump’s staff began sending emails to Jeffrey Rosen, the Number Two at the Justice Department, asking him to embrace Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election at least ten days before Rosen assumed the role of acting attorney general. That’s according to new emails disclosed by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. On the same day as the electoral college met to certify the election results, Trump’s assistant sent Rosen an email with a list of complaints concerning the way the election had been carried out in Antrim County, Michigan. The file included a so-called forensic analysis of the Dominion Voting Systems machines the county employed, alleging they were calibrated to create fraudulent results. The claims were false.
According to the Post, the email sheds light on the type of pressure Trump was putting on the Justice Department to take up his crusade against Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. The campaign swiftly accelerated once Rosen was appointed acting attorney general. On January 1st, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows forwarded Rosen a YouTube link. The subject line suggested it was a video in which a retired CIA station chief argued that the 2020 election totals were altered by the Italians. Rosen forwarded the email to his acting deputy, Richard Donoghue, who responded simply: QUOTE Pure insanity ENDQUOTE. So Trump’s flunkies knew his election lies were crazy, but said nothing. More like pure cowardice!
New York, California Lift Restrictions
It’s a mixed bag on the pandemic front. The Associated Press reports that the US death toll from Covid-19 topped six hundred thousand yesterday. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that the vaccination drive has drastically brought down daily cases and fatalities and allowed the country to emerge from the gloom and look forward to summer. The milestone came the same day that California and New York lifted most of their remaining restrictions, joining other states in opening the way, step by step, for what could be a fun and close-to- normal summer for many Americans.
The AP says that with the overall picture improving rapidly, California – the most populous state and the first to impose a coronavirus lockdown – dropped state rules on social distancing and limits on capacity at restaurants, bars, supermarkets, gyms, stadiums and other places. They’re billing it as California’s Grand Reopening, just in time for summer. Disneyland is throwing open its gates. Fans will be able to sit elbow-to-elbow and cheer without masks at Dodgers and Giants games. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo said yesterday that seventy percent of adults in the state have received at least one dose of the vaccine. And he announced that the immediate easing of many restrictions will be celebrated with fireworks. Massachusetts and Kansas yesterday lifted their states of emergency. And Maryland’s governor announced that the emergency there will end on July 1, with the state no longer requiring masks. It’s time for slightly socially anxious barbecues!
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
According to the Washington Post, more than forty million Americans are in the crosshairs of triple-digit heat this week, with some spots soaring over one hundred and twenty degrees. The heat in many areas is dangerous, prompting excessive-heat warnings in seven Western states. So there you go, homebodies: an excuse to stay inside post-vaccination.
Stars and Stripes reports that Connecticut Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal yesterday called on US Army leaders to investigate a QUOTE blood curdling ENDQUOTE news report that found nearly two thousand military firearms went missing during the last decade. An Associated Press investigation found that some of the lost or stolen firearms turned up at the scene of violent crimes. Whoops!
The Los Angeles Times reports that Harvey Weinstein will soon be extradited to California to stand trial on charges that he sexually assaulted five women in LA and Beverly Hills. A New York judge’s ruling yesterday sets the stage for a second trial focused on the mogul’s alleged pattern of sexually abusing actresses and models. That’d make two trials and, let’s see... eighty victims. Sounds like Harvey’s still ahead!
NBC News reports that the manager of a New York City Shake Shack said he was unlawfully detained and taunted by police after he was falsely accused last year of poisoning three officers' milkshakes. The manager, Marcus Gilliam, is now suing members of the New York Police Department, seeking damages for defamation and deprivation. Thank you for your service, Mister Shake Shack Manager, sir.
The New York Times reports that President Biden has named Lina Khan, a prominent critic of Big Tech, as the chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission. Her appointment was a victory for progressive activists who want Biden to take a hard line against big companies. Let's hope she makes Mark Zuckerberg sweat -- I mean, even more than usual.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 16, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday that he wouldn’t even consider letting Biden seat a new Supreme Court Justice if the GOP takes back the Senate in 2022.
Meanwhile, the Biden Administration said that it supports a new resolution to end the 2002 Authorization of Use of Military force.
And lastly, Texas may be headed for another major power crisis as the state’s fragile power grid expects record use in June.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Mitch McConnell has thrown down the gauntlet, and the Democrats are, well, sort of just standing there looking at it.
In an interview on conservative talk radio, McConnell said that if Republicans take back the Senate, he would block any prospective Supreme Court nominee that Biden sent him.
This is not exactly a surprise. McConnell pretended that his resistance to a new nominee would be from his typical election year nonsense, saying that he’d block a nominee in 2024 just like he did in 2016 at the end of the Obama years. But we all know what the score is.
McConnell’s life’s work is the judiciary and he’s done a very good job of securing it for the business-friendly, person-hostile policies of conservatives for generations to come.
But what it does indicate is just how futile any Democratic expectations of bipartisanship have become. It also means that the party has to be looking for 82-year-old Stephen Breyer to retire while there’s still a chance of getting a liberal replacement confirmed.
There’s a permanent solution to all this, of course: packing the court. But McConnell knows that Democrats and liberal justices on the bench already don’t really have the guts. He said this about Justice Breyer, quote:
“I do want to give him a shout-out, though, because he joined what Justice Ginsburg said in 2019 that nine is the right number for the Supreme Court. And I admire him for that. I think even the liberal justices on the Supreme Court have made it clear that court packing is a terrible idea.”
Glad everyone’s on the same page!
Biden Wants to Kill 2002 AUMF
The Biden Administration made a huge announcement on Monday: it formally supports a push by Rep. Barbara Lee to end the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force.
The 2002 AUMF, as it’s called, is the legal document we used to justify invading Iraq. In the years since, it’s been trotted out as evidence that the U.S. can legally engage in all kinds of military activities in the country. It’s a disgrace that it was ever passed, of course, but it’s an even bigger disgrace that it hasn’t been repealed yet, so the fact that it may finally get tossed is a good thing.
However, it doesn’t mean a whole lot as far as U.S. wars overseas go. The Biden Administration’s statement itself notes that quote:
“the United States has no ongoing military activities that rely solely on the 2002 AUMF as a domestic legal basis, and repeal of the 2002 AUMF would likely have minimal impact on current military operations.”
In other words, all of our bombing and killing overseas is going to be just fine.
That’s because the 2002 order isn’t the only AUMF -- there was another one in 2001 after 9/11 that’s even more broad. And in recent years, presidents haven’t even needed the AUMF’s to do what they want -- they’ve been able to pursue narrower military actions at their own discretion thanks to the steady increase in executive power since Bush was elected.
Biden’s statement notes that the administration wants to work with Congress to replace these so-called outdated orders, but it’s pretty clear that its ability to wage war isn’t going to be affected all that much.
Texas Braces for Second Power Crisis
Another power crisis is shaping up in Texas, this time due to the massive summer heatwave rolling through the state.
ERCOT, the state’s energy grid operator, asked customers on Monday to conserve as much energy as possible through, as many of its generators were down for repairs. On top of that, ERCOT estimated that June could see record-breaking demand for power.
This is a very similar situation to the disastrous, deadly outages in Texas this winter, when millions went without power during a brutal cold snap. Now, ERCOT’s customers are once again facing the prospect of blackouts, this time as temperatures spike to over 90 degrees in much of the state. ERCOT is asking Texans to Set thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, turn off lights, and avoid using large appliances until the end of the week.
Those steps might help, but it’s not really the everyday consumer’s job to fix Texas’s hugely unstable energy grid. Austin’s local NPR affiliate reports that experts have warned power problems like this will keep happening unless the state moves away from coal and gas generators and overhauls its wildly deregulated system. Until then, the government is basically forcing regular Texans to bear the heat.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
Meanwhile, a driver plowed into protesters in Minneapolis late on Sunday night, killing one and injuring several others, in a similar attack to the ones that menaced protests last summer. The crowd was protesting the death of Winston Boogie Smith Jr., a 33-year-old Black man, who was killed by U.S. Marshalls on June 3.
President Biden gave his first speech to NATO on Monday. The key issues looming over the Cold War era alliance are Ukraine’s possible entry into the group, especially ahead of Biden’s upcoming summit with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. In his speech, Biden stressed that he wasn’t looking for a confrontation with Putin. We’ll see how that goes!
Reality Winner is out of prison! The former intelligence contractor who was prosecuted for leaking state secrets to the Intercept was released to a halfway house on Monday, her lawyer announced.
A Washington Post analysis found that coronavirus infections are dropping where most people have been vaccinated, and rising where they are not. That may seem obvious, but it underscores just how far some states and communities have to go to keep their constituents safe.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 15, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Jack Crosbie
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
Israel’s far-right, heavily corrupt prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is finally out. He’s been replaced by another far-right tech entrepreneur.
