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For Immediate Release 07.16.2021 Governor Hutchinsons Weekly Address | Democracy in Action

Governor Hutchinson'sweeklyradioaddresscan be found in MP3 format and downloadedHERE.

LITTLE ROCKLast week, I announced I would be traveling the state for a series of Community COVID Conversations, and today Id like to talk about why these exercises in democracy matter.

The tours are a throwback to the time when community leaders and constituents had more meetings at town hall and all-day picnics.

The topic for the tour is the pandemic, but listening tours are valuable for any topic. When it comes to working through issues, nothing beats face-to-face conversations.

I have met with folks in six cities so far. Each meeting is as different as the community I am visiting, but each is alike in one way each is democracy in action. Democracy is a big and noble concept that we can practice simply and in the smallest venues.

The goal of the Community COVID Conversation is for me to hear first-hand your concerns and ideas. Likewise, the meetings give you the chance to hear directly from me. This kind of opportunity often is the start of understanding. In the end, we still may not agree, but we may understand.

During the meeting in Batesville, one gentleman said something Im sure he has expressed often, but this time he had the opportunity to get it off his chest directly to the governor. And I had the chance to respond directly.

He said many people arent taking the vaccine because they dont trust the government.

I said, Let me ask you what advice you would give me.

Shoot straight with the people, he said. Tell them the facts.

I told him I agreed 100 percent that we must tell the truth, and the truth is that we have a deadly disease that is still killing people so we must continue to push vaccinations, the best solution to beating COVID.

Then I offered advice that he probably didnt expect, and to be honest, Im not sure I had ever said it exactly this way. I told him that since he doesnt trust politicians, that he should talk to an expert that he does trust, whether its his doctor or someone at a medical clinic. That way, I said, you bypass the government, which cant solve most of our problems anyway.

Another moment of democracy grew uncomfortable because it was so honest. A constituent name a couple of controversial COVID treatments and asked a doctor in the audience whether he would prescribe either.

He asked: Are you giving (them)?

The doctor said: No sir we are not

The constituent asked: If the patient asks for it ... will you give it?

The doctor said no patient had asked for either of the treatments.

The constituent pressed for an answer: But would you?

The doctor paused six seconds to answer. Then he answered with the courage of his training and belief: No. I probably would not.

Did either gentleman change his mind? I doubt it. But each was free to speak his mind in a moment of democracy at its most fundamental level.

Soon I will announce the next towns on the Community COVID Conversation tour. The number of cases of COVID and those hospitalized with it continues to rise, so I continue to encourage everyone to get vaccinated. Im hopeful that as the tour continues, we will find ways to reassure those who are hesitant, and soon, the tour wont be necessary.

CONTACT:Press Shop (press@governor.arkansas.gov)

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Governor Hutchinson's Weekly Address | Democracy in Action : Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson - Governor Asa Hutchinson

I came to The New York Times in 1992, 29 years ago this summer, as the first intern in its graphics department. I arrived in Manhattan, a little Black boy from a hick town in Louisiana, and it blew my mind.

In those first months I saw how one of the best newsrooms in the country covered some of the biggest stories of the era, and it shaped me as a journalist and in my reverence for the invaluable role journalists play in society.

I arrived weeks after the Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of police officers in the Rodney King beating, and just before the Supreme Court reaffirmed Roe v. Wade. The city was under the control of the first Black mayor in its history, David Dinkins.

I would soon watch in person as Bill Clinton was nominated for president at the Democratic National Convention in Madison Square Garden, just about 10 blocks south of The Timess offices, and I would watch a massive and very political gay pride parade march through Times Square as the community reeled from the scourge of AIDS. In 1992, a staggering 33,590 Americans died of the disease as it became the number one cause of death among men aged 25-44 years, according to the C.D.C.

This, in many ways, was an extraordinary time to be a journalist.

Newsroom employment was at a high, and throughout the 1990s, and even into the early 2000s, a slight majority of Americans still had a great deal or fair amount of trust in the news media to report the news fully, accurately and fairly, according to Gallup.

In 1992, there was no MSNBC or Fox News, no Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok. Also, there werent many, if any, mainstream news organizations online. The Times didnt start online publication until 1996, and then it was not the truly transformative force it would become.

Since the 1990s, newsrooms have seen tremendous, truly terrifying, contraction. On Tuesday, Pew Research Center issued a report that found newsroom employment in the United States has dropped by 26 percent since 2008.

Last month, Poynter reported on a survey that found that the United States ranks last in media trust at 29 percent among 92,000 news consumers surveyed in 46 countries.

Furthermore, a report last year by the Knight Foundation and the University of North Carolina found:

Since 2004, the United States has lost one-fourth 2,100 of its newspapers. This includes 70 dailies and more than 2,000 weeklies or nondailies.

