The President's Daily Brief - September 26th, 2022. New Nationwide Polls on Republican Efforts to Send Illegals to Sanctuary Cities.

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

It’s September 26th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ We’ve got a lot of news to cover this Monday morning, so I’m bringing you a Big Five Update. Five critical updates on stories we’ve covered previously that are shaping America — and the world. First, we’ve got a bunch of new polls out on whether Americans support Republican efforts to send illegals to sanctuary cities.   Second, gas and electricity prices are going up all across America and I’ll explain why. Third, a study out of California is showing that the sun doesn’t shine at night and that could be a problem for electric vehicles. Fourth, an update on the possible rail-road strike and how politics are likely shaping the final agreement. Lastly, if you celebrate Thanksgiving with a turkey, you’ll want to buy it sooner rather than later. I’ll explain why. Plus, a listener question about new-clear energy and why environmental activists oppose it. My answer might surprise you. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's September 26th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA Officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. We have got a lot of news to cover this Monday morning, so I'm bringing you a big five update, five critical updates on stories we have covered previously that are shaping America and the world. First, we've got a bunch of new polls out on whether Americans support Republican efforts to send the illegals to sanctuary cities. Second, and gas and electricity prices are going up all across America, and I'll explain why. Third, a study out of California is showing that the sun doesn't shine at night, and that could be a problem for electric vehicles. Fourth, an update on the possible railroad strike and how politics

are likely shaping that final agreement. Lastly, if you celebrate Thanksgiving with a turkey, you will want to buy it sooner rather than later. I'll explain why. Plus, a listener question about nuclear energy and why environmental activists oppose it. My answer might surprise you. But first, let's get to our Big Five update. Over the past couple of weeks, we have had a lot of heated debate about illegal migration. To refresh our memories, about 10 days ago, nearly 50 migrants landed unexpectedly in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Now, they were sent there by Florida's governor, Ron DeSantis, who was forcing the discussion of illegal migration onto that very liberal sanctuary city. made up of mostly liberal millionaires and billionaires like former President Barack Obama.

Plus, we've had the ongoing busing of illegal migrants from Texas to New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Now, mayors and governors of those blue sanctuary cities and states are calling the busing a stunt in declaring humanitarian emergencies as they face a few hundred to a few thousand illegal migrants. So what do Americans think about all this? Are these tactics fair? Or are they acts of dirty politics? Well, I've got three polls out, all showing one thing. We are divided, pretty much right down the middle.

So one poll from The Economist, taken just after the Martha's Vineyard flights, showed 44% of Americans approving of both the flights and the busing. Meanwhile, 44% disapproved. Perhaps not surprisingly, most Republicans approved of what dissent. and Abbott are doing, while most Democrats disapproved. Next, we've got another poll showing basically the same thing from the media company's Politico and Morning Consult. 42% approved of the DeSantis Governor Abbott measures while 41% disapproved.

And finally, there was a third poll from the organization UGov, which echoed the other two polls, finding us evenly divided. Also, another fascinating poll from The Economist out late last month. 59% of Americans say that we, in fact, have a crisis on our southern border. Even 45% of Democrats agree. So it seems like the problem is that we just disagree on how to solve it. And I have actually a really great example of this. Over the weekend, El Paso's mayor, Oscar Leeser, who was a Democrat, was asked about the busing and the planes of illegals.

Now, according to reporting from Bloomberg News, he supported generally sending these folks on buses and planes, but that it had to be done right. So here's what he said. Quote, we want to make sure that we treat people properly. We want to take them to where they want to go. Now, he went on to explain that his city asks illegals which city or state they would prefer to live in, and then they coordinate with the mayor or the governor of those locations,

and then either they charter a bus or they buy them a plane ticket for onward travel. Now, the mayor of El Paso wrapped up his response by saying, his city has chartered 87 buses over the past month for a total of 4,100 illegals, the vast majority of whom wanted to go to New York City, and that is where they are today. So I highlight Mayor Leeser's statement to you because I think it's pretty remarkable. So on one hand, it's clear that he and his community are effectively serving as travel agents for these folks, booking tickets for onward travel, coordinating their arrival and so forth. Now, either you think that's a lot. You think that's a good thing, more humanitarian, or that's bad because it's embracing illegality and it's

incentivizing more people to come. Well, as always, I'll try to bite my tongue on this one and leave it up to you. For our second story this morning, we've got some increasing gas and electricity prices to talk about and it's happening from coast to coast. So let's start with our friends in the New England states, specifically Massachusetts. So over the weekend, the company providing wholesale natural gas and electricity to various communities throughout Massachusetts, well, they announced that customers would be facing a 64% increase in electricity prices starting November 1st. And again, yes, I did say a 64% increase. So a spokesperson for this utility called National Grid said that prices were increasing for a couple of reasons.