Meanwhile, the normally tight-lipped Apple said it turned over data about Trump’s former White House Counsel Don McGahn.
And lastly, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez went on CNN and dared to point out the biggest flaw in her party’s plans to enact any sort of agenda.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
It finally happened. After 12 years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is out, replaced by a strange government coalition of basically everyone outside of his party in the Israeli government.
But before we get too excited, let’s meet the new Prime Minister. Taking over for Bibi is Naftali Bennett, a former tech entrepreneur whose politics may be just as right wing and reactionary as his predecessor’s.
Bennett has only been in politics about 8 years, and before that made millions in the tech sector. He’s also a former Israeli Commando whose latest post in government was as Minister of Defense, and he’s reportedly bragged about killing Arab people, saying quote: “I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life – and there’s no problem with that.” endquote.
Yeah, sounds like this guy isn’t exactly a step up from Netanyahu. He’s also vehemently supportive of Israel’s colonialist settlers.
Bennett took over thanks to a razor-close vote in Parlaiment authorizing a new government by just one vote, 60 to 59, with one abstention. Bennett’s party itself only holds 7 seats in Parlaiment, and managed to take the top slot by creating an eight-party monster coalition aimed at taking Bibi down.
In other words, none of this is particularly stable, and none of it looks particularly good for the Palestinians still suffering after Netanyahu’s final acts of war against them.
AOC Calls Out Centrist Cronies
The Democrats have a problem -- they all know it, but almost none of them will come out and say it. It’s pretty simple: the Republican-friendly coalition of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are essentially stonewalling any bill that Biden wants to pass.
Naturally, most inter-party criticism falls on the left. Which is why Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was on CNN on Sunday defending progressive’s decision to pre-emptivly reject the centrist infrastructure compromise plan that Manchin and co are putting together.
CNN’s Dana Bash tried to corner Ocasio-Cortez into saying whether or not she’d vote for such a marginal compromise bill, to which Ocasio-Cortez responded; “The thing is, is that this isn't the best that we can get."
Then she launched into one of the few open declarations of what’s actually going on;
"I do think that we need to talk about the elephant in the room which is Senate Democrats blocking crucial items in a Democratic agenda for reasons that I don't think hold a lot of water."
The key point that Manchin and his block are trying to make is that there are ten Republicans who can be convinced to play ball, and that Biden and every Democrat to the left of him should place their policy ambitions in those centrist hands. But as we all know, that’s a myth. AOC knows it too, and said as much: “That doesn't really hold water, particularly when we can't even get 10 senators to support a January 6 commission."
We covered this back when it happened. If Manchin couldn’t get Romney and some of the less-Trumpy GOP to back an inquiry into an attempted coup earlier this year, then only a massive idiot would assume that they’re going to get the GOP’s help passing an infrastructure bill. The Democratic party leadership has to know this too which makes the real question clear: what are they going to do about it?
DOJ's New Privacy Boogaloo
The Trump Administration continues to deliver weird news gifts, even from beyond its political grave. This one comes from the New York Times, which reports that in 2018, the Justice Department subpoenaed data from Apple so it could look into White House Counsel Don McGahn.
The exact reasons behind this decision aren’t clear, and probably have something to do with the complicated mess left behind by Trump’s nebulous associations with Russia. But what’s weird about this case is that the Justice Department kept it secret for over two years, and forbade Apple from telling McGahn about it.
And it fits in to the larger context of what’s been going on in the privacy space in the past few months. We’ve recently learned that Trump’s Justice Department aggressively hunted for leakers, going as far as to try to obtain phone records and other data from reporters for the Times, CNN, and Washington Post.
This is all stuff that Biden’s new Attorney General Merrick Garland is going to have to untangle. And right now it’s not quite clear what side he’s going to come down on. The Biden Administration ordered the DOJ to stop seizing reporter’s email, calling it quote “simply wrong.”
But the New York Times notes that there are still a ton of variables as to what the new rules will look like, as far as who’s protected and who’s considered a journalist. If you remember, The Obama administration was particularly zealous at rooting out leaks, so that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
Joe Biden met with the Queen of England on Sunday and managed to not commit any real social faux pas, only telling her that she reminded him of his mother. Isn’t that nice! What a difference from Trump. At least our good president Biden loves and respects a Monarch, which is really what America is all about if you think about it.
CNN reports that GOP Governors are pushing to end mask mandates in schools, once again blaming government overreach for the policy. Kids under 12 won’t be eligible for the vaccine till about Thanksgiving, so the masks make sense, but of course you can’t tell that to the GOP.
A mysterious auction winner paid more than $28 million to ride to space with Jeff Bezos on July 20, becoming one of the first private space tourists to get ripped off by a billionaire’s vanity project. Congrats to whoever that person is! Have a nice flight!
A bipartisan group of lawmakers released two bills on Friday that could completely overhaul the competition and anti-trust system that let big tech establish world-spanning monopolies. We’ll see how well they fare against the tech giant’s inevitable onslaught of lobbying.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 14, 2021
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:
Child labor is on the rise, and the pandemic is making it worse. A new report by the United Nations puts numbers on a problem that is pervasive, yet hidden to many Americans.
Meanwhile, California’s Democratic leadership gears up for a major courtroom fight over gun control. And Gavin Newsom has nothing at all nice to say about the federal judge who struck down the state’s assault weapons ban.
And lastly, new opinion polling reveals that the world feels way better about the United States now that Donald Trump is no longer in the picture. Can Joe Biden leverage these warm fuzzies for diplomatic advantage on his big international trip?
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
This concerning update on one of the most shameful practices in global capitalism comes from CBS News. The world has marked the first rise in child labor in two decades, the United Nations said yesterday. And the coronavirus crisis threatens to push millions more youngsters into the same fate. In a joint report, the UN’s International Labor Organization and the UN children’s agency UNICEF said there were one hundred and sixty million children laborers at the start of 2020 – an increase of eight point four million in four years. The rise began before the pandemic hit. It marks a dramatic reversal of a trend that had seen child labor numbers shrink by ninety four million between 2000 and 2016, the report said. Children and teens between five and seventeen years old who are forced out of school and into working are considered child laborers.
CBS reports that just as the Covid-19 crisis was beginning to pick up steam, nearly one in ten children globally were stuck in child labor, with sub-Saharan Africa affected most. Even in regions where there has been some headway since 2016, such as Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean, Covid-19 is endangering that progress, the report said. The agencies warned that unless urgent action is taken to help ballooning numbers of families falling into poverty, nearly fifty million more kids could be forced into child labor over the next two years. Sometimes it feels like we’re racing back to the nineteenth century.
California Fights Gun Control Ruling
This report on the struggle for safety from gun violence comes from the Los Angeles Times. California Attorney General Rob Bonta yesterday filed an appeal to a federal court decision that overturned the state’s ban on assault weapons, arguing that the law is needed to protect the safety of Californians. The appeal seeks to reverse last Friday’s decision by US District Judge Roger Benitez, who said the state’s three-decade ban on assault weapons is an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of California gun owners. Newsom, who was elected on a platform that included expanding gun control laws, said, "California’s assault weapons ban has saved lives, and we refuse to let these weapons of war back onto our streets." Newsom criticized Benitez, calling his decision shameful. He said Benitez was a stone-cold ideologue and "a wholly owned subsidiary of the gun lobby."
The Times says the case has implications for gun laws beyond California. Six other states and the District of Columbia followed California in adopting their own assault weapons bans, and Congress enacted a ban in 1994, although it expired ten years later. Though other courts have upheld assault weapon bans, supporters of the gun law worry Benitez’s decision is part of a strategy by the gun lobby to get cases to the US Supreme Court, where appointments by Donald Trump are seen as more sympathetic to Second Amendment arguments. In the meantime, there was another deadly shooting yesterday – three dead in a Florida Publix.
US Image Rebounds Under Biden
This check-up on the national image comes from the Washington Post. President Joe Biden has promised the world that America is back. As he takes his first trip abroad as president, a Pew Research Center global survey released yesterday shows that many believe it. Trust in the US president fell to historic lows in most countries surveyed during Donald Trump’s presidency. Under Biden, it has soared. In the twelve countries surveyed both this year and last, a median of seventy five percent of respondents expressed confidence in Biden to do the right thing regarding world affairs. That’s compared with seventeen percent for Trump last year. Sixty-two percent of respondents now have a favorable view of the United States, versus thirty four percent at the end of Trump’s presidency.
