7/17/26 Panel

From the top! Good morning. Welcome back to the roundtable and welcome to our panel discussion for this Friday morning, the 17th of July, 23 minutes past 9 o'clock. We hope you are well. Thank you very much once again to Sarah Gilbert and Lizzie Honan for... Telling us about the needs and importance of sustaining memberships and its sustainer week and all that is coming soon to a radio near you, thanks to the investments that we're able to make over the last year since we lost federal funding and giving us a very important update. Once again, you can find out more just by going to our website, wamc.org. Let me welcome our panel to the show. Real quick, we were just hearing a music from a chorus line. And the reason is because the Barrington Stage Company is running a production of a chorus line through August 8th. It's the hot ticket in the Berkshers, and it is, and I think rightfully so. It's a great show by a great company with an incredible cast. Barringtonstageco.org, Barringtonstagecoe.org, and best... of all is it gave us an excuse to play. tracks from a chorus line. So that is great. Barringtonstageco.org and the playlist posted online, wamc.org slash roundtable. Okay, let's get to our show and to our wonderful group of panelists, and they are a wonderful group. Bo Breslin is here. Joseph Palomountain Jr. Chair in government at Skidmore College. Good morning, Bo. Hey, Joe. Great group. Really excited. You know, you sound it. You really do. You pulled that off. Excellent. Judith Hank is a senior fellow and faculty member in the Center for Advancement of Public Action at Bennington College. She's the president of Beyond Plastics and former EPA Regional Administrator. She's also the co-author of the incredible book, The Problem with Plastic. Good morning, Judith. Good morning, and happy sustained her week to all. who celebrate. Thank you very much. We hope we get more celebrants and we thank you very much for that. March Gallagher joins us, the Ulster County Controller and the former president and CEO of the community foundations of the Hudson Valley. Good morning, March. Good morning. So glad to be here. You know, the skies were kind of clearing in my drive up from Kingston to here. It's a noticeable difference between Albany and Kingston.

Really? Yes. And so meaning Albany is better or worse? Better. Way better up here. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. See, I was finding last night as I was driving north that it was getting worse. But when you look at the map, New York Times has an amazing map of showing the smoke move in and the areas that it's hitting. But it is... Well, we'll talk about it later. I felt like I could breathe when I got out of the car. Oh, that's nice. Getting some oxygen to my brain so we can talk this morning. We don't have many panelists say that they feel they can breathe when they're in the studio. So that's good. That's excellent. Allison Kaby is a full professor in the history department at John J. College of Criminal Justice. Good morning, Allison. Hey. Good to have you. Very happy to be here. Yes. Well, let's get started. We'll talk about the news of the day. We welcome you to join us, friends. Panel at wamc.org. Panel at wamc.org. Panel at wamc.org. So. The president spoke last night. I don't think we need to spend a whole lot of time on this, but the president spoke last night. We talked about it yesterday as to, I mean, we had an idea, obviously, what he was going to be talking about. What we find is that he, some of the takeaways from the address, claiming election vulnerabilities, they promised proof. documents that would prove this. And most people who have looked at those documents so far say they don't prove that, but still, they're there. And so you have the claim and you have the indictment, if you will, and then the information that is supposed to support that, which doesn't fully do that. The New York Times wrote an interesting piece, I thought, called a Trump obsession that carries a cost for democracy. In demanding steps to address the integrity of voting, President Trump persisted in relitigating his 2020 election defeat while finding ways to cast doubt on the 2026. outcome. President Trump used a lot of alarming words Thursday night as he addressed the American people about threats to the integrity of elections in this country. Deep state, rigged, stolen, conspiring, manipulation, corrupt, fraud, cover-up. But as Peter Baker writes in the New York Times, the bottom line message he clearly wanted to leave with the public was this. He is not a loser, regardless of the result of the 2020 election. There were dark forces at work to thwart him. And if his party loses this false midterm election, he intimated that may not be an honest outcome either. Judah, thank.

Well, last week, the wonderful columnist with the Times Union, Chris Churchill, had a headline about the congressional race in the North Country. And he said, I'm following the Constantino race so you don't have to. And I think this morning AMC listeners can rest assured, we all watched the Trump speech so you didn't have to. And there was nothing particularly new. It was his greatest hits. And if you followed the president's direction and you went to whitehouse.gov, you did not see any evidence of anything changing the outcome. Remember, there was 60 lawsuits in 2020. I think this. We have to take this speech. Wallsuits that didn't go anywhere. Yeah. Well, yeah. Everything, all the claims are dismissed. Disposed. Rudy Giuliani at Four Seasons in Philly, et cetera, et cetera. None of that showed voter. Voter suppression. My son sent me a T-shirt, Four Seasons Lawning Garden Center in Philadelphia, which I pull out just to start the conversation. We have to take this seriously because I think it's a pretext to. voter suppression and interference in the midterms. The polls today show the Democrats having a pretty good chance of taking majority in one or both houses. And I think President Trump not so subtly telegraphed that he's going to take drastic action to block that. I think we can expect him to declare some kind of an emergency right before the election. I think he's going to send either ICE agents or the National Guard to polls. So if your skin is brown, you may not want to show up at your polling place. He's sowing doubt. Apparently, there are no fact checkers in the White House because nothing he shared really added up. For instance, he talked about the deep state and China meddling that they... They had access to 220 million voter files in 18 states. Well, there's only 161 voter files in 50 states. If you did go to the White House website, which the person sitting next to me on the couch who was watching, he went right to the White House website. You do see evidence of Russian interference in the election. And interestingly, that was not mentioned. So I thought this was really bizarre. And remember, you know, I read that he is really obsessed with this, the 2020 election, but not with the 2024 election that he won. And you would think, look, I'm all for voter security and not having voter suppression, but there's no evidence to back up his claims. The White House has become one big...

