WED 3/30/22

GOP Support for Brown Jackson – Susan Collins of Maine has told The New York Times she will vote to confirm federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. This makes Collins the first, and potentially only Republican senator to support Brown Jackson to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer at the end of the current term, and virtually assures President Biden's choice will take the seat. 

Meanwhile: But Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) still has his 2024 presidential run sound bites from grilling Brown Jackson over her sentencing record on child pornography cases and on her alleged position on Critical Race Theory taught in grade schools – we’ll repeat it again; CRT is not taught below college level.

•••

Dismal Numbers – 1.) Russian troops have forcibly deported more than 20,000 Ukrainians to Russia in Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation,” Mariupol city council members say (per NPR) and, 2.) More than 4 million Ukrainians, about one-tenth its prewar population, have fled their country as refugees (also NPR). 

The 4-million-plus consists mostly of women and children, as most Ukrainian men are now part of the country’s military, pushing back Russian troops. Britain’s Defense Ministry says “heavy losses” are forcing Russian forces back into Russia and Belarus. 

Meanwhile: Ukraine officials doubt Russia’s promises made in cease fire talks held in Turkey earlier this week that it will “drastically reduce” attacks on Kyiv and Chernihiv, The Washington Post reports. Both cities were struck overnight Tuesday, and the belief is now that Russia made the promise in order to buy time to rotate its troops.

•••

Two Years Late? – The White House has just launched covid.gov, “a new one-stop shop website for vaccination tests, treatments, masks, and the latest COVID-19 information.” It took us two attempts to successfully find it – in the first, we were directed to covid.gov.pk, a Pakistan government site that beat the U.S. site to the Web.

Meanwhile: The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Tuesday that people age 50 and older are now eligible for a second booster shot of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, beginning today, The Washington Post reports. 

•••

Meanwhile, in the world of every-day Americans -- In January 2021 the Gallup Live Evaluation Index hit 59.2%, a 14-year high measuring those people who consider themselves to be “thriving” as compared with “struggling” or “suffering.” Another way of looking at it is as a measure of stress: those who are striving feel less of it.

The other shoe drops: The latest Index has the number at 53.25, which is the lowest since it hit the high. Seems like inflation is causing a deflation in the level of thriving.

The Gallup pollsters looked at the breakdown of responses along political lines. Back in October 2020, not surprisingly, the percent of Republicans thriving was 69.9%. The number has decreased, going to 64.7% in June 2021, 58.1% in December 2021, but then up a bit to 60.25% in February 2022.

The Dems back in October 2020 were at 42.4% (perhaps not feeling so positive about Biden’s chances), then by June 2021 the number was up to 58.1%. However, there has been a decline since then, to 55.3% in December 2021 and 53.3% in February 2022.

How did this happen? Seems somewhat surprising that the Republicans are thriving more than the Democrats.

Slight solace. Gallup shows that since 2008 the measure hit the low mark of 46.8% twice: In November 2008, when the Dow was at its low point during the financial crisis, and in April 2020, when U.S. unemployment claims hit 30 million. 

So the latest figure is 6.45 points higher than those lows.

•••

Correction: 4-1/2 Minutes Short – We shorted the blank portion of President Nixon’s White House phone tapes turned over in connection with Watergate, in our item about President Trump’s missing January 6, 2021, communications Tuesday. In the case of Richard Nixon and Watergate, 18 and ½ minutes were missing, four-and-a-half minutes longer than we credited to Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, but still more than 439 minutes short of the length of missing communications from and to Donald J. Trump during the middle of the Big Lie-triggered insurrection on the Capitol. We regret the mistake.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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TUE 3/29/22

Biden Won’t Back Down – President Biden says he is not taking back his comments in Warsaw last weekend that “for God’s sake, this man,” Russian President Vladimir Putin, “cannot remain in power.” … 

“I’m not walking anything back,” Biden said as he released his Fiscal Year 2023 federal budget Monday.  “But I wasn’t then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change.” (Per The Guardian.)