At the end of 2019, the United States had 6,700 newspapers, down from almost 9,000 in 2004.

Today, more than 200 of the nations 3,143 counties and equivalents have no newspaper and no alternative source of credible and comprehensive information on critical issues. Half of the counties have only one newspaper, and two-thirds do not have a daily newspaper.

Many communities that lost newspapers were the most vulnerable struggling economically and isolated.

The news industry is truly struggling, but the public is oblivious to this. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in 2018 found that most Americans think their local news media are doing just fine financially.

The report explains, About seven-in-ten say their local news media are doing either somewhat or very well financially (71 percent).

I guess I can understand the illusion in some ways. We have celebrity journalists writers, radio personalities and anchors in a way that didnt exist before.

There were popular and trusted news figures, to be sure, but the proliferation of sensational, personality journalists is a newer and growing sector of journalism.

Also, we are now able to access and share more news than ever before. This all leads to a feeling that we are drowning in news, when in fact pond after pond is drying up and the lakes are getting smaller.

I share all that to say this: Democracies cannot survive without a common set of facts and a vibrant press to ferret them out and present them. Our democracy is in terrible danger. The only way that lies can flourish as they now do is because the press has been diminished in both scale and stature. Lies advance when truth is in retreat.

The founders understood the supreme value of the press, and thats why they protected it in the Constitution. No other industry can claim the same.

But protection from abridgment is not protection from shrinkage or obsolescence.

We are moving ever closer to a country where the corrupt can deal in the darkness with no fear of being exposed by the light.

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Opinion | As the Press Weakens, So Does Democracy - The New York Times

Senator Joe Manchin is playing Russian Roulette with our democracy. His fealty to the myth of bi-partisanship and the filibuster make hollow his words of support for voting rights.

The current Republican party is anything but bi-partisan, wanting power for its own sake, not for the good of the country. Robert Byrd manipulated the filibuster when it threatened to paralyze the Senate; he would have had a voting rights carve-out by now. If Manchin doesnt allow for modifying the filibuster, chances are good that he will lose in 2024 should he choose to run again.

Many conservative Democrats who voted for him in 2018 are likely to vote straight Republican in 2024. Increasingly active progressive Democrats would work and vote for Manchin only if he went to bat for voting rights. More importantly, without the passage of the For the People Act the voter suppression and vote nullification laws that many states have enacted will stand.

The grand experiment that is our country will have failed; autocracy will replace democracy a tragic outcome that could have been averted but for the inexplicable behavior of Senator Joe Manchin.

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Letter to the editor: Manchin playing Russian roulette with our democracy - Charleston Gazette-Mail

BRUSSELS Poland and Hungary were criticized sharply Tuesday by the European Commission in a set of reports that said recent actions by the countries threatened judicial independence and undermined the rule of law.

The reports reviewed the state of the rule of law in all 27 European Union member states, and its conclusions about Poland and Hungary were severe, notwithstanding their relatively bland bureaucratic language.

Their impact, however, is likely to be small.

The European Union has no effective tools for quickly disciplining member states, and a new initiative to at least allow the withholding of E.U. coronavirus recovery funds from countries found to be undermining the rule of law will not be put to the test before autumn, if then.

Hungary and Poland get the most attention because they are considered the main offenders when it comes to undermining the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and media pluralism. But numerous other member states, including Austria, Bulgaria, Malta, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, also have serious problems with the same issues.

Hungary and Poland are still seeking commission approval for their recovery spending plans as part of the 800 billion euro about $920 billion pandemic fund. But E.U. officials made clear that the reports released Tuesday were entirely separate from the judgments to be made later about whether to approve or withhold money. Hungary is to get some 7 billion euros, and Poland about 24 billion.

The reports were presented by Vera Jourova, vice president for values and transparency, and Didier Reynders, commissioner for justice. They spoke generally of the effort to establish what Mr. Reynders called a culture of the rule of law.

In a background briefing for journalists, E.U. officials (under the ground rules, they do not allow themselves to be named) were relatively straightforward. About what has happened in Hungary over the last year, one official said: The vast majority of the concerns remain present, and some of them have worsened.

Issues raised in the reports include clientelism, favoritism, nepotism, corruption, pressure on the media and questions about judicial independence.

Hungary is also under renewed attention over its reported use of a sophisticated Israeli-developed spyware called Pegasus to monitor journalists, rights workers, opposition politicians and foreign heads of state.

A consortium of media organizations, including The Washington Post and The Guardian, reported this week that the sophisticated spyware has been used by more than 50 countries. At least five of the smartphones that appeared to be targeted belonged to individuals in Hungary, according to the consortium, and more than 300 Hungarian phone numbers appeared on a list of about 50,000 that included some selected for surveillance using Pegasus, the consortium said.

