TUE 3/1/22
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an address Tuesday urged the European Union allow his country to join.
Messing With Texas – First bellwether of the 2022 midterm primary season is in Texas today, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott faces a couple of pro-Trump challengers and Beto O’Rourke hopes to take the Democratic primary for governor on the way to an upset in the November finals. Texas has a runoff system, so not all key primary challenges will be determined. (The Washington Post)
One challenge is by George P. Bush, the only prominent pro-Trump member of the traditional GOP political family, who takes on scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Among the most-watched races for Texas’ 38 U.S. House seats is progressive Jessica Cisneros’ second challenge to Rep. Henry Cuellar, in the Democratic primary for the 28th District seat.
Known Knowns: Restrictive rule changes by the Texas legislature will especially affect seniors and people of color, WaPonotes. It’s harder to mail in a ballot, and there are no more drive-through or 24-hour polling places. Thousands of early ballots already have been rejected. David M. Carney, a GOP consultant to Gov. Abbott, told the newspaper, “Their [Democrats’] turnout is going to be dwarfed by our turnout.”
Polls close at 7 p.m. Central time.
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It Got Worse – Monday we mentioned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) attendance at white supremacist (according to the Justice Department and Anti-Defamation League) Nicholas Fuentes’ America First Political Action Conference, across town from the CPAC annual meeting last week in Orlando. Turns out Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) gave a pre-recorded video presentation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has stood up to take notice.
After quietly brushing aside for months the white supremacist dog whistles being blown by MTG and Gosar, McCarthy threw caution to the wind regarding their potential support of his bid for House speaker following an anticipated GOP retaking of the chamber in November by calling their actions “unacceptable,” according to The Hill.
“The party should not be associated any time, any place, with somebody who is antisemitic,” McCarthy said.
MTG, who with Gosar last year briefly considered forming a House “America First Caucus” had told CBS News last week she was unaware of Fuentes’ views. “I won’t cancel others in the conservative movement, even if I find some of their statements tasteless, misguided or even repressive at times.”
Tasteless, Misguided and Repressive: At one point in the America First conference, The Hill reports, Fuentes said, “Now they’re going on about Russia and Vladimir Putin as Hitler … and they say that’s not a good thing.”
Known Knowns: Number of Republican House members who voted against certifying President Biden’s Electoral College vote: 147.
Known Unknowns: How many pro-Trump Republicans will take House seats after the midterms. We’d bet a large portion of them -- not just MTG and Gosar -- would rather vote for Donald J. Trump than McCarthy for speaker, anyway. Conversely, more forceful criticism of the MTG-Gosar wing might have some effect on this year’s GOP primaries.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Charles Dervarics
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MON 2/28/22
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
Another Look at Trump’s Foreign Policy – Donald J. Trump might have been expected to pull back from his “savvy” and “genius” compliments of Vladimir Putin when the former U.S. president spoke at CPAC in Orlando Saturday night. Of course, he didn’t.
Meanwhile, the Russian president continued to rattle his nuclear sabre when his troops faced more resistance from Ukrainian freedom fighters than he had expected.
Trump blamed the “atrocity” on President Biden, and “not so smart” North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nations. He seems unaware that U.S. and/or NATO troops were not invading Ukraine. “When you have a weak president who is not respected by other nations, you have a very chaotic world. The world hasn’t been this chaotic since World War II.” (Per Yahoo!News). “Weak president” and “not respected by other nations” stand out for irony here.
Meanwhile in Orlando, the Conservative Political Action Committee crowd could do nothing more than cheer and nod their heads. The narrative pushed by Fox News and outlets to its right is, so far, that Trump would be a much stronger leader in dealing with Putin, and the MAGA faithful are buying it, despite Trump’s 2018 sock puppet behavior with Putin in Helsinki.
Mainstream media have to constantly remind us that President Trump appears to have tried to hold up military aid to Ukraine in 2019, contingent on Zelinsky's cooperation on the "request" to find dirt on Hunter Biden from his time as an employee of the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.*
Known knowns: That Trump is an aspiring autocrat is obvious. Consider this less-oft repeated quote from his appearance on The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show last Tuesday: “And [Putin’s] going to go in and be a peacekeeper. That’s the strongest peace force. We could use that on our southern border.”
Known unknowns: Asked at CPAC whether he would take up arms to defend the U.S. in a similar situation, according to Newsweek, Trump responded: “You never know about bravery. Some people think they are brave are not brave and other people think of themselves as very brave and step up. You never know until you get tested.” Which is probably best interpreted as a hard “no” from, in Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-IL) brilliant nickname, “Cadet Bone Spurs.”
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Trump’s GOP, Even More So – Donald J. Trump took 59% of CPAC’s 2022 straw poll of leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, according to a report in the U.S. edition of the The Sun tabloid. That compares with 55% for Trump in last year’s CPAC straw poll [The Gray Area, https://thehustings.news/forum/, March 1, 2021].
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was second this year, at 21%, down from 28% in 2021. In the 2022 straw poll, the Trump administration’s secretary of state and Fox News habitue’ Mike Pompeo registered third, at 2% of the vote.
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On Either Side of CPAC – In a separate summit “across town” from CPAC in Orlando, according to The Washington Post, the America First Political Action Conference gathered together “right-wing media personalities and tech entrepreneurs” to hear a speaker call for sending political adversaries to the electric chair. One right-wing commentator at the alt-right white supremacist summit helped paint CPAC’s “useless own-the-libs conservatism” as too moderate.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) reportedly stopped by AFPAC, and later said on social media she was not aware of the group’s white supremacism. AFPAC organizer Nicholas Fuentes had “stormed” a 2021 CPAC event in Dallas, WaPo says, shouting “America first” and “white boy summer.” (When does being not aware of such things become something that no longer get a pass?)
Meanwhile: Republican attendees who were required to present a vaccination card to enter at a two-day “Principles First” conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., last week, including Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, perceive AFPAC and CPAC as having “too much in common,” WaPo reports. Cheney’s fellow Republican on the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, who was scheduled to speak Sunday night, earlier called out politicization of Biden’s response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, in an interview on NPR’s All Things Considered. Kinzinger is not running for re-election this year.
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Meanwhile, on the climate front -- Last week, Tom Linebarger, chairman and CEO of Cummins, the American company widely known for the diesel engines used to power big rigs, speaking about the acquisition of an automotive supplier that makes electrified components, said, “Climate change is the existential crisis of our time and this acquisition accelerates our ability to address it. Our customers need economically viable decarbonized solutions.”
The chairman and CEO of a diesel engine company.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approved a report on Saturday, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC, described it saying, “This report is a dire warning about the consequences of inaction.” The report describes the effects on human-induced climate change on people and ecosystems.
That sounds somewhat like something happening elsewhere to someone else, but consider this: “Increased heatwaves, droughts and flood are already exceeding plants’ and animals’ tolerance thresholds, driving mass mortalities in species such as trees and corals. These weather extremes are occurring simultaneously, causing cascading impacts that are increasingly difficult to manage. They have exposed millions of people to acute food and water insecurity, especially in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, on Small Islands and in the Arctic.”
This isn’t theory.
Note: Hoesung Lee said, “It emphasizes the urgency of immediate and more ambitious action to address climate risks. Half measures are no longer an option.” In other words, debating whether this is happening is no longer viable, nor are greenwashing activities.
Which brings us back to Cummins’ Linebarger’s quote: “existential crisis of our time.” More people like him are needed throughout the world.
--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash