OPINION - Shields and Brooks 9/6/2019

"Shields and Brooks on Democrats’ climate plans, Trump’s Dorian claim" PBS NewsHour 9/6/2019

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SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including whether Democrats are taking a “politically risky” approach to climate change policy, President Trump’s fixation with Alabama being hit by Hurricane Dorian, Trump’s diversion of Defense Department funds for border security and "Trump fatigue" in the GOP.

Judy Woodruff f (NewsHour):  And now to the analysis of Shields and Brooks.  That's syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks.

Hello to both of you.  It's good to see you on this Friday.  There's so much to talk about.

Mark, I want to start with you about this Hurricane Dorian.  We have been watching it now for well over a week, I guess almost two weeks.

And you have got scientists talking more openly now about whether these hurricanes are connected to climate change, to global warming.  And you have got Democratic candidates for President, more of them, coming out with pretty aggressive positions on climate.

Is this something that's realistic for Democrats?  Does that mean they think they're more likely to win over voters if they talk about climate?

Mark Shields, syndicated columnist:  I'm not sure that they see it as a great winning issue.  I think they see it as an important issue.

I would say, among Democratic candidates, first of all, they all agree that there is climate change.  All the deniers are on the other side.  They're not in the Democratic field or in the Democratic Party right now.

And, two, that it's manmade, man contributes to it.  I think those are two important differences that go undebated among Democrats.  Democrats assume that.

And you're right.  They got into a competition.  And the gravity of the problem is real.  I mean, you have got — now you have got 72 percent of people saying storms are stronger.  And half of them believe that climate change is contributing to that.

(CROSSTALK)

Judy Woodruff:  Go ahead.

Mark Shields:  So you have got, I think, a growing public awareness.

The fear for the Democrats on a very practical level is that they get into a bidding war.  I mean, Bernie Sanders now has a $16 billion tag.

David Brooks, New York Times:  Trillion-dollar.

Mark Shields:  Trillion — excuse me — trillion-dollar tag on it.

And you fear, from a political perspective, practical political perspective, Judy, that you get into unrealistic promises, like the Republicans on their pledge every four years to repeal prohibition — a prohibition against abortion, to balance the budget.

And I think that's — I think that's one of the apprehensions that Democrats have at a voting level.

Judy Woodruff:  More than half of them talking about putting a tax on carbon dioxide pollution.

David Brooks:  That was, to me, the big breakthrough.

I think most economists of right and left think a carbon tax or some carbon mechanism is the right way to go, because you let the markets sort of sort it out.  No politician ever says that, because taxing this stuff is very politically unpopular, or at least moderately politically unpopular.

But you had five Democrats, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, said, yes, I'm for that.  They didn't elaborate.  But, to me, that's an important breakthrough.  And is, I think, a political courage.  I think it's also extremely politically risky.

And then Bernie Sanders is not so much for carbon pricing, but he's for semi-nationalizing the utilities.  And that's a pretty radical break.  And so the — I give them a lot of credit.  The debate was very substantive this week.  And their solutions are at least equal to the size of the problem.

But whether it can fly in the fall when Donald Trump gets to run against a carbon tax or a tax on you driving your car, that could be politically risky.

Judy Woodruff:  And speaking of President Trump — and I wasn't actually going to ask about this.

But, tonight, the White House, the President is tweeting out a video, a video tweet, where he's doubling down, David, on his defense of his forecasting some date — last weekend — that Alabama was in the eye of Hurricane Dorian.

This has been a big subject for the press this week.  But is this something you think we have made — that too much has been made of?  We haven't reported on it on the "NewsHour," but we have certainly watched it.

David Brooks:  Yes.

Judy Woodruff:  And it's a remarkable scene.

David Brooks:  I know, because the storm is right over Arizona now.

(LAUGHTER)

Mark Shields:  Look out, Phoenix.

(LAUGHTER)

David Brooks:  Yes, right.

No, on the one hand, we have made too much, because it's a line on a map.  And it's sort of an Onion article.  On the other hand, it is Donald Trump being Donald Trump.