you know, taxpayer-funded conspiracy theory operation. And, you know, it was a very, a very sad speech for what's supposed to be a modern democracy. But, Breslin. Judith is right. As usual. Good going, Judith. Yes, good job. Not surprising. Thank you, Professor. But let me offer just some additional perspectives to add on to what Judith is talking about. What I think is interesting is to think about 2020, the midterms coming up and the election. I do not think that Democrats should be all that concerned by what he's saying here. other than pay attention. In part because I think these sorts of moments, these sorts of messages from the president end up firing up the Democratic base a bit more. Maybe it's two, three, five percent, but that's going to make a difference come midterm time. I've also noticed, I did some research before this that It doesn't tend to these sorts of messages again from the president about election denying 2020 don't tend to move the MAGA base. GOP, broadly GOP support for denying the election has decreased a little bit since 2020. But what's bigger is that the percentage of independents who now believe that the 2020 election was stolen has moved from the mid-30s to 23%. And independents are going to be a major player here. A couple of more quick things before I pass it on to March and Allison. Since 2020, this is interesting. Election deniers. as candidates have fared far worse in statewide elections across the country when compared to those Republicans who said that Biden won. So the message doesn't translate any lower than the president. His speech, interestingly enough, Judith mentioned this. His speech, interestingly enough, was an indictment of his own intelligence community from withholding information from him. in 2020. And a couple more quick things. No election denier has ever contested a local or state election, right? It's always about the presidential election. And one more thing that I'm done. The inaccuracy of polls since 2016, where there is a Trump effect in the polls leading up to the election. The inaccuracy of polls, I think, has a lot to do with our... well, with increased cynicism about election results. March Gallagher. Wow, Bo, keep going because I'm going to sleep better tonight hearing those statistics. Here's what I expected. Okay. I expected.

of playing with it a little bit. I took all of the documents in the folder on the White House drive that related to, you know, non-citizens voting. I uploaded it to Claude and I asked Claude to do an analysis and Claude came back and basically said there is no evidence, you know, saying that the save, the systemmatic alien verification for entitlements system identified. non-citizens does not mean anything because what that system is doing is it's it's flagging people who have been naturalized who have a right to vote and it's flagging American citizens with names similar to people who are not citizens it also flags people who have died so this 278,000 non-citizen voter rolls included dead people Exactly. It's an over-exaggeration. So, you know, the whole thing did not produce what I expected. I thought he was going to come out and announce some major policy shift. For example, identifying that ICE or federal agents will be at polling places because of something bad that happened in the Georgia elections. But he didn't do that. And I think his whole thing fell flat, honestly. Allison. So I went to find out how much. reality is in the anxiety that he's talking about. Because I was interested in whether people really do question elections. And of course, there is a partisan divide. But interestingly, the smallest partisan divide is on whether people thought that their vote would be counted correctly. So this is from votebeat.org in the mayor's poll. 70% of respondents. And there are many polls here. And 63%, either a great deal or quite a lot of confidence that their ballots cast in elections, regardless of how they were cast. So by mail, in person, using machines, would be counted correctly. And the other really positive piece of information to me is that people think that local elections are well-maintained. well-structured, well-governed, and trustworthy. So they oppose as a group across the country, across political divides. People in the United States oppose federal interference in elections. And the people who are currently sitting in Congress know that. And their seats depend on not the mango menace, but... the people who are actually casting the votes in local elections. Furthermore, people in red states such as Wyoming that have massive land. coverage, huge amounts of territory and very few voting stations, they need mail-in voting. So I think what we're going to see here is both civilian pushback on the idea of federal interference with elections and people in the red states that are big saying, hey, hey, I've got to be able to vote here. I'm not going to be driving 800 miles to cast my ballot. So really, I need mail-in voting.

The other thing I think that was very interesting yesterday is this story, which, I mean, it was going to be a story no matter what because the president is good at making it a story. But the fact that it was kind of overshadowed, not kind of, it was overshadowed by the fact that one of the... teleprompter operators is looking at information that he is entering into the teleprompter and then going to Kalshi and playing the prediction markets and making a fortune. Not a surprise. I mean, you know, it's the corrupt White House and it's like tofu. If you put it in the refrigerator, it takes on the flavor of the refrigerator in the culture. The culture of the White House is it is. corrupt but I am I was actually hoping that Taylor Swift would release photos of her dress last night right when because I'm still waiting for her cat right when the right when the speech was started I don't want to disagree with my distinguished fellow panelists but I think I think you're being too optimistic. I think this is like this is the season premiere of a, you know, a 12-episode reality TV show where Trump is trying to get people mentally ready for what's going to be an incredibly aggressive and probably unconstitutional attempt to interfere with the midterm elections. And Bells should be going off at local boards of elections, state boards of elections. Remember, the federal government doesn't run elections, but they can easily interfere with elections. And I think he was getting us, just like, you know, when you go to Penn Station now or Morning Hand Station, I just go to Penn to protest Andrew Cuomo. You go to Penn Station in New York City. No one understands that. I can explain it. I'm still boycotting cross Bill Gates. It's just me. I understand that you. But you go to New York City and you see like armed military officers with guns. And the first time you saw it, you were startled. Now it's just, you know, they're there on their phones. playing Candy Crush, and you're just kind of used to that. He's getting us used to the idea that he's going to interfere. The Department of Justice just wrapped up an investigation in Ulster County. I had senior cousins in their late 70s and 80s who got a knock at the door. They had voted by mail in 2024, and the FBI came to their door. They were one of almost 500 people who were investigated. And it can be very intimidating. Now, luckily, these family members are grounded. And, you know, actually, you know, they are confident in what they did. But, you know, they were interviewed. Did you fill this out? Did you ask for this mail-in ballot? Did somebody fill this out for you? It can be very intimidating. Yeah. And the other thing is, Judith, you're right as usual. But I'm not that I'm not optimistic. The playbook of what's going to happen between now and November is clear. You're right. He's going to repeat this over and over again.