The Post notes that the findings come a day after Biden touched down in England on the first leg of a trip through Europe. On his agenda: a meeting of the Group of Seven nations in Cornwall, a NATO summit in Brussels, and meetings with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Pew findings suggest that he will encounter leaders whose publics are confident in his leadership. But skepticism about the United States’ dependability remains. Among the sixteen publics Pew surveyed in 2021, the proportion of respondents who said the US is very reliable was below twenty percent in every place. Good vibes are always contingent on the outcome of the next elections.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports that police in Frankfurt have decided to disband the city's Special Task Force, or SEK, following the discovery of far-right extremist messages in group chats. Seventeen officers were suspected of spreading hatred-inciting texts and symbols of former Nazi organizations. Hey, maybe they can find jobs in America?
The New York Times reports that famine has afflicted at least three hundred and fifty thousand people in northern Ethiopia’s conflict-ravaged Tigray region. It is a starvation calamity bigger at the moment than anywhere else in the world, the UN and international aid groups said yesterday. And it’s not at all clear whether help is on the way.
CNN reports that the Senate yesterday voted to confirm Zahid Quraishi to be a US District Judge for the District of New Jersey, making him the first Muslim American federal judge in US history. Prior to his confirmation, Quraishi has been serving as a United States magistrate judge in New Jersey. How telling that it took this long to mark such a first.
The Washington Post reports that the Labor Department released a workplace safety standard for risks posed by the coronavirus yesterday after more than a year of debate. The emergency temporary standard will apply only to health-care facilities – a much narrower purview than many advocates, labor unions and Democrats had pushed for. This is a bust for the Biden administration. Every worker deserves protection.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 11, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
-
Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
You can’t stop a worldwide pandemic without an international effort, and the US is about to go big in that regard. The country will be donating not millions, but hundreds of millions of vaccine doses to countries that desperately need them.
Meanwhile, Idaho’s lieutenant governor, who is seeking higher office, is caught on video palling around with a militia leader. It’s just another day for the Republican Party!
And lastly, Joe Biden wants to close Guantanamo Bay by the end of his first term. And he’s taking an approach that’s a little bit different than Barack Obama’s – basically hoping that if they don’t make a fuss about it, maybe the opposition in Congress won’t notice.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Finally we’re talking serious numbers. The Washington Post reports that the Biden administration is buying five hundred million doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to donate to the world, as the United States dramatically increases its efforts to help vaccinate the global population. The first two hundred million doses will be distributed this year, with the rest shared in the first half of next year. The doses will be distributed by Covax, the World Health Organization-backed initiative, and they will be targeted at low- and middle-income countries. Pfizer is selling the doses to the US at a not-for-profit price. President Joe Biden is slated to announce the plan at the Group of Seven meeting in Britain this week amid growing calls for rich countries to do more to boost the global supply of coronavirus vaccine.
According to the Post, the question of how to end the pandemic is expected to be front and center at the G-7 summit this week. In the lead-up to the meeting, Biden’s vaccine-sharing strategy has been under intense scrutiny. Questions about how to proceed have intensified in recent weeks as cases in the United States have receded, and infections have surged in some developing countries, leading to charges of vaccine apartheid. More than half the populations in the US and Britain have had at least one dose, compared with fewer than two percent of people in Africa. It’s a disparity that can only prolong the global pandemic but, fortunately, some powerful people seem to realize that.
Idaho Lt Governor Meets Militia Leader
This snapshot of the far right’s rise comes from the Guardian. Idaho’s Republican lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate, Janice McGeachin, attended a gathering where she was endorsed in a glowing speech by a rightwing militia leader. A video shows Eric Parker, who was charged over his role in the standoff in 2014 at Bundy Ranch in New Mexico, reminding McGeachin that she previously told him, "if I get in, you’re going to have a friend in the governor’s office.". In the same speech, Parker says that when he sought McGeachin’s assistance in the case of Todd Engel – another Bundy Ranch attendee who was sentenced to fourteen years in prison – he showed her sealed evidence from the trial. He recalled saying to her, I’m not sure this is legal, and that she replied, I want to see it. Afterward, she started writing letters to the Justice Department and rallying support on behalf of the imprisoned man.
According to the Guardian, Parker posted the speech video on his Telegram channel on May 19, the same day that McGeachin announced her candidacy for governor, where she may be up against the incumbent, fellow Republican Brad Little. McGeachin has encountered previous controversies involving links with extremist groups. In 2018 she refused to answer questions as to whether she was using Three Percenters as security during her gubernatorial run. She has also offered support to anti-mask protesters in the state. For the new model Republican, there’s no such thing as too extreme.
Biden Plans Guantanamo Bay Closure
Can Joe Biden succeed where Barack Obama failed? NBC News reports that President Biden has quietly begun efforts to close the US military prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He is using an under-the-radar approach to minimize political blowback and to make progress in resolving a long-standing legal and human rights morass before the twentieth anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. After initial plans for a more aggressive push to close the facility, the White House changed course. The administration has opted to wait before it reaches out to Congress, which has thwarted previous efforts to close the camp, because of fears that political outcry might interfere with the rest of Biden's agenda. The administration hopes to transfer a handful of the remaining terrorism suspects to
foreign countries, and then persuade Congress to permit the transfer of the rest – including 9/11 suspects – to detention on the US mainland. Biden hopes to close the facility by the end of his first term.
According to NBC, the low-key strategy is a response to miscalculations that Biden administration officials believe Obama made. The administration is leaning against the option of transferring detainees to US military installations, another shift from the Obama administration's approach. The Biden administration may, instead, propose that any detainees who are not eligible for transfer to foreign countries be moved to so-called Supermax security prisons on the US mainland, notably the one in Florence, Colorado. It’s not justice, but it’s probably better than the status quo.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
CNN reports that the Trump administration battled with the network to obtain the email records of a reporter. The pursuit – which started in July 2020 with a demand for two months’ of Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr’s email logs – continued even after a federal judge told the Justice Department its argument was, 'unanchored in any facts." We’re only finding out now because the government demanded secrecy. Sketchy!
The Washington Post reports that the Biden administration will toss out Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back the number of wetlands that fall under federal protection. Michael Regan, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, said Trump’s rollback is leading to significant environmental degradation. Guess he drained the wrong swamps.
NBC reports that the wife of El Chapo has agreed to plead guilty to helping him run his Mexican drug cartel. Emma Coronel Aispuro, a former beauty queen, will appear by video to enter her plea this morning. So that’s a wrap for the war on drugs, right?
The Associated Press says a Moscow court last night outlawed the organizations founded by Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny by labeling them extremist. The label carries lengthy prison terms for activists who worked with the organizations, anyone who donated to them, and even those who simply shared the groups’ materials. Maybe Biden can sort this out when he meets with Vladimir Putin in Geneva next week, ya think?
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 10, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
-
Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
A groundbreaking report from ProPublica shines a light on how the worlds’ richest people are avoiding paying taxes.
Meanwhile, leftist teacher Pedro Castillo has a narrow lead in Peru’s presidential election, while his right-wing opponent is making wild claims of fraud.
And lastly, the United Mine Workers strike is in its third month, and workers on the picket line have weathered physical attacks while the media and Biden Administration stays silent.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Nonprofit investigative outlet Propublica got its hands on the scoop of the year so far, showing us the dirty details of how billionaires hide their wealth and avoid paying taxes.
That may sound like a familiar refrain, but the data involved is stuff we’ve never seen before. Propublica says the massive trove of IRS data was provided to them in a raw, unedited form, and the story out on Tuesday is the product of weeks of careful editing and reporting.
The data shows that Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Michael Bloomberg and many other billionaires often pay precisely zero dollars in federal income taxes, despite their massive net worth.
Propublica reports that they gleaned this through the massive dump of data, which shows not just tax records but investments, stock trades, gambling winnings and even the results of audits.
Put together, it tells a story that we all know: that these people are not paying their fair share. For years, though, that’s been an easy truth for many in government to avoid, which is why reporting like this is so vital. Already, it’s reignited calls from Elizabeth Warren and other prominent politicians to institute a wealth tax, which would put a tax on any person’s total net worth, not just their income.
It’s almost a given that these billionaires would seek ways to get out of that too. But the fact is right now, they don’t even have to try.
Peruvian Leftist In Lead for Presidency
A huge presidential election is underway in Peru. Voting ended on Sunday, but the margin is razor thin as results continue to filter in.
Right now, though, there’s good news: the leftist candidate, a teacher named Pedro Castillo, is up by roughly 70,000 votes.
His opponent, of course, is crying fraud. Her name is Keiko Fujimori, and she’s the daughter of Peru’s last right-wing dictator, who is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for his role in civilian massacres. You can see how this race is shaping up already.
Analysts told the Guardian that Fujimori’s fraud claims were an act of desperation. International observers did not report any irregularities in the election. It’s worth noting that Fujimori has been accused of various counts of campaign corruption, similar to her father.
Castillo, meanwhile, is the former leader of Peru’s teachers union. He’s currently the top candidate in the Peru Libre party, which has pretty strong marxist policies that favor widespread resource nationalisation, higher taxes, and import substitution, according to the Guardian. Castillo has also pledged to rewrite the Peruvian constitution in a more equitable way, which the Guardian reports has terrified the country’s elite.
All these themes should sound familiar by now -- so fingers crossed Castillo becomes the latest big winner for the global left wing.
Warrior Met Workers Weather Attacks on Strike
We touched on this yesterday, but there’s a story in Alabama that deserves a closer look. For the past two months and change, 1100 workers at two coal mines owned by a company called Warrior Met have been on strike, as their union battles a management force that seems prepared to do anything to break them down.
The miners are represented by the United Mine Workers, which was forced to make huge concessions when mining companies started to go bankrupt a few years back. But now, as the coal industry has recovered some post pandemic, the workers are still living on a razor’s edge.
So they did what organized labor has done for centuries: they stopped working. But now the UMA says that Warrior Met is pulling out the stops to break the strike, including in at least three instances hitting striking workers with vehicles driven by people associated with the company’s management.
In the Week magazine on Tuesday, writer Ryan Cooper made a great point: where is Joe Biden on this? When Amazon was brutally suppressing a Union campaign in the same state, Biden released at least some acknowledgement of labor’s right to organize there. But when it comes to coal, the Biden Administration is silent, even though the barest mention of the Warrior Met workers could drive a huge amount of attention to their plight.
Keep an eye on this story this week -- with any luck, it’ll start getting some traction in the wider media.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
The confusion we’re all feeling with the Democratic party isn’t unique to the left. NBC News reports that a survey of new democratic focus groups found that many voters quote "have trouble describing a clear positive vision of what the Democratic Party stands for.” endquote. That’s on the party leadership, and they’re running out of excuses fast.
French President Emmanuel Macron got slapped -- yes, slapped in the face -- by a protester during a public appearance on Tuesday morning. Heads of state feeling the heat! Imagine that.
We’ve got a very odd tidbit in the New York City Mayoral Race today: it’s unclear to anyone where Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams actually lives, and Politico reports that he’s often seen arriving at his office at midnight or in the early morning. He said he was living in his office earlier in the year to combat COVID-19, and may have just... continued to do so while campaigning. Bit strange, but ok!
And finally, a small point of well, not hope, but who knows. The Intercept reports that Republican Senators aren’t sure that Joe Manchin’s infuriating defense of the filibuster will hold, meaning that if his GOP overlords are nervous, there might be a chance that someone in the Democratic party can get through to him. We’ll see!
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 9, 2021
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:
Pipeline protesters seized a key construction site and carried out numerous acts of civil disobedience on Monday in an attempt to slow down the construction of the Line 3 pipeline route across Minnesota.
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris gets back in touch with her roots as a cop, delivering a staunch warning in Guatemala to any people there who would dare to try to make a better life for themselves in the United States.
And lastly a new report from Motherboard shows that Amazon’s furniture delivery service is causing chaos for the company’s already under-paid and over-worked drivers.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
A new major pipeline protest is underway in Minnesota, where native-led activists are trying to halt the construction of the Line 3 project between that state and Canada.
The project is owned by a Canadian oil company called Enbridge. On Monday, the Washington Post reports that dozens of cars filled with activists had descended on a construction site operated by the company.
They were led by a group of native american activists, and were joined by celebrities like Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener, who rallied the crowd as some protesters strapped themselves to bulldozers and other equipment.
Fonda said quote: “Biden has taken a very clear and very beautiful position on the climate crisis. But we are really facing a potential catastrophe, and the science is very clear: it’s not enough to do something good here ——like shutdown Keystone XL, shut down drilling on the Arctic national refuge ——and then allow Line 3 to go through.” endquote.
And in practice, the Biden administration’s point was a whole lot less beautiful. Reporters on the ground caught video of a Department of Homeland Security Helicopter dangerously buzzing another group of protesters on the ground at a pumping station, trying to use the backwash from its rotors to scare off activists.
According to the Post, the indigenous activists leading the campaign see two threats from the pipeline: the existential risk of climate change, and the direct risk of the pipeline polluting tribal lands in the headwaters of the Mississippi River.
If Monday’s demonstrations are any indication, they’re willing to fight to keep it from happening.
Kamala the Cop Goes Abroad
Kamala the cop is back. The Vice President is down on her first international trip, playing enforcer for Joe Biden’s new immigration policies in Guatemala.
She came with a carrot before the stick, of course. Harris was acting as the ambassador of a four year plan to send more than $4 billion dollars to Central America and Mexico in an attempt to improve the economic hardships that drive mass immigration to the U.S.
According to the New York Times, this money will go toward things like investing in young women entrepreneurs and creating an anti-corruption task force for the region.
That’s all well and good, but Kamala was equally clear when she laid out what will happen to those people who don’t place their faith in nebulous U.S. aid, and instead seek refuge in the country by any means necessary.
Harris said: "Do not come. Do not come. The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border.” Later, she added quote: “I believe if you come to our border, you will be turned back.”
While there are some differences between how that kind of policy will play out under Biden, the core message that VP Harris is delivering sounds pretty familiar: it’s the same one we’ve been hearing for the past four years.
Amazon Forces Drivers to Build Furniture
Another day, another scoop by Motherboard on the dystopian Amazon beat. Today, the website reports that Amazon has made an unexpected foray into furniture assembly in order to crowd out other retailers that offer similar services.
Motherboard reports that as a result, untrained delivery drivers are being made to lug bulky items into customers houses and then assemble them, all on a timeframe that they say is wildly unrealistic for what’s expected.
To make matters all the more absurd, Motherboard also obtained the training video for this service, which is a strange cartoon narrated by a monotonous robot featuring robotic workers who deliver lines like quote: “Thanks so much for choosing us! Could you confirm you are satisfied with this delivery and service?” endquote.
Meanwhile, here’s what an actual human driver told Motherboard QUOTE:
"It has been an [EFFING] challenge. It always takes much longer than they allow for. The times they give feel completely random and way off. And there's been absolutely no training whatsoever. They just said you're going to do this."
And as we well know by now, it’s almost impossible to argue with Amazon.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
While his workers are suffering, Jeff Bezos announced that he’s going to space. The billionaire plans to be one of the crew on the first manned flight of a Blue Origin spacecraft in mid July. Good luck up there, Jeff! We’ll all be very interested to see how that flight goes.
Scientists from Scripps and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Monday that atmospheric CO2 levels peaked in May, despite the slowdown in fossil fuel use during the pandemic. Not even that respite was enough to stem the constant buildup of CO2.
Something to watch later this week: the New York Times reports that the Senate is preparing to pass a massive package of industrial policy legislation with bipartisan support, aimed at keeping the U.S. competitive with China. It’s amazing what handouts to corporate interests and xenophobic jingoism can do to break the Washington gridlock!
The United Mine Workers say that the bosses at Warrior Met Coal have stepped up their physical attacks on striking workers at coal mines in Alabama, on three separate instances hitting picketers with vehicles, in a shocking display of aggression against organized labor.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 8, 2021
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:
Senator Joe Manchin announced on Sunday that he would vote against the For the People Act, the Democrats’ landmark voting rights legislation, because it was too partisan.
Meanwhile, Israeli police detain two Palestinian journalists who had been documenting the ongoing aggressive takeover of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
And lastly, vaccination rates in the U.S. are declining again, forcing a massive outreach program to meet President Biden’s goal of 70% vaccinated by July 4.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Joe Manchin has abandoned all pretense of working for the Democratic party. On Sunday, in an op-ed for the Charleston Gazette, the supposedly Democratic Senator said he would vote against his party’s landmark voting rights legislation, effectively dooming its chances of becoming a law.
Manchin’s reasoning was as absurd as you’d expect. He called the bill, known as the For the People Act, too partisan. His evidence for this was that it had failed to attract a single Republican vote of support. It’s obvious why this was: Republicans know that they won’t win elections if the For the People Act is passed, because voter suppression is the only play they have.
On some level, Manchin must know this. But in the same op-ed, he also vowed to never vote against the filibuster, which makes his stance perfectly clear: he wants to hold his own party hostage to his own misguided agenda.
Manchin indicated that he would support another voting rights bill, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement act, that doesn’t go as far as the For the People Act. But without an end to the filibuster, Manchin knows that bill doesn’t have much of a chance of passing either. It’s enough to make you wonder which party he’s really working for.
