Weekend Digest: The possible paper plant poison, the Speaker’s earful, and Sanders surprise edition

SUNDAY TV PREVIEW
On this week’s TV edition of Talk Business & Politics, which airs Sundays at 9:30 a.m. on KATV Channel 7 in Central Arkansas and now in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.:

 

The Plan
A plan to pass the funding measure for the Arkansas Works Medicaid expansion hits a wall in the State Senate with several conservative Republicans. Also, Democrats lay down the law on their participation on the issue. We’re joined by State Senator Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, and House Minority Leader Rep. Michael John Gray, D-Augusta.

Talk Politics
John Brummett weighs in on the epic legislative battle. What led to the impasse? What may happen next? And what does this say about the state of Arkansas politics?

Crawford & Cuba
U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford is back from a Cuban trade mission. What did he learn and how quickly could we see a change in U.S.-Cuban relations?

Remembering Ray
And the passing of Ray Thornton. Distinguished politician, higher education leader and public servant. We’ll pay tribute.

Tune in to Talk Business & Politics in Central Arkansas on KATV Channel 7, Sundays at 9:30 a.m. and now in Northeast Arkansas on KAIT-NBC, Sundays at 10 a.m.

EVIDENCE OVER INTUITION
“As audiences line up to hear more, he has emerged as something of a data whisperer — an engaging storyteller who can make sense of the science behind what makes organizations tick.”

He doesn’t give traditional answers to big questions that companies or groups have,” said Peter Fasolo, who leads global human resources at Johnson & Johnson. He has “a real gift of a very strong research-oriented academician” who can make “complex issues easy to understand.”

Andrew Biga, JetBlue’s director of talent acquisition and assessment, put it this way: “He’s relatable. That goes a long way with any crowd — whether it’s academics, celebrities or business types.”

His message is from “a man in step with his times.” Who is this leadership wunderkind?

“I think we are leaving the age of experience and moving into the age of evidence,” he says. “One of my big goals professionally is to get more leaders to stop acting on intuition and experience — and instead be data-driven.”

The Washington Post profiles this organizational psychologist, author and business guru at this link.

A PAPER PLANT IN ARKANSAS IS ALLEGEDLY POISONING CROSSETT
Newsweek has posted a strong story on how many in the area say Crossett’s Georgia-Pacific paper plant’s pollution is to blame “for the severe health issues residents are facing.”

The plant runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and emits upwards of 1.5 million pounds of toxic chemicals every year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Toxic Release Inventory, which is based on self-reported calculations from emitting facilities. In the case of the Georgia-Pacific plant, these emissions include known carcinogens such as formaldehyde, dioxin, acetaldehyde and chloroform.

In a November inspection, the Environmental Protection Agency found several areas where the plant was emitting uncontrolled gases into the atmosphere, violating the Clean Air Act.

“The plant also emits a steady stream of another toxin, hydrogen sulfide, both in the air and in the effluent streams of its water treatment system. One of these streams, which residents call ‘Stink Creek,’ runs through the back of Patton’s land. When the wind is blowing the wrong way, it brings a harsh, metallic smell into the homes of nearby residents. A strong whiff stings the nose and burns the throat and lungs.”

“Residents began complaining about emissions back in the 1990s. In addition to the worrisome odors, there were the chemicals eating through air-conditioning units and copper wiring. Georgia-Pacific responded by going door to door, doling out checks in exchange for signed release forms absolving the company of any responsibility for damages to the residents’ property—or their health.”

Follow this link for the complete story.

A TALE OF TWO VALET PARKING STARTUPS
Forbes posts, “These rival four-letter valet parking apps spent most of the last two years fighting each other. Now Luxe and Zirx are going their separate ways.”

With inspiration from Uber and more than $60 million combined from Silicon Valley’s top venture capitalists, the two young startups battled for the privilege of eliminating your parking hassle. The promise by both companies was simple: press a button in an app and someone would come in a few minutes to valet your car away. Press another button and your car would return, all for a low price. There was only one problem: it was too good to be true.

