TUESDAY, MAY 25, 2021
Sign up for the Braver Angels National Coliseum Debate, Voting in America, held 8-10 p.m. EDT Tuesday on Zoom. Coming in The Hustings, a home page debate preview on the issue between David Amaya in the left column, and Bryan Williams in the right column.
To Register for the Debate – Go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-debate-voting-in-america-registration-154335111473
See https://www.braverangels.org
for more information. After the debate, we will post your comments and opinions on Voting in America in the left and right columns of this page. Please email comments to editors@thehustings.news.
For Today’s News & Notes – Click on the “News & Notes” tab above.
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MONDAY, MAY 24, 2021
Coming Tuesday – A home page debate on House Resolution 1, the For The People Act on voting rights, and state legislatures’ efforts to tighten voting standards. The Hustings debate is presented as a preview of Tuesday evening’s Braver Angels National Coliseum Debate on Voting in America. Scroll to the bottom of News & Notes for details.
International Outcry Over Jetliner Forced to Land in Belarus – A Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius, Lithuania Sunday was forced to land by a MiG-29 fighter jet in Minsk, Belarus, under orders of Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko. Roman Protasevich, a journalist and anti-Lukashenko activist was arrested upon its landing. The Belarus government claims the plane was diverted because there was a bomb on board. There wasn’t.
It’s “a case of state-sponsored hijacking,” Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, told The Wall Street Journal.
The Biden Administration is looking into appropriate U.S. sanctions, though Russia will continue to economically support Belarus.
Protasevich had contested the results of last August’s Belarus elections, in which Lukashenko was re-elected president with 80% of the vote, according to Reporting Democracy. Lukashenko’s government insists the jetliner was diverted because it believed a bomb was aboard the plane.
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Memorials for Floyd Begin – George Floyd’s family members and others who have lost loved ones to police violence held a march in Minneapolis Sunday in memory of Floyd’s death. It was the first of several commemorations, including a White House meeting with the Floyd family scheduled for Tuesday, one year after he was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of the killing last month. Former officer Chauvin is scheduled to be sentenced by a Hennepin County judge on June 25.
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On Biden’s Infrastructure Price Cut – President Biden announced a “price cut” in his American Jobs Plan infrastructure proposal, from $2.3 trillion down to $1.7 trillion this past weekend, in an effort to close in on a deal with Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has floated an infrastructure budget on the order of $600-800 billion.
On ABC News This Week Sunday, Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican moderate whom the White House figures in among the 10 members of the opposition party Democrats need to avoid a filibuster and get to bi-partisan agreement, said “the heart of negotiations is to get to the scope of the bill,” by which she means that Republicans want the White House to strip out what they consider social programs in the Biden proposal, and fix only roads, bridges, broadband and the like. No indication yet, however, that any Republicans will go for a rollback of the Trump Administration tax cuts from the 21% corporate tax rate back up to the 28% rate.
Note: The White House has given to Memorial Day to reach an agreement with Republican senators on a bi-partisan infrastructure compromise. But Biden doesn’t even have Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-WV, on board, so the chances of a Democratic bill to scuttle the legislative filibuster is nil. That leaves the possibility of passing a more ambitious Biden plan under reconciliation, though the smart bet appears to be on a package price closer to the low-end of a trillion dollars.
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Axios Poll Shows Things Republicans Might Not Like -- Two hot-button issues that Republicans are working to create more friction about are (1) alleged voter fraud and (2) resistance to the creation of a 9/11-type commission to look into the events of 1/6. An Axios-sponsored poll conducted by Survey Monkey has results for both of those topics that don’t look good for McConnell, McCarthy and the random Minions.
That is, when asked about “how much, if any” voter fraud occurred in one’s state, 18% answered “a lot,” 28% “some,” 25% “not much” and 24% “not at all.”
On the subject of support for a bipartisan 1/6 congressional commission, 44% “strongly support,” 21% “somewhat support,” 12% “somewhat oppose” and 17% “strongly oppose.”
Note: For the fraud question, let’s face it, statistically one might assume that “some” or “not much” occurred because that are sufficiently CYA answers. Of course, the minority that say “a lot” are more vocal than those who answer “not at all” because who can get all worked up about something that didn’t happen? Still, this seems to be not an advantageous approach for the Republicans, as putting doubt in the minds of their voters — witness the results in Georgia this past January.
As for the commission on 1/6, the Republican approach seems to be one that if they don’t permit one to go forward then there won’t be any “distraction” for the 2022 elections. Wouldn’t it be more likely the case is that if you have 65% supporting something that they’re going to try to quash that they’re going to get more attention than they’d like on their obstruction?
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Leahy Considering a Run for Senate Longevity Record – Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, is considering a run for a ninth term, Poltico reports. Leahy, 81, is the only Democrat ever elected senator from the state. (Although Bernie Sanders caucuses with the Dems, he is officially an Independent.) First elected in 1975, Leahy would not be the oldest senator, but he would pass the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s, D-WV, record 51 years in the upper chamber if he completed his ninth term in 2029. Vermont has a late primary next year, August 9, so Leahy has until May 26, 2022, to file for re-election.
