TRUMP ADMINISTRATION - Infrastructure Deal?

Hummm.....a 'deal' or a big-contractor donor give away?  Don't trust Trump or Republicans.

"Trump, Congress announce progress toward infrastructure deal, amidst Mueller standoff" PBS NewsHour 4/30/2019

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  Hints of bipartisanship emerged between congressional Democrats and the White House Tuesday as the two sides announced a $2 trillion general agreement to renew aging U.S. infrastructure.  The apparent progress came despite a standoff over investigations related to the Mueller report.  Lisa Desjardins reports and joins Judy Woodruff and Yamiche Alcindor to discuss the unusual episode of "good will."

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY - California's Hyperloop Train System

"L.A. to San Francisco by train in 30 minutes? A pipe dream indeed" PBS NewsHour 5/11/2016

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  What if you could make a train trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco in half an hour?  It may sound farfetched, but a group of MIT students are developing a new form of transportation to bring that dream to life; the supersonic hyperloop, a pneumatic train powered by magnetism that would put the fastest high speed rail lines to shame.  Science correspondent Miles O'Brien reports.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  But, first, we are kicking off a weekly series tonight that will expand our coverage of science and technology on our broadcast and online.

Our science correspondent Miles O'Brien will frequently be our guide on Wednesdays, as he reports on a wide variety of subjects, including the environment, space and technology, and takes us to the leading edge of research and thinking in these fields.

Tonight, we start with an ambitious dream to create a tube-based high-speed transportation system of the future, one that would cost billions.  You may have heard of it, the Hyperloop.

Here's Miles.

MILES O'BRIEN (NewsHour):  No rest for the weary on Saturday mornings at MIT.

Sandwiched cheek to jowl between grad students building a high-performance electric race car and a solar-powered endurance vehicle, you will find the Hyperloop team hard at work.

On this morning, they were attaching the outer shell, or fairing, for the first time.

JOHN MAYO, MIT Hyperloop Team:  I trusted it would fit.  I trust our team.  Our team is really good.  So, it's great to actually see if there on the pod.

MILES O'BRIEN:  Measure twice, cut once, right?

JOHN MAYO:  Yes.

MILES O'BRIEN:  John Mayo is on the cusp of getting his master's in mechanical engineering.  He is project manager of a 30-member team that he hopes is on the cusp of helping devise a fifth mode of transportation, to take its place beside planes, trains, automobiles and boats.

Hyperloop is a cross between the pneumatic tube you use at the drive-up teller, an air hockey table and a bullet train.  Oh, and throw in Concorde too.

JOHN MAYO:  One of the big differentiators here is that tube, because you have less aerodynamic drag, so you can go faster with less resistance.

MILES O'BRIEN:  They are building this scale model to compete with about 30 other college teams in a Totally Tubular Challenge this summer to demonstrate the best prototype.

MAN:  The winning team, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the MIT Hyperloop team.

MILES O'BRIEN:  They are the team to beat after winning the design phase earlier this year at Texas A&M.  The basic concept is not new.  A short pneumatic train line was built beneath Manhattan in 1870, but the idea was just a novelty then, and has remained in the realm of George Jetson's Dream-O-Vision ever since.

But, in 2013, this white paper changed the equation.  It's a technical description of a supersonic Hyperloop that would carry people from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about 30 minutes, a proposal like this would normally be dismissed, but the author was the real-life Iron Man, Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal, electric car manufacturer Tesla, and SpaceX, the private company that launches rockets into low-Earth orbit and, lately, lands the spent first stages onto small barges in one piece.

OPINION - Shields and Brooks 7/11/2014

"Shields and Brooks on suing the president, LeBron’s hometown bounce" PBS NewsHour 7/11/2014

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SUMMARY:  Syndicated columnist Mark Shields and New York Times columnist David Brooks join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week’s news, including legal action by the U.S. House against President Obama, dwindling funds for the federal highway system, how to cope with the influx of unaccompanied children crossing the border and the announcement that LeBron James is returning to the Cleveland Cavaliers.
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JUDY WOODRUFF:  And I guess the biggest one, though, David, is the speaker, John Boehner, saying he’s going to sue the president of the United States because the president’s overstepped his line as president.

Is there merit in this suit?  Is it a good idea?  What do you think?

DAVID BROOKS, New York Times:  There’s some merit, but I, of course, have sympathy for both sides.

So, basically, you normally pass a big piece of legislation like the ACA, the health care bill, and then you go back and fix it and the Congress and everybody cooperates to fix it.  But because we’re so dysfunctional, we can’t do that.

And so the president is left saying, well, we have got to really change the law to drop some things in the employer mandate to make it work, or at least delay it.  And so he goes ahead and does that, for probably some defensible reasons, some political reasons, but it is a pretty bold step for the president to do it just off the top of his head.