I'm not sanguine by the drop in support for denying the 2020 election, but I do think independents are largely going to determine the outcome of the upcoming important national races. And if those numbers are dropping, then I'm not going to sit on my hands and say, oh, we're all said as a moderate Democrat. That said, I think that... bodes well for the possibility of maybe a shift in power. I want to go to Allison. Just two quick points. One, what you mentioned, Judith, two things you mentioned. Actually, one is the local boards of election. And we had several letters yesterday of people saying of how much incredible work is being done at that level to make sure that the elections are safe and secure. And that is admirable work. And they're doing. the best that they can under, I would assume, difficult circumstances. Two, I also go to Penn Station instead of Moynihan for a bunch of reasons, but not the least of which is that usually the train I take on the way back. Around 5, 515 is when the bomb sniffing dogs go off duty. And when they do that, they're no longer working. So they take their harnesses off. And those dogs zip around to just about every deli there to get like luncheon meat. And it's just great. There's a dog there, Raptor. Raptor is the coolest black lab. That dog. I want to be that dog. That dog has just the greatest life. He's he's saving us all. He's keeping us safe during the day. And then it's just, it's just cookies and luncheon meat. It's just that is a good life, I think. Good for Raptor. Teeing it up for Allison. Yes, absolutely. I am a bomb-stiffing dog. No. So. The real threats are the ones that he's already done, right? He gutted the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, which was doing all of the investigation of international interference in elections. He last week, I think it was last week, right? He just decided to single-handedly eliminate the entire election review board. One person had been just appointed. And he was like, yeah, just kidding. I think to take a judith's idea of the television model, I think this was a pilot, and he wanted to see what the ratings were going to be. And he, so 30% of America, the 29 to 30% who think that he is, you know, competent and a good leader are going to be like, yes, the deep stamp they're after us. They're back. But they were always going to say that, right? They're the ones who watched this. My guess is the ratings were really low. Yeah, we won't know for a few hours. He's already announced the ratings were really high, but we don't know that. Yeah, and he's the most popular man in the world and Twitter loves him and, you know, whatever, but I don't really trust his evidence-based thinking. The other thing that I have to say as a professor is that this man is giving me material to teach evidence-based analysis at a level that I have rarely. Exactly. I mean, my anxiety levels are high, but my teaching opportunities are good. Excellent.

With that, we are going to take a break. We'll be back in just a moment to continue the conversation on this Friday morning on the round table with a wonderful panel. We welcome you as well. Panel at wamc.org. We'll be right back. Good morning. Welcome back to the roundtable and to our panel discussion. Very nice to have you with us. We miss you when you're not around. And it's good to have you here. All right. Does anyone want to say anything else about the president's address or the integrity of voting before we move on to our next topic? Hearing none, I'm going to go to this story. This is one in, and this is not a, this is not an original statement or thought by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just putting it into a category that this is one of those stories that if you, if five years ago, 10, 12 years ago, you looked at this, you would say, oh, it's from the onion. I know which story it is right. Here it comes. And here we go. And here we go. Pete Hegseth. I mean, just that. Onion material. Just that. Former Fox News commentator. Weekend. Weekend. Weekend. Weekend host. Touts a high testosterone military as doctors question his claims. The defense secretary said the Pentagon would test. The testosterone levels of troops 30 and over, the impact on women and military fitness rules is unclear. And to which I respond, is it unclear? Because I think if it was unclear, I don't know why they would necessarily do it to achieve whatever it is they're trying to achieve, which we'll get to here. The Defense Department will test the testosterone levels of service members 30 and over. and offer voluntary testosterone replacement therapy to those with low testosterone levels, according to the Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says. So if you're down a court.

Go in. Get a testosterone change. We must constantly look for new ways to optimize your performance, your resilience, and your long-term health, Hakes Seth said, of the country's military in a video on X that was captioned, the High T Department of War. HECESS announcement Wednesday raised immediate questions about its impact on female troops and how this new policy would be folded into the Pentagon's bigger focus on more rigorous fitness standards that critics have said are meant to eliminate women from combat roles. Low testosterone levels have been linked to deployments where poor sleep, high stress environments and poor nutrition can take a toll. according to a 2020 study conducted by the Defense Department and other institutions. Hague says promotion of testosterone comes amid a broader embrace of the hormone and the contested idea, particularly among younger men, that maximizing testosterone levels can boost your health and fitness. So clavicular is going to be... within the Department of War at some point, I think. What do you think we should make of this because we, as I said, it's not the onion. So we have to take it seriously, which is what we will do. March. So, you know, there have been studies that show that people returning from deployments with high stress and poor nutrition actually have lower testosterone. Legitimate studies back in 2020. But my thought about that is how about we provide troops decent food and air cover, okay? Because look at that bombing, that the drone bombing that happened in Kuwait at Port Suiba where, you know, troops that were injured and killed were saying, people were talking about the... troops killed were saying that they lacked drone defenses. This is ridiculous what's happening. This hormone maxing effort by the, quote, Department of War, you know, there are long-term negative health impacts from taking testosterone, including testicular atrophy that, you know. I don't think they're really taking into consideration here. And I also think troops are going to feel pressured. If you're tested now and you have no choice to be tested and you show up low in the range, which, by the way, is a really pretty significant range of what is normal, you're going to feel pressure to take the supplement. to get ahead and to succeed in this environment. And I just think it's putting our young people at risk to say nothing of what's going to happen with women. Are women going to have access to testosterone? Are they going to be tested for it? So there are a lot of concerning issues here. But I say, you know, if you're worried about testosterone, reduce stress on the troops, feed them properly and give them proper defenses. Allison? Well, given that I was born testosterone deficient, and I do cry about that every single day.

I thought I would have a look at the NLM and the publications on PubMed to see the reality of testosterone deficiency. And for people who are ill, right, who have diabetes. Who have symptoms. No, who actually have other conditions. So particularly diabetes, obesity, kidney liver, and skin cancer, there are indications that. some additional testosterone can improve their overall health. There are a few negative consequences to people who actually have secondary testosterone deficiency to a primary disease course being supplemented. That said, a bunch of gym bros taking a lot of testosterone to see if they can get more aggressive, I think is going to bring us back. Was it 1984 when we saw the steroid use so that boys could lift heavier things in gym class? I'm not sure that I feel like that's a time I want to go back to because boy, George is not a time that I want to return to in my life. Or Jose Canseco. Exactly. So I think science is important. And Pete Hegseth is not a scientist. Also, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. just said, infertility is genetic. If your parents did not have children, then you can't either. And he's taking a lot of testosterone. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. He is sad. It was my best moment yesterday. I'm sorry. Say that again. Just say that again. Infertility is genetic. If your parents can't have children, then you can't either. That is. It was Christmas for me. I want to embroider that on a sampler. Yeah, that is great. So good. Bo. Let me take a slightly different angle. I don't care. Who the Secretary of Defense is, I will not call him the Secretary of War, I don't care if that Secretary of Defense is Robert Bill Gates or Donald Rumsfeld or Chuck Hagel or Leon Panetta, left or right. This is embarrassing for what is arguably one of the great institutions in America, our military, to focus on... The fact that there's low T and we need to perform a certain amount of sit-ups and push-ups. The U.S. military leadership, I will be clear about this, the U.S. military leadership with Pete Hegseth in particular. has done such damage across the globe to our credibility as a military force. And I'm not talking service members. I'm not talking those who are in the trenches. I'm talking about leadership. Has done so much damage to our credibility abroad that it's going to take a generation to recover what was at one time, as I said, one of the great institutions of American society. And to focus on these things that

