Ukraine faces a potentially nuclear winter. Europe again fears fascism. Taiwan girds for assault. People cry freedom from Iran to Myanmar. And next week a dis-United States may relinquish its shining-city-on-a-hill democracy over $4 a gallon gas.
Americans fixate on prices without considering that the previous president is almost entirely responsible, and nearly every other country suffers from them more. Polls put global climate meltdown far behind. Foreign policy, around which most crises turn, is barely mentioned.
In the final stretch, I heard Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, favored against Stacey Abrams, refer on CNN to “Joe Biden’s inflation.” Whether he is a dope or, more likely, a disingenuous cynic, people like that have no business in public office. Yet look at the Republican field.
These mid-terms are no usual referendum on a party in power. If Republicans prevail, two more years of preposterous big lies, electoral sabotage, censorious ideology and outright terrorism are all but certain to put an unchecked authoritarian in the White House.
Donald Trump has savaged truth, decency and the rule of law. Ron DeSantis and others in the running exploit his tribal know-nothing base, which ignores Biden’s serial successes against lockstep Republican opposition. A fired-up minority wins when apathetic voters opt out.
If Americans don’t look beyond partisan politics, narrow interests, blind ambition, religious fundamentalism and simplistic reporting, U.S. elections could produce the greatest human folly since, as the Book of Genesis has it, Esau gave up his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew.
In 60 years of reporting, I’ve seen nothing close to what is now at stake. In the millions of words that I’ve spewed out over the decades, none have mattered more.
Beyond America’s insulating oceans, most reaction ranges from bemused disbelief to utter contempt. At the start of Trump madness, a more unified Europe and allies elsewhere kept an uneasy peace. By the time a popular landslide rejected him, that was no longer possible.
Covid-19 crippled the world. Rather than lead a global effort to contain it, Trump scapegoated China, muzzled the gold-standard CDC and hamstrung the WHO. Variants now escape the Greek alphabet in poor countries where famine, climate and tyranny force millions to besiege Western borders.
Trump’s self-focused response killed an extra 240,000 Americans, according to Brookings Institution research in early 2021; avoidable deaths could reach 400,000 because he politicized the virus, shunning science. U.S. law defines such reckless disregard as “depraved heart murder.” In late 2020, Harvard economists calculated costs to the U.S. economy at $16 trillion.
Workable coexistence with China is over. The Iran accords Trump trashed were about more than nukes. Today, a hostile Mideast power is locked in a clash of civilizations; women and young men want better lives. North Korea, no longer boxed in by diplomacy, is a serious threat. Despots muzzle even tepid dissent, citing that insidious label: fake news.
Trump toadied to Moscow and gutted NATO. As a result, a wannabe Vladimir the Great wages genocidal war that divides the world into self-interested camps. He expected Ukraine to be a pushover, unaided by inward-looking America. Now in a quagmire, Putin weaponizes oil and natural gas.
High gas prices are hardly a surprise. Biden tried to fast track a shift from fossil fuels to alternative energy, but Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia coal-baron Democrat, resisted. Oil companies have made $100 billion so far in windfall profits.
Nor are soaring food costs. Once thriving farmlands are now barren wasteland because of endemic drought or freak floods. War devastates Ukraine’s wheat and corn crops, nearly 15 percent of the world supply. Elsewhere, shipping delays and conflict cause massive spoilage.
Britain is mired in post-Brexit turmoil. In France, Emmanuel Macron lost his legislative clout. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni mimics Mussolini. Her coalition partners are soft on Putin. Western support helped Hungary and Poland escape the Soviet bloc early. Now, they resist European Union standards of liberal democracy.
An unruly world badly needs America’s wherewithal to restore order, defend human rights, support a free exchange of truthful information and, above all, keep an imperiled planet habitable.
“The United States is the mirror in which we view ourselves, so I am deeply worried,” former Spanish foreign minister Arancha González Laya recently told Steve Erlanger of the New York Times. Now she is dean of international affairs at the prestigious Sciences Po in Paris. “Whatever happens in the U.S. doesn’t stay in the U.S.”
But for Republicans, America First means American only. A new book — “Unchecked: The Untold Story Behind Congress’s Botched Impeachments of Donald Trump” — details how Mitch McConnell blocked conviction for that treacherous effort to extort Volodymyr Zelensky for dirt on the Bidens when Ukraine badly needed firepower. Then Trump got a pass for the worst assault on Washington since the War of 1812 with Britain.
Trump bears total responsibility for the final debacle in the Afghan war Biden opposed from the start. On the U.S. southern border, today’s crush was inevitable because his inhumane policies flouted Geneva Conventions that America drafted. He refused qualified emigrants America badly needs.
These are hard facts, all scrupulously documented by U.S. and international reporters who do their own digging. Still, among an electorate that shoots from the hip based on uninformed snap judgments, a new incumbent in office for less than two years gets all the blame.
Biden has restored the vigorous economy he and Barack Obama left behind, which plummeted as Trump let Covid run rampant. He cut the deficit by $1.4 trillion, nearly as much as the tax break Republicans gave the rich. Annualized growth is 2.6 percent, likely more than China’s.
His 3.5 percent unemployment rate is a 50-year low. He is cutting poverty, health care costs, corporate gouging and much else while fortifying America’s long-neglected infrastructure.
Numbers aside, consider what is supposed to matter: character, integrity, decency. He decided to run after the 2017 Charlottesville rally when racist thugs chanted “Jews will not replace us.” Trump faulted “both sides.” That’s when I realized he, with no limits, was capable of anything.
I first came across the man in the 1990s, reporting from Atlantic City on a mobbed-up deadbeat who threw families out of homes they had owned for generations to pave parking space for a gaudy casino. I laughed in 2015 when he declared his candidacy. No sentient person could favor him over an eminently qualified Hillary Clinton.
The debates frightened me. Trump, cocksure, revealed an absurd worldview. Once when Clinton explained vital complexities, he hovered over her with the smug smirk of a comic-book caudillo. The more ludicrous his fact-free rants, the more TV executives exulted high ratings.