What happened? Find out here.

SAY GOODBYE TO THE FED YOU ONCE KNEW
BloombergMarket reports, “Seven years after the crisis, reserves and high-quality assets required to be held by banks to cover potential funding outflows are still being built up through the introduction of new financial regulation, with far reaching consequences.”

A new paper by Zoltan Pozsar, director of U.S. economics at Credit Suisse AG, underscores the complex interplay between new banking regulation and the role of the Federal Reserve in financial markets, arguing that the existence of these new liquidity requirements may force the U.S. central bank to revamp itself into a new global funding force.”

Indeed, the Fed’s bloated balance sheet may prove to be its permanent state rather than a temporary phenomenon in the aftermath of years of stimulative monetary policy, he says.

“If the world is depending on dollars and the dollar is the funding currency not only in the U.S. but globally, then you must be extra careful in how you tighten global policies so as not to create dollar funding stress,” Pozsar said in an phone interview. “If you make an error it’s coming back to your own balance sheet. That’s going to make the Fed more careful and more dovish going forward.”

For the full post, click on this link.

PAUL RYAN GETS AN ‘EARFUL’
POLITICO posts, “Days after ruling himself out of White House contention, House Speaker Paul Ryan stepped into the arena of presidential state craft, talking up his recent tour of the Middle East and echoing complaints from foreign leaders about Barack Obama’s foreign policy and Donald Trump’s rhetoric.

Ryan spoke Thursday morning to a group of foreign policy reporters in his Capitol office about his trip to the Middle East, where he said U.S. allies repeatedly complained about Obama’s leadership.”

Asked if leaders in the countries he visited last week – Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – had raised qualms about Trump, Ryan said: “Sure, I got it.” Ryan said that Arab officials cited his condemnation in December of Trump’s call for halting Muslim immigration into the U.S.

“People over there knew about it and thanked me for doing it,” Ryan said. “I didn’t realize people paid this close attention to it.”

For more about what Ryan had to say, go to this link.

HOUSE GOP COMES TO TERMS WITH PROSPECT OF NO BUDGET
The Hill says, “House Republicans are coming to a consensus on this year’s budget bill: There won’t be one.”

“GOP lawmakers are universally accepting that the party will blow past a budget deadline on Friday, and say voting on a budget at all this year is unlikely.”

“That’s the way it is. C’est la vie,” Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) told The Hill on Wednesday when asked about missing the April 15 deadline.

“Faced with resistance from the right, GOP leaders are now barreling forward on individual appropriations bills. They hope to leapfrog the spending fight that tanked the budget blueprint while making good on Speaker Paul Ryan’s(R-Wis.) high-profile promise to restore regular order to the spending process.”

What “tanked” Ryan’s budget hopes and more on why the budget “was left out of this week’s to-do list of legislation and got little attention from most members over the break,” at this link.

RYAN SHOULD WAIT/KASICH GOES ON OFFENSIVE
“On the day that Paul Ryan said he really, truly, honestly did not want to be the Republicans’ presidential savior, John Kasich did his best to channel the House speaker. Both undertakings underscored how much trouble the old pro-business, pro-tax-cut conservatism faces,” says Real Clear Politics.

“A cynic might theorize that since absence makes the heart grow fonder, Ryan’s reticence would only make his party hope and pray harder that he would deliver it from catastrophe. But the 46-year-old speaker knows that the 2016 GOP is unlikely to be the vehicle for the neo-Reaganite revival he seeks. He’s much better off waiting until 2020.”

Kasich, in the meantime, did what he should have done long ago, casting Donald Trump and Ted Cruz (without naming them) as taking the party down the “path to darkness.” If you like what Sarah Palin once mocked as “that hopey-changey stuff” (and I do), the Ohio governor’s New York speech was a magnificent relief from the horror movie motifs and exclusionary rhetoric that have become the staples of this year’s Republican contest.

