On Russian War Crimes
PLUS: Obama Visits the White House, and Majority of Republicans Deny Climate Change
Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelenskyy will call on the United Nations Security Council Tuesday to investigate Russian war crimes as revealed when its troops pulled out of the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, The Washington Post reports. After the Russian troops left, photographers and camera crews from western media revealed corpses with their hands tied behind their backs, bodies of civilians left in the streets – and worse.
No More Russian Coal?
Meanwhile, the European Union will take up a proposal to phase out Russian coal to add to the sanctions against the country.
Reality Check
Russia is a member of the UN Security Council with veto power, so unless it can be quickly expelled from the organization it will not allow a war crimes investigation to go forth. As for Russian coal, an EU “phase out” would require all 27 members for approval. Hungary, run by pro-Putin leader Viktor Orban, is one of those 27 members.
Meanwhile, discussions of a war crimes investigation will surely end any possibility of peace talks between Zelenskyy and Putin.
What’s Next: Fierce battles with Russian military surrounding Ukrainian areas closer to its borders, according to U.S. officials. “The next stage of this conflict may well be protracted,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters Monday. Sounds much like the eight-year battle over Crimea.
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What Friends Do
Democrats are hoping former President Obama’s first visit to the White House – public or private – since leaving office in January 2017 will give President Biden’s basement-level approval ratings a boost, The Hill reports. Obama visits with Biden – “real friends, not Washington friends” press secretary Jen Psaki says – to promote the Affordable Care Act.
Republicans spent the length of Donald J. Trump’s term as president trying to dismantle the ACA, or “Obamacare,” only to discover that certain key provisions are more popular with voters than they thought.
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Meanwhile, in the Climate At Large
“It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.” — Jim Skea, IPCC Working Group III Co-Chair, speaking on the occasion of the release of Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of climate change from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released yesterday.
In GOP-world, it is probably never, or so a new Gallup survey on the environment indicates.
Asked if they worry “a Great Deal” about the environment, 24% of Republicans say they do, compared with 50% of Independents and 56% of Democrats. The silver lining in the Republican number is that it was 13% in 2020.
However, it is the individual categories that are surprising.
While we will just show the Republicans’ numbers here, understand that in no instance do the Democrat numbers go below 55% (worry about extinction of plant and animal species) and in no case is the number for independents under 44% (global warming or climate change).
So how much do Republicans worry “a great deal” about the following? …
· Pollution of drinking water: 42%
· Pollution of rivers, lakes & reservoirs: 37%
· The loss of tropical rain forests: 28%
· Air pollution: 24%
· Extinction of plant and animal species: 31%
· Global warming or climate change: 13%
While that 13% is remarkable in the evident resistance among people of that political persuasion to understand science, it is almost more surprising how little they evidently care about polluted water that may flow from their taps.
--Edited by Todd Lassa, Gary S. Vasilash and Nic Woods
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The Hustings features a special debate page Friday to welcome your comments on the Allegany County (Maryland) Library System’s Day of Civility celebration April 7 and an upcoming YouTube channel discussion on how the left and right can return to holding civil conversations. Tune in to <https://thehustings.news> later this week for details.
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Our Substack newsletter will join Congress in taking Easter/Passover recess beginning next week. Details to come.