Elections come down to two flawed candidates. Voters get the worse if they don’t support the better. “Never-Hillary” people and Bernie Sanders diehards stayed home. Despite a convincing popular tally, the skewed Electoral College gave America a Frankenstein’s monster.
Today, assessing the pile of jackal scat which controls the “grand old party,” I am haunted by a Holocaust survivor’s grim warning in a recent interview with Christiane Amanpour: people who can burn books are also capable of burning people.
Official electors and states’ rights made sense in the 1700s. As America evolved, the system worked because candidates accepted election outcomes. Founders did not foresee the Steve Bannon-Roger Stone approach: declare victory and tell actual victors to fuck off.
Democrats need to win big at every level down to school boards and county courts. Party extremists with personal agendas need to give Biden unwavering support. With no solid majority in Washington and state capitals, it likely won’t matter which Democrat runs for president in 2024.
At the national level, a single profile in lunacy illustrates the challenge. Once Americans used initials for successful presidents who inspired despite their human flaws: FDR, JFK, LBJ. Now that includes notorious congressional newcomers. MTG scares the crap out of me.
I noticed her in January 2020 when she posted an earlier video showing a 46-year-old crazy person dogging David Hogg near the Capitol with a microphone demanding to know why he had 30 meetings on the Hill while she had none.
Easy answer. He was a Marjory Stoneman Douglas survivor from Parkland who saw 14 high school classmates and three others gunned down around him. She was only Marjorie Taylor Greene, a gym operator from Georgia who was besotted with Trump and heavy weaponry.
She shouted at Hogg, who kept walking. Why did he hide behind kids? Was he a paid George Soros stooge? Why would he say nothing? Was he a coward? Within a year, after running in a deep-red Georgia district, she was spouting her insanities from the House floor.
Donations poured in from supporters who believe her crackpot conspiracies, racist rants and violence porn. Democrats are Nazis when not Marxists. Covid safety measures equate to Holocaust persecution.
House members tried to isolate her. But, freed of committee assignments, she raves on. Trump loves her, so Kevin McCarthy — ambitious and unprincipled — does, too. Indescribably inept and dangerous beyond belief, she is among the most influential members of Congress.
Robert Draper’s chilling book excerpt in the New York Times Magazine (link attached below) lays her bare in her own boastful, belligerent words. He begins with Greene quotes about midterms she expects Republicans to win:
“There’s going to be a lot of investigations. I’ve talked with a lot of members about this…To please the base (McCarthy) is going to give me a lot of power and a lot of leeway, and if he doesn’t, they’re going to be very unhappy about it…That’s not in any way a threat at all. I just think that’s reality.”
Greene wants to ban all immigration for four years, block any action against climate change, establish a Christian theocracy with school prayer and abolish gun legislation to turn America into a free-fire zone. Her first bill in Congress was to impeach Biden. Then, that was laughable. Today, it is in the realm of possibility. For what? In a packed Congress, that doesn’t matter.
At an October rally in Michigan, Trump declared: “Despite great outside dangers, our biggest threat remains the sick, sinister and evil people from within our country.” Greene went farther in her warmup: “Democrats want Republicans dead, and they have already started the killings.”
A month earlier, she tweeted a darkly lit image of Biden warning that some on the right were threats to democracy. “Joe Biden is Hitler,” she wrote, with the hashtag #NaziJoe.
Politics work that way in Washington these days, and they get worse in many states. Officials who insist the last election was stolen are on the ballot, bent on thwarting the 2024 popular vote if it does not go their way. My home state, Arizona, tops the list.
Kari Lake, a Fox television anchor in Phoenix from 1999 to 2021, supported John Kerry and Barack Obama in past elections. Friends say she was a Buddhist. As a candidate for governor, she is a stalwart Christian soldier who quite literally cuddles up to Trump at rallies.
In fiery speeches tempered with tearful eye-batting “you love me!” moments, she seemed to be channeling Eva Peron. Not successfully.
Lake wants to seal the border, put cameras in classrooms to monitor teachers and crack down on “fake news,” which abounds in her own writings. Abortion is “the ultimate sin.” At the extreme, she favors Arizona’s secession from the United States.
Katie Hobbs, her opponent, is the secretary of state who oversaw an election that stood up to repeated recounts by “Cyber Ninjas,” a Florida conspiracy nut’s firm hired by the Arizona Senate president.
In February, at a Trump rally near the state prison in Florence, Lake claimed Chinese agents were pouring over the heavily patrolled southern border to join a fifth column to insidiously pollute treasured American values.
As the pandemic cut a swath through Arizona, she shouted: “We are no longer willing to put up with those shots in the arms, swabs up the nose and those filthy masks…we’re done. When I am governor, there will be no mandates, no lockdowns.”
After a pause, she revised that. “I wanna lock somebody down, that liar, Dr. Fauci.” The crowd roared contempt for the epidemiologist who for decades directed effective action against pathogens. Later in the year, she named another person to lock up: Katie Hobbs.
One passage revealed much about Republican zealots: a tearful promise to protect “beautiful unborn children.” Trump slashed aid to poor countries, killing an incalculable number of already-born children. The outside world seldom comes up in American political campaigns.
Already, Republicans signal weakened support for Ukrainians who fight on with enormous losses. As winter sets in, Putin blows up power plants with Iranian drones. America can’t write a blank check, Kevin McCarthy says, because it has too many problems at home. As if Russia’s assault on what is left of the free world is only “foreign affairs.”
The outside world watched riveted as aides described how Trump flung ketchup at the Oval Office dining room wall when his sock-puppet attorney general refused to call the election corrupt. Relentless, deep-digging Jan. 6 Committee hearings depicted in sworn testimony how a banana-republic dictator did nothing as an armed mob tried to lynch the vice president.
But Americans with minds made up shrugged all that off. Polls support a Times op-ed headline: “The Jan. 6 Committee Has Been Almost Wholly Ineffective.”