Democratic political consultant and strategist to the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, Paul Begala, likened Biden’s “for God’s sake” ad-lib, on NPR’s Morning Edition, to President Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union “the evil empire.”

Meanwhile: Negotiators from Kyiv and Moscow continue to meet in Istanbul to try and reach a ceasefire. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has offered “neutral status”, meaning he will not seek NATO membership, if Putin removes his troops from the country.

Breaking Tuesday: As Ukraine outlined its peace proposals in Turkey, Russia said it will “drastically reduce” its “activity” in areas around Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and Chernihiv, “to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations,” said Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin (per The Washington Post).

•••

About Biden’s Budget – White House budget requests, at best, serve as starting points for what the president’s party in Congress want for the coming fiscal year. For the record, Biden’s $5.8-trillion request includes more money for affordable housing and local police funding while – here’s the controversial part – proposing a minimum 20% income tax on billionaires. Although Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is on record as opposing such taxes on the rich, The Hill says at the very least Biden will use this as a political cudgel for the 2022 midterms and possibly the 2024 presidential election.

Republicans will have a hard time campaigning against taxing billionaires, The Hill posits, citing a ProPublica story last June that several of the richest people in the U.S. pay little or no taxes, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Fox News’/Succession inspiration Rupert Murdoch. 

The White House claims the president’s budget request would cut the deficit by more than $1 trillion over the next decade and no one earning less than $400,000 per year will pay a penny more in taxes. Biden also requests $773 billion for the Department of Defense for FY23.

•••

‘Yuge’ Next to Watergate’s 14-Minute ‘Gap’ – President Trump’s White House records handed over to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection are missing seven-hours, 37-minutes of communications, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and CBS News. Bob Woodward and Robert Costa report the House panel is “investigating whether it has the full record” as turned over by the National Archives earlier this year, or whether Trump communicated from 11:17 a.m. to 6:54 p.m. that day using his aides’ phones and/or personal “burner” phones, people familiar with the probe told Woodcosta.

Our Reference: “Fourteen-minute gap” refers to a blank spot in the Watergate tapes recorded by Richard M. Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods. Those tapes nevertheless contributed to the president’s eventual resignation ahead of a probable bi-partisan impeachment.

Attempted Coup News You Can Use: U.S. District Judge David O. Carter on Monday said Donald J. Trump “more likely than not” committed federal crimes in trying to obstruct the congressional count of electoral votes January 6, 2021 (WaPo), which is seen as putting more pressure on the Justice Department to investigate the 45^th president. 

Meanwhile: The House January 6 panel referred to the DOJ contempt charges against former Trump aides Peter Navarro (trade policy) and Dan Scavino (communications) for refusing to testify over their alleged plan to overturn the November 2020 election. Former White House advisor, and current Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner is scheduled Thursday to testify before the 1/6 committee, which may now call on Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, over her texts exchanged between the election and the insurgency with then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

--Compiled by Todd Lassa

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

FRI 3/25/22

Growing GOP Opposition to Brown Jackson – Support among the few Republican senators who might cross the aisle and vote for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson is shrinking, The Hill reports. President Biden’s nominee to replace Justice Stephen Breyer needs only the Senate’s 50 Democrats, but as Politico reported yesterday, Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, and Krysten Sinema, of Arizona, are among nine perceived swing-votes.

This Just In: Friday morning, Manchin has announced he will vote to confirm Brown Jackson to SCOTUS, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Timing: With Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) having constantly grilled Brown Jackson over her child pornography case sentencing – a line of attack some pundits are connecting to QAnon conspiracy theories that conflate child sexual abuse with liberal Democrats -- and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) complaining that the nominee is not J. Michelle Childs, a federal judge in his home state, Republicans may be looking at a way to at least stretch out the vote on Brown Jackson beyond the three-week goal set by the White House. 

