(THU 4/21/22)

Scroll down to below this post to read "(Ketanji Brown) Jackson Deserves Better."

More arms for Ukraine … President Biden Thursday announced an additional $800 million in military aid for Ukraine (AP) but warned that Congress will need to approve additional funds to maintain U.S. support. This is on top of $2.6 billion already contributed to Ukraine’s war effort against Russia. The latest tranche goes for heavy artillery, 144,000 rounds of ammunition and drones for an escalated battle over the Donbas region in Eastern Ukraine. …

Tweet this … Tesla CEO Elon Musk says he’s secured the $46.5 billion necessary to buy Twitter outright, at $54.20 per share, NPR reports. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the world’s richest person says he has lined up $25.5 billion in loans from Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and other banks, and will shell out the remaining $21 billion from his personal fortune. ...

Mask mandate appeal coming … The Justice Department says it will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that struck down the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s mask mandate on public mass transit including commercial airplanes, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. The CDC asked the DOJ to appeal the ruling by a federal judge in Tampa, Florida, that lifted the mandate earlier this week.

The CDC did not follow proper rule-making procedures, Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle said in a 59-page opinion Monday. The CDC says that wearing a mask on buses, subways, airplanes and other public transit “remains necessary to protect the public health.”

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WED 4/20/22

Masks Off

Some airline passengers removed masks mid-flight Monday after a federal judge overturned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national public transportation mask mandate to fight the COVID-19 virus. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, in Tampa, Florida, said in a 59-page opinion that the CDC did not follow proper rule-making procedures in issuing the mandate.

Mizelle’s ruling does not preclude local authorities and private companies from mandating their own masking requirements, The Washington Post reports, though United, Delta, Southwest and American immediately lifted their requirements –- even triggering removal celebrations on some in-air flights –- and the Raleigh-Durham (North Carolina), Miami and Portland (Oregon) airports are among those announcing they will no longer require masks, per local TSA directives, according to the New York Post. Lyft and Uber also have lifted the mask mandate for drivers and passengers.

New York’s subway system and LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports, and San Francisco International are reportedly maintaining mask mandates. There has been a surge in new East Coast cases of the BA.2 omicron variant in recent weeks.

This left the Biden administration and the CDC scrambling Wednesday to determine how to respond. See left and right columns for more.

What do you think?: Should the Justice Department appeal Judge Mizelle’s ruling to the Supreme Court, or is it time to take off masks while on airplanes and public transportation? Email your comments to editors@thehustings.news and tell us in the subject line whether you’re “left” or “right” no matter whether it matches your opinion on this question. We will post civil comments … no echo chambers and no trolling … in these columns.

--Todd Lassa

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By Nic Woods

The Senate vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson April 7 to the Supreme Court of the United States should have been 70-30, or at least matched Neil Gorsuch’s 54-45, but because we seem to live in one of the most blindly partisan and disingenuous political timelines ever, it was 53-47.

While that’s one more than Amy Coney Barrett and Clarence Thomas (both 52-48) and three more than Brett Kavanaugh (50-48), Brown Jackson was far less controversial than any of them. Could anyone in the Senate say with a straight face that she lacked qualifications? Unlike Barrett, Jackson knew that what was legal and what wasn’t and what was under her purview as a judge and what sounded like it should be a senator’s problem. 

And unlike Thomas and Kavanaugh, she didn’t have to worry about past, er, discrepancies potentially derailing her nomination.

The 53-47 vote was the same number that supported her rise to her current judgeship on the U.S. Court of Appeals to the District of Columbia Circuit but, instead of Mitt Romney (R-UT) casting a vote her way that time, it was … Lindsay Graham, the same South Carolina Republican who suddenly had a bit of a temper tantrum because President Joe Biden picked her over his choice, J. Michelle Childs, who sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.

He should have known this was going to happen — while Childs is highly qualified, if she had been chosen, she would have been equally impressive and likely more qualified that those who made it to the court before her — Jackson was just a smidge more qualified and Biden was taking no chances. 

Better luck next time, Lindsey. If you allow a next time.