And then the FBI raid on the nest of snoops Frank Bruni calls Mar-a-Loco. Does anyone think allied leaders don’t notice that an unhinged ex-president can expose top-level classified documents that name secret agents and detail what U.S. intelligence knows about nuclear-armed foes? Global security depends on leaders sharing sensitive data.
No longer in office, Trump has no more right to purloin National Archives material than, say, Ed Snowden or Chelsea Manning. But his partisans’ response is to demand impeachment for Merrick Garland and to defund the FBI.
Jon Meacham, an insightful presidential biographer, no longer likens U.S. politics to the 1930s, when economic and social upheaval led German democracy to Hitler’s Reich. He cites the 1850s when the nation, in a dialogue of the deaf, headed for war against itself.
That resonates loudly to me, coming from a gun-loving state, after covering violent coups since the 1960s. A gunman gravely wounded my own congresswoman, killing six people at an outdoor meet-and-greet in 2011. A decade later, that is no longer an unthinkable anomaly.
The Civil War was between states fighting over a defined issue. We are already seeing the unconventional kind. Katie Hobbs has had hundreds of death threats; her office was just burglarized. Kari Lake says she’ll accept election results only if she wins. Arizona is rife with armed crazies, and there are plenty of states like it.
Last week, a 42-year-old right-winger, a product of the times, broke into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home shouting, “Where’s Nancy?” She was in Washington, but he attacked her 82-year-old husband, fracturing his skull with a hammer.
Massive early turnouts are a hopeful sign. Polls can be spectacularly wrong. I remember that admonition from my wise editor friend, Michael Getler: you can go badly wrong betting against America. But that was long ago. This time, every single vote matters.
Mort Rosenblum has reported from seven continents as Associated Press special correspondent, edited the International Herald Tribune in Paris, and written 14 books on subjects ranging from global geopolitics to chocolate. He now runs MortReport.org.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
Georgia Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker addresses the crowd of supporters. | Jessica McGowan/Getty Images
KNIFE’S EDGE—Democrats and Republicans have already spent half a billion dollars on television ads in just two battleground states — Georgia and Pennsylvania. To that end, control of the Senate looks to be a toss-up — tiny margins in just a few key states may well make the difference on Election Day.
We spoke with Natalie Allison , POLITICO’s national political reporter covering Senate campaigns, about what races we should watch, what might shock her and what she’s itching to know right now. This conversation has been edited.
What, in your mind, is the Senate race that looks the closest right now?
Nevada, based on a series of public polls, appears to be the closest. Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt are truly locked in a dead-heat. We see the term "margin-of-error race" used for a number of contests right now, but Nevada seems to be legitimately tied. That being said, Georgia is close. Pennsylvania is close. Arizona has become close. And then there are several races where election forecasters seem fairly confident about the outcome (Republicans winning in Ohio, North Carolina and perhaps to a lesser extent Wisconsin; Democrats favored to win in Colorado, Washington and to a lesser extent New Hampshire), but where the polls still show races within just a few points. Election Day is near!
So, a lot of states are in play, and some are operating with razor-thin margins. Let’s start with Nevada because you mentioned it looks like the closest — does one candidate seem to have more momentum than the other? What are you seeing in Nevada that might ultimately decide the contest?
Yes, the candidates there are neck-and-neck, and some recent polls have shown the Democratic incumbent, Cortez Masto, with a narrow edge. But Nevada is certainly not an exception to the GOP momentum we’re seeing nationwide at the end of the midterm cycle — undecided voters breaking for Republicans, people concerned way more about the daily cost of living than issues that can seem more theoretical, like abortion rights and threats to democracy. Our colleague Elena Schneider traveled to Nevada recently , where progressive Democratic strategist Sean McElwee called it “ground zero” for the party losing working-class voters due to economic issues.
What about Georgia? The polls also look close there, but there’s the added possibility of a runoff if neither major-party candidate makes it to 50 percent. What would you say is the likelihood of that?
Republican operatives for the last week have sounded pretty bullish about Georgia. The latest Herschel Walker abortion allegation just didn’t seem to stick. Republican voters had already accepted Walker was a flawed candidate, and the race is in many ways a contest of ground game in a purple state that has way fewer swing voters than Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Arizona, etc. The GOP thinks they can avoid a runoff. Meanwhile, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is mobilizing his field operation in Georgia in case there are weeks more of campaigning — a sign that Democrats aren’t exactly expecting a commanding victory next week. As for me, I am keeping my calendar pretty clear through early December.
Given that very real possibility — and how long it took Nevada and Pennsylvania to count votes in 2020 — what’s the likelihood that we’ll know who will control the Senate on election night?
It seems unlikely! It could take a while to count votes in Arizona and Georgia, too.
If you could pick just one race to know the outcome of right now, what would it be and why?
Georgia. Pennsylvania is another race that attracted tons of media attention this cycle, but the Walker-Warnock contest is a race that always was close, and if Walker wins, it’s a clear referendum on the Democratic power the state selected in 2020. If Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz loses by a little in Pennsylvania, he still will have closed the gap dramatically from where he was this summer. The two candidates in Georgia, though, have spent months trading off the lead and polling within a couple points, so they’ve sustained a really close race. I also want to know if I can plan a vacation for late November.
How good of a sign is it for Republicans nationwide if Walker can pull it off? Or is that race just too idiosyncratic to draw larger conclusions?
It certainly solidifies the notion that in the post-Trump era, a GOP candidate can run with a hefty load of personal baggage and still attract and keep the conservative vote. But yes, Georgia is a bit different than other battleground states we’re watching, because the pool of undecided voters is much smaller there. It’s going to be about which party can get its people out, and much less about which party is winning over tons of swing voters. A Walker win, though, is not a great sign for Democrats hoping to see a continued purpling of the Southeast after 2020.
What’s a sleeper race that people are maybe paying less attention to that’s worth watching?