•••

Meanwhile, in the Thomas Household – Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, exchanged text messages with former President Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to “pursue unrelenting efforts to overturn the 2020 elections,” according to The Washington Post and CBS News. The two news organizations obtained 29 text messages exchanged between “Ginni” Thomas and Meadows beginning November 10, 2020 – a week after the election and three days after Joe Biden was declared the winner – from among 2,320 texts obtained by the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection. 

Meadows’ attorney, George Terwilliger III, confirmed the texts’ existence, but said “nothing about the texts messages presents any legal issue.”

Such As?: Meadows texted Thomas on November 24; “This is a fight of good versus evil. Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs.”

Note: Conservative religious evangelicals, including many who adhere to QAnon conspiracy theories, comprise Donald J. Trump’s most loyal base.

•••

Meanwhile, in English 101 -- Let’s put aside the fact that Virginia “Ginni” Thomas is married to Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. Ms. Thomas is an attorney in her own right. She received her undergraduate and law degrees from Creighton University, a private Jesuit college in Omaha. The Jesuits, among other things, are known to be a highly intellectual order in the Catholic Church.

Which brings us to wonder how the faculty at Creighton feel about the grammatical performance that has been made public by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa in reporting related to Ms. Thomas’ series of text exchanges with Meadows[CD1]  in her efforts to have the 2020 presidential election overturned on behalf of Donald Trump (which could lead to a bit of wondering about how Jesuits [CD2]  feel about the moral leadership of that man, but that’s a question for another time).

Excerpts of the texts include:

• “I hope this is true; never heard anything like this before, or even a hint of it. Possible???”
• “Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! The Left tastes their power!!!”
• “Those who attacked the Capitol are not representative of our great teams of patriots for DJT!!”
• “Tearing up and praying for you guys!!!!”

While Ms. Thomas says that she and her husband never discuss their work, one of the things that they evidently don’t talk about is the use of punctuation marks. 

This seems to be the stuff of a teenager with a crush on someone rather than communication between two adults about something of immense importance.

“Release the Kraken and save us from the left taking America down.” 

Perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Thomas spend their time talking about bad movie remakes.

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

---

 THU 3/24/22

Brown Jackson’s Public Hearing Ends – Day Three of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings dragged on into Wednesday evening with repeats of much of Day One’s opening statements and Day Two’s first round of Q&A. Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) led a second day of interrogation of Brown Jackson’s sentencing record as a judge on child pornography cases, and her position on Critical Race Theory as a member of the parents’ board of Georgetown Day School, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) continued to complain about far-left dark money groups allegedly sinking his preferred nominee, J. Michelle Childs. 

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) countered by telling Brown Jackson, “You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American.”

But it’s Not Quite Over: Senators continued their interviews with the SCOTUS nominee, though in private, behind closed doors.

•••

Meanwhile, North of the 38^th Parallel -- “The United States strongly condemns the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) for its test of a long-range ballistic missile. On March 10^th, the United States Government publicly released information that the DPRK’s tests on February 26 and March 4, 2022 EST involved an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) system. We noted that there would likely be further tests in the future. The President and his national security team are assessing the situation in close coordination with our allies and partners.  This launch is a brazen violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region. This action demonstrates that the DPRK continues to prioritize its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs over the well-being of its people.  We urge all countries to hold the DPRK accountable for such violations and call on the DPRK to come to the table for serious negotiations.  The door has not closed on diplomacy, but Pyongyang must immediately cease its destabilizing actions. The United States will take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland and Republic of Korea and Japanese allies.” -- White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, 3/24/22

No, Russia isn’t the only country undertaking global destabilization.

•••

Ex-Prosecutor Say Ex-Prez “Committed Crimes” – Donald J. Trump is “guilty of numerous felony violations” and it was a “grave failure of justice” not to hold him criminally accountable, former prosecutor Mark F. Pomerantz said in his resignation letter, obtained by The New York Times. Pomerantz and fellow prosecutor Carey R. Dunne resigned last month after Manhattan’s new district attorney, Alvin Bragg, put the brakes on the effort to seek a criminal indictment against the former president in an investigation of falsified business records. 

“The team that has been investigating Mr. Trump harbors no doubt about whether he committed crimes – he did,” Pomerantz wrote.

Bragg took over the case after Cyrus Vance retired as Manhattan D.A. rather than run for re-election last November. In his letter Pomerantz expressed confidence that Vance’s investigation would have led to criminal charges against Trump and his organization. Bragg insists the grand jury investigation continues, though its term expires in April. 

Boilerplate: Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but Donald J. Trump has slammed the D.A.’s investigation as “political.” The Trump Organization responded to Pomerantz’s resignation letter by calling the former prosecutor “a never-Trumper” and adding, “never before have we seen this level of corruption in our legal system.”

But Wait, There’s More: New York Attorney General Letitia James’ civil case against the Trump Organization for similar allegations continues, and the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 Capitol insurrection has indicated it has evidence of Trump’s complicity in the attempted coup. But the House panel would have to convince U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to issue charges against the former president. 

•••

Mo v. Trump -- ICYMI, former President Trump “removed” his endorsement of Rep. Mo Brooks’ (R-AL) re-election campaign this year, saying he had “hired a new campaign staff who ‘brilliantly’ convinced him to ‘stop talking about the 2020 election’” … perhaps because this is 2022. “Election fraud must be captured and stopped or we won’t have a country anymore.”

Brooks shot back yesterday with an accusation that Trump asked him to remove President Biden from the White House following the 2020 elections, despite the congressman’s protests, according to The Hill. 

Brooks’ Statement: “President Trump has asked me to rescind the 2020 elections, immediately remove Joe Biden from the White House, and hold a new special election for the presidency. As a lawyer, I’ve repeatedly advised President Trump that January 6 was the final election contest verdict and neither the U.S. Constitution nor the U.S. Code permit what President Trump asked. Period.”

But Not the Last Word: We know from experience of the last two years that Brooks’ “period” on that statement will not stop Trump from perpetuating the Big Lie. In Ohio, seven Republicans are running for the primary to replace Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), with all top candidates claiming to be “Trumpiest,” according to NPR’s All Things Considered. But Rep. Brooks’ break from MAGA-ism indicates the former president’s grip on the GOP may finally be loosening.

•••

Meanwhile, in Job Approval Ratings -- According to Gallup, Donald Trump began his presidency with a 44% approval rating, peaked at 49% (May 1-13, 2020), then was at 34% in his last week in office. Makes one wonder about the power of “the Base,” but that’s a subject for another time.

The latest numbers for Joe Biden have him at 42%, which is a 1% bump over his number in February.

According to Gallup, there are two categories where there are numbers considered “statistically significant changes,” the 6% improvements in both his response to coronavirus (now at 53% approval) and his handling of the situation with Russia (now at 42%).

As for the first, that might be predicated on the sense that many Americans now have that COVID is “over.” Not true, of course, but it seems like it.

As for the second, that 42% leads to a question of what the surveyed would prefer —and most of them probably don’t have an answer for that.

Biden’s job approval ratings since he’s been in office started at 57%, his peak, and since September 2021 (43%) has been bumping along in the low 40%s. Better than Trump’s consistency in the mid- to high-30%s, but not exactly the stuff of a rousing rendition of “Hail to the Chief.”

•••

Former Secretary of State Albright has Died – Madeleine Albright, who “rose to power as a brilliant analyst of world affairs” according to The New York Times, before becoming the first female secretary of state for President Bill Clinton from 1993-97, died Wednesday of cancer. She was 84.

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

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Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

By Todd Lassa

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Ketanji Brown Jackson on “Critical Race Theory” (which is not taught below the college level) at Georgetown Day School, where President Biden’s nominee for Supreme Court associate justice is a board member. For Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), it was Judge Jackson’s record of “liberal” prison sentences for those convicted of various child pornography charges. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) queried Brown Jackson what her “personal, hidden agenda” might be when she is confirmed by a very thin majority of senators to SCOTUS. And Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) fumed once again over Biden’s choice of Brown Jackson instead of his, and Rep. Jim Clyburn’s (D-SC) preferred candidate J. Michelle Childs, a U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina.