This brings me to what was irritating about her confirmation process. It was a dog and pony show that was beneath her. 

Since Robert H. Bork was rejected in 1987 — the last rejection of a SCOTUS nominee, for better or worse — his ghost has been haunting the proceedings for everyone who has been luckier than he and didn’t have a role to play in one of the most memorable fiascos of the Nixon administration, the Saturday Night Massacre. He also had a candid streak that revealed too much of his judicial philosophy for those senators who were willing to otherwise forgive him for following sketchy presidential orders. 

None of this was Jackson’s fault. It isn’t her fault that her credentials were impeccable and unassailable and so she had to answer to nonsense from Republicans Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri. It also isn’t her fault that they don’t seem to know that, if they aren’t satisfied with the minimum sentences of child predators as they currently stand, it’s their job to pass a tougher law. These two, like most Republicans, have been on record for disliking “activist judges,” so why were they asking a judge to be tougher than the law Congress passed?

Which brings us to a serious question and probably the biggest one from the hearings: Why do voters continue to find lawmakers who don’t seem to know what their jobs are? 

John Kennedy of Louisiana’s obligatory impression that a Harvard-educated Black woman is “articulate” and Ted Cruz’s performance are not really worthy of mention.

Someone, I guess, had to say that a Black person was articulate and it might as well be the junior senator of a Southern state. Lindsay Graham was mid-temper tantrum so he was otherwise occupied. 

And, perhaps, if Ted Cruz wants to ask serious questions about Antiracist Baby, he should ask the author, Ibram X. Kendi.  I have had several conversations with Kendi and can say such a meeting of the minds would be a technical knockout if Cruz were to allow Kendi to get a word in edgewise.

The pinnacle of disingenuousness was Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who said the right things but acted as if none of that mattered because he couldn’t get a feel if Judge Jackson was, or was not, an originalist. 

Originalism, in short, is interpreting the Constitution based on the original understanding at the time it was adopted and, if there are any changes, it would be done through the process laid out in Article V. Now, the original understanding of “people” when the Constitution was adopted did not apply to six people who have sat on the Supreme Court, in addition to incoming Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. 

What do you think, Ben Sasse – is she an originalist? And what really was your point in trying to come off as the rational Republican on the Judiciary committee for the length of your speech, then not voting for her because you knew she couldn’t possibly be an originalist? https://wapo.st/3EkNUu4

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Woods is deputy editor.

By Todd Lassa

Listen to the podcast on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyb4xVPfB1M

What happened to civil political discourse? How did our red-state, blue-state, rural red-urban blue dichotomy get to the point where Democrats refuse to talk to Republicans and Republicans don’t want their kids to marry Democrats? How did the simple act of wearing a mask and taking a vaccine become volatile fuel for left-right firestorms?

It's a complicated problem that seems to be escalating, even in the time since the pro-Trump insurrection on the Capitol more than a year ago. Liberals and Democrats have long blamed what they see as Republican intransigence on Constitutional Originalism and all its offshoots, from the Second Amendment to efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade, while conservatives and Republicans argue the current high level of political acrimony goes back to “political correctness” and culminates in “cancel culture.” 

No wonder the culture wars obliterate any semblance of civility in our political discussion.

The Allegany Chapter of Choose Civility, an organization rooted in Maryland library systems, tackle civility in political discussion in an audio podcast to commemorate its fifth annual Day of Civility, Thursday, April 7. The podcast on YouTube asks, “How can we model and hold others accountable to engage in civil political discourse that helps us to address our shared local and national challenges?” says Elesha Ruminski, professor of communication and leadership studies at Frostburg State University. Ruminski, who is coordinator of the Communication Leadership Lab and member of the Allegany County Choose Civility chapter, moderated the discussion.

Delanie Blubaugh, editor of FSU’s The Bottom Line <thebottomline.news.com> and this editor presented pre-written questions (this is a discussion, not a debate, though you are encouraged to comment for the left or right columns). 

Speakers

See the left column for the background and affiliations of Tim McGrath, Patrick O’Brien and Colin Creagan.