Washington! Polling in that Senate race has really been all over the place, and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray is absolutely favored to win. But some polls have shown Tiffany Smiley making it a close race there at the end, and Murray and her Democratic allies are certainly treating it that way. They kept pouring in millions of dollars in the last couple weeks. So I’m interested to see how close the race actually ends up.
And if Smiley is able to pull it out … I would think the Dems are in deep trouble.
It would be a very dark sign for Democrats if Murray lost reelection in a solidly blue state President Joe Biden won two years ago by nearly 20 points. But I’ll be shocked if that happens — and I say that as someone who has covered and taken interest in the Washington Senate race when it didn’t seem as close as it is now. Regardless, though, it’s a state Democrats shouldn’t have had to spend much at all in.
Project DASH empowers food banks, food pantries, and other social impact organizations to increase access to their communities. Learn more about how Project DASH is helping combat food insecurity.
POLL WATCHER
5 percent
The amount of support that Chase Oliver, the Libertarian candidate for Senate in Georgia, got amongst likely voters in a new poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . That amount of support for a third-party candidate would almost certainly mean neither Herschel Walker nor Sen. Raphael Warnock would reach the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a December runoff. Walker came in at 46 percent in the AJC poll while Warnock was at 45 percent.
WHAT'D I MISS?
— Supreme Court denies Lindsey Graham appeal to block subpoena in election subversion case:The Supreme Court has denied Sen. Lindsey Graham’s emergency bid to block a subpoenafrom Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election. The court, with no noted dissent, agreed that Graham can be required to provide testimony to a grand jury about matters that aren’t related to his official congressional work. Anything on his legislative business would be off limits, the high court’s order said.
— Trump joins conspiracists stoking doubts about Pelosi attack: Trump has joined a chorus of conservative voices who have shared baseless conspiracy theories about the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi. During an appearance on the Chris Stigall radio show that aired this morning in Philadelphia, Trump called the attack a “sad situation” but questioned if there was more to the story being detailed by law enforcement. “Wow, it’s — weird things going on in that household in the last couple of weeks. Probably, you and I are better off not talking about it. The glass it seems was broken from the inside to the out so it wasn’t a break in, it was a break out. I don’t know, you hear the same things I do,” Trump said.
— Giuliani attempt to dismiss defamation suit by Georgia election workers is denied:A federal judge has rejected Rudy Giuliani’s effort to dismiss a lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workerswho he falsely accused of election fraud — stoking a furor that led to threats and harassment against both women. U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell ruled in a 27-page opinion that the case brought by both the mother-daughter duo — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — was enough to justify advancing their lawsuit against Giuliani and presented “ample circumstantial evidence of a civil conspiracy between Giuliani and members of the Trump Campaign.”
— Roberts temporarily blocks House from obtaining Trump tax returns:Chief Justice John Roberts today temporarily blocked a House committee from obtaining several years of Trump’s tax returns . The chief justice ordered the stay to freeze the House Ways and Means Committee’s request for the documents, which Trump has fought for years. The former president on Monday filed an emergency application asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the case after a federal appeals court last week denied Trump’s request to block the release of his tax returns.
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AROUND THE WORLD
Likud party leader and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu cast their votes in the Israeli general election. | Amir Levy/Getty Images
RUN IT BACK— Exit polls out of Israel today suggest that Benjamin Netanyahu — currently Israel’s opposition leader — has won enough seats to bring him back into power as Israel’s next prime minister, even in the midst of a corruption trial.
For the fifth time since 2019, Israelis voted in national elections today , hoping to break the political deadlock that has paralyzed the country for the past three and a half years.
Results are not finalized, but Netanyahu’s bloc appears to have a narrow majority that will require him to build a governing coalition.
Election officials said that by 2 p.m. local time, turnout stood at 38.9 percent, the highest at that time since 1999.
The amount of money that Poland could be spending on weapons from South Korea, based on an agreement that the Polish government made with Seoul , if all options are exercised in the coming years. South Korea is racking up multibillion-dollar defense deals in Europe as Seoul pushes to become a bigger player in international weapons sales. Several Eastern European countries, which usually purchase from the United States, are turning to South Korea as they say the South Koreans can deliver weapons faster and cheaper — something the U.S. defense industry will have to contend with as they worry about losing contracts.
RADAR SWEEP
FEELING BLUE— By all accounts, we have a growing mental health crisis in the United States . But where does that come from, and how are we treating it? Is depression more common or simply being diagnosed more? And who’s profiting from those diagnoses? Robert Whitaker looks into big pharma’s connection to the rise in cases of depression in America — and how we’re treating them — for the online magazine Unherd.
PARTING WORDS
Sen. Ben Sasse won approval from the University of Florida Board of Trustees to be the school's next president despite vocal opposition from some faculty and students. | AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
The appointment of Sasse gives the University of Florida a new conservative leader as Florida’s GOP continues to fight against the perceived liberal bias in higher education. He joins several other former Republican lawmakers to take on leadership roles in Florida, including former state Senate President John Thrasher, who led Florida State University and state Sen. Ray Rodrigues, who was recently named chancellor of the state university system.
Sasse, who will resign from his Senate post to take the new role, was a prominent Trump critic and one of just seven GOP senators who voted to convict him for inciting the events of January 6th.
In addressing objections by the student body that include his opposition to same-sex marriage, Sasse asked the university to separate him from his political past as he looks to take over the Gainesville school.
“One of the things that’s sad about our moment is that we often reduce whole humans to specific views on supercharged policy issues at a given moment,” Sasse said today. “Humans are a lot more complex and interesting than that.”
“I think neighborliness is a lot more interesting than politics.”
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Stop pretending your continued Twitter presence will save the platform from Elon Musk.