Kasich urged us toward that most old-fashioned of ideas, national unity. “Fear turns to hope,” he said, “because we remember to take strength from each other.”

But as Real Clear Politics reports, “The problem for Kasich involves his solutions.” Get the complete read at this link.

THE SANDERS SURPRISE
Or as Reason.com posts, “How the sleeper socialist blew up the Democratic primary.”

“Everything you need to know about the 2016 race for the Democratic presidential nomination can be found in a single moment in one of the early debates, when Bernie Sanders was asked for his thoughts on banks. His face creased in pharisaical rage.”

“They trample on the middle class, they control Washington, and why do they chain all their pens to the desks?” he demanded. “You gotta break up the banks into little pieces and then flush the pieces down the toilet so you can never put the banks back together. Then you just make the bankers pay for college for everyone, and America’s fixed!”

As Sanders spoke, Hillary Clinton shamelessly mugged crazy faces – until it dawned on her that the wild applause from the crowd was for him, not her. “Wait a minute, do you all like this?” she cried. “I’m not losing, am I?”

“OK, that exchange only happened on Saturday Night Live. But that doesn’t make it any less true. A self-proclaimed socialist whose entire platform consists of spending more money on everything and making somebody else pay for it has somehow broken into the presidential race, to the befuddlement of everybody – especially Clinton.”

Follow this link for an in-depth read on how Sanders has defied the odds with his rhetoric, and because of his success, Reason.com asks, “Has the American electorate taken a sharp turn left?”

THE ‘VEEP’ SPEAKS OUT
“A female politician in the fight of her life as she strives to make White House history. A nation in the balance as its officials contend with an arcane electoral system that varies from state to state. A proud republic debased by a presidential campaign fixated on minor gaffes and riddled with filthy language.”

Sound familiar? Maybe so, but let’s shift the paradigm a little.

So begins a new year of “Veep,” the HBO comedy that offers satirical refuge from governmental gridlock and democratic despair with its depiction of a fictional if familiarly dysfunctional Washington, led by President Selina Meyer, the ambitious and vulgar former vice president, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

As “Veep,” which with eerie prescience has anticipated real-life political embarrassments in the United States and around the world, begins its fifth season on April 24, it finds President Meyer in ever more farcically frustrating territory: Stuck in an Electoral College tie with a rival candidate, she must continue to govern while she and her Oval Office colleagues try to steer a byzantine recount process in her favor.

The New York Times interviewed Louis-Dreyfus about the show and her take on some real-world politics. Click here for her comments.

KOBE INC.
Bloomberg reports, “Kobe Bryant scored 60 points Wednesday night, in a come-from-behind win for the Los Angeles Lakers in the final game of Bryant’s 20-year career.”

He delivered an even better performance as a spokesman for Kobe Inc.

After the game, Bryant stood at center court draped in a towel emblazoned with the the logo for Body Armor, a sports drink in which he is an investor. Over the course of a two-minute and 54-second nationally televised farewell, Bryant thanked his fans, teammates and family – and generated more than $833,000 in media exposure for the brand, according to Apex Marketing Group.

Paul Swangard, formerly the managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, said the marketing message in Bryant’s farewell was perfect.

“His exit plan was flawless as was his execution,” he said.

For more on the future of Kobe Inc., click here.

WOMAN VISITS 7 WONDERS OF THE WORLD IN INSPIRING PHOTO SERIES
“After a string of bad luck and health problems, Megan Sullivan was inspired to travel her way through some of the most wonderful sites on Earth,” says Mashable.

“I fell 50-feet climbing in Yosemite, got hit by a car and then diagnosed with skin cancer, all in one month,” Sullivan wrote on her website. “Two weeks later, I decided to see the Seven New Wonders of the world in just 13 days with a new outlook on life: to live more now.”

Check out what she saw at this link.