4/12/2022

My Dear Friend, JRB,

            I see that you are heading off to Menlo, Iowa, today. The 400 people who live there are excited that you are stopping by their tiny town to brag about ethanol. Your announcement that gas stations will be free to sell E15 this summer has not had an effect on corn prices. It’ll be interesting to see if it does, since so few stations even sell E15. I appreciate your effort to ameliorate rising gas prices, but as we both know, there’s only so much a POTUS can do.

            I smiled when I saw that Jen Psaki was claiming that your admin encourages leaders “to speak out, to be vocal, to ensure they are on the right side of history.” I hope you will start taking this advice, because, again today the NYT only included your name once on its webpage. It was a link to a podcast on your climate shift which noted, “the war in Ukraine has led the POTUS to retreat on his ambitious climate policies.” This is not the kind of news you want.

            I did not see anything about Burma in the scant reporting on your conversation with NDM yesterday. Aljazeera focused on your plea that India diversify its energy imports rather than buying Russia’s cheap oil. I suspect that the only way that’s going to happen is if you sell them some discounted E15.

            Please pray for the people of Burma. The Thingyan Water Festival begins tomorrow & folks are already out & about in anticipation. The junta may do something stupid to terrorize everyone, especially since they just suffered casualties in the Karen region. I hope not!

            BYBS,