AirTalk sits down with L.A. Metro CEO Phil Washington to check in on transportation updates, including efforts to improve bus service and Metro's decision to kill the 710 Freeway tunnel expansion project. We also get the latest GOP reactions to Trump Jr.'s released Russia emails; explore AT&T's involvement in today's net neutrality protest; and more.
GOP reaction to Trump Jr.’s emails, and who originally leaked them to the NYT?
Fallout continues from Donald Trump Jr.’s release of emails yesterday.
The emails detail what led to a meeting last year between a Russian attorney and three Trump insiders including Trump Jr., campaign director Paul Manafort and the President’s son-in-law and top advisor, Jared Kushner. The invitation to meet was extended by a music publicist who claimed the attorney was with the Russian government and that she had damaging information on Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Trump Jr. expressed enthusiasm for the meeting, which has become a big problem for the Administration.
The White House is fighting back against the idea the meeting was unethical, and perhaps illegal. But Republicans in Congress have yet another major hurdle to overcome in moving their agenda.
Guests:
Dave Weigel, national political reporter at The Washington Post; he joins the show from the Senate Press Gallery; he tweets from
Paris Dennard, Republican political analyst and former staffer for President George W. Bush and the Republican National Committee; he tweets
Metro CEO: Uber-like 'curb-to-curb' service coming to LA soon
Metro CEO Phil Washington has said the agency is looking into launching a service that's similar to Uber, Lyft, and other popular car services used by millions of people.
Washington mentioned the service during his appearance on AirTalk on Wednesday.
“We also are looking at creating our own Uber-like service … using our vehicles, smaller vehicles, we’re calling this micro-transit," he said. "This will be a curb-to-curb type service. We’ll use our drivers … we’re looking to launch that very, very soon.”
While details such as pricing have yet to be worked out, Washington said Metro's plan for this service is to utilize smaller vehicles, such as vans. Metro would also partner with a private firm to use the technical data from a ... to help us to be able to make reservations and things like that using our vehicles.”
A lot has happened since AirTalk's last check-in with Washington.
Bus service is being targeted by transportation officials as cause for steadily dropping ridership. As reported by the L.A. Times, a survey of more than 2,000 former riders showed that commuters felt the buses didn’t know where they were going.
Now, research is being conducted by Metro to find new ways to improve routes and stops. Then, the “will they, won’t they” saga over the long-disputed 710 Freeway tunnel extension to the 210 finally ended in May, when the Metro Board pulled funding from the project, opting to instead spend $700 million on other transportation issues.
So how what does L.A.’s bus system overhaul look like? And what are some alternative routes to the 710 Freeway extension? Today, Washington is in studio to chat about all this and other local transportation news, including a newly launched bike sharing program in Pasadena. Have a question? Post in the comments below or join the conversation at 866-893-5722.
Check back for updates to this story.
Guest:
Phil Washington, CEO of Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro)
Why today’s big net neutrality protest has a new and unlikely ally in AT&T
Amazon, Reddit, Netflix and some of the internet’s biggest entities are part of today’s “Day of Action” – an online protest to preserve so-called net neutrality.
The concept states that all internet data should be treated and priced equally. Current rules encoding net neutrality was set under the Obama administration in 2015, which reclassified internet service providers essentially as a public utility and subject them to more federal oversight.
The new FCC head Ajit Pai appointed by President Trump is a vocal critic of net neutrality. The agency released its proposal to repeal the rules in May and opened up comment period. The online protest today is launched in reaction to that move.
And interestingly, one of the biggest opponents of net neutrality has joined the protest. Internet service provider AT&T announced yesterday that it will partake in “Day of Action,” which got almost everyone on the internet scratching their heads. So why the change of heart?
Guest:
Klint Finley, reporter for Wired who’s been covering the net neutrality debate; he tweets
Visa makes an offer for restaurants to go cashless
Visa is announcing a new offer to a group of 50 restaurants and food vendors: Take $10,000 from the credit card giant to upgrade their payments systems, and in exchange, stop accepting cash altogether.
It’s a step toward Visa’s long-running battle against cash, its largest competitor. Investing in card readers and technologies like Apple Pay, along with credit card interchange fees, are major impediments to smaller businesses switching away from cash. But cash is still a formidable force in the economy at large: Roughly a third of all U.S. consumer transactions were made in cash in 2015, compared to 27 percent from debit cards and 21 percent for credit cards, according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Small business owners, what do you think of Visa’s push toward a cashless system? Is $10,000 enough of an incentive to move off cash completely? Consumers, how often do you still use cash in your day-to-day transactions, and how much would a cash-free system affect you?
Guest:
Maria Aspan, senior editor at Inc. magazine who run the Money section; she tweets
Legal experts debate whether President Trump blocking Twitter users violates First Amendment
Seven twitter users blocked from seeing tweets from President Trump’s personal Twitter account are suing him in federal court, arguing that he violated their First Amendment rights by doing so.
The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed the lawsuit on Tuesday on behalf of the seven users who drew the president’s digital ire by criticizing him openly on the social media platform. It argues that the president’s account is a public forum where information about the government is provided. By blocking users who disagree with his policies or openly criticize him, the lawsuit argues, Trump is squashing constructive debate simply because they disagree with him, and that violates the First Amendment.
Some legal experts say this could be a hard slog for the Knight Institute because it’s unclear in what capacity Trump is using the “@realDonaldTrump” handle. He has an official handle, “@POTUS,” that he inherited from President Obama as the official Twitter account of the U.S. President, but some say it could be argued that the intent of the @realDonaldTrump account is for personal use, as Trump sends his own tweets in his own words and did so from that account well before his election.
Do you think the president violated the First Amendment when he blocked users from his personal account? In what capacity do you see President Trump using his personal account versus the more official account?
Guests:
Katie Fallow, senior attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
Eugene Volokh, professor of law at UCLA and founder of The Volokh Conspiracy blog on the Washington Post
Should sports records be wiped because of doping scandals?
After a long history of doping scandals, the governing body of track and field is considering wiping records set before 2005, which is when more stringent anti-doping rules were put into effect.
Developed by European Athletics, this “Record Revolution Plan” put those pre-2005 records in danger, unless they meet certain criteria.
Proponents say this wouldn’t erase records, it would just create a new, clean slate for track and field, in a landscape where, currently, athletes might be competing against ludicrous, doping-induced standards.
But critics of the proposal (among which are many former track athletes) say this would wipe legitimate records in a superficial attempt to deal with doping in the sport.
For both track and field, as well as other sports, how do doping scandals affect your perception of world records? Should there be a “reset” of records once more stringent standards are put in place? Or is there too great a risk of scrubbing legitimate feats of human athleticism from the books?
Guests:
Alex Hutchinson, columnist with Runner’s World magazine; he competed internationally for Canada as a long distance runner; he tweets
John Gleaves, assistant professor in Kinesiology at California State University, Fullerton; he specializes in the history and sociology of performance enhancing drugs in sports; he tweets