But it was Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-RI) friendly questioning of Biden’s nominee to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the first full day of her confirmation hearings that caught my attention.

Whitehouse asked Brown Jackson whether she thinks there is more to civil juries than simply being a “fact-finding appendage” to the trial judge. 

The civil jury is a “mechanism by which citizens can participate in governance,” she replied, noting that “citizens are brought in from the community” and are screened for potential conflicts of interest.

On the second day of her Senate Judiciary Committee hearings Wednesday, Brown Jackson answered Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) questions about her experience as a federal public defender, by summarizing Gideon v. Wainwright, the 1963 case in which SCOTUS ruled that the 6^th Amendment guarantees right to counsel, thus establishing public defenders for the indigent. 

“It was crucial for our justice system to have representation for both sides,” Brown Jackson answered. “Having lawyers for criminal defendants aids in this process” and having defense for the indigent is important for our society, she said. Ossoff noted that the Southern District of Georgia is one of only three districts in the nation that does not have a public defender’s office.

I can’t help but think of the last time I was called to jury duty, about a half decade ago to a suburban Detroit municipal court – criminal court. 

The Metro Detroit court was for hearing cases over relatively small-time crimes – narcotics possession, theft and burglary, that sort of thing. Or so I figure. My day on the jury pool went something like the following:

Arrive early in the morning. Hold in a waiting room, then be escorted into a typical wood-paneled courtroom. There were maybe 20-30 jurors, filling perhaps half the courtroom. Somewhere on our way into the courtroom we could see in the hallway another room, probably the judge’s chambers, with one of those small vertical windows, large enough for the jury pool to see a couple of suits – a prosecutor and a defense attorney. What does stick out in my memory is that the judge and the lawyers in that office could see the jury pool file in easier than we could see them. 

The court clerk – I think – came into the courtroom to tell us to sit tight. About lunchtime the clerk told us it wouldn’t be long now. The jury pool started squirming and complaining a bit, talking about missed work and having had to drop kids off at school early, that sort of thing, and how this process seems to be a huge waste of everyone’s time. At one point, I noted, perhaps a bit too loudly, that we in the jury pool were all white.

A little while later, we were all told we could go home. The clerk told me that she didn’t remember the last time a criminal case actually went to court.

All the defendants had pleaded out. I do not have any idea what their racial, ethnic, or gender make-up might have been – they may have been all white. 

If confirmed, Brown Jackson will be the first-ever public defender on the Supreme Court, and that experience – and insight into how criminal defense works in this country – will serve the court as well as anything else on her resume.

---

Please email your comments to editors@thehustings.news

TUE 3/22/22

Culture Wars and the KBJ Hearings – Republican scrutiny of President Biden’s nominee for Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, began with Sen. Lindsay Graham’s (R-SC) complaint that far-left lobbying groups and “dark money” sunk White House consideration of Judge J. Michelle Childs for the seat, because of her alleged rulings that were unfriendly to labor unions. 

Childs is a U.S. district judge in South Carolina, who also had the backing of Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), a close ally of Biden. 

But scrutiny of Jackson reached a crescendo when Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said, “You once wrote that every judge has ‘Personal, hidden agendas’ that influence how they decide cases. I can only wonder what your hidden agenda is?”

Backlash: According to Fox News Digital, “reporters and media commentators took to social media to complain about Blackburn asking for the Supreme Court nominee’s ‘hidden agenda’. First example was by CNN reporter Manu Raju, who tweeted this caption to a photo from the hearings: “Judge Jackson listens on as Marsha Blackburn questions whether the Supreme Court nominee has a ‘hidden agenda.’”

You can read other examples here: https://www.foxnews.com/media/media-attack-marsha-blackburn-take-hearing-comments-context

A Blackburn aide told Fox News Digital, “You can always count on mainstream media to target and harass the only female conservative in the room – it appears that’s their full-time job.”