Seth focuses on pushups and testosterone is, as I said, is just embarrassing. And a Marine yesterday said, a person who's done two tours in Iraq, was asked to his opinion of this. And he said, we need more than just meatheads. Someone needs to do thinking. Another good line. We have a minute, but we certainly can come back. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say the last thing this country needs is more testosterone. You know, there are really important issues like the war that Pete Hegseth is losing in Iran that need attention more than this. I mean, this is a hormone therapy that mostly boosts muscle mass. So I can see why Pete Hegseth is promoting this. But also Hegsec's his whole record on, you know, he has said publicly women should not be in combat roles. He's rejecting promotions for women and people of color. This is the first time in 10 years that no female officers will be promoted to Admiral this year. So this is, you know, part of his schick. And I don't know how he has time for this because I want to know why the military targeting in Iran during the first day that killed hundreds of schoolgirls. Why hasn't that independent report been released? Why is he talking about testosterone when basic important issues are being neglected? We'll continue the conversation and include your input panel at wamc.org when we return right after this. Use me, choose me. God, I'm a dancer, a dancer dances. Give me somebody to dance with. Give me a place to fit in. Help me return to the world of the living by showing me how to begin.

Good morning. Welcome back to the roundtable and to our panel discussion, playing tracks from the Broadway musical A Chorus Line. The Barrington Stage Company is running a production of A Chorus Line through August 8th, I think right, the best. Barrington Stageco.org to find out more information. I know tickets are going very fast, so if you're interested, you should probably do something quickly. You can find out information from them by going to Barrington Stageco.org. You can hear some of find out the tracks that we played by going to our playlist, located at wamc.org slash roundtable. I was asked during the break. I do not try to tell stories out of school, but I was asked during break, can we stop talking about testosterone? And the answer is yes. We certainly can. Let us take a look at what is right around us at this very moment, and that is the wildfire smoke. So I'm going to put Judith on the... on the spot here for just a second because two stories that I would like to examine. One, about the wild fire smoke and how it is expected to worsen in the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic and how we got into this particular state of affairs. And then look at... Another report that talks about weather and climate change. And this is from science data. What's that? Yes, exactly. So we will talk about that. But first, the wildfire smoke. I don't know, like, I don't know if you were like me, but I've had friends who live along the East Coast of many friends in Pennsylvania and D.C. And. And even into Virginia who are writing me going, well, how is it where you are? Because here it's horrible. And it's not great here. So dangerous wildfire smoke is filling the skies from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic. conditions are expected to worsen in some areas. Through Friday, more than 115 million people are forecast to be exposed to air quality levels that are unhealthy or worse as winds funnel smokes south from out-of-control fires in Canada and Minnesota.

and a heat dome traps that smoke near the ground. There was a point yesterday, and there have been several reports of this, but there was a point yesterday as I was walking in Saratoga that you could spell the smoke. You could smell the smoke. From late Wednesday into early Thursday, Chicago, Detroit, Minneapolis, and New York at some of the worst air quality of the world's major cities. As I was driving up the Adirondack Northway last night, there were all of the signs that said poor air quality, please limit outdoor exposure. That is expected, as I mentioned, to continue. And... In Detroit, the Air Quality Index reached a value of 728 late Wednesday, which is far worse than the peak of 465 in New York during the June 2023, the Apocalyptic, as the New York Times, or excuse me, the Washington Post refers to them, the Apocalyptic June 20203 fires. The smoke drifted into Philadelphia and Wilmington during the early hours and Thursday morning. It was tracking southward along a path that roughly followed Interstate 95. I did mention this earlier, but there is a both Washington Post and New York Times have these incredible wildfire smoke real-time forecast maps that are very helpful to see the areas that are being impacted. Judithick. So there are short-term issues and long-term issues, and I think it's worth repeating that, you know, this is quite serious, and doctors are telling people to stay indoors, avoid physical exertion, outdoors, run your air conditioners, but not sucking in outdoor air, and also change, you know, look at the filters. Yeah. And if you're pregnant or if you have heart disease, you really should invest in... air purifiers, because we do have science from West Coast fires, not the L.A. buildings that were on fire, but firefighters fighting forest fighters on the West Coast. Remember, it was about five years ago. The Bay Area was like we are today, and pregnant women had adverse health impacts from breathing in that air. New York City is handing out in 95 masks, and everyone should pull out your masks that hopefully you've saved from COVID. This is only going to get worse. And also just finally, you can go to a website air now.gov to look at local conditions. I am struck by the fact that journalists are not

pointing out the climate connection more here. I realize we've got an immediate air quality emergency on our hands and very high levels of particulate matter and contaminants in the air. But, you know, these are lightning strikes that are happening in boreal forests in Canada and Minnesota. It is really dry and really hot wood. So a couple years ago, there would, you know, there's nothing you can do about lightning strikes. But a couple of years ago, this would not as been dramatic. And then you combine it with the high heat temperature and the heat dome. And this is a very, very serious situation that was predicted. I think it's important for people to understand. This is the rest of our life. We didn't have it last summer, but we had it the summer before. This is the coldest summer we will ever have because global temperatures are going up every year. So there is something we can do. You know, we can drive down greenhouse gas emissions. It's not going to help in the near term, but it definitely will help in the long term. I have to get into the policy piece on this. The Trump administration has completely decimated the EPA, has repealed all of the federal regulations that drive down greenhouse gas emissions, got rid of voluntary programs like Energy Star. When you want to go buy a new refrigerator, you could look at the... Look at the ratings. The Trump administration is paying wind energy developers not to build wind projects and are continuing to provide massive federal taxpayer subsidies to fossil fuel extraction. At the same time, state Democratic governors are going in the wrong direction on climate change. In the state budget that was adopted this year, Governor Kathy Hochul severely weakened the state's 2019 climate law. And it's really hard to see Governor Kathy Hochul put out cautionary public statements about wildfire smoke and not recognize that she's part of the problem. climate. We were looking at regulations on this climate greenhouse gas reduction law that we're supposed to come out in January 2024. She's extended it to December 28. She's shifted the deadlines on greenhouse gas reductions. She's changed methodology on methane emissions under the guise of affordability. Well... It's not good for the economy when you are told by medical doctors not to go outdoors. So the real worry here is a number of Democratic governors, not nearly as bad as the Trump administration, but they are not meeting the moment. They are actually rolling back greenhouse gas reduction requirements. And if this smoke is not an illustration of how serious this situation is, I don't know what is.