See the right column for the background and affiliations of Tanya Gomer, R.J. Caster and Justin Brick.

Origins of the Acrimony

Tim Magrath: “Caustic political discourse is a relatively recent innovation. I hate to put it on any one person, but I would suggest it’s Newt Gingrich. He succeeded at that.” In 1994, “he told people he was counseling to attack Democrats at that time in very caustic language and he succeeded.” …Gingrich (R-GA) gained 60 House seats in the ’94 midterms and took over the House of Representatives.

“When I started working for Congress there was civility, there were conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans. And they … worked together.” McGrath quotes three-time House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-TX): “Disagree without being disagreeable. And never make politics personal.”

RJ Caster points to centuries of political violence in America: “Are we more violent now than in the past?” he asked, citing the Alexander Hamilton-Aaron Burr duel, South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks beating Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts nearly to death with a cane in the Capitol over an argument leading up to the Civil War, and shots fired by Puerto Rican nationalists in the House Gallery in the 1950s. 

On Facts and alternative facts

Tanya Gomer notes that every individual’s reality is colored by background and experience. Hers is informed by 10 years in the military, time spent overseas, her education and law enforcement background. Seemingly counter to this background she recently wrote a grant application for tackling the opioid epidemic that favors funding community services over law enforcement – which many on her side might denounce this as “defunding the police.”

Patrick O’Brien: “We truly have reached a point where we don’t even agree on what reality is. … We don’t even agree the world is not flat.”

How do we fix it?

TG: “We need to take emotion out of politics.”

TM: “The vast majority of people are in the middle. They’re moderates.” Gerrymandering states’ congressional districts for protection of Congress members’ seats, whether Democrats in Maryland this year, or Republicans in Ohio and Pennsylvania protects the hard-left and hard-right instead of moderates who would best represent most American voters. “In competitive congressional districts, it’s the middle that matters, not the fringes. … without competitive congressional districts, I think we’re in trouble.”

RJC: Quoting the late political philosopher, Leo Strauss, “Liberal democracy is built on low, but solid ground. Our unifying factor is based on a set of ideals, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. … We don’t have a unifying element anymore. We don’t agree on shared values or what’s true and what’s not true.”

American political discourse should take a page from marriage counseling, Caster says. “Get both sides to agree on something bigger than the argument.”

More

There’s much more on the Allegany County Choose Civility podcast. While the discussion won’t fix our political discourse overnight, it’s a start. Join the conversation by emailing your opinions to editors@thehustings.news. Keep your comments civil and tell us in the subject line whether you identify as “left” or “right.”

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FRI 4/8/22

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who attended Tuesday’s Obama-Biden reunion at the White House, has tested positive for COVID-19, as have Attorney Gen. Merrick Garland and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. Pelosi has a couple of weeks to recover, however, as Congress takes a two-week Easter/Passover recess. Our week-daily …meanwhile… column will take the time off, too. Meanwhile, look for our center-column feature on the Choose Civility podcast, in this space up next.

More NATO aid to Ukraine … But at least 50 Ukrainians, including at least five children, were killed in a Russian missile attack on the Kramatorsk train station in the Donetsk region, where crowds of civilians were trying to evacuate (NPR). The attack comes as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warns that Russia is concentrating its military forces on fewer cities in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine after its failure to take “many places” at once, including the capital, Kyiv. 

“They underestimated the strength of Ukrainian forces,” Stoltenberg said of Russian forces, on NPR’s Morning Edition. 

Allies “are determined to do more. Now and for the long term,” he said Thursday at a press conference in Brussels, per ukrinform.net. Stoltenberg said it’s more advantageous to Ukraine’s defensive effort if NATO does not publicly say what types of weapons it will supply.

•••

Meanwhile, in opinions about Russia news . . . Presumably an increasing number of Americans have turned on their TVs and seen the widespread, vicious destruction being perpetrated by the Russian government on the people of Ukraine. That’s because in January only 41% of Americans considered Russia to be an enemy of the United States and now that number is up to 70%, according to polling by the Pew Research Center. Surprisingly, that’s 72% of Democrats and 69% of Republicans.