Chief amongst them were the war in Ukraine, which in turn is causing a spike in natural gas prices. which is why National Grid is also raising the rates for natural gas itself, too, not just for electricity derived from natural gas. So those rates of natural gas are going up 22 to 24 percent, depending on whether your provider is Boston Gas or Colonial Gas. All right, let's move on from Massachusetts to our friends in the Midwest. Last week, there was a terrible, awful fire at the Husky Toledo Refinery in Ohio. Two people died, two brothers actually, Ben and Max Morrissey.

Just as an aside, before we move on, let's send up some prayers for their families, a horrible, absolutely gut-wrenching time for their spouses and their parents. But meanwhile, the fire has taken not only their lives, but the refineries production, too. It had been processing up to 160,000 barrels of crude a day, producing gasoline and diesel and other fuels. Well, that's now down to zero per reporting from Bloomberg News. And that sent gas prices up in Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio. So folks living there should continue to see prices climb, unfortunately. So moving on from that horrible fire and issue in Ohio, let's move out west, all the way to the west coast.

Prices in pretty much every western state, Washington, Oregon, California are set to rise because of tight supply issues. that's mostly due to refineries being taken offline for maintenance. Regardless, wholesale fuel prices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Portland all last week reached record highs, and that's not expected to change for a couple more weeks. So all in all folks, energy prices for this early fall are not looking great, so you may want to budget accordingly. For our third update this morning, we've got quite a study out on dirty green energy, which as listeners know is my focus.

on the nation's move away from an oil and gas-powered economy to renewable energy and electric vehicles. Well, researchers at Stanford University are warning this morning that as electric vehicle sales start to climb, we might just run out of electricity to charge them. And that's because researchers discovered that the sun doesn't always shine at night. In fact, it never does. Okay, that's not exactly what they said, but it's pretty close, actually. So here's what mean. The researchers looked at 11 Western states and modeled what would happen when more and more people bought electric vehicles and started charging them. Well, as it turns out, about 80% of electric vehicles get charged at night. That's because owners come home from work and then plug in

their cars to charge as they sleep. But that presents a problem. Because as the researchers noted, Western states in particular, like sunny California and Arizona, are moving their grid. to more solar energy. But if people are charging their cars at night, well, there's not as much energy because the sun is not out at night. The researchers added that wind patterns also tend not to be as robust at night.

So all in all, you are switching most of your electricity demand to the evening hours when your sources of energy are not producing. You could say there is a disconnect. All right, sorry, terrible dad joke. Anyway, the authors of this study, are proposing some solutions. So, for instance, your employer and every company imaginable around the country could spend

billions of dollars to install plug-in towers at workplaces, and that way people can take advantage of solar power when the sun is out. They're also recommending that people buy more home battery packs. Now, those could charge throughout the day, and then the cars would draw that power at night. But two things pretty problematic with this. First, those battery packs, for instance, from Tesla, run about $12,000 to $90,000, on top of, of, of course, 60 to 120K that you will spend on the actual car. And as listeners know, the prices for these batteries are likely going to rise.

So to refresh our memories on why, we don't control the battery supply chain. We don't mine the lithium or the cobalt inside those batteries. We don't refine the material, nor do we have enough battery manufacturers to, put it all together. All right, second issue here. If you can afford the upwards of $90,000 on battery packs, you'll want to make sure that those batteries are outside of the home. Since lithium ion batteries do catch on fire,

we talked about that last week, and you don't want those things in your garage bursting into flames. At any rate, we will continue to learn more things about renewable energy as a years go by, perhaps more studies discovering that the sun is not out, at night. All right, now I'm just being sassy. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, I've got two more updates for you on the railroad strike and the price of turkeys. We'll be right back. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and

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Sue, instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. Welcome back to the PDB and our Big Five update. I've got two more critical pieces of news for you this morning. First, we've got an update on the railroad strike, and it's not looking good. Late last week, union leaders released details of their plan that they negotiated with the Biden administration and railroad companies.