The European Union has commented carefully on those findings, which emerged after Tuesdays reports were written. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said Monday that if Hungarys use of Pegasus was verified, it is completely unacceptable and against any kind of rules we have in the European Union.

When the freedom of media is concerned, she said, free press is one of the core values of the European Union. It is completely unacceptable if this would be the case.

But once again, the question of any sanctions remains unclear.

There is no real avenue for them against E.U. members that does not rely on a lengthy court process or the unanimous vote of member states which would be impossible, especially since Poland and Hungary have agreed to block any such actions. So-called Article 7 disciplinary proceedings initiated against Poland and Hungary, which in principle could see them denied voting rights, are therefore moot.

Hungarys foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, on Monday denied the use of Pegasus in surveilling civilians. At a news conference, Judit Varga, the justice minister, said: Hungary is a state governed by the rule of law and, like any decent state, in the 21st century it has the technical means to carry out its national security tasks. It would be a serious problem if we did not have these tools, but they are used in a lawful manner.

Analysts were skeptical about the impact of the rule-of-law reports.

In the short term, this report primarily offers a facade of action, said Laurent Pech, a professor of European law at Middlesex University in London, arguing that the commission should have prioritized prompt and decisive enforcement actions.

The findings, Mr. Pech said, may prove helpful in the long term, but he asked, What is the point of a rule-of-law report if, due to lack of decisive action and enforcement, there is no rule of law left to monitor in some countries?

In Poland, one of the reports says, the situation for justice has generally deteriorated, with politicized reforms creating serious concerns as regards the rule of law, in particular judicial independence.

The European Commission is in a major struggle with both countries about the rule of law and the supremacy of European law over national courts. Poland has challenged the authority of the European Court of Justice, which has ordered the suspension of a disciplinary chamber for judges on the grounds that it is politicized and not independent.

Poland has refused, and the commission on Tuesday again warned that it would initiate further actions against the country. If Poland does not comply with the court orders by Aug. 16, the commission will ask the court to penalize Poland financially, Ms. Jourova said.

E.U. law has primacy over national law, she said. There can be no compromise on this.

The report on Poland also cited intimidation of journalists and a growing lack of media pluralism, with a state-owned oil refinery, Orlen, buying a local media group that owns 20 of the 24 regional newspapers in the country.

Established a year ago, these reports are meant to be a kind of health check and early warning system on the state of justice, media freedom and other institutions. But they are written in collaboration with member states, so are inevitably blander than many critics and nongovernmental organizations would prefer.

Still, European Union officials insist that these reports prompt debate, influence political agendas and are used by member states and the E.U. Parliament in making decisions. Mr. Reynders also said they would play an important part in future decisions about disbursing recovery funds.

Mr. Reynders described the reports as maybe one of the most important sources for the possible application of the new conditionality.

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E.U. Slams Poland and Hungary on Rule of Law, but to Little Effect - The New York Times

The European Union laid out ambitious plans to fight climate change through a variety of economic measures, including a proposed carbon border tax that would levy fees on imports based on the levels of carbon they produce.

The United States has expressed concern about the EUs plans to reduce carbon emissions by raising taxes and there are concerns about increased disputes within the World Trade Organization. But at the end of the day, it will likely have the longer-term effect of getting other nations to act in a similar matter, according to Columbia University professor of natural resource economics Scott Barrett.

This does put pressure on other countries like the United States to step up, Barrett said in a recent interview with Marketplace Morning Report host Andy Uhler. And from that point of view, its a positive move.

Barrett said that while the EU will likely see some trade retaliation going forward, Brussels latest move will force others to materially engage with climate change policies.

I think it is really inevitable that any serious action on climate change is going to have to link with trade, Barrett said. Its just finding the way to link trade and climate that is not disruptive to trade, does not damage relations among countries and does address the collective-action problem of getting countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Below is an edited transcript of Uhler and Barretts conversation.

Andy Uhler: Im curious, from your perspective, this idea of implementing climate change initiatives, implementing sort of the idea that we have to face climate change and the realities, and putting them into things like trade deals. Is this novel? Is it a new idea? How did this come about?

Scott Barrett: The idea has been kicking around a long time. And its actually come up in the climate negotiations before but never carried further. The final output you see is all silent on this issue. But it has come up before. It appeared in U.S. legislation, the so-called Waxman-Markey bill incorporated an element of this very similar to the EU proposal. And Europe itself adopted something like this for one sector, for international aviation, some years ago. But that was never fully implemented. Or to put it differently, they backed off from it when there was a threat of retaliation by other countries.