Republicans have traditionally been more seriously anti-communist and/or anti-socialist compared with Democrats, but the GOP appears more sympathetic to the current authoritarian Russian oligopoly.

Another data point is that although the Former Guy was anything but a supporter of NATO, 67% of Americans have a favorable opinion of the organization — up from 61% in 2021 — and 69% say that the U.S. benefits from being a NATO member. Again, there is an odd inversion of support of this defense organization: 85% of liberal Dems think there is benefit from membership while only 51% of conservative Republicans hold that view. Aren’t the latter all about “freedom”? Perhaps it only matters within the U.S. for them.

•••

ICYMI … Of course, you didn’t. Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the Senate 53-47, to the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday. She becomes SCOTUS’ first Black woman, and the first former public defender. She replaces Justice Stephen Breyer, who retires this June, though she will take her seat on the bench when the court reconvenes in October.

That’s October 2022. The first woman on SCOTUS was Sandra Day O’Conner, who took her seat in October 1981. The first Black associate justice was Thurgood Marshall, from October 1967 to October 1991.

David Iwinski … We are sad to learn of the death of David Iwinski last Sunday after a battle with cancer. Iwinski, a Pittsburgh-based attorney and member of the Braver Angels debate committee, contributed several right-column commentaries to The Hustings last year, including “Nation Building: Change the Rules of Engagement or Step Away: <https://thehustings.news/nation-building-change-the-rules-of-engagement-or-step-away/> October 16, 2021 and “Progressives Push Another Budget Boondoggle < https://thehustings.news/from-the-right/> August 9, 2021. He is survived by his wife, Melissa, his son and daughter and six rescue poodles.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Charles Dervarics

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THU 4/7/22

From German intel … Russian soldiers discussed how they questioned Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in their attack on the country and then proceeded to shoot them, in two separate radio communications Germany’s foreign intelligence service claims to have intercepted, The Washington Post reports. WaPo says its reporters saw beheaded and mutilated corpses in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha. 

Counter-propaganda: This counters Russian propaganda that its forces were “liberating” Ukrainians being slaughtered by Nazis there. But Russians won’t see the grim reality of its country’s slaughter of Ukrainians on Russian television or on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight.

•••

Biden’s Last Shot at SCOTUS … Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson likely gets confirmed by the full Senate today, 53-47, with Republican Sens. Susan Collins (ME), Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Mitt Romney (UT) providing marginal bipartisanship. (Per NPR.)

In-pocket: Last year, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) voted to confirm Brown Jackson to a federal court seat, but he became increasingly heated-up – unhinged, some Democrats might say – in her Judiciary Committee hearings over the White House passing another lead candidate, J. Michelle Childs, a U.S. district court judge in his state. 

Now Childs seems the obvious Biden administration choice if another SCOTUS seat opens, which will not happen through 2024 unless there’s a severe health issue. Looking at you, Justice Clarence Thomas.

However: Thomas, who was briefly hospitalized with flu-like symptoms last month just as a trove of texts between his wife Ginni Thomas and Trump administration Chief of Staff Mark Meadows surfaced, will not go quietly into retirement. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has made it clear he will garland any subsequent Biden nominee – doesn’t quite have the same sound as being borked, does it? – if the midterms make McConnell majority leader once again, as expected. A second SCOTUS vacancy would likely give the Biden White House the opportunity to shift its left-right makeup.

Best Democrats can expect is to use Graham’s angry words against him if he would vote against a potential Biden nomination of Childs to the bench.

•••

Trump wanted to march to the Capitol … Ex-President Donald J. Trump told The Washington Post he regrets the Secret Service kept him from marching to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, with his MAGA supporters and blamed House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and others for “not ending the deadly violence.” Trump explained the 457-minute gap in White House phone logs that day saying he didn’t remember getting many calls. He refused to say whether he would testify before the House Select Committee investigating the insurrection.