Judy Woodruff:  Right.

David Brooks:  A refusing to admit error when he made an error, B counting his staff to pretend that no error had — made and C spreading false information, which he picked up on TV.

And the President gets the right to be briefed.  And when — there was one weatherman — apparently, he saw him on CNN — who said this.  But it was clear that wasn't the true story.

And the primary responsibility of the President is not to make himself look good by sticking to this.  It's to protect the country by saying, oh, I saw one weather report, but it turns out that's not right.  It's going up the — it's going up the coast.

So Donald Trump is being Donald Trump.  And the question is, do we always react to his exaggerations and lies again and again and again?  Maybe that's the right thing to do just to preserve norms.  It gets a little old, though.

Judy Woodruff:  And, Mark, somebody in the White House drew that line that we just — we just showed, that black…

Mark Shields:  Somebody did, and somebody with a sharpie.

And I don't know who in the White House uses a sharpie.

(LAUGHTER)

Mark Shields:  I'll say this, Judy.

It's bizarre in this sense.  Alabama, for some reason, occupies an enormously important emotional and political, almost sentimental spot in the President's galaxy of affections.  It was there he had his first rally in Mobile, where Jeff Sessions endorsed him in the summer of 2015.

He returned after the election to thank him.  He got a bigger percentage of the vote in Alabama than anybody since Richard Nixon against George McGovern in 1972.

But in the process, what he did was, he kind of gave short shrift and ignored the plight and the suffering, not simply the human tragedy in the Bahamas, but constituents in the important states of Florida and North Carolina.

And he just seems — he just seems absolutely absorbed with it, and when he could just say, gee, thank goodness, I'm happy to report, I'm relieved to report I was wrong, and that…

Judy Woodruff:  That Alabama was spared.

Mark Shields:  Alabama was spared.  And thank you, God, and go — roll, Tide.

David Brooks:  Yes, "I was wrong" has never passed those lips.

Mark Shields:  Yes.  OK.  I'm sorry.  Yes, OK.

(LAUGHTER)

PANAMA CANAL - Debate in Florida

"How deepening the Panama Canal set off a fierce debate in Jacksonville" PBS NewsHour 10/17/2015

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SUMMARY:  A number of port cities on the East Coast are taking steps to deepen their harbors, in an effort to attract bigger-than-ever cargo container ships expected to arrive as early as next year with the expansion of the Panama Canal.  It's all sparked fierce debate in Jacksonville, Florida, as port officials there fight to remain competitive. NewsHour's Megan Thompson reports.

MEGAN THOMPSON (NewsHour):  It’s a typical, busy morning at the port in Jacksonville – Florida’s most populous city.  Vincent Cameron has worked on the docks here for 25 years.

VINCENT CAMERON (dock worker):  These boxes that are coming off these ships behind you have all types of cargo in them, and they go to all different destinations — from your Pier-1s, your Walmarts, your Targets, to your warehouses, to your factories, the paper mill, you name it.

MEGAN THOMPSON:  This massive port imports and exports some 8 million tons of cargo a year, worth around $33 billion dollars…generating almost $170 million in state and local taxes.  The Jacksonville port – called Jaxport for short – is a mid-size port, ranking 37th out of the 99 biggest U.S. ports by cargo volume.  But it’s also one of the fastest growing U.S. ports for exporting.

It ships more cars out of the U.S. than any other port in the country, and it’s a major import hub for companies like Disney, Bacardi, Maxwell house, and Samsonite.  The port is located just off the Atlantic Ocean on the St. Johns River.  When cargo comes in…it’s delivered quickly over three interstate highways even more freight train lines across the southeast United States.

VINCENT CAMERON:  Jacksonville is a port city.  You know, we derive our fruits from the labors that take place right here on these very docks.

MEGAN THOMPSON:  Cameron, a third generation longshoreman, is one of nearly 10,000 people employed at the port…which supports thousands of jobs at local businesses, too.

VINCENT CAMERON:  It’s a big economic engine for the city of Jacksonville, and it needs to survive if the city is going to continue to thrive.