Who would like to go next? I'm happy to speak on this. You know, I was really concerned with the timing of how things played out. You know, basically what happened is... all the sudden, we had a tremendous amount of spoke, and we did not really have advance warning that we need. So all the sudden, we're canceling day camp in the middle of the day. We're pulling back our maintenance and grounds, crews out of the field because it's not healthy for them to be out there. And we had no advance warning, which makes it a lot more expensive. Now, why is that? It's because we've seen tremendous cuts to National Weather Service. We have, because of the dope. cuts. We have some offices, National Weather Services offices, not running 24-7 a day. Some of them have dropped their daily weather balloon launches. The Doge retirement buyout meant that decades and decades of expertise walked out the door. And new applicants to fill these jobs, because now they're like, oops, we fire too many people, have to take a loyalty test. I want scientists, not loyalists here. Tons of research has been canceled. Trump has unilaterally cut or clawed back $885 million that was supposed to fund things like the next generation warning system. So there is a reason why we're being caught by surprise when these, whether, you know, these smoke events are happening. And also I think, you know, Americans don't necessarily understand the scale of what's happening in Canada. The boreal forest is eight times the size of all 150. national forest properties combined. So this is a huge problem. I agree with Judith. This is not going to go away. This is going to be the way life is going forward. And it's horrifying. We're normalizing this. It's scary as heck. And, you know, I had constituents saying things to me like, well, thank goodness it's not burning here. But here's the thing. It will be. It can be. And we have to be ready for that. And we don't have the national resources that we need at the table to fix these things. And I want to add one other thing that speaks to public radio specifically. You know. Public radio is a tool for emergency communications, and it has been hampered by these cuts. So a lot has gone into making this untenable, and unfortunately it's going to become worse and worse over time until we really make investments in science and communications. So, sorry. So if I can, I just wanted to speak to the reality that's occurring in Ontario right now. So when we talk about 180 active fires in the province on Friday, that's today, weirdly, and 25 new blazes since yesterday, which means both the fires are spreading and they're starting new blazes.

They're primarily around Thunder Bay, which is on Lake Superior. It's about an hour from Minnesota, which is, of course, why we see the Midwest aggressively affected by smoke. 15 communities have been evacuated, and it's about 1,500 people. So this is a relatively sparsely populated area of Canada. But the people that we are really not hearing as much from are the indigenous communities that are dramatically affected by this because those people are living in remote and rural areas of Canada, particularly in Ontario and Alberta and Saskatchewan, and they do not have access to just leave the land that they have been pushed onto by the same kind of... rules that we have in the United States. There are 850 fires right now in the entire nation of Canada with 113 categorized as out of control. Much like the United States, there is a regional response to firefighting in Canada, but it's only regional. There is no federal response. So that means Ontario deals with Ontario's fire, Saskatchewan, deals with Saskatchewan's fires, etc. And that's different. That means the levels differ by funding. And so in a wealthy place like Ontario. there's actually much more money available to fight those fires. But in a poorer province, like Manitoba, it's not so easy. So I would really recommend that when we talk about Canada, we're a little bit more thoughtful about, you know, it's a nuanced nation with a relatively complicated geography and history. We are in a moment in American history where we are as aggressively antipathetic to our neighbors to the north as we have been in many, many years. And by increasing this sense of alienation, hostility, and altarity, what we're doing is sort of making Canada an enemy. And Trump is taking advantage of this and saying, oh, they're sending it. And you hear this. They sent us our spoke like American wildfires have never affected Canada. You know, you don't, it's a shocking way of thinking about it. The entire world is affected by climate change. Everyone is affected by climate change. And to pretend that American policy doesn't affect Canada and Canadian policy doesn't affect the United States is insane. And my final piece, and it really struck me yesterday. The air quality was terrible. Many of my colleagues were talking about what, you know, what was possible? What could we change? And I'm watching trucks, semis, continue to drive down the road. And I thought, you know, if we had a responsible government, one of the things we might have done was stop interstate trucking for several days and at least decrease.

the emissions. And of course we never do that. We never stop. People must have their Amazon deliveries. I was doing a webinar two nights ago on plastics issues in Westchester County. I said during these air emergencies, the county should shut down their trash incinerator in Peekskill and an environmental justice community on the Hudson River. Poughkeepsie has a trash incinerator right on the river, and they need to plan for this. Because why are we pumping massive amounts of additional air pollutants into the air when health advisories are out saying, don't go outdoors? And so, you know, You can't just turn the switch. You need to plan for this. If you're not going to burn garbage in Poughkeepsie and Peekskill and Hudson Falls, where is it going to go? You need to make a plan. The governor unfortunately reversed a DEC decision not to approve a fracked gas power plant in the Finger Lakes for cryptocurrency mining. Perhaps that could be shut down during air emergencies. But you have to plan for it. So this now needs to go into not just energy planning, but health planning, because this is going to happen more and more in our world. Unfortunately, for the listeners, I'm a political scientist, and so the thing that troubles me at the moment is that what is clearly a scientific problem, a problem that should have a science solution, inevitably... as all three of you have said, becomes a political problem. And politicians are not equipped to make these decisions. I was, Joe, I was interested in the corresponding story that you mentioned, not just about the... the smoke, but what the story is about attribution science, right? So there's this amazing technology that now is able to determine what percentage of how climate change has contributed to individual events. That's an amazing technological advance that is inevitably and probably already by... 10.30 this morning has become politicized because the left will applaud and celebrate this amazing technological advance and the right is going to attack its authors, right? And so one of my problems here is political solutions to scientific problems never work. One of the things that's troubling, and here I go, one of the things that's deeply troubling and related to all three of you, but what Judith said to start about fossil fuel.