Day Two: And that’s just from the opening comments on the first day of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings. The second day, with committee grilling of Brown, has just begun.

•••

Vintage Defense in Ukraine – The U.S. is sending into Ukraine Russian defense systems it secretly obtained before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, as protection against Russia’s attacks. The U.S. military acquired the Soviet-era defense systems to better understand the capabilities of missile defense systems Moscow was using around the world, according to The Wall Street Journal.

What’s Not 40-years Old: Meanwhile, President Biden warned Monday of likelihood of Russian cyber-attacks against “critical-sector” U.S. companies, The Washington Post says.

On the Physical Battlefield: President Volodymyr Zelensky says some Ukrainian cities have been bombed beyond recognition as Russia steps up its shelling. Ukrainian forces have re-taken a suburb of Kyiv as Russian troops remain stalled outside the city.

On Tuesday, Zelensky told the Italian government that Ukraine is on the brink of surviving the war, per BBC.

And What Would Trump Do?: As the Trump wing of the Republican Party continues to paint President Biden as “weak” on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Fox News host Stuart Varney pressed Donald J. Trump on what the ex-president would have done better. Would Trump send in MiG jets, as requested by Zelensky?

“Well, maybe, even more, to be honest with you,” according to a transcript of the Varney & Co. segment published by Mediaite. 

“Like what, Mr. President, like what?” Varney pressed. 

“Let me just explain that Putin is saying things like ‘don’t you dare send in anything … In the meantime, he’s killing thousands and thousands of people…” Trump went on to explain that the U.S. military has a fleet of “44-year-old” fighter jets.

“Well, what I would do, is I would, we would, we have tremendous military capability and what we can do without planes, to be honest with you, without 44-year-old jets, what we can do is enormous, and we should be doing it and we should be helping them to survive and they’re doing an amazing job.”

And there you have it. That’s why the Trump wing of the GOP finds Biden “weak” on the war.

•••

Meanwhile, in proposed financial/environmental regulations – The Securities and Exchange Commission announced yesterday a proposed rule change that would require public companies to include information about “climate-related risks that are reasonably likely to have a material impact on their business, results of operations, or financial condition, and certain climate-related financial statement metrics in a note to their audited financial statements.”

Rationalizing this, SEC chairman Gary Gensler wrote, “Today, investors representing literally tens of trillions of dollars support climate-related disclosures because they recognize that climate risks can pose significant financial risks to companies, and investors need reliable information about climate risks to make informed investment decisions. Today’s proposal would help issuers more efficiently and effectively disclose these risks and meet investor demand, as many issuers already seek to do.”

The proposal calls for companies to include information about:

1. Its approach to handling climate-related risks
2. Any identified climate-related risks that may impact its financial situation in the short-, medium- and long-term
3. How climate-related risks have affected or are likely to affect the company’s business
4. The impact that climate-related risks have had on the company

What’s more, it would require companies to disclose information about the greenhouse gas emissions that it produces directly or indirectly (e.g., by purchases from other companies that generate GHG).

A Form Too Far:  While we all like clean air and water, this may be a case of what is commonly referred to as “government overreach.” To be sure, if a company is polluting and it is found out, odds are its stock will plummet and investors will be negatively affected (to say nothing of those who are affected by the waste).

But couldn’t one argue that it would be worth knowing the cholesterol levels and blood pressure readings to the executives in charge of public companies, too? After all, if a key executive has a health issue that puts them out of action, odds are the valuation of said company is going to take a tumble.

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

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MON 3/21/22

Public Defenders Get Their Day – The first-ever Supreme Court justice nominee to have served as a public defender, Ketanji Brown Jackson (pictured above), gets grilled beginning today by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Jackson most recently sailed through her nomination by President Biden to federal court, but now Judiciary Committee Republicans including Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas, and Josh Hawley of Missouri, envision soundbites of their grilling Jackson as being “soft on crime” for their re-election campaigns. One of the issues they’ll focus on is her membership on  the U.S. Sentencing Commission, described by The Washington Post as a “bipartisan agency created by Congress in 1984 to reduce disparity and promote transparency and proportionality in sentencing.”