Uhler: You know, the United States has come out and said, Look, we dont have a price for carbon, how are we going to do this? Right? I mean, is there going to be pushback, just sort of inherently, when you have these sorts of things, I guess, traversing different platforms, right? You have trade deals, and then you have carbon?

Barrett: Well, I think theres got to be a mixed response. I think on the one hand, you know, what Europe is trying to do is push the negotiations along. Its main interest is ensuring that its own industries dont lose out from its more ambitious policy on climate. And also to make sure that emissions dont relocate, which is a big worry about the trade system, that if Europe tightens up, other countries may take up the slack, as it were, and emit more. I think, however, there will be some issues. One is that this is being done unilaterally, I think that would be of concern to some. There are some other issues about WTO compatibility, but we wont know how that would be resolved until a case, you know, comes to the WTO, if one does come. Probably the issues will be worked out in negotiations before that stage. But this does put pressure on other countries like the United States to step up. And from that point of view, its a positive move.

Barrett: One more thing, actually, I should say. You know, their concern is about something called leakage. So thats this problem that if one country, a group of countries, acts, their own costs go up, therefore, they lose comparative advantage in the greenhouse-gas-intensive industries to the other countries. So thats a real negative. But another aspect of this, which they cant control through this measure, is that their demand for fossil fuels will shrink because of their ambition, that will actually lower world prices for fossil fuels and cause other countries, indirectly, to increase their emissions. And theyre not able to control for that.

Uhler: In terms of setting that price for carbon, you know, we talk about this all the time in international relations, right? The idea of, you dont have a global governing body, you dont have somebody saying, Hey, this is how we do things. You have sort of that idea of sovereignty. Is this just inherent in anything that we try to do? When were dealing with sort of common goods, the idea of the world attacking climate change, again, is inherently difficult, right?

Barrett: Its inherently difficult. Its actually probably the most difficult problem of its kind weve ever seen. And weve made repeated attempts to try to negotiate an effective agreement over 30 years, investing an enormous amount of diplomatic effort. And theres not a lot to show for it. And the Paris Agreement is a voluntary agreement and so is relying on the different countries in the world to step up. And theyre really not doing that. This trade measure is not really getting at that directly. Its aim is just to neutralize the competitive effects. But a different way to think about this is actually to use trade as a means to enforce an agreement reached multilaterally to reduce emissions, in this case, probably just for the greenhouse-gas-intensive sectors. So I dont know if this is how things are going to finally end up. But I think this, well, if you look at the history with the aviation directive, well, first their instinct was to retaliate. Thats sovereignty, they dont want someone else to tell them what to do. But also it kind of kick-started some negotiations among countries on how to address this problem internationally. And its possible that that may also be an implication, or a final result, rather, of this unilateral effort by Europe and may actually just wake up other countries and get them to think more seriously about how theyre really going to attack this problem.

Uhler: Theres also weve talked about this 100 times on Marketplace but sort of the idea of a market opportunity here for countries if you get out in front. I mean, China has been pretty explicit about getting out in front of the idea of clean energy and renewables and things like that. There are economic benefits to being sort of the first out there, right?

Barrett: There are benefits, potentially, provided you get this transformation worldwide. So in other words, it has to be the case that the markets are changing everywhere, because then the countries that move early to develop the technologies will find markets. So youre playing this delicate game where on the one hand, youre trying to push out to urge the rest of the world to go. And youre hoping youre going to gain from that. But what happens if the rest of the world doesnt join you? And thats whats been going on for about 30 years. This is partly what theyre trying to get at with this measure. But there are actually other ways in which they might push it even further. But that really should be handled much more at the multilateral level. So I think another implication of this is that we may need to rethink how we negotiate agreements like the Paris Agreement, to bring in measures like this, that are negotiated and therefore agreed by the different countries, but that really propel action globally to address this great threat.

Uhler: These are proposals, these certainly arent laws. Youre going to have cases in front of the WTO, I would imagine, arguments of protectionism. Do we have a timeline idea of how this sort of plays out? You talked about 30 years of dealing with this. I hope thats not what were looking at.

Barrett: I dont think it is. I think Europe is going to be moving forward with this. They have a lot to work out. They have their own internal negotiations to sort out. But I think theyre going to want to move forward with this. Now as they do, well have to see how other countries respond as well. And as we did, we saw this played out before with the aviation directive. So this is basically the first shot across the bow. But I do think that no one can really accept the status quo ante because thats been ineffective. And I think it is really inevitable that any serious action on climate change is going to have to link with trade. Its just finding the way to link trade and climate that is not disruptive to trade, does not damage relations among countries and does address the collective-action problem of getting countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

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How will the world respond to the European Unions proposed carbon border tax? - Marketplace