support from the Trump administration is, I don't get it, right? So if the Trump administration, as they are, is very interested in retraining a new generation. They're throwing lots of money towards retraining, and we sort of think of it as welders and plumbers and so on. But if they're really interested in retraining, there's no better industry to retrain for than... the green industry moving forward because it's the most innovative. There are jobs, jobs, jobs to be had for not just fossil fuel workers, but also for lots of other workers in an environment over the next generation where jobs are going to be scarce. How many of you know college students who are coming out trying to find jobs and there are golden opportunities in wind farms and so on that no longer... where the jobs are no longer available because of the Trump administration. And what that says to me, last thing I'll say, Judith, before I throw it over to you, what that says to me is that it's the fossil fuel lobby that will dominate the conversation for at least the next couple of years. And I'll finish by saying, shame on Congress for not pointing that out. What you're saying makes perfect sense, but the federal government today is a wholly owned subsidiary of ExxonMobil. I mean, I can't bring myself to read Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's book, which is on the... you know, number one bestseller list for three weeks now, right behind the problem with plastic. And I love my numbers on book sales compared to that one. But there is a section in that book where they describe a shocking meeting that President Trump had with oil executives. And just on the spot, he agreed to everything. And the CEOs of these fossil fuel companies were just shocked. that open up federal lands for more drilling, get rid of Clean Air Act provisions, pay companies not to build renewables. The problem is these fossil fuel companies are not invested in energy efficiency and renewable energy. And they have enormous political influence, not only in Congress, but also in the state legislature. And so it is a monument. political problem. We've known about attribution science for 10, 12 years. It will come in very handy because the state of New York, and I commend Governor Kathy Hochul for this, and the state of Vermont have adopted what's called climate superfund laws, where local governments will document how climate change is costing them money. and then bills will be sent to fossil fuel companies. And, you know, there's a list of 200, both domestic and international, that you can point to as large emitters causing these problems. And I think, you know, a real challenge is the media, who I love, the media is failing to point things out, like when you have massive...

rainstorms in New York City at the end of the day and there's flooding and people living in basement apartments die from that, that is related to climate change because scientists have told us more intense storms, more rain comes down during shorter periods of time. We have a lot of education to do, but more than that, we have to get the iron grip that fossil fuel companies have on virtually every legislative body in this country that has to change. You know, this summer is a walk in the park compared to future summers. So, yay, attribution science. When I would talk about it, no one knew what I was talking about. So I was really happy to see this article. But we've got such a long way to go. And the stakes are so high. We missed the break for the news break, but I know we have some business we have to do, so we'll head over there. We'll do that. We'll come back and we'll talk more. We welcome you, panel at wamc.org. Panel at wamc.org. We'll be right back.

are you supposed to follow that? Ah, my God, it's great. We're playing a chorus line because the Barrington Stage Company is producing and performing a chorus line at the Barrington Stage Company, and they're doing so through August 8th, and you can find more by going to their website, Barrington Stageco.org. Barrington Stageco.org. Okay, let's move. Is there anyone else who wanted to comment on the state of our planet's health or the smoke? Wear a mask. Not the day to run a marathon. No, no, no, certainly not. Okay. At one point, Allison, during the break said, where are the letters with the listeners yelling at us? Well, here we go. I actually said telling us we're wrong, Joe. Yes, no, that's true. That's true. I have, well, there's one here, for example, that says bless you, Judith. So I think we have, all over the place here. Must be a relative. Wendy said, bless you, Judith, and all of you. Oh, we're all blessed. Yes. for taking up this existential crisis, and that is from Wendy in Catskill. Kathy Hochul deserves our wrath. Go Judith. Problem issue is the best we've got. So how do we make her better? Well, by doing uncomfortable things like talking about the failure of some of her environmental records on NPR, I think, you know, we need to try to meet with her. We need to write letters to her. Look, of course, I'm going to vote for her because the Republican is Trumpy. But. It doesn't mean you don't tell the truth when Democrats fail us. And on climate change, it's a pretty monumental fail. Yeah, and politics is always about pressure and money, right? And sure, I think Kathy Hochul has a good shot of remaining as governor of New York, but that doesn't mean there can't be pressure and money put on her to move the needle in a slightly different direction. I'd like to jump on the money bandwagon to also say, you know, I think a lot of the decisions that we made about New York's climate goals assumed.

that we would have federal support for some of these initiatives. And it becomes much more challenging when you're just doing it at the state level and you lose all of the federal funding that you anticipated receiving. But that doesn't matter when you have smoke events like this. It doesn't matter when you have flooding. I mean, a real leader will sit down and say, okay, the federal government is our adversary on many environmental issues. So what do we do at the state level? We don't walk back our climate commitments. And, you know, we're in New York. We're not the nutmeg state. We're huge. But New York does matters. And then with California. you have Gavin Newsom running for president. So he's walking back some key environmental laws because I think he's fundraising for his presidential race. But, you know, when you're looking at increased cardiac issues and increased asthma, I don't think people really care that the federal government is not there for us anymore. And there's a step up. Undocumented expenses, you know, the health impacts are going to be tremendously huge. I was thinking about that over the last couple of days, like how many cancers. are actually being created right now. At some point, we're going to be looking back from a public health perspective, and we're going to put a number on it. And it's going to be big. Well, there are, I think it's right now the latest count is 12,000 deaths from premature deaths from heat stroke. A lot of heart attacks, they don't count it as heat related. But we've got heart attacks and respiratory illness getting worse today, where we live. because of these fires. And the fires are indeed related to climate. And maybe we'll see, you know, this attribution science work at this level, too, on the public health side. We really need it there. Right. And that's needs development. Yeah. It's really mostly been focused on hurricanes, floods, heat deaths a bit, but not enough on public health. I would actually add to that the mosquito and tick-borne diseases, which have exploded in the last decade. If you look at Counts West Nile virus in New York, in Vermont, in Massachusetts, a decade ago was so rare that it was almost uncharted. And now we've had the first mosquito in Massachusetts that was identified was followed almost immediately by cases. And West Nile can now be considered an epidemic. level in terms of mosquito infestation. Now, that doesn't mean we have epidemic levels of cases. But because West Nile presents with a sort of dizzying array of symptoms that can be mistaken for other things, we actually probably will not get an accurate count of those cases in New England without pretty aggressive epidemiology that we're not going to have because the CDC has been gutted. And then tick-borne disease, which we're all familiar with in this area, Lyme, Babesia, Ehrlichia, those cases have gone way up. And now we have a fourth tick-borne disease that APOGAV that's coming in and causing huge numbers of cases. And these are very serious diseases with long-term chronic implications for health that have massive expense for the state and really for a national level if you look at it. So if you want to look at the public health implications of epidemics, there is absolutely an argument for climate change costing money for public health.