After a summer of legal feints and called bluffs, Elon Musk officially completed his purchase of Twitter on Thursday. The company has rarely been profitable throughout its 16-year existence, so when Musk came in over the top with a ridiculously overstuffed $44 billion offer earlier this year, investors threw caution to the wind and happily careened toward the unknown. It worked out for them, eventually, but not before Musk took them for a ride all summer as he tried to escape the deal. Good for them. As for the rest of us, you can understand some of the panic: Musk has spent the last few years burnishing his reputation as a slippery huckster with a vengeful ego; perhaps you remember his rebuffed attempts to send a useless experimental submarine to a trapped Thai boys soccer team, or that sexual harassment payoff, or his newfound allegiance to the GOP. Handing someone with that pedigree one of the most influential social media platforms in the world has been, to put it lightly, a cause for concern. Over and over, Musk centered his bid for the company as a move to protect “free speech,” which in the parlance of the internet right means, simply, “our speech.”
The early returns are already foreboding. As he closed the takeover Thursday night , Musk fired much of the company’s established leadership, which was predictable and in line with his stated stewardship principles: the teardown of Twitter’s content moderation (he did reassure advertisers that the site “cannot become a free-for-all hellscape”), and yes, the reinstatement of Donald Trump (though it seems that won’t be in the cards just yet). We’re in the end game now, baby. All gas, no brakes. Some of the most prolific and popular right-wing posters on the internet are celebrating Musk’s ascension as a long-awaited victory. At last, they have a guy in the chair who will finally repeal all of that so-called liberal censorship (read: the permabans handed out to various influential white nationalists), which, according to guys like Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald, has desecrated the sanctity of cyberspace. High-profile #Resistance posters, on the other hand, are gearing up for the fight of their life. To them, the Twitter that they know and love—this oppressive economy of arguments, invective, and nuclear takes that seems to leave everyone elementally dissatisfied after more than five minutes of exposure—is worth dying for. The way they’re talking, you’d think Thanos had just landed on Earth.
And so on, and so forth. Look, I think most people outside of the Joe Rogan electorate aren’t happy that Musk has wrested control of Twitter. It is generally discouraging to consider how so many prominent social media companies now possess a distinct MAGA verve; Ben Shapiro operates one of the most popular pages on Facebook, YouTube has long played host to a variety of xenophobic content creators, and we have plenty of evidence about how platformed hate can ruin the lives of ordinary people. Elon Musk might not be a full-blooded MAGA creation, but he is representative of a certain type of grumpy, increasingly reactionary Silicon Valley curmudgeon, and if he wants, he can now serve as judge, jury, and executioner of everything that passes through the Trending page. That said, I do encourage my fellow concerned citizens to consider the implications of what they’re saying, as they eagerly sign up for an apocalyptic culture war for the purity of Twitter. Yes, you could flex your insubordination by (I guess?) continuing to tweet, indefinitely, in the exact same way we have been for the previous decade. Or you could recognize a much more sensible truth. Twitter is fundamentally transient and low-value. You can leave the platform, at any time, with your life completely unafflicted. There is no bravery in sticking around; that persistence won’t add anything in the aggregate. In fact, most people wouldn’t even notice you were gone.
This truth has become elusive since 2016, when everything in the American purview—from football teams to internet forums—became refracted by an intense partisan light. Donald Trump used Twitter as the pulpit for his presidential term, spawning a whole legion of liberal movers-and-shakers who aimed to counter his malapropisms with charged, clout-thirsty tirades of their own. (Remember Eric Garland? Man.) Suddenly, tweeting was no longer a venue for dumb jokes or restaurant recommendations; no, it had become activism. This, I think, was the moment that snapped the tripwire of our reality. Yes, social media has been a vector of some genuinely positive social change, particularly for disenfranchised populations. (Think about how Black Lives Matter found real, seismic power in the summer of 2020.) But by and large, there is no code of honor in posting on the internet, but we somehow managed to elevate Twitter into a keening fixture of our political environment—something that is debated in Congress and scrutinized by regulators, something that people are willing to go to the mat to save from the clutches of Elon Musk.
So let me remind you of a few key points that have been lost in the shuffle. Twitter is a private company that provides a consumer service. If that service becomes dysfunctional or mangled under new ownership, you—yes, you—wield the market power to take your business elsewhere. Regardless of the way the polarities of the platform might entrench you on one side or the other, you do not owe Twitter anything. (Thank God for that!) Another key point: If you are a veteran of the internet, you have likely been putting your thoughts on an untold number of websites over the years. Myspace, Friendster, the replies of long-deleted forum threads, the comments of defunct Tumblrs; they each bloomed and died like clockwork, because the internet is founded on atrophy. If there is to be a mass exodus from Twitter as the site falls into Muskified disrepair, then that will be a tale as old as time, or at least IRC chats. Fear not. Somewhere out there, mired in the void of cyberspace, you will find a place to post again. Whatever pleasures you got from Twitter will not be lost forever.
So please, set aside the calls to action; steel yourself from the desire to screenshot a treacly Notes App missive about your decision to post against the grain. You don’t need to fight anymore. Honestly, you never did. If there is ever a time to recognize that Twitter, at its core, is nothing more than a technology asset bandied about by hyper-oligarchs who have no sensitivity for all the misguided emotional stakes we’ve poured into the website over the years, then surely, a $44 billion price tag from Elon Musk is our moment of clarity. Nothing we tweeted ever mattered that much. That isn’t a tragedy; it’s a relief.
Agricultural products were Ukraine's primary source of export revenue, and accounted for nearly 10% of the country's GDP. (photo: Fadel Dawood/Getty Images)
Cargo ships carrying 354,500 tonnes of grain, the most shipped in one day since Ukrainian exports resumed, set sail on Monday, October 31.
Turkey says it is determined that Ukraine continue its food exports despite Russia suspending its participation in a United Nations-brokered grain deal, a move that has heightened concerns for nations desperate for food assistance.
Russia suspended the deal on Saturday after what it said was a major Ukrainian drone attack on its naval fleet in annexed Crimea. Despite Moscow’s decision, cargo ships set sail carrying 354,500 tonnes of grain, the most dispatched in one day since the programme began in August.