Want to read more of the same?:

https://wapo.st/3uiguZK

•••

House wants contempt charges for Navarro, Scavino … But will the attorney general respond? The House voted 220-203 to recommend Merrick Garland hold in contempt of Congress failed San Diego politician turned UC Orange County professor turned Trump administration trade adviser Peter Navarro, and former deputy chief of staff for communications Dan Scavino, per The Hill. Both have “blown us off completely,” ignoring “several” subpoenas from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection, says panel member Jamie Raskin (D-MD). 

Predictably: Reps. Liz Cheney, of Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger, of Illinois, the two Republicans on the panel, were the only of their party to join all Democrats in the House to vote to recommend the two be held in contempt. If there is a heaven of bipartisan comity, Cheney and Kinzinger are in.

In print: Navarro was subpoenaed back in February when his new book outlined exactly how he “advised” a group of Trump loyalists in attempting to delay the January 6, 2021 certification of Joe Biden as president. 

Meanwhile, at the Justice Department: Garland brushed aside a reporter’s question Wednesday on whether his department’s failure to act on contempt of Congress recommendations would prove Congress ineffective in its investigations, according to The Hill. 

“We will follow the facts and the law wherever they lead,” Garland said. “We don’t comment on any further negotiations.”

The Justice Department so far has acted on one of two previous contempt of Congress requests – for former Trump advisor Stephen Bannon, but not Trump’s ultimate chief of staff, Mark Meadows. Bannon goes on trial this summer and if convicted could face up to two years in prison and up to $200,000 in fines. Perhaps the Select committee will have to rely on evidence gleaned from Navarro’s book, Bannon’s radio show and Trump’s latest WaPo interview.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Nic Woods

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WED 4/6/22

Zelenskyy Calls for War Crimes Investigation … President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for an investigation into Russia’s war crimes against Ukraine, telling the United Nations Security Council, via video, that “Russia wants to turn Ukrainians into ‘silent slaves,’” The Guardian reports. Russia and its authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin, “must be brought to justice for war crimes.”

Zelenskyy called on the Security Council “to act for peace” or to “dissolve” itself, the UN’s own news website, news.un.org, reports.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the UN “urged nations to suspend Russia’s membership on the UN Security Council,” The Washington Post reports, a move that would require two-thirds approval among the 193 UN General Assembly members. 

Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Russia’s massacre of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha a “deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities.”

‘Fake News’ defense redux: Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, responded that “not a single person has suffered from any violent action” while Bucha was under Russian control, (per The Guardian again) and claimed video footage of bodies in the streets are a “crude forgery” staged by Ukrainians. 

More Biden, more sanctions: President Biden called Putin a “war criminal” again, and the U.S., Great Britain, and European Union were expected to impose more economic/financial sanctions against Russia Wednesday, including a ban on new investment.

‘Bunch of Children’ for Putin: Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) called out his Republican colleagues as “a bunch of children” more concerned with raising money and winning elections while virtually ignoring the threat of Vladimir Putin. Kinzinger tweeted this (tip of the hat to CNN’s Chris Cillizza in his The Point! Newsletter) and if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth your time …  https://twitter.com/AdamKinzinger/status/1511353892260483078

•••

Oklahoma anticipates SCOTUS … Ahead of the majority conservative Supreme Court’s re-consideration of Roe v. Wade over Texas’ controversial abortion law, the Oklahoma House of Representatives Tuesday approved a bill, 70-14, that would outlaw performing an abortion, except when the mother’s life is in danger. It would impose punishment of up to 10 years in prison and up to $100,000, The Washington Post reports. Republicans added the bill to the legislature’s agenda on Monday, taking some lawmakers by surprise, according to WaPo. Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt is expected to sign the bill, which would take effect this summer, barring any court injunction.