Quick story, Joe. Yes. So last night I had the great pleasure and good fortune of speaking to folks at the Saratoga Springs Public Library, which I do every quarter. It's called We the People and it's open to the public and super fun. And inevitably, they'll ask, the folks in the audience will ask me some question like this, which they did last night. And that was, is our democracy over or is the republic so declined that, you know, we're essentially a different country than we used to be? And the answer is sort of yes and no. But ultimately, I always have the same answer to that question of, our democracy over and that is or a republic over and that is one person one even person in the presidency cannot destroy a democracy my worry i've said this many times my worry is that the trump administrator that trump gives way to JD Vance that gives way to don junior that gives way if you have 12 or 14 or 16 or 18 years of this yes then you're in trouble that said our democracy is in a precarious state. I have come to the realization, however, that when it comes to the environment, one person can destroy all the progress we've made. Think about what's happened just in this, what, 18 months we're on? Right? The increased fossil fuel support from that Judith talked about. The decrease in regulations protecting clean air, clean water, conservation, land management, carbon emissions, reduction of recycling, single-use plastic is up. Wildlife protections have been limited. And then there's the ongoing domestics. I mean, this is not just a domestic problem. The decrease in the elimination of USAID and environmental protections overseas. When we're involved in projects overseas, building projects overseas, environmental and endangered species acts sort of kick in, not anymore. So there is, unlike with democracy, that probably will take a generation or two for us to be in a totally different place. In the environment, one person can make that sort of damage, and that's a real problem. Beautifully set. All right. High fives in the studio. I love it. All right. Let's go back to letters from listeners. And we go to that was an answer to just one letter. Let's see. We go to Mike. Let us not forget that the oil companies and others are profit-driven. It is up to consumers to buy into renewables in a big way. So these companies can see a profit to be made. That from Mike. True, true. But let's also not forget, let's get the money, the corporate money out of politics. That would go a long way right now. High five.

All right. I want to talk quickly about the fact that one of the big things we keep referring to in the Iran war is the price of oil, the price of oil, the price of oil. But no one in this country has responded by saying, hey, maybe we should change the way we live. True. Drive less. Combine trips. Don't buy giant trucks and put flags on them. Just saying. Bob writes, thank you, Judith, for doing something that is unfortunately too rare in the media today, making the connections between severe weather, climate, and health, and not being afraid, as so many advocates are today, to call out the governor when the situation demands that from Bob. We also go to this letter from Kathy, who says, sometimes even Governor Kathy Hochul reads and answers our letters. Then we go to Eric, who says, you're right, the fires are scary and we need to do better at reducing greenhouse gases, which requires money. But we continue to cut taxes and run deficits in the United States. I'm all for clean power, but at the same time, I don't want an industrial-sized battery energy storage site in my Ulster County neighborhood. Democrats and scientists need to think more creatively for long-term solutions that citizens can support your thoughts panel? Clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuel. And for everyone who emails me, who wants me to help them block battery storage or solar or wind, I decline to do that. And if you don't like battery storage, if you don't, and of course it has to comply with safety rules. And we have to have. the fire codes met, et cetera. But if you don't like battery storage and looking at wind turbines, how about living next to a coal plant or living in Pennsylvania where massive groundwater contamination and health is compromised from fracking? You know, there is no free lunch. And renewables have to be the foundation of our future. even if you don't like the way they look or sound. The writer mentions that Democrats, I think the quote was Democrats need to be more creative in the way in which. Scientists need to be more creative. Okay, scientists need to be more creative. There's another interesting story that we may or may not get to, Joe, about the ways in which the Trump administration is reducing grant money to.

scientists among many others. And I'm sure, March, you have to deal with this on a daily basis. But at the end of the day, that's where creativity happens. That's where creation of new ideas happen. And that reduction has an impact on our ability to move forward in green energy. The office at federal EPA that's been cut the most. is Office of Research and Development, and that's where the scientists live. Over 90% of the scientists are gone. And so that then raises the question, how can we be innovative? How can we? deal with the climate crisis, PFS and drinking water. We still have contaminants in rivers and streams. You have to base it on science. And the federal government traditionally was a big funder of science. And now they're trying to, you know, you saw a Russ Vought wants to look at. Grant, science grants. So it's not just the staff in federal agencies. It's not just federal grants. It's all federal funding. And it's absolutely terrifying. I actually submitted a five-page letter objecting to the rule change comments were due Monday at midnight. And I just, for listeners to kind of understand what I'm talking about, this would give the administration termination authority in the middle of a grant. They would have pre-award review. So you'd have to go through this sort of loyalty test political review before. you can get your money. It's going to require viewpoint neutrality of entities and events. Let me give you an example of why that's concerning. For our county, say Ulster County, we get federal funding that goes into road maintenance and road projects. We've also seen, you know, individual citizens going out on overpasses over the New York State Thruway protesting Trump. If we are repairing that road with federal money, is that money going to be clawed back because of these protests? The rule change that OMB and Russ Vought are proposing would allow that. So we have no control over the way people use our public parks, use our public facilities. And furthermore, this rule change is going to reclassify the rule as a binding regulation. So future changes to these rules will not require notice and comment. to do whatever they want. It's incredibly scary. It affects academia. It affects scientific research. It affects really anyone who administers federal money, states, counties, villages, towns, nonprofits who might get federal grant money. You know, what happens if there is federal money that goes into, say, an art museum and you have somebody who, an artist who makes a picture that criticizes Trump? This is terrifying. You know, this is not entirely on point, but I don't know if you talked about what happened last week with all the boats and sailboats coming to New York Harbor. Hudson River Sloop Clearwater had.