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Braver Angels National Coliseum Debate, Voting in America – The debate is scheduled for 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, Tuesday, May 25 on Zoom. Audience members are encouraged to participate as debaters or in the Q&A sessions. After the debate, The Hustings will post audience comments and opinions in the left and right columns at https://thehustings.news. Go to https://www.braverangels.org for more information, or register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/national-debate-voting-in-america-registration-154335111473
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash
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FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2021
Should a gas tax increase pay for part of President Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan? Michelle Naranjo and Bryan Williams debate that proposal on the home page of The Hustings. To comment on this and other issues, email us at editors@thehustings.news, or at thehustings.substack.com.
Israel and Hamas Reach Cease-Fire – After 11 days of missile attacks that left at least 212 Palestinians and about a dozen Israelis dead in the worst battle on the Gaza strip since 2014, Israel’s security cabinet unanimously accepted Egypt’s proposal for an unconditional cease-fire, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu announced Thursday evening. The cease-fire commenced early Friday morning local time, The New York Times reports.
Both Israel and Hamas declared victory in the very “fragile” cease-fire.
President Biden, who was involved very quietly and “behind the scenes” in talks between Israel and Egypt, had reiterated his support for Israel’s “right to defend itself,” while also facing pressure from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to support human rights for Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
Note: The Abraham Accord of 2020, heretofore former President Trump’s most notable foreign relations accomplishment, although achieved by his son-in-law Jared Kushner without input from the Palestinians now becomes forgotten history. While Netanyahu had been considered a close ally of Trump, the NYT recalled in its radio show this week how he and Biden had forged a relationship back in the 1990s, when Biden was in the Senate and Netanyahu was in the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. The relationship continued when Netanyahu became Israeli prime minister during the Obama/Biden administration, and was undoubtedly a factor in the U.S. president’s ability to take a tough stand in this week’s negotiations.
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CARB, Uber & GHG — The California Air Resources Board announced yesterday that rideshare companies must begin electrification of their fleets starting in 2023. This is pursuant to SB 1014 of 2018, which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state by 2030 to 40% of 1990 levels, and for the state to be carbon neutral by 2045. The “Clean Miles Standard” requires that rideshare companies have zero emissions by 2030 and for 90% of the miles traveled by their vehicles be fully electric. According to CARB head Liane M. Randolph, ‘The transportation sector is responsible for nearly half of California’s greenhouse gas emissions, the vast majority of which come from light-duty vehicles.”
Note — “Light-duty vehicles” are conveyances like Toyota Camrys and Ford F-150s. Lyft and Uber are in the process of transitioning their fleets to EVs. Of course, this means that private individuals are going to have to make that transition, as they’re the ones who own the vehicles. There is a bit of a fly in the proverbial ointment. According to Experian, there were 99,030 light-duty electric vehicles registered in California in the first quarter of 2021. That’s a mere 1.7% of all vehicle registrations in the state. Not a whole lot by any measure. In addition to which, 40,772 of those 99,030 light-duty EVs were Tesla Model Ys. How many Tesla owners are likely to have ride-sharing strangers in their back seats?
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Trump DOJ Obtained CNN Reporter’s Phone and Email Records – President Trump’s Department of Justice “secretly” obtained phone call and email records of CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, the cable news network reports. The Justice Department informed Starr in a May 13 letter that the records were sought from the courts for her calls and emails from June 1 to July 31, 2017. The Justice department provided no further comment nor context, but an official said Starr was not the subject of any official investigation.
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Russian-Built Teslas? – Tesla CEO Elon Musk told students at a Kremlin-sponsored event he would be open to expanding electric vehicle manufacturing into Russia, The Hill reports Friday morning. Musk’s statement was immediately greeted with enthusiasm, including a tweet from politician Aleksandr Brechalov, who welcomed Tesla production to the country.
But Musk’s comments were more tempered; “Over time, we will look to have factories in other parts of the world, potentially Russia at some point.” That’s not an aggressive plan from a Silicon Valley mogul known for aggressive plans.
Last year, Tesla opened a quickly built assembly plant in China without having to set up a 50-50 partnership with the local government, as all other foreign auto manufacturers in China are forced to do. While the Chinese government is pushing for more EV sales in the country, in Russia, electric-powered vehicles make up just 0.7% of the market, The Hill says, citing Bloomberg.
Note: Musk did not raise the possibility of opening an operation in Russia for his other tech company, outer-space rocket manufacturer SpaceX.
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Will Eastern Oregon Secede to Idaho? – Five sparsely populated, conservative counties in eastern Oregon voted this week to leave the state and the stereotypically latte/kale/craft beer headquarters of Portland behind to join adjacent Idaho, The Washington Post reports. The political and cultural gulf between Greater Portland and the five eastern counties has only grown since the TV show Portlandia was a thing. Mike McCarter, group president of the non-profit Citizens for Greater Idaho noted to the WaPo that if Baker, Grant, Malheur and Sherman counties left the Beaver State for Famous Potatoes, the new Idaho would become the state with the third-largest land mass in the U.S. – Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods