AM Quickie

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Mar 1. 2021: Parliamentarian Pummels Minimum Wage


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

TODAY'S HEADLINES:

House Democrats pass a sweeping coronavirus aid package, and send it on to the Senate, where it will be gutted and stripped of a $15 minimum wage by Republicans and bureaucratic nonsense alike.

Meanwhile, President Biden releases a statement on the Amazon union drive in Bessemer, Alabama -- sort of. He forgets to mention the company itself, of course, but it’s a start.

And lastly, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is hit with a new wave of sexual impropriety allegations, and releases a half-hearted apology in an attempt to save face.

THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The House of Representatives passed a sweeping Coronavirus relief bill on Saturday morning, which includes $1400 direct payments and a nationwide increase to a $15 minimum wage.

But the latter part of that massive leap is almost certainly going to get crushed in the Senate. On Thursday, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the $15 minimum wage was not permitted to be in the massive coronavirus aid package Democrats are hoping to pass in the senate.

The specifics of this decision are a bit convoluted, involving the budget reconciliation process and some other procedural things, but what you need to know is this: an unelected bureaucrat said that the $15 minimum wage can’t happen.

Fortunately, there are two ways Democrats could get past this. One is Kamala Harris overriding the parliamentarian, a strategy the GOP has used before and would be relatively easy for her to do, and the other is eliminating the filibuster and passing the bill without the budget process. The latter is still, frustratingly, a long shot.

And unfortunately, Joe Biden and Senate Democratic leadership have already indicated that they aren’t willing to take the first option. Progressive outcry to this has been understandably loud, because it’s basically a declaration that congressional decorum means more than actually getting people a minimum wage.

What happens next is that the Senate guts the bill, then sends it back to the House, meaning this whole mess added another step before Americans can get any actual help.

Biden Remembers He's Pro-Labor

President Biden has finally broken his silence on the major union battle between workers and Amazon in Bessemer Alabama.

On Sunday night, Biden released a video stating explicitly that his administration supported workers rights to form a union and condemned employer’s attempts to interfere with the process.

Of course, that’s exactly what’s happening in Bessemer -- and while Biden did mention the election in Alabama, he didn’t mention the company doing all the union busting by name.

Nor did he explicitly endorse the union. He simply reiterated that he believes unions are good for workers, saying quote:

“It’s not up to me to decide whether anyone should join a union. But let me be even more clear: it’s not up to an employer to decide that either. The choice to join a union is up to the workers, full stop.” endquote.

That’s a major step forward. It’s unequivocally good to have a U.S. president willing to endorse organized labor in such definitive terms. But it is disappointing that Biden didn’t directly call out Amazon for the destructive work they’ve done so far to stop the union forming.

Still, any boost that the workers In Bessemer can get is a good one. Let’s hope this isn’t the last we hear from Biden on the subject.

Cuomo Allegations Mount

Finally, the allegations of sexual impropriety and harassment against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo continue to mount, and the pressure is spilling over from New York State politics into a national scandal.

On Saturday, the New York Times published a story including yet another woman’s first hand account of impropriety and harassment by the governor.

The latest allegations aren’t explicit: the governor didn’t make any overt physical moves toward the victim. But he did establish a pattern of speaking inappropriately to a 25-year-old aide, asking her questions about her personal and sexual life.

This adds to testimony last week from a former Albany official that the mayor harassed her for years and once kissed her without her consent.

In response, the Governor offered this as a so-called apology quote:

“I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that.”

Cuomo has called for an independent investigation, although he tried at first to choose who would oversee the process himself. He was forced to relent when he got blasted by New York Attorney General Tish James, who will appoint an investigator with subpoena power. We’ll see what shakes out of the tree when that person starts to rustle branches.

AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES:

Madison Cawthorne, the upstart mega-Trumpist Congressman who has positioned himself as the face of the new GOP, is also showing his predictable colors. The Washington Post reported on a wave of allegations against Cawthorne both of sexual assault and of repreatedly lying about his background in campaign advertisements.

Donald Trump won the straw poll for 2024 GOP nomination at CPAC, the annual conservative convention, although only 68 percent of respondents said they actually wanted him to run again. In other words, he’s the future of the party, but not everyone is happy about that.

The Supreme Court will hear its most important voting rights case in almost a decade, as it considers a case which could strip a provision from the Voting Rights Act that lets civil rights attorneys sue over potential discrimination in voting laws, which state GOP organzations have been racing to gut for months.

And finally, Joe Biden celebrated his inaugural airstrike of a foreign country we’re technically not at war with on Friday, striking a base controlled by Iranian-backed militia members in Syria. His administration claimed that the strike was “defensive” in nature, whatever that means.

MAR 1, 2021 - AM QUICKIE

HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner

WRITER - Jack Crosbie

PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn


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 March 1, 2021  6m