MEGAN THOMPSON:  To thrive in the global economy, Jaxport has spent tens of millions of dollars in the past decade to modernize and to compete with ports to the north, like Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.  In 2009, the port completed a high-tech terminal with 275-foot tall cranes to reach across the decks of the largest ships that dock here.

SURVIVING DISASTERS - Rising Sea Levels, Two Cities, Two Responses

"Two cities, two very different responses to rising sea levels" PBS NewsHour 7/2/2015

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SUMMARY:  While New York City is taking aggressive action to prevent future catastrophes like Hurricane Sandy; other vulnerable cities, such as Charleston, South Carolina, are not tackling the threat of rising sea level and climate change with the same urgency.  Special correspondent Jackie Judd reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Tonight, the NewsHour begins a series on the way communities prepare and survive disasters, both natural and manmade.

NewsHour special correspondent Jackie Judd brings us a tale of two cities, both on the Atlantic Seaboard.

JACKIE JUDD (NewsHour):  The crane towering over Rockaway Beach is a symbol of New York City’s urgent, almost frantic effort to prevent a repeat of what happened in 2012, when Hurricane Sandy nearly brought the city to its knees.

DANIEL ZARRILLI, Mayor’s Office and Recovery and Resiliency, New York City:  We have 520 miles of shoreline. We have always been at risk of coastal inundation, but Sandy really changed the way we think about that risk and how we engage with the waterfront.

JACKIE JUDD:  The response is not simply about minimizing hurricane damage.  The larger issue, the issue making hurricanes more destructive, is sea level rise caused by climate change and a warming planet.

BENJAMIN STRAUSS, Climate Central:  We’re not labeling things with sea level rise when we should be.

JACKIE JUDD:  Ben Strauss is a scientist with the research organization Climate Central.

BENJAMIN STRAUSS:  A storm comes in, we have a damaging flood, and we say we had a storm, we had a flood.  But every flood is deeper, bigger, and more damaging because of the sea level rise we’ve already had.

JACKIE JUDD:  In the last century, the sea rose at least eight inches, and the rate has been accelerating since the 1990s.

In the Rockaways, Mayor Bill de Blasio, recently and with great fanfare, opened the first stretch of a new concrete boardwalk built above the floodplain to replace the wooden one Sandy destroyed.

AMERICA - After Sandy, Victims Losing Patience

"Northeast Storm Victims Begin to Lose Patience at Lack of Basic Needs" PBS Newshour 11/2/2012

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SUMMARY: Extensive damage to infrastructure and buildings in the Northeast has limited access to critical supplies of gasoline, electricity and clean water up and down the Jersey coastline and in New York City. Ray Suarez talks to New York Times' Patrick McGeehan about the state of New York's five boroughs, where patience wears thin.

COMMENT: While I'm sure everyone can sympathize with the victims, I do NOT sympathize with their impatience. To expect such very, very large infrastructure to be rebuilt quickly is NOT reasonable. This much damage will take time to repair, however long it takes.

AMERICA - In Sandy's Wake, A Housing Nightmare

"Housing Nightmare Looms in Wake of Storm" by MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ, New York Times 11/4/2012

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New York City officials said on Sunday that they faced the daunting challenge of finding homes for as many as 40,000 people who were left homeless after the devastation of last week’s storm, a situation that the city’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, compared to New Orleans’s after Hurricane Katrina.

The mayor said that the 40,000 figure was the worst possible case given by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and that a more realistic assessment was 20,000 people — most of them residents of public housing. Even in the best possible case, he said, the task will be formidable.

“We don’t have a lot of empty housing in this city,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference on Sunday. “We are not going to let anybody go sleeping in the streets or go without blankets, but it’s a challenge, and we’re working on that as fast as we can.”

It is a task shared throughout the region, as officials in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut struggle to meet the demands of those whose homes have been left uninhabitable. In some cases, the solution may be a familiar, if unwelcome sight: the trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Katrina.

Craig Fugate, director of the agency, said most displaced people would probably be housed in hotels or apartments. But in some regions, like Long Island with its many single-family homes and few large apartment blocks, he said there was a shortage of vacant housing.