Retiring Justice Stephen Breyer is the only former member of the Sentencing Commission to sit on the Supreme Court. 

Known Knowns: In 2010, Jackson was one of several federal public defenders who “had either represented Guantanamo detainees or done policy work on behalf of detainees,” Lawforce editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes writes. The Republican National Committee says, Wittes continues, that Jackson’s “advocacy” goes “beyond just giving them a competent defense.” (She had continued advocating for the Guantanamo defendants after moving on to private practice.)

Jackson’s advocates fear Cruz & Co. will attack her for doing what public defenders are supposed to do: Practice law that is effective in defense against a determined prosecution.

Unknown Unknowns: SCOTUS watchers figure the Democratic majority on the Judiciary Committee will send Jackson’s nomination to the full Senate, where she will pass by at least a vote of 51-50. 

•••

Zelensky to CNN – Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN in an exclusive interview over the weekend he is open to negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, but if such talks fail it could lead to “a third World War.” 

Known Unknowns: Zelensky still hopes to convince NATO to transfer Polish MiG fighter jets to Ukraine at the very least and conduct a no-fly zone over his country at best, which NATO leaders and President Biden believe will also lead to World War III. Meanwhile, Russia has negotiated “ceasefires” and “humanitarian corridors” which it has promptly violated by firing upon and bombing Ukrainian civilians, so this begs the question of whether Putin expects -- or even wants -- to fire of some nuclear missiles to trigger WWIII no matter what.

How does Zelensky negotiate with such a leader?

The Latest in Negotiations: Ukraine on Monday rejected Russia’s demand it surrender Mariupol, NPR reports.

General Count: Latest reports claim the Ukraine’s military has killed five of 20 Russian generals who are part of the invasion.

Least-Worst Outcome?: Experts tell The Washington Post the war could end in a “stalemate.” “I don’t think Ukraine forces can push Russian forces out of Ukraine, but I also don’t think Russian forces can take that much more of Ukraine,” says former U.S. Marine Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

President Biden travels to Brussels Wednesday to meet with leaders of NATO, the European Commission and G-7, then on to Warsaw Friday to meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda, according to Punchbowl News.

•••

Meanwhile, in COVID-adjacent news -- On Friday President Biden signed the Dr. Lorna Breen Health Care Provider Protection Act (H.R. 1667), which might seem unimportant to you, unless you happen to ever need to see a health care professional.

The bill, according to the American Hospital Association (AHA):

• Authorizes “grants for programs that offer behavioral health services for front-line health care workers.”
• Requires “the Department of Health and Human Services to recommend strategies to facilitate health care provider well-being and launch a campaign encouraging health care workers to seek assistance when needed.”

On March 4, 2021, the AHA — which represents some 5,000 hospitals, 270,000 physicians, 2 million nurses and caregivers — wrote a letter to four senators: 

“Front-line health care workers have been steadfast in leading the fight against this pandemic since the first COVID-19 cases were identified last January, and their efforts have been extraordinary. After more than a year of working through the intensity of the pandemic, these dedicated workers are still on the front lines.

“Concerns are mounting about how the number of physicians, nurses and other health workers are coping with emotional and physical strain from treating COVID-19 patients. We know – both from survey data and anecdotally from extensive discussions with our members – that clinicians are suffering. A study reported by the National Academy of Medicine shows that between 35% and 54% of clinicians report at least one symptom of burnout, more than double the amount of burnout found in other fields. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this situation worse. These workers need and deserve added support as they continue to care for severely ill patients.”

And back then it seemed as though COVID would soon be gone.

Think about what the AHA wrote when considering the anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers.

The bill was named for a doctor who led the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital. Dr. Breen, 49, overwhelmed by what she was facing day after day after day, committed suicide.

--Edited by Todd Lassa and Gary S. Vasilash

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