“Even if Russia behaves hesitantly because it didn’t receive the same benefits, we will continue decisively our efforts to serve humanity,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar told Russian counterpart Sergey Shoigu on Monday that Moscow should re-evaluate the suspension of its participation.
In a phone call between the two ministers, Akar told Shoigu it was extremely important for the grain deal to continue, and added it should be implemented separately from the conflict in Ukraine, Turkey’s defence ministry said.
Amir Abdullah, the UN official coordinating the programme, said: “Civilian cargo ships can never be a military target or held hostage. The food must flow.”
‘Risky’ exports
Russia said on Monday that it was “unacceptable” for shipping to pass through the Black Sea security corridor.
“The movement of ships along the security corridor is unacceptable, since the Ukrainian leadership and the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine use it to conduct military operations against the Russian Federation,” the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
“Under the current conditions, there can be no question of guaranteeing the security of any object in the indicated direction until the Ukrainian side accepts additional obligations not to use this route for military purposes.”
Russia emphasised, however, that it was not withdrawing from the deal but only suspending it.
The ministry did not say what Russia would do if ships continued to sail the route.
Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied carrying out the attack on the Crimean base of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, but says Russia’s navy is a legitimate military target.
In July, Russia and Ukraine signed the grain deal, which allowed the resumption of grain exports halted because of the war.
So far, more than nine million tonnes of Ukrainian grain have been exported, and the deal was set to be renewed on November 19.
Food price spike
Ukraine and Russia are both among the world’s largest exporters of food.
After Russia announced it was withdrawing from the deal, Chicago wheat futures jumped 6 percent and corn rose more than 2 percent, raising concerns over global supplies.
“This is an inflationary move, supporting prices of wheat and corn,” one Singapore-based trader said. “Prices have risen, but further gains will depend on how the situation unfolds.”
Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of wheat expected to be delivered to Africa and the Middle East are at risk after Russia’s withdrawal from the deal. Ukrainian corn exports to Europe are also expected to be hit.
President Joe Biden snapped at President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a June phone call when the Ukrainian leader asked for more aid, NBC News reported.
The new details show there was a tense moment in the two leaders' relationship, even though Biden then publicly expressed unwavering support for Ukraine and he has only increased US assistance since.
The two leaders had the tense phone conversation on June 15, almost four months after Russia first launched its invasion of Ukraine. Communications between the two have been frequent since the invasion began.
Biden was telling Zelenskyy about a $1 billion military aid package that he had just been approved when the Ukrainian leader started listing all the additional help he needed, the four people familiar with the call told NBC.
This prompted Biden to raise his voice and tell Zelenskyy that he should show more gratitude, NBC reported.
A source familiar with the conversation told NBC that the exchange wasn't heated or angry, but Biden was direct with Zelenskyy.
Biden said publicly after that call that "together with our allies and partners, will not waver in our commitment to the Ukrainian people as they fight for their freedom."
And Biden has only increased his support for Ukraine since the call, as he announced multiple military packages for the country and condemned Russia's actions there.
Administration officials told NBC that the two leaders' relationship has only improved since the call.
Biden said later in June that the US would back Ukraine "as long as it takes," and has made multiple similar comments since.
The US Congress has approved around $60 billion in military, economic, and humanitarian aid for Ukraine, made up of many smaller packages, since Russia invaded.
The effects of global heating could soon reach a tipping point, but scientists fear that the meeting in Egypt will become bogged down in recriminations
It has been an alarming time for climate scientists. One by one, the grim scenarios they had outlined for the near future have been overtaken by events: extreme storms, droughts, floods and ice-sheet collapses whose sudden appearances have outstripped researchers’ worst predictions. Catastrophic climate change is happening more rapidly and with greater intensity than their grimmest warnings, it transpires.
Examples include this summer’s record high temperature of 40.3C in the UK, a massive jump of 1.6C on the previous hottest day; torrential rains that triggered the most severe flooding in Pakistan’s recent history; and last year’s Hurricane Ida, one of the most destructive storms to have struck the US.
It is not that global temperatures have risen faster than expected. The problem is that the effect of this rise has been unexpectedly extreme.
“Many of the impacts of climate change such as increased weather extremes are now playing out faster than predicted, even though the warming itself is very much in line with model projections,” said the American climatologist Michael E Mann, of Pennsylvania University.
This point was backed by Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.
“Without doubt, extreme weather events, amplified by global warming, are coming faster than predicted and are more severe than predicted. The impacts are there to see: the disastrous floods in Pakistan; the failure of the rainy season in Somalia for the past four years; and highly destructive wildfires in California,” he said.
These unanticipated events are occurring in a world that is currently 1.2C hotter than it was in pre-industrial times and temperatures are likely to continue to rise considerably despite nations pledging at recent IPCC summits to do everything to hold increases to 1.5C.
This figure could be breached in a decade, say scientists. The result will be even worse droughts, heatwaves, floods and disease patterns than those now being experienced.
But that is not all, says Rockström. He and his colleagues have recently published research that indicates that by the time a global temperature rise of 1.5C is reached there would be a significant risk to four major systems. “These systems include the Greenland ice sheet and the West Antarctic ice sheet, which will start to disintegrate,” added Rockström. “The end result will be sea level rises of several metres though that could take many, many decades.”
In addition, the permafrost systems of Canada and Russia would start to thaw and release their vast stores of methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent and dangerous than carbon dioxide. Finally, at temperature rises of about 1.5C, all of the planet’s tropical coral reef systems would start to collapse, the group found.
“It would mean that we would be handing over to our children and to all future generations, a planet that will be sliding irreversibly towards possessing fewer and fewer places to live,” Rockström said.
The planet is teetering on the brink of meteorological disaster, giving a desperate edge to the opening of the Cop27 climate summit in Egypt next month. The task facing delegates was starkly underlined by the UN which reported last week that the world was now on track for a 2.8C rise in global temperatures. It also accused nations of wasting a year because they failed to deliver ambitious emissions pledges that had been made at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow last year.