So here is what workers are discovering. They're getting the raises they wanted, more or less, and a decent improvement in health insurance, too. But there is a very big problem. And it's actually what drove things to the very edge of a national strike about 10 days ago. And this is the issue, medical leave for doctor's appointments and such. So the new deal negotiated by the union leaders agreed to let workers take off three days, a year for medical appointments. But those appointments have to be scheduled at least 30 days in advance, and only on Tuesdays,

Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Railworkers interviewed by Houston's Star Telegram newspaper were not happy about that. They're arguing that they will now have to basically predict 30 days out when they'll be sick and then make sure that the doctor has availability Tuesday through Thursday to see them, which does seem difficult to do. The newspaper interviewed one fellow named John Howger. He's a conductor based out of Idaho. He contends that the agreement is actually all about politics designed to protect Democrats ahead of the midterm elections.

So he said, quote, it would have been an absolute death kneel for Democrats had we gone on strike. So he continued, his union bosses agreed to a bad deal, knowing that they would have to restart negotiations after the election. Now, whether or not he's right is up for debate, of course, but he actually could have a point. Fox Business News is reporting that nine of the unions involved will be counting the votes at various times for the next two months, but the two biggest unions won't be counting their votes until after the midterm elections in November. So if there is a strike, Democrats and Joe Biden won't pay the political price. The election will be over.

But there will still be a price to be paid. paid. It'll just be paid by you, probably at the checkout stand. Finally this morning, Thanksgiving seems very far off for most of us, but I want to put the holiday on your radar because if you find a good deal on turkeys, you might want to buy one and put it in the freezer. And that's because for the second time this year, we've got an outbreak of avian flu. The outbreak is in multiple states, and it's driving turkey prices to a record high. Turkey hens are a buck, and, and, you know, and 82 a pound this week, according to commodity researcher Erner Berry. That's compared to a buck 42 last year and a dollar before the pandemic. In other words, turkey hen prices now are 80% higher than

they were before the pandemic. So this latest outbreak is actually really unusual because we already had an outbreak earlier this year. 40 million birds were cold because of it. Now normally the summertime heat kills off whatever remaining virus might be out there. And that means at most you get one outbreak a year. But this year, I guess bad luck. Unfortunately, researchers expect things to go from bad to worse. And that's because as birds fly south for the winter, infected birds from Canada will drop their waste over American land. And that'll infect more ground that in turn gets on workers' boots or tractor tires. So all on all, this will impact not just turkeys, but chickens too. So commodity researchers are saying that chicken and egg prices will

likely go up in the next couple of months. And that's bad because wholesale egg prices are already at $3.62 a dozen, at least as of late last week, and that was the highest ever. So folks, my council remains the same. Get those gardens going next spring and maybe a henhouse this fall. Just watch for those Canadian birds flying above you for actually lots of reasons. come to think of it. And that, folks, is your big five update for this Monday morning. But I've got one more thing before I let you go. A listener question. We'll be right back. Olivia Rodriguez, the unravel tour across North America with special guests. Get tickets Thursday, May 7th at Olivia Rodrigo.com.

USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. You can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usaa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. Welcome back to the PDB ladies and gentlemen. One more thing before let you go this morning. We've got Kevin who is listening from across the pond in London. He wrote in asking quote,

environmentalists here in Europe and the US are opposed to nuclear energy. And I don't get it. The industry is far safer than ever before. In fact, one of the greenest you can get. So why are they opposed? Well, Kevin, your question is well-timed. Yesterday, an article ran in the Atlantic, which is a very liberal media outlet, and it was entitled, What Many Progressives Misunderstand about fighting climate change.

So, Kevin, the writer asked your question about why environmentalists oppose things like nuclear energy, and even things like solar farms and wind farms and mining for lithium. And the writer talked about something called NIMBY, and that is an acronym that stands for Not in My Backyard. In other words, environmentalists want all of these things like solar energy and lithium mining, but they don't want to have to see it or live with it. Somebody else can't. But NIMBY is not the real reason for their opposition. Instead, what the progressive writer emphasized is that progressive activists want to use this moment in history as a plural. revolution. They want to push for more socialist policies. So here's a quote from the piece that I

think wraps things up quite nicely. Quote, Jamie Henn, an environmental activist and the director of fossil free media, recently said, look, I want to get carbon out of the atmosphere, just like everybody else, but this is such an opportunity to remake our society. If we just end up with Exxons and Elon Musk's, Oh man, what a nightmare. The progressive rider at the Atlantic then asks quite correctly, what is the real goal here? Stopping climate change or abolishing capitalism? Well, the answer by this writer in a leftist magazine is abolishing capitalism. That's the goal.

It's a fundamental reordering of our political and economic systems using climate change as a pretext. So there you have it. That explains what's really going on, at least according to, progressives when describing their own movement. I'll let you decide, but I would offer you one piece of advice. When somebody tells you who they are, you should believe them. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show, reminding each other of why we are here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John, chapter 8, verse 32. And you, and you,

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