Israel Arrests Palestinian Journalists
Israeli police on Sunday detained two Palestinian journalists who have been documenting the forced colonization of their homes since they were children.
Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd are twin siblings who live in Sheikh Jarrah, the neighborhood at the center of last month’s initial conflict between Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents. Their family home is one of those targeted for eviction by Israeli court orders, and the El-Kurd twins have been documenting the case and their lives under Israeli occupation since they were kids, amassing a considerable following on social media.
On Sunday, Israeli officers arrested and handcuffed Muna at her home, while Mohammed turned himself in after receiving a summons. The police claimed Muna had participated in a riot in the community recently, which is as thin and nebulous of an accusation as it sounds.
They were released hours later. Muna El-Kurd said in a statement on the Sheikh Jarrah Instagram page quote: "It's clear that these are policies to silence people, policies to pressure and scare people.” endquote.
The El-Kurds aren’t the first journalists targeted in recent days. On Saturday, Israeli police violently arrested Al Jazeera correspondent Givara Budeiri as she covered a sit-in marking the 54th anniversary of Israel's 1967 occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. She was later released but with an absurd condition: that she not report on the situation in Sheikh Jarrah for at least 15 days. If that’s not direct suppression of the press, I don’t know what is.
Vaccination Rates Take a Dive
Finally, the Washington Post reports that Joe Biden’s vaccination blitz is not looking very blitz-like at the moment.
The United States is averaging fewer than 1 million shots per day, a decline of more than two-thirds from the peak of 3.4 million in April, the Post reports. Biden wanted to have 70 percent of all adults vaccinated by July 4th, but that’s looking less and less likely by the day.
In response, the Post reports that the government and local health clinics are deploying small armies of health workers and volunteers at vaccination sites, often out-numbering the people who come to get the shot.
Vaccination rates are falling across the South and Midwest, despite good numbers from the big cities on the East and West Coast. The Post reports that this steep decline began in mid-April, right when the government temporarily suspended the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while they probed rare blood-clotting reactions.
The group that still needs the vaccine is, predictably, the people who are most resistant to it or the worst educated about it. That puts the burden of public health on the government to reach these people, but based on the current numbers, Biden’s campaign is falling way short.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
Did you miss him? Donald Trump held one of his first public speeches in months in North Carolina on Saturday. You’ll never guess what he talked about: conspiracies, voter fraud, and far-right talking points. That’s what we have to look forward to for a long time to come.
The White House says that 31 million Americans now have healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act. That’s nice and all, but there are almost 330 million people in this country, and all of them deserve healthcare.
The New York Times reports that the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is predictably hindering the country’s other efforts to wage war in the region, like impeding CIA efforts to continue carrying out clandestine operations. It’s a good reminder that troop withdrawals are only the tip of our country’s monumental iceberg of war.
Global leaders agreed to the Biden administration’s proposed tax plan over the weekend, giving the green light to a mandatory 15 percent minimum tax rate on corporate profits, regardless of where those companies base their headquarters.
JUN 7, 2021 - AM QUCKIE
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:
There’s a new scandal nipping at the heels of Donald Trump’s favorite Postal Service bureaucrat, Louis DeJoy. And – bad news for him – it involves the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Meanwhile, a United Nations report from Libya reveals that, possibly for the first time, a drone powered by artificial intelligence selected, pursued and attacked human targets – all on its own. That’ll be enough about the wonders of technology, thanks.
And lastly, the Biden administration is stepping up US shipments of coronavirus vaccines to foreign countries in a big way. It’s an overdue but welcome measure to fight the virus in places where it’s still spreading out of control.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
He’s one of Trump’s last holdovers, but maybe not for long. The Washington Post reports that the FBI is investigating Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in connection with campaign fundraising activity involving his former business. FBI agents in recent weeks interviewed current and former employees of DeJoy and the business, asking questions about political contributions and company activities. Prosecutors also issued a subpoena to DeJoy himself. A DeJoy spokesman confirmed the investigation but insisted DeJoy had not knowingly violated any laws. The inquiries could signal legal peril for the controversial head of the nation’s mail service – though DeJoy has not been charged with any crimes. Asked yesterday whether President Joe Biden believed DeJoy should step down, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden would leave the process to the Department of Justice.
The Post says DeJoy – who was appointed to run the Postal Service by its board of governors last May – has been dogged by controversy for almost his entire time in office. Soon after starting in the job, he imposed cost-cutting moves that mail carriers blamed for creating backlogs across the country. Democrats accused the prominent GOP fundraiser, who personally gave more than $1.1 million to Trump’s reelection campaign and the Republican
Party, of trying to undermine his own organization because of Trump’s distrust of mail-in voting. And they were totally right about that. But it seems it’ll be other, previously hidden misdeeds that bring down this dastardly saboteur. Hey, whatever does the trick.
UN Report: AI Drone Attacked Humans
This preview of the next Terminator movie comes from the New York Times. A military drone that attacked soldiers during a battle in Libya’s civil war last year may have done so without human control, according to a recent report commissioned by the United Nations. The drone, which the report described as a lethal autonomous weapons systems, was powered by artificial intelligence. It was used by forces backed by the government based in Tripoli, the capital, against enemy militia fighters as they ran away from rocket attacks. The fighters were hunted down and remotely engaged by the drone, according to the report. It did not say whether there were any casualties or injuries. The weapons systems, it said, were "programmed to attack targets without requiring data connectivity between the operator and the munition: in effect a true fire, forget and find capability.: The Kargu-2 was built by STM, a defense company based in Turkey.
The Times says the report has been sent to a UN sanctions committee for review. The drone, a Kargu-2, was used as soldiers tried to flee. Once in retreat, they were subject to continual harassment from the drone, according to the report, which was written by the UN Panel of Experts on Libya. Zachary Kallenborn, a researcher who studies drone warfare at the University of Maryland, said the report suggested that for the first time, a weapons systems with artificial intelligence capability operated autonomously to find and attack humans. What a landmark. Oh boy.
Biden Boosts Overseas Vaccine Shipments
This global pandemic update comes from the Associated Press. President Biden announced yesterday that the US will donate a first tranche of twenty five million doses of surplus vaccine overseas through the UN-backed Covax program. The donation promises infusions for South and Central America, Asia, Africa and others at a time of glaring shortages abroad and more than ample supplies at home. The doses mark a substantial – and immediate – boost to the lagging Covax effort, which to date has shared just seventy six million doses with needy countries. The announcement came just hours after World Health Organization officials in Africa made a new plea for vaccine sharing because of an alarming situation on the continent, where shipments have ground to a near halt while virus cases have spiked.
The AP says that overall, the White House has announced plans to share eighty million doses globally by the end of June. Of the first nineteen million donated through Covax, approximately six million doses will go to South and Central America, seven million to Asia and five million to Africa. The remaining six million in the initial distribution will be directed to US allies and partners. In a statement, Biden said, "As long as this pandemic is raging anywhere in the world, the American people will still be vulnerable. And the United States is committed to bringing the same urgency to international vaccination efforts that we have demonstrated at home.". Remember, this isn’t over until it’s over everywhere.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
The Guardian reports that the Ethiopian government has brushed aside international calls for a ceasefire in the province of Tigray, saying its forces will soon eliminate all armed opposition. The UN said earlier this week that more than ninety percent of people in Tigray need emergency food aid. Between the starvation and the atrocities, it’s a true horrorshow.
ABC News reports that workers at a South Dakota meatpacking plant that became a coronavirus hotspot last year are considering a strike after contract negotiations between Smithfield Foods and the union have stalled. The Sioux Falls chapter of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union said workers have risked their health and lives throughout the pandemic, arguing the company should do more for its employees. Who can argue?
According to Politico, federal prosecutors are examining whether Representative Matt Gaetz obstructed justice during a phone call he had with a witness in the sex-crimes investigation of the Florida congressman. The obstruction inquiry stems from a phone call the witness had with Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend. At some point during the conversation, the ex-girlfriend patched Gaetz into the call. Awkward!
The AP reports that George P. Bush this week launched his next political move: a run for Texas attorney general in 2022. Bush, who has served as Texas’ land commissioner since 2015, is the son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. He is the last of the Bush family still in public office. Now that’s worth a good clap.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 4, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
-
Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
Democrats including President Joe Biden are losing patience with Senator Joe Manchin. He’s waffling on supporting a nationwide voting rights package that could be crucial to the party’s electoral future.
Meanwhile, cleanup and containment efforts are underway off the coast of Sri Lanka, where a sinking container ship threatens environmental disaster. The beaches are suffocated with tiny plastic pellets, and now there are worries about an oil spill, as well.
