June 14, 2021: Israel Dumps Netanyahu; AOC vs. Centrist Cronies; DOJ's Privacy Boogaloo

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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 He’s been replaced by another far-right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