This point was stressed by Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. “Climate change is already damaging millions of lives around the world, including the UK, and is an increasing threat to the economic development of poor countries in particular. It is critical that governments at the Cop27 summit recognise that the risks of loss and damage are accelerating.”
Scientists warn that if the world is to have a chance of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 and so prevent the breaching of the 1.5C limit, global emissions will have to be cut by 5% to 7% a year. At present, emissions are rising between 1% and 2% a year with little sign of that increase being halted.
Finding routes to carbon cuts should therefore be a priority for Cop27, scientists insist. However the summit is expected to be dominated by contentious discussions about the compensation that poorer nations believe richer nations should pay them for the impact of climate change. Global heating has been caused by industrial nations that used fossil fuels to make themselves rich. The argument is that they should now reimburse those countries that are suffering from the worst vicissitudes of climate change.
These are known as “loss and damage” claims and they will be a key focus of next month’s summit.
“You can imagine what will happen when the Pakistan delegation presents its claim for compensation for floods that have just put a third of their country under water,” said Rockström.
“You can imagine the number on that invoice. And I think developing countries have a really justified argument in making these loss and damage claims. But it is not going to be a very constructive debate because it’s very difficult to move forward on an agenda item like that.”
This point was backed by Professor Stephen Belcher, chief scientist at the UK Met Office. “At this point, the need for action is clear,” he told the Observer. “There is still time, but my gosh, the window of opportunity is closing fast.”
A year on the frontlines of the climate crisis
California wildfires The “Dixie Fire” started in Butte County on 13 July, 2021 and burned 963,309 acres before being contained on 25 October. It was the largest single wildfire in California’s history and damaged or destroyed several small towns.
Louisiana’sHurricane Ida One of the deadliest and most destructive category 4 Atlantic hurricanes struck the southern state in 2021 and became the second most damaging and intense in its history, behind only Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
South America drought Wide areas of subtropical South America recorded their driest years on record in 2021. Rainfall was well below average in much of central and southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and north Argentina, leading to major agricultural losses.
Britain’s hottest day Space photos showed the UK turned from green to brown as temperatures exceeded 40C for the first time on 19 July. This beat by 1.6C the previous record of 38.7C that was set in 2019. The above image shows parched ground in London’s Greenwich Park.
Horn of Africa drought The lack of rain that affected Somalia and other Horn of Africa nations for the past five years has created a drought so severe that the lives of hundreds of thousands of people are now threatened, aid agencies have warned.
Henan province floods Zhengzhou, the Chinese province’s capital, had 8in of rain in a single hour on 20 July last year, the highest recorded level since measurements began in 1951. The resulting floods caused the evacuation of 815,000 people and affected 14.5 million people around the province.
Pakistan floods
At least 1,600 have died and more than $30bn of damage and loss has been caused since floods started in June. Housing, agriculture, livestock, transport and communications all suffered. “I have never seen climate carnage on this scale,” said UN secretary general António Guterres.
Asurge in racist slurs, a coordinated campaign to spread antisemitic memes, an owner posting a baseless conspiracy theory: welcome to the first few days of Elon Musk's Twitter.
Since the billionaire took control of the influential social media platform on Oct. 27, users, researchers and the company's own employees have been warning that trolls and other malicious actors are testing Twitter's limits, apparently emboldened by a new owner who has vowed to loosen its guardrails in the name of free speech.
The incidents are raising particular alarm given that Americans are in the final days of voting in November's midterm elections, putting government agencies, civil society groups and social media companies on edge over the circulation of false information and hateful rhetoric that is fomenting real-world violence.
Musk himself inflamed those concerns on Sunday when he tweeted a link to unfounded, homophobic allegations about the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Replying to a tweet from Hillary Clinton about the attack, Musk wrote: "there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye." He included a link to an article from the Santa Monica Observer, a fringe website with a history of publishing false stories, which makes lurid claims about the attack without evidence.
Musk, who has more than 112 million Twitter followers, deleted the post hours later, but not before it had been retweeted and liked tens of thousands of times.
His tweet heightened fears that Twitter is headed into a new era of toxicity under Musk, who has fired the company's top leadership and dissolved its board, naming himself sole director.
The billionaire Tesla CEO has long used his Twitter account to provoke, joke and troll. His posts take on a new significance now that he owns and controls the platform, however.
Yael Eisenstat, a former Facebook official now at the Anti-Defamation League, tweeted that for Musk to amplify an unfounded rumor "days after claiming to advertisers that he's going to be a responsible leader, all I can say is: I'm not overreacting by expressing my concerns." She was referring to an open letter Musk wrote to advertisers last week pledging that Twitter would not become a "free-for-all hellscape."
"Actions always speak louder than words," Eisenstat wrote.
Musk and Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.
Coordinated campaign of racist tweets tests Musk's control
Musk is a self-described "free speech absolutist" who has criticized Twitter's restrictions on hate speech and misleading claims about elections and public health. He has previously said he thinks the platform should allow all legal speech. He's also said he opposes permanent bans and would reinstate banned accounts including that of former President Donald Trump, who was kicked off after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
But many on Twitter and other internet sites greeted news of his ownership as a signal that the old rules were gone.
"Elon Musk has said enough on Twitter even before his takeover to make people believe that he is on the side of saying whatever you want without consequences," said Sara Aniano, disinformation analyst at the Anti-Defamation League.
In the first 24 hours after news broke that Musk had closed his $44 billion purchase, more than 1,200 tweets and retweet spread antisemitic posts and memes, according to the ADL's analysis. In the following days, they've been posted thousands more times.
The ADL said the surge was being driven by a coordinated campaign on internet platforms popular with the far right, including 4chan, an anonymous message board that has generated previous harassment and trolling campaigns, and the messaging app Telegram.
"There were specific guidelines on 4chan on what to do, how to do it, and why they were doing it. And they were doing it to indoctrinate more users into their rallying cry against the Jews," Aniano said.
Users of 4chan also encouraged each other to amplify derogatory slurs, according to the Network Contagion Research Institute. It found use of the n-word increased 500% immediately following Musk's purchase.