the big signs up on their mast saying, save the Clean Water Act and something on climate and indigenous rights. And they were kicked out of the flotilla. So talking about, you know, stepping on free speech in every moment. So much for the First Amendment. And JD Vance was the speaker at the event. No one with the Coast Guard would, you know, like boats with guns pulled up on the side of Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, which I think is an important time. to donate to clearwater.org because they did the right thing putting those messages up. Those radicals save the clean water act. We can do a direct call to action, but you can say if you'd like to find out more information. Thank you. I'm sorry. Clearwater.org. If you'd like to find out more information, clearwater.org. Thank you. In these perilous times, we don't want to lose our license. Okay. Let's go to... We're fine. Let's go to our letters, and we just have a few minutes left, but we have enough letters, I think, to satisfy all of that. Samuel says stop demonizing flags on trucks. I'm a lifelong bleeding heart liberal and a lifelong redneck or contractor in a large pickup truck, and I run flags on my truck because I love my country. I have always loved the flag. And to see only the fascist flying, our flag is a travesty. That's from Samuel. Then we go to Bob. Thank you. Judith once again. And let's see, I wanted to get to this letter. How will we deny the accountability for the fire increase? Not only are the levels of tiny particles that can get into our lungs elevated, but carbon monoxide and ozone are also elevated. These all act together to make many lung and heart health issues so much worse and will end up in a considerable number of unnecessary early deaths. When will we put the responsibility where it should be? How long will we continue to cower under the financial influence of fossil fuels? I am a retired environmental health and safety specialist. It's interesting, you know, I had a lot of people saying to me, it's chemical, it's chemical smell, you know, this must be something more than just wildfires. But the truth is that the science behind wildfires is that these are not necessarily completely combustive. materials. So you have a lot of really toxic chemicals that go into the air, even if it is primarily boreal forest. Although there are structures and there are some man-made and plastic items that get burned. But just the forest... itself and the leaf litter and the soils that burn and stuff, it can create really toxic chemicals. And then you have those sort of in the air from a chemistry perspective, having sunshine on them for several days before they come to where you are. And yes, it does smell like an incinerator. And yes, it is toxic for you.

Esteemed panel writes, Michael, if you look at the data on the number of fires in the eastern states, you see they plummet in the 1940s as a result of government fire suppression. Fires were normal a human lifetime ago, and it is a result of our shifting baseline that people now find a few days of drifting smoke so unusual and unreasonable. We have a lot of fire-adapted natural forest ecosystems in North America, and the current hype is missing the broader historical context. Welcome, welcome, welcome to planet Earth. I don't think the premise is correct. There are far more fires than there were in the 1940s. It's true that there's less resources for firefighting. And also, the planet is warmer. So you've got the heat dome effect and the forests are drier and hotter. So I think that needs a little bit more clarification. I'll also say that with that writer that... to focus just on one thing, i.e. fires and the historical increase or decrease of fires, misses the larger picture, and that's what's problematic about the current conversation, is that these are all pieces of a puzzle that, and I'm willing to say on the air, create an existential threat to my children and others down the road. That, to me, is more important than whether there were more or less fires in the 40s. All right, let's go back to letters and we check in in our... four or five minutes left. We go to Jonathan, who writes, could Judith speak to the environmental slash climate effects of the use and the increasing use of air conditioners and air purifiers on the climate catastrophe? Yeah, that is the irony. If you're using air conditioning, you're not going to obviously be as hot and be as vulnerable to these air contaminants. But. I'm not going to make the case against air conditioning because it's keeping some people alive, but it is ironic. So, you know, Zohran Mamdani in New York City urged people to keep the temperature, I think it's 78, which is what the federal government is recommended for years. You know, the other thing is when you use air conditioning, you're putting real stress on the grid. So fans use less electricity. But when health is at risk, if you are elderly, if you've got asthma, if you've got cardiac issues, put it at 78, we've got to keep people alive. All right. Let's see. We go to Zuli, who writes, what are we doing?

What are we doing to mitigate having fires in Massachusetts, New York and Vermont? That is an important topic because it will happen here. It is an existential question worthy of WAMC looking to find out. What is the plan? Does it meet the challenge? What is the gap? Do we need to do more to meet the challenge and are we going to do it? Yes, no. No, I think this is an important question. Thank you, Allison. I as the fiscal watchdog for the county started asking this question, you know, because we had fires up on the Mohawk Ridge and, you know, all these fire services responding. But my question is like, are we doing forest management in the way that we need to, right, to really prevent future fires, which is what this prior reader was complaining about, that we did so much forest management where we wouldn't allow any fires to burn. Now we realize there's actually science between maybe having some burning in advance because it lowers the... the amount of combustible materials. It's very complicated. But I do think this writer is correct. We need to really be thinking about how we manage the whole system and whether or not we're bringing out everything we need. And it's not just forest fires. Remember the LA fires? And talk about toxic smoke. It is much more serious when homes and structures burn. You have vinyl siding. You've got plastics inside the buildings. Often the people who feel lucky that their homes were not burned. they're left behind, they're experiencing health problems. And so, you know, we think of these big forest fires, but there are a lot of neighborhoods that are burning, and that's where the fire services need to prepare. And I don't discount the secondary effects of fires generally in all parts of the globe. What I mean specifically is I was in Colorado recently. There is a tremendous concern about fires in Colorado and it increases anxiety across the board. There are second level effects to this particular existential crisis. Final letter, I so wish the Democrats would push the importance of renewables by stressing how easy and much cheaper it is to generate your own electricity and control your bills. There's a bill on the governor's desk for balcony solar where you can, even in your home or your apartment, you can have a small scale solar thing. And I don't know why she hasn't signed it by now. Balcony Solar, Assembly Member Emily Gallagher. I don't know who the Senate sponsor is. I can see in cities, but in your own home, I don't know why you would be prevented to put it. Well, right now you can't. It's not allowed in New York. Yeah. Many, many, many states have adopted it. And it takes care of maybe 15% of your home's electricity, which is nothing to sneeze at. But come on, Governor, your response to the fires should be signing the balcony solar bill today. Quick plug. I will be in Hudson talking about my new book, The Problem with Plastic, Saturday, August 8th at 7 p.m. at the spotty dog and ale. So you can get a book and beer at the same time in that order. And I will be in Saratoga at Northshire Books on September 17th at 6 p.m.

Please come. Constitution Day. Oh, Constitution Day. Yay. And my sister Helen's birthday. And you know who's interviewing me at Northshire on September 17th? Who? Our own Sarah LaDuke. Oh, very nice. Yeah. Her back in the arena. Oh, good. And one other really quick thing. Our wonderful panelist, Fran Berman, has a new book out that you can pre-order called Better Tech, putting people first in cyberspace. And you're interviewing her in September. That's right. Wow. Okay. That's a whole, yeah, events. And as a result of that, all I have time to say is goodbye. And thank you all very much for your input as always. We'll be right back.