“It has got to make sense for the neighborhood,” Mr. Fugate said, adding that it was up to the states to request the trailers. “We are going to bring all potential housing solutions and look at what works best for each neighborhood.”

Even as utility companies work to restore power to millions of customers, a northeaster, projected to land midweek, may hit the already battered coastal areas with heavy winds and strong waves that could cause more flooding and tear down power lines recently replaced and stop repair workers in their tracks.

“The first concern is slowing the army that we’ve got down; the second is more outages,” said John Miksad, Consolidated Edison’s senior vice president for electric operations. “It certainly does complicate the restoration.”

AMERICA - Hurricane Sandy Devastation Update

"Sandy Devastation Leaves N.J. Reeling as Normal Life Gets Slow Restart in N.Y." PBS Newshour 11/1/2012

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SUMMARY: Up and down the New Jersey coast, towns begin what is expected to be a long process of recovery and rebuilding in the wake of devastating destruction from Hurricane Sandy. Jeffrey Brown and Ray Suarez report on challenges for affected communities. Plus, Hari Sreenivasan reports from Manhattan on the storm's impact on businesses.

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): The losses in life and property kept growing today in the wake of Sandy. The U.S. death toll reached 92 and the focus on physical damage shifted to New Jersey, where the monster storm blasted barrier islands and other waterside cities.

The massive force of the storm's destruction along the Jersey Shore came fully into view today. Town after town presented stark scenes of wrecked homes and boats, underscoring the long process of rebuilding that lies ahead.

One of those towns was the Long Beach community north of Atlantic City, where Army National Guard troops arrived to assist.

QUAKE - And Cell Phones

"East Coast Quake A Reminder Of Cell Network Reality" by Elizabeth Woyke, Forbes 8/23/2011

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Relentlessly upbeat ads from wireless operators may have led U.S. consumers to believe the country’s cellphone networks can handle anything. But Tuesday’s East Coast earthquake, which originated in Virginia in the early afternoon and was felt along the Eastern seaboard, revealed the truth: cell networks still get congested when millions of people try to make calls at the same time.

In the hours following the quake, which rated a 5.8 on the Richter Scale, many people in crowded areas like New York City encountered busy signals when they dialed numbers.

The problem appeared to afflict all the major U.S. wireless networks: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. None of the companies reported infrastructure problems, as the quake inflicted little physical damage.

With nothing to fix, the carriers urged customers to be patient and communicate via text message or even email. Even text messages were balky on Tuesday afternoon, though, leaving some people frustrated with their cell service in general.

The experience pointed up the fact that large, sudden bursts of traffic will clog up networks despite the rollout of advanced cellular technology. One reason is that many of the carriers’ recent upgrades focused on the data side of their networks. These “4G” upgrades were largely implemented to better support mobile web browsing and relatively new services like streaming high-definition video to phones.

NEW YORK - "This is an ACTUAL EARTHQUAKE ALERT"

"What?! An earthquake? East Coast reacts with shock" Los Angeles Times 8/23/2011

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The magnitude 5.8 earthquake that struck Virginia on Tuesday gives new meaning to the word "aftershock." Residents up and down the East Coast had trouble believing what they were feeling -- that the earth was literally trembling beneath their feet.

In sending texts and emails to subscribers, New York's emergency alert system tried to make quite sure that residents knew this wasn't a joke: An alert went out at 2:12 p.m. Eastern with the heading: "This is an ACTUAL EARTHQUAKE ALERT."

After all, an earthquake is the kind of thing that's supposed to happen in Los Angeles. But not New York City. Or Boston. Or Washington, D.C. Or North Carolina. (There were a smattering of reports that the quake was felt in Ohio and even Ontario.) Yet, up and down the East Coast on Tuesday people reacted with outright shock and disbelief as the news was confirmed by the U.S. Geological Service.

PHOTOS: Earthquake hits the East Coast

The 5.8 earthquake was centered near Mineral, Va., about 80 miles from Washington, D.C., and more than 300 miles away from New York City. That area often has smaller earthquakes, usually no stronger than magnitude 3.0 and rarely felt by people who live there, said Don Blakeman, a geophysicist with the USGS in Colorado, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

Tuesday's earthquake occurred at a relatively shallow depth in the crust, which indicates a strong likelihood of sizable aftershocks, possibly upward of magnitude 5.0 and almost certainly in the range of 2.0 to 4.0, Blakeman said. There were no immediate reports of injuries, and initial reports of damages appeared nominal considering the magnitude.

"Magnitude 5.9 Earthquake Shakes The White House, Virginia, Eastern Seaboard" by Michael Theis, Woodinville Patch 8/23/2011

The United States Geological Survey says a 5.9 magnitude earthquake shook Fredericksburg, Va., along with the better portion of the East Coast around 1:50 p.m. on the East Coast. The quake rattled pictures and valuables off of walls. In and around Fredericksburg, residents are reporting trouble with cellphone networks.

"I thought Jesus was coming back," said Carla Roop, in an interview. She had never experienced an earthquake before, but was dining with a former California resident, as well as her husband and son, in Stafford County when the quake struck.

Her young son said the tremors caused his orange juice to splash on him as they ran outside.

According to data from the USGS, the quake was centered in Louisa County, near the town of Mineral. The epicenter of the quake was about 34 miles southwest of Fredericksburg, 27 miles east of Charlottesville and 39 miles north of Richmond.

The quake was less than a mile underground, with the USGS describing it as a poorly constrained quake 0.6 of a mile underground.

According to Twitter reports, the shaking was felt as far away as Cleveland and New York City.

Seattle-area sports columnist Greg Johns, a writer for the shuttered Eastside daily paper King County Journal and who now works for MLB.com, tweeted: "Still a little wobbling in the press box at Progressive Field in Cleveland. Hearing quake was centered outside D.C., must have been big one." Johns, who was at the Mariners-Indians game, later tweeted that it was not felt on the field, though others in the stands reported feeling shaking.

Bellevue-native and AOL employee Scott Iwata, who works in New York City, tweeted to Bellevue Patch: "Yeah we're good out here just noticed my monitors were wiggling and felt my leg shake without me shaking it."

News reports say that the Pentagon was being evacuated after the quake.

The tremors sent people scurrying into the streets here near the home offices of Fredericksburg Patch on Forbes Street.

Hector Correra, a painter working at 1314 Caroline Street was on top of a ladder scraping paint when the quake struck.

"It was weird." said the shaken Correra. He said he's never felt an earthquake in Virginia before.

Dina Young, owner of Moms of Fredericksburg, was on the phone and her children were playing when the quake happened.

"I grabbed my three children and took cover in the basement," said Young on Facebook. "No way to get through to 911 so we waited a little while and then turned on channel 4 to see the report."

Lorisa Robinson told Patch that she is having cellphone trouble at the moment.

"I have no outgoing cell service but I am getting alerts," said Robinson. "I can't call or send texts but Internet is working."

"It felt like a train was going through, shaking everything, didn't quite know what to do," said Robinson.

"'Extraordinary' East Coast Quake a Reminder of Seismic Threat in Most States" PBS Newshour 8/23/2011

Excerpt from transcript

HARI SREENIVASAN (Newshour): And, finally, help put this in perspective for folks in just a few seconds that we have remaining here. For people who might not have been there to feel a Japan or a Haiti, how much more powerful were those?

DR. DAVID APPLEGATE, U.S. Geological Survey: The Haiti earthquake was a magnitude 7, so it's roughly sort of 10 to 15 times larger in terms of the magnitude.

But what's really key here is the amount of energy released. So, for each order of magnitude, you're looking at 33 times greater energy. The Japan earthquake was 1,000 times more energy than that Haiti earthquake, but it's about 33,000 to 50,000 times more energy released than this one.

And so that's what makes it truly amazing to have it felt over such a broad area, and a reminder that there is a potential for large earthquakes. We have had them in the Eastern U.S. We certainly have had them in the Central U.S. And they can have a big impact.