It does really delay and probably wipe out a pretty significant part of the law.  So when Boehner says I’m suing because the president just can’t change the law without congressional approval, technically, he’s right.  The president should not be allowed to do some of that stuff.

But it does grow out of the general dysfunction, where you don’t have two parties working together to make an already passed law function.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Is that what the president is doing?  Is he changing the law?

MARK SHIELDS, Syndicated columnist:  Yes, he is, did change the Affordable Care Act.
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JUDY WOODRUFF:  The lawsuit.

MARK SHIELDS:  The lawsuit.  It’s a base sweetener for the election of 2014.

It’s John Boehner being able to say — and I’m not arguing on the merits — but being able to say, look, we’re going after him.  We’re bringing it to court.  And, all of a sudden, John Boehner looks semi-moderate because John McCain’s vice presidential running mate, former Governor Palin, is leading an impeachment charge, supported by such esteemed groups as Sean Hannity and The Drudge Report.

So, the lawsuit, if anything, looks quite civil and grown-up.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  So, is that what this is?  It’s the speaker throwing a bone or a — whether it’s a bone that’s going to develop or not?

DAVID BROOKS:  Well, the impeachment is obviously cloud cuckoo land.

But there’s a natural tussle between the legislature and the White House, and presidents, especially when everything is dysfunctional, want to expand their power.  The president has been quite unshy about that.  And the legislature’s job is to push back.

And so you’re going to — it’s a gray area.  The president is charged with executing the laws.  Congress passed it.  The president’s got it make it work, whatever party.  And so how much do you allow him to change the law to make it function?

And so that’s sort of a gray area.  I think the president and on some occasions has gone quite aggressively to changing laws to make them work.  But how do you draw that line?  We will see.

I agree with Mark, though.  The lawsuit is not going anywhere.  But I do think it’s a substantive matter that’s built into our Constitution.
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MARK SHIELDS:  But it’s one more problem (immigration) for, quite frankly — and I say this as a liberal.  It’s one more problem for Democrats, I mean, because it erodes further the confidence of government to act effectively and to execute the law and to control the borders of the country.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Why do you say that’s a problem for Democrats?  Why isn’t that a problem…

MARK SHIELDS:  Well, because Democrats are the party of government.

I mean, the president can rail against Washington and all the rest of it, and I’m happy to be out of Washington.  The Democrats believe that government is an instrument of social justice, an engine of economic progress.  Republicans don’t.  Republicans are the anti-government party.  And for that reason, it doesn’t erode confidence in them the same way.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  But, David, you think there’s a way to find out — that enough of these children can be sent back and have a secure place to go?

DAVID BROOKS:  That’s why governing is hard.  This is why it’s boring through hard boards, because how do you investigate where these kids — they can’t tell you.

It’s just this problem from hell.  How do you find out who can go back safely, who you can’t?  How do you set up a process for that?  And yet somehow we just can’t continue the way we’re going, because the horror that the kids are going through to try to get here is horrible enough.

MARK SHIELDS:  Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF:  Right.

DAVID BROOKS:  And so it’s typical governance.  And that’s why it’s so easy to be a pundit.  You’re faced with cruelty on either side of this issue.

POLITICS - Congressional Roadblock Threatens U.S. Transportation Infrastructure

Hay, the U.S. economy is still weak, now this Congressional (read Republican) roadblock will make it worst.

Hint to Congress (Democrats AND Republicans), this is worth whatever the cost.  Not paying for it will shortchange the economy.

"Construction companies relying on federal Highway Trust Fund face Congressional roadblock" PBS NewsHour 7/11/2014

Excerpt

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  The Federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for the building and fixing of many of the roads and bridges in this country, is running out of money.  Congress has only a few weeks to figure out how to keep it going.  And if it doesn’t, it could cost thousands of jobs.

The NewsHour’s Quinn Bowman traveled to West Virginia, where he looked in on one project dependent on the funds, and he talked to West Virginians who could be affected.

GARY TAYLOR, President, Bizzack Construction:  We’re in Logan, West Virginia.  This construction project is part of the Route 10 relocation.  It allows the traveling public to go from Man to Logan.  Ten millions cubic yards of excavation and, contract-wise, it’s about $75 million.

QUINN BOWMAN (NewsHour):  Gary Taylor’s company, Bizzack Construction, is part of the team turning this winding two-lane road into a new one double in size.  Much of the money for this and projects like it nationwide comes from the Federal Highway Trust Fund.

It was created in 1956 to finance and maintain the federal highway system, and relies on a gasoline tax, now pegged at 18.4 cents a gallon.  The revenue goes to reimburse states, which, in turn, pay companies like Bizzack for construction and maintenance.  But the fund has been spending more than it takes in for years, as inflation eats away at the value of the tax and increased fuel-efficiency reduces gasoline usage.

The money will start to dry up in August, but Congress is deadlocked over what to do.  Democrat Nick Rahall has represented West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District for 38 years.