And lastly, the evidence is in on the effects of the stimulus checks that went out to Americans earlier this year, and guess what – they really helped people! It looks like there’s something to the old saying that the problem with poor people is that they don’t have enough money.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
This spotlight on a weak link in the ruling Congressional coalition comes from the Washington Post. Democratic leaders and activists are stepping up pressure on Senator Joe Manchin to support legislation to fight Republican-led voting restrictions across the country. Party officials are concluding that the battle over voting rights could come down to what the centrist Democrat from West Virginia does. In a rare show of public frustration with his own party on Tuesday, President Biden appeared to lash out at Manchin when he accused a pair of unnamed senators of aligning too closely with Republicans and stalling efforts to pass sweeping voting standards. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer recently announced that his chamber would vote this month on a House-passed elections bill co-sponsored by every Democratic senator except Manchin – a move that would force Manchin to pick a side. Even some of Manchin’s Democratic colleagues are beginning to prod him more aggressively to join their cause, while activists and civil rights leaders are loudly decrying his hesitation.
According to the Post, Manchin has said his overriding concern is a lack of bipartisan support for the measure. But Democrats increasingly see an existential threat from Republican-led state governments determined to place new limits on voting, which critics say would disproportionately affect voters of color, a core part of the Democratic coalition. One
Democratic congressional aide said panic is the right word to describe the mood in the party. By all rights, though, Manchin is the one who should be sweating.
Sri Lanka Faces Environmental Disaster
This is just tragic. NBC News reports that a cargo ship laden with chemicals sank yesterday after nearly two weeks ablaze off the west coast of Sri Lanka, worsening fears of a major environmental disaster. The vessel has already left the country’s coastline covered in tons of plastic pellets and now threatens to spill oil into its rich fishing waters. The government has banned fishing, a crucial industry, along fifty miles of coast in the wake of the incident. Authorities have also deployed hundreds of soldiers to clean affected beaches and warned residents not to touch the debris because it could be contaminated with harmful chemicals. Where there was once gold sand and coconut trees, there is now a sea of plastic waste.
A Sri Lankan Navy spokesman told NBC News yesterday that an effort to tow the ship into deeper waters was not successful and had to be abandoned halfway through. Silva said there was water inside the ship and their main concern was the possibility of an oil spill, although they had not yet observed any oil slicks. The fire-ravaged ship was transporting one thousand four hundred and eight six containers, including twenty five tons of nitric acid, along with other chemicals and cosmetics. As the fire was being extinguished, flaming containers laden with chemicals had fallen from the ship's deck or broken open on the deck, spilling their cargo into the sea. It shows how our economic system sometimes does damage that cannot be undone.
Stimulus Checks Reduced Hunger, Anxiety
This social science deep dive comes from the New York Times. In offering Americans two rounds of stimulus checks in the past six months, totaling $2,000 a person, the government effectively conducted a huge experiment in safety net policy. A new analysis of Census Bureau surveys argues that the two latest rounds of aid significantly improved Americans’ ability to buy food and pay household bills and reduced anxiety and depression. The largest benefits went to the poorest households and those with children. The analysis offers the fullest look at hardship reduction under the stimulus aid. Among households with children, reports of food shortages fell forty two percent from January through April. A broader gauge of financial instability fell forty three percent. Among all households, frequent anxiety and depression fell by more than twenty percent. The largest declines in measures of hardship coincided with the $600 checks that reached most people in January and the $1,400 checks mostly distributed in April.
According to the Times, the aggressive use of stimulus checks coincides with growing interest in broad cash payments as a tool in social policy. The evidence that they can have an immediate effect on the economic strains afflicting many households could influence that debate. Starting in July, the government will mail up to $300 a month per child to most families in a yearlong expansion of the child tax credit that Democrats want to make permanent. But this research raises another question: Why not two grand for everyone, every month?
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
CNN reports that the US military has apologized after soldiers accidentally stormed a factory in Bulgaria during a training exercise last month. The factory produces machinery for making olive oil. Luckily, no weapons were fired. Bulgarian President Rumen Radev condemned the incident and said he expects there will be an investigation. It’s like a Three Stooges routine about US imperialism.
According to the Guardian, the climate crisis is causing a widespread fall in oxygen levels in lakes across the world, suffocating wildlife and threatening drinking water supplies. A study, published in the journal Nature, analysed data collected from nearly four hundred lakes worldwide. Humanity is really doing a number on marine life, maybe we should ease up.
The Associated Press reports that the NFL yesterday pledged to halt the use of race- norming – which assumed Black players started out with lower cognitive function – in the $1 billion settlement of brain injury claims. The league will also review past scores for any potential race bias. More than two thousand NFL retirees have filed dementia claims, but fewer than six hundred have received awards. And this racist policy was one reason why.
The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump’s blog, celebrated by advisers as a beacon of freedom that would keep him relevant, is dead. It was twenty nine days old. Upset by reports highlighting its measly readership, Trump ordered his team Tuesday to put the blog out of its misery. My kingdom for a verified Twitter account!
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 3, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
-
Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
Last time it was an oil pipeline, this time it’s meat processors. Another cyberattack has thrown global commerce into chaos.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is getting ready to make his return to the rally circuit, on behalf of loyal Republican candidates in several states. We knew this day would come, but for decency’s sake, we wish it could’ve waited a while longer.
And lastly, President Joe Biden is on the diplomatic circuit trying to persuade other countries to raise taxes on multinational corporations. The basic idea is, if everyone does it at once, there will be nowhere for the tax dodgers to hide.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Hold the beef. No, really. The beef is on hold until further notice. Bloomberg News reports that a cyberattack on JBS, the largest meat producer globally, has forced the shutdown of some of world’s largest slaughterhouses. There are signs that the closures are spreading. JBS’s five biggest beef plants in the US – which handle twenty three thousand cattle a day – have halted processing following a weekend attack on the company’s networks. Those outages alone have wiped out nearly a fifth of America’s production. Slaughter operations across Australia were also down. One of Canada’s largest beef plants was idled. But it’s unclear exactly how many plants globally have been affected by the attack. The prospect of more extensive shutdowns is already upending agricultural markets and raising concerns about food security as hackers increasingly target critical infrastructure.
Bloomberg says the White House has offered assistance to JBS. The company notified the Biden administration on Sunday of a cyberattack from a criminal organization likely based in Russia. Biden has directed the administration to mitigate the impact on the meat supply. Any substantial disruption in meat processing would further stoke mounting political concerns about the concentration of the meat industry. Four giant companies control more than eighty percent of US beef processing. Rural lawmakers recently pressed the Justice Department for action on an anti-trust investigation of the beef industry launched last year. There’s nothing like a massive ransomware attack to bring home the dangers of unchecked corporate consolidation! At least some cows are happy.
Trump To Hold Rallies Again
Did you miss him? Neither did we. NBC News reports that Donald Trump returns to the electoral battlefield Saturday as the marquee speaker at the North Carolina Republican Party’s state convention. He plans to follow up with several more rallies in June and July to keep his base engaged in the 2022 midterms and give him the option of seeking the presidency again in 2024. While his schedule isn't set, his coming stops are likely to include efforts to help Ohio congressional candidate Max Miller, a former White House aide looking to win a primary against Representative Anthony Gonzales, who voted to impeach Trump; Jody Hice, who is trying to unseat fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger as Georgia secretary of state, after Raffensperger defied Trump; and Alabama Senate candidate Mo Brooks.
Democrats are also looking ahead to the midterms. Politico reports that with their fragile House majority on the line, many Democrats are imploring their colleagues not to take the bait after last November’s referendum on Trump ended up costing their party a dozen seats. Instead, those Democrats are eager to deploy a policy-heavy playbook to help stave off a potential midterm whipping. Some in the party are contending that their midterm strategy should resemble that of 2018 – when their party netted forty seats to wrest back the majority. That year, Democratic candidates pummeled their GOP opponents on health care, rather than Trump, and it worked. Besides, Donald Trump won’t be the ballot – and Joe Biden’s honeymoon will be long over.
Biden Pitches Global Tax Hike
This look at a possible global corporate tax crackdown comes from the Washington Post. Finance ministers from Group of Seven nations meeting in London on Friday are expected to back President Biden’s call for a global minimum tax on corporate profits. The new minimum tax is designed to halt a cycle of corporate tax-cutting that has sapped government revenue around the globe. Biden catalyzed the debate in late May by proposing a worldwide minimum tax of at least fifteen percent, which was lower than many tax specialists had expected. If he can secure agreement from the world’s leading democracies, it could produce the most significant global tax shift in decades. Putting a floor beneath multinationals’ tax bills in other countries would help the president raise the corporate rate at home to twenty eight percent.
The Post says that along with opposition from corporate lobbyists, additional obstacles loom, including objections from low-tax countries such as Ireland, as well as likely noncompliance from China and Russia. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said the goal is to make sure multinationals are paying their fair share. The president also aims to shrink the role that tax calculations play in corporate investment decisions. Even without action by other nations, the Biden administration expects to reap more than $533 billion over the next decade by reducing incentives for US corporations to shift assets abroad. Corporate taxes could always be higher, but it took generations for them to get so low. This is welcome news.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
The New York Times reports that the the Biden administration yesterday suspended oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that were issued in the waning days of the Trump administration. Arctic tribal leaders who have protested oil drilling praised the move. Let’s hope the new rule sticks around longer than the next presidential election.
Politico reports that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis yesterday signed into law a policy banning transgender athletes from playing girls and women’s sports. Democrats disavow the policy, claiming it’s unwarranted, fuels transphobia and discriminates against transgender students. Of course, for Republicans like DeSantis, those are the selling points.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the state of Arizona is preparing to execute inmates on death row using Zyklon B, the same gas used by the Nazis in death camp gas chambers. The Arizona corrections department has spent more than $2,000 on the ingredients required to make the deadly gas. The Republican-controlled state has not carried out any executions since 2014, but they are now working towards reinstating capital punishment. Yikes.
CNN reports that Nike and other major sponsors have come out in support of tennis star Naomi Osaka following her decision to withdraw from the French Open. Announcing her decision to withdraw, she revealed that she has suffered long bouts of depression since winning her first Grand Slam title in 2018. It’s quite a moment of visibility and acceptance for everyone suffering from mental illness. Which, in pandemic times, is pretty much everyone.
AM QUICKIE - JUNE 2, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
-
Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
Texas Democrats staged a late-night walkout in the state’s capitol to briefly block the local GOP’s sweeping voter suppression bill, but the fight is far from over.
Meanwhile, the New York Times obtained documents showing how Joe Biden is attempting to overhaul the country’s immigration system.
And lastly, Colombia’s government ramps up its attacks on protesters and deploys thousands of troops to combat a social movement against police brutality and income inequality, while the U.N. calls for an end to the violence.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
The battle for voting rights in America is boiling over in Texas. The GOP there has passed one of the most restrictive voting bills we’ve seen this far, and the state’s minority Democratic caucus is doing everything in their power to stop it actually becoming a law.
Texas’s embattled Democrats did everything they could to slow down the bill in the State Senate, where it was eventually passed on Sunday.
It then went to the House, with a looming legislative deadline attached. At around 10:35 on Sunday evening, the leader of the State House Democratic Caucus told all his members to just pick up and leave the building. This move deprived the Republicans of the minimum number of members needed to start a vote and forced the House Speaker to adjourn the session around 11 p.m.
Even though the GOP would have won that vote on party lines, the Democrats realized they could run out the clock by simply refusing to play, and therefore throw a big wrench in the Republican’s voter suppression plans.
Now, Governor Gregg Abbott says he’ll call a special legislative session, which will give the GOP another chance to pass a similar bill. They’ll have to start over, but could just cannibalize the old bill or even make it worse.
But still, the Texas Democrats fight this weekend is an example of how difficult the Democrats should be making this kind of thing across the country. There are similar voter suppression bills being voted on or already passed in over half a dozen other states around the country already, and it’s going to take a lot more political hardball to shut them down, especially as federal efforts to ensure the right to vote are moving at a glacial pace.
Biden Immigration Plans Leak
The New York Times has obtained 46-page draft of President Biden’s prospective plan to reform the United States’ immigration system.
According to the Times’ the Clif notes version of this plan is pretty promising. Biden wants to make everything simpler, with shorter forms, fewer security hoops, and more chances for families to join one another and secure work visas.
He wants to clear the Trump-era backlog of immigration applications and generally expand the legal immigration process in all the ways that Trump crushed it, particularly by letting in more asylum seekers and granting more work visas.
The Times reports that most of Biden’s plans can be put in place without going through Congress, which means they’ll skip the chaotic gridlock that dominates our national legislature at the moment. The White House didn’t comment on the Times story, but hopefully they’ll have some public plans out soon.
All of this is good, and should be expected after the utter barbarism of the Trump administration. But we’ve got to take it with a grain of salt: this is still just reform of a system that has failed so many needy people.
The Times story at least doesn’t mention some of the more progressive immigration policies advocates have been pushing for for years, like pathways to citizenship for currently undocumented people. For that, Biden will likely have to navigate the gauntlet on Capitol Hill.
Colombia Protests Get Bloodier
Protests in the Colombian city of Cali, and across the country, have intensified in recent days, after President Ivan Duque ordered 7,000 troops to the city.
The resulting violence has killed 14 protesters since May 28, and injured 98, the majority of which were shot by the government’s guns, according to the U.N.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights voiced “deep concern” over the situation and called for an end to the violence, which is about par for the course when a country starts shooting its own citizens in the street.
The current protest movement in Colombia has been running for most of May, after tensions over pandemic-era tax reforms spiraled into mounting protests against police brutality. The New York Times reports that Colombia’s police forces have been heavily militarized for decades due to their clashes with guerilla groups and drug cartels, but when domestic protests broke out, those guns were turned on ordinary people.
At least 42 people have died since the protests began, including the 14 that were killed just this weekend. The country’s leadership under Duque, meanwhile, has denied that police brutality is a widespread problem. The death tolls and grieving families there make that kind of talk pretty hard to swallow.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
Israel’s always confusing, often corrupt government appears to be headed toward a parliamentary compromise that would oust Benjamin Netanyahu from power. There only problem is his likely successor would be either an ultra-nationalist who has boasted of killing Arabs or a centrist former TV host. Not the greatest options there.
China announced on Sunday that it would allow its citizens to have up to three children, further relaxing the country’s long standing restrictive child policies amid nationwide worries of population decline. But the New York Times reports that experts say the new policies don’t do enough to actually help people raise families, noting the lack of child care and workplace protections for mothers.
The Washington Post reports that finance ministers from each of the G-7 countries are expected to back Biden’s push for a global minimum tax on corporate products during a meeting in London on Friday. This will be one to watch over the next few weeks, as Biden’s facing an uphill fight to get corporations to pay even a shred of what they owe to the people who create their riches.
And finally, the Biden administration announced on Monday that Biden’s new direct cash payments for childcare benefits will start hitting parents’ bank accounts as early as July 15, giving a much-needed boost for many families as we emerge from the pandemic.
AM QUICKIE - June 1, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Jack Crosbie
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
The Biden administration will today unveil its biggest and sure to be most controversial proposal yet – for a $6 trillion federal budget. And from child care to electric vehicles, there’s a lot in there for Republicans to cry over.
Meanwhile, the United Nations is launching an unprecedented, open-ended inquiry into the root causes of the latest violence in Gaza. War crimes may be found on both sides, but Israel has made clear it does not welcome the scrutiny.
And lastly, hard-working college athletes could finally get what’s due to them. Senators Bernie Sanders and Chris Murphy want to give them the right to form unions and bargain collectively with colleges.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Why can’t we have nice things? Politico reports that President Joe Biden continues to negotiate with Republicans on his big-ticket spending plans. But yesterday, when he left Washington for Ohio, he mocked them for voting against the coronavirus recovery package and then turning around and promoting the bill. In a speech at Cuyahoga Community College, Biden said his trillions of dollars in proposals are already igniting economic recovery and creating millions of jobs following the coronavirus pandemic. Back in Washington, Senate Republicans sent Biden their latest proposal, but the $928 billion infrastructure plan is still hundreds of billions less than the White House’s last offer of $1.7 trillion.
And there’s an even bigger budget fight brewing. The New York Times reports Biden will propose a $6 trillion budget today that would take the United States to its highest levels of federal spending since World War Two. Biden is looking to fund a sweeping economic agenda that includes new investments in education, transportation and fighting climate change. The budget request includes money for roads, water pipes, broadband internet, electric vehicle charging stations and advanced manufacturing research. It also envisions funding for affordable child care, universal prekindergarten and a national paid leave program. Spending on national defense would also grow, though it would decline as a share of the economy.
Biden plans to fund his agenda by raising taxes on corporations and high earners. The documents show budget deficits shrinking in the 2030s. So maybe we can have nice things after all.
UN Opens Gaza Inquiry
his diplomatic dispatch comes from the Guardian. The UN’s main human rights body will launch an investigation into systematic discrimination and repression in Israel and Palestine, with the aim of identifying the root causes of recent Gaza bloodshed. The proposal, called at the request of Muslim states, was passed by the forty seven-member United Nations human rights council yesterday. Opening the session in Geneva, the UN rights chief, Michelle Bachelet (Ba-chuh-let), said Israel’s attacks on Gaza this month could constitute war crimes if they were found to be disproportionate. She also accused Hamas of firing indiscriminate rockets on Israel. Bachelet, a former president of Chile, called the death and injury of children in the conflict "a source of shame for all."
According to the Guardian, Bachelet said the Gaza violence was directly linked to protests in Jerusalem that began weeks beforehand, which she said were met with a heavy response from Israeli security forces. She said two factors led to the escalation – the imminent eviction of Palestinians under forced displacement in the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah; and Israel’s use of excessive force against Palestinian protesters, including at the al-Aqsa mosque. Yesterday’s resolution received twenty four votes in favour, nine against and fourteen abstentions. The US didn’t vote because it is not a member of the council. Israel and its allies, including the US, have accused the UN of anti-Israel bias. Criticize away, but is anyone better suited than UN investigators to establish the facts of the situation?
Sanders Rallies For College Athletes
College sports break! The Washington Post reports that a new bill from Congressional Democrats would allow college athletes to unionize, making it possible for students from across universities to band together to form unions within athletic conferences. The bill from Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Chris Murphy of Connecticut would rewrite federal labor law to define all college athletes receiving scholarships and other pay as employees of both public and private universities. It would be a significant reimagining of the college sports landscape. And it would open a door to athletes receiving additional compensation from colleges by bargaining over wages, working conditions, revenue sharing agreements, and other rights afforded to employees.
The Post says the bill, called the College Athlete Right to Organize Act, is unlikely to pass in the current Congress. A companion bill introduced by three House Democrats has also not found any Republican co-sponsors. But it has created substantial momentum in Congress to pass legislation that would set a single standard for how athletes can earn income, rather than a patchwork of conflicting state laws. In a statement yesterday, Sanders linked the right of athletes to form a union to the fight to earn money through their personal brands. He said, "College athletes are workers. ... We cannot wait for the NCAA to share its billions with the workers who create it.". The NCAA put out a statement condemning the bill. But of course they did – they don’t want to share the wealth!
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
The Associated Press reports that Senate Republicans are poised to deploy the filibuster to block a commission on the January 6th insurrection. The GOP maneuver may shatter chances for a bipartisan probe of the deadly assault on the US Capitol and revive pressure to do away with the procedural tactic. Indeed, why give the Republicans a veto?
According to the Washington Post, Amazon and other retailers are opposing a bipartisan measure in Congress that would require online sellers to clearly state where their products are made. Current laws don’t force online retailers to include this information. Sounds like a fine loophole if you sell tons of cheap junk made god-knows-where!
The Seattle Times reports that three Tacoma, Washington police officers will face criminal charges in the March 2020 killing of Manuel Ellis, a thirty three-year-old Black man whose death sparked widespread calls for justice. State Attorney General Bob Ferguson said yesterday he will charge officers Christopher Burbank and Matthew Collins with second- degree murder, and Timothy Rankine with first-degree manslaughter. More consequences for violent cops – let’s get it trending!
The New York Times reports that the New York City Council voted overwhelmingly yesterday to expand a subsidy program that could make apartments affordable to tens of thousands of people who are homeless or threatened with eviction. The council voted to sharply increase the value of housing vouchers provided by the city. The value of the new vouchers would be in line with fair market rent. So they’re actually useful? Imagine that.
MAY 28, 2021 - AM QUICKIE
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop
TODAY'S HEADLINES:
One of the sketchiest libertarian venture capitalists in America planned to launch an app to summon a private police force by smartphone. Today we are pleased to report that, thanks to negative publicity, the rent-a-cop app is being scrapped.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden has given US intelligence agencies ninety days to figure out where the coronavirus came from. And he says they’ll be entertaining a theory favored by many Republicans, that the virus somehow escaped from a lab in China.
And lastly, activist shareholders, with the support of public pension funds, won a vote forcing Exxon Mobil to hire directors who favor clean energy. It’s a massive defeat for Exxon management and a repudiation of the company’s old, planet-destroying ways.
THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:
This dispatch from the dystopia comes from CBS News. The crowdsourcing crime- tracking app Citizen, whose earliest backers include the venture capitalist billionaire Peter Thiel, is ditching plans to develop a private police force that could be summoned by users via the smartphone app. The company began offering the service in Los Angeles last month as a pilot program. For the service, Citizen partnered with a private firm called Los Angeles Professional Security, which describes itself as a provider of subscription law enforcement. But on Tuesday, Citizen ended the program, stating it has no plans to launch a similar service elsewhere. The company's decision follows more than a week of negative publicity for the popular app, which uses cellphone-location data to alert users of potential safety hazards, emergencies and criminal activity in their area.
CBS reports that as Citizen's popularity has grown, so, too, has its number of critics, who say the app raises privacy issues as well as racial bias. Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, called the app "a digital superhighway for racial profiling," In mid-May, the app misidentified a homeless person as the source of a recent wildfire in Los Angeles. Citizen posted pictures of the man, and offered a $30,000 reward to anyone who could provide information leading to his arrest. A few days later, a different man was arrested for the crime. If you think the regular police are bad, wait until you see what Silicon Valley comes up with.
Biden Orders Review Of Virus Origins
This update on the politics of the pandemic comes from the Washington Post. President Biden said yesterday that he has asked the intelligence community to determine the origin of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s a major departure from the previous White House position that the World Health Organization should lead efforts to uncover the contagion’s origin. Biden has asked for a report within ninety days. The new message from the White House reflects the rapidly changing views about the origins of the virus. In recent weeks, a theory has gained more support that the source of the coronavirus may have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, though that is far from proved. Some Republicans pushed the idea early on, including Donald Trump. But the idea was dismissed by many influential scientists and Democrats.
The Post says that in recent weeks, some prominent researchers have begun arguing that the lab theory should remain on the table until more is known. And a series of reports in the Wall Street Journal, including one that highlighted how several people who work at the Wuhan lab became sick in fall 2019 with Covid-like symptoms, has been part of a reexamination. Biden said one element of the US intelligence community leans toward the view that the novel coronavirus came from a laboratory accident. Two other components, on the other hand, believe the virus came from animal-to-human contact. But are American spies really well- suited to make this determination, especially without Chinese cooperation?
Exxon Shareholders Revolt Over Clean Energy
You love to see it. The New York Times says Big Oil was knocked down a peg yesterday. Shareholders of Exxon Mobil dealt the company’s management a stunning defeat by electing at least two board candidates who pledged to steer the company away from oil and gas and toward cleaner energy. The success of the campaign, led by a tiny hedge fund against the nation’s largest oil company, could force the energy industry to confront climate change. Analysts could not recall another time that Exxon management had lost a vote against company-picked directors. The vote reveals the growing power that giant Wall Street firms now have to press corporate managements to pursue social goals.
According to the Times, the hedge fund leading this campaign, Engine Number One, was seeking to defeat four of the company’s twelve director candidates. Its victory is the culmination of years of efforts by activists to force the oil giant to change its environmental policies. Some big pension funds, including the New York State Common Retirement Fund and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, had joined the effort. In another sign of change, shareholders of Chevron, the second largest US oil company, yesterday voted for a proposal to reduce emissions from the fuel the company makes and sells. And in the Netherlands, a court required Royal Dutch Shell to reduce its emissions by forty five percent by 2030.
One day these companies will be only a memory, and the world will be better for it.
AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:
The Los Angeles Times reports that nine people were killed, including the gunman, in a shooting yesterday morning at a San Jose rail yard. The suspect set his own house on fire, then drove to a Valley Transportation Authority union meeting and began shooting, law enforcement sources said. Sympathy and solidarity to all affected.
The Washington Post reports that Amazon will buy MGM Holdings from its investment- group owners, paying $8.45 billion billion to put the historic studio in the hands of the retailing giant. The Post is also owned by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, but we aren’t, so we can say he has enough money, power and cultural influence, already.
According to the Associated Press, President Biden is nominating former senior State Department official Nicholas Burns to serve as his ambassador to China, and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be his ambassador to India. Prominent Democratic fundraisers Denise Bauer, Jane Hartley and David Cohen have also emerged as leading contenders for postings in France, Italy and Canada, respectively. Gotta love those patronage jobs!
Good news! The New York Times reports that immunity to the coronavirus lasts at least a year, possibly a lifetime, improving over time – especially after vaccination. That’s according to two new studies, both in the journal Nature. The results suggest that people who have recovered from Covid-19 and later been vaccinated will continue to have high levels of protection against emerging variants, even without a vaccine booster. So there’s a silver lining for survivors.
AM QUICKIE - MAY 27, 2021
HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner
WRITER - Corey Pein
PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn
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