•••

Meanwhile, cue Sly and the Family Stone . . . It seems it is increasingly becoming a family affair in the murky realm that is MAGA world. A couple weeks back we learned that Ginni Thomas, wife of associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, had a propensity for texting then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows with nearly apocalyptic messages regarding why Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election and why it was important that Meadows do what he could to assure that their apparent liege lord not be asked to vacate the premises of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

New reporting from CNBC has it that Thomas operates Liberty Consulting (one would assume “liberty” has a meaning that is associated with freedom from those with authoritarian tendencies, but evidently one would be wrong in relation to Thomas). CNBC reports that among Liberty’s clients are:

• Center for Security Policy, “a nonprofit founded by a conservative activist accused of anti-Muslim rhetoric.”
• FEDUP PAC, which backed the failed Senate run of Alabama Republican Roy Moore.
• Center for Security Policy. CNBC reports its founder, Frank Gaffney Jr., has “been flagged by the Anti-Defamation League for pushing ‘a number of anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.’”

Ivanka speaks: Then yesterday, former First Daughter (sorry Tiffany) Ivanka Trump, who was a senior adviser to her father, appeared via video for more than eight hours before the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection.  While it isn’t clear exactly what it is she told the committee, its chairman, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), told reporters that she didn’t plead the Fifth (which seems like a bizarre qualifier from the guy who is heading the operation), she wasn’t “chatty” although she was helpful, and it was a good thing that she appeared without being subpoenaed. Neal Katyal, former acting U.S. solicitor general, quipped to MSNBC that Ivanka showed up in true Trump fashion: Late, but before the subpoena. 

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods

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TUE 4/5/22

Zelenskyy to demand wartime probe … Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy (above) will call on the United Nations Security Council Tuesday to investigate Russian war crimes as revealed when its troops pulled out of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, The Washington Post reports. After the Russian troops left, photographers and camera crews from western media revealed corpses with their hands tied behind their backs, bodies of civilians left in the streets – and worse. 

And no more Russian coal: The European Union will take up a proposal to phase out Russian coal to add to the sanctions against the country.

The reality: Russia is a member of the UN Security Council with veto power, so unless it can be quickly expelled from the council it will not allow a war crimes investigation to go forth. As for Russian coal, an EU “phase out” would require all 27 members for approval. Hungary, run by pro-Putin leader Viktor Orban, is one of those 27 members.

Meanwhile, even talk of a war crimes investigation will surely end any possibility of talks between Zelenskyy and Putin. 

What’s next: Fierce battles with Russian military surrounding Ukrainian areas closer to its borders, according to U.S. officials. “The next stage of this conflict may well be protracted,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters Monday. Sounds much like the eight-year battle over Crimea.

•••

What real friends do … Democrats are hoping former President Obama’s first visit to the White House – public or private – since leaving office in January 2017 will give President Biden’s basement-level approval ratings a boost, The Hill reports. Obama visits with Biden – “real friends, not Washington friends” press secretary Jen Psaki says – to promote the Affordable Care Act.

Republicans spent the length of Donald J. Trump’s term as president trying to dismantle the ACA, or “Obamacare,” only to discover that certain key provisions are more popular with voters than they thought.

•••

Meanwhile, in the climate at large . . . “It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.” — Jim Skea, IPCC Working Group III Co-Chair, speaking on the occasion of the release of Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released yesterday.

In GOP-world, it is probably never, or so a new Gallup survey on the environment indicates.

Asked if they worry “a Great Deal” about the environment, 24% of Republicans say they do, compared with 50% of Independents and 56% of Democrats. The silver lining in the Republican number is that it was 13% in 2020.

However, it is the individual categories that are surprising.

While we will just show the Republicans’ numbers here, understand that in no instance do the Democrat numbers go below 55% (worry about extinction of plant and animal species) and in no case is the number for independents under 44% (global warming or climate change).

So how much do Republicans worry “a great deal” about the following? …

• Pollution of drinking water:                          42%
• Pollution of rivers, lakes & reservoirs:             37%
• The loss of tropical rain forests:                     28%
• Air pollution:                                             24%
• Extinction of plant and animal species:           31%
• Global warming or climate change:                13%

While that 13% is remarkable in the evident resistance among people of that political persuasion to understand science, it is almost more surprising how little they evidently care about polluted water that may flow from their taps.

--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news