According to data from Dataminr, a company that analyzes social media activity, use of several racist and homophobic slurs increased in the hours and days after Musk took control. Tweets and retweets containing the n-word were being posted more than 2,300 times an hour at the peak on Friday, the data showed.
Twitter's head of safety and integrity, Yoel Roth, also warned of coordinated efforts to proliferate hateful posts and said the platform was banning users involved in the trolling campaign.
"Over the last 48 hours, we've seen a small number of accounts post a ton of Tweets that include slurs and other derogatory terms," he tweeted on Saturday evening, noting that just 300 accounts were responsible for more than 50,000 tweets using one slur.
"Bottom line up front: Twitter's policies haven't changed," Roth wrote. "Hateful conduct has no place here. And we're taking steps to put a stop to an organized effort to make people think we have."
Intimidation, threats and coercion violate federal Voting Rights Act, the department wrote in a brief filed Monday
The Justice Department stepped in to an ongoing Arizona electionlawsuit Monday, supporting a claim by the League of Women Voters of Arizona that monitoring ballot drop boxes can amount to illegal voter intimidation.
The department said such “vigilante ballot security measures,” including filming voters at drop boxes, probably violates the federal Voting Rights Act.
“When private citizens form ‘ballot security forces’ and attempt to take over the State’s legitimate role of overseeing and policing elections, the risk of voter intimidation — and violating federal law — is significant,” the department said in a “statement of interest” filed in the case.
The League of Women Voters alleged that several organizations planned “widespread campaigns to surveil and intimidate Arizona voters at ballot drop boxes and baselessly accuse them” of voter fraud.
The drop boxes, intended to provide a secure, convenient place to submit ballots, have become a symbol of mistrust in elections among many supporters of former president Donald Trump.
Trump and his allies nationally and in Arizona have urged supporters to monitor outdoor drop boxes, an outgrowth of the discredited film “2000 Mules” that claims drop boxes were stuffed with fraudulent ballots during the 2020 election.
News of the Justice Department filing with its strong language about voter intimidation was welcomed by voting rights advocates, and Arizona officials who have been increasingly alarmed by outside groups congregating around drop boxes and recording videos of voters and their vehicles.
“To have folks standing outside of drop boxes, armed in tactical gear, with body armor, that is unprecedented,” said Bill Gates, the chair of the Republican-led Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. The filing, Gates said, showed “that there is a limit — there’s a balance between the First Amendment rights that people have and also the right that people have to not feel intimidated when voting. That point was made very strongly.”
The Arizona lawsuit is one of many claims from battleground states that voters are being intimidated when they place ballots in drop boxes. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) referred a report of voter harassment at drop boxes to the Justice Department on Oct. 20. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week stated that the department “will not permit voters to be intimidated” during the midterm elections.
But Monday’s filing marks the first time this election cycle that the department has entered an ongoing case involving drop boxes in this way. The department specifically made reference to photographing voters at drop box sites, sometimes by armed vigilantes.
“Video recording or photographing voters during the voting process has long been recognized to raise particularly acute concerns,” the department’s Monday filing said.
The filing comes after a federal district court judge in Arizona, Michael Liburdi, on Friday refused in a related case to block groups from monitoring drop boxes. He said in a case brought by the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans that there was insufficient evidence to warrant court intervention of an activity protected by the First Amendment.
The department in its filing did not offer a specific prescription in the case but argued that it is possible to craft an injunction blocking threatening activity consistent with the First Amendment’s protection of free speech and assembly.
“While the First Amendment protects expressive conduct and peaceable assembly generally, it affords no protection for threats of harm directed at voters,” the department’s lawyers wrote.
Voting rights advocates applauded the department’s action.
“The filing acknowledges the serious threat that voter intimidation, like we are seeing in Arizona, has to our democracy,” said Jessica Marsden, counsel to Protect Democracy, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the League of Women Voters.
Danielle Lang, senior director for voting rights at the Campaign Legal Center, said the statement of interest was a strongly worded, significant addition to the case.
“It’s notable that this compelling brief was filed in such a short time frame,” following Liburdi’s decision not to intervene, Lang said.
The League of Women Voters is asking for a court order to ban armed vigilantes from gathering near the drop boxes and a hearing on that request is scheduled for Tuesday.
The hearing comes as one of the defendants in the league’s lawsuit, the Lions of Liberty, has been dropped from the case after agreeing to halt its drop box monitoring program. Luke Cilano, a board member with the Lions of Liberty in Yavapai County, questioned the department’s decision to get involved.
“Why would they be making statements on anything that is a states’ rights issue unless they’re trying to subvert the right of the state?” he said Monday.
Officials in Maricopa County, home to metro Phoenix and the largest voting population in the swing state, have urged voters to contact law enforcement or the secretary of state’s office if they feel uncomfortable while pulling up to the drop boxes to deposit ballots.
The secretary of state’s office reviews the complaints and determines whether they should be referred to the Justice Department and the state attorney general’s office.
State elections officials say they have received more than a dozen complaints about intimidation at drop boxes since early voting began Oct. 12. Through an open records request, The Washington Post received copies of complaints referred to law enforcement.
“I dropped off my ballot at the Maricopa County Recorders office and there were two men filming everyone as they drove through,” one voter wrote in a submission about their experience while voting in downtown Phoenix on Wednesday afternoon. “While this may not be illegal to do, it is very uncomfortable and feels intimidating.”
A week out from US midterm elections, president pleads with energy firms to invest profits in lowering costs for American consumers
President Joe Biden has accused oil companies of “war profiteering” as he raised the possibility of imposing a windfall tax if companies don’t boost domestic production.
In remarks on Monday, just over a week away from the 8 November midterm elections, Biden criticised major oil companies for making record profits while refusing to help lower prices at the pump for American people. The president said he would look to Congress to levy tax penalties on oil companies if they don’t begin to invest some of their profits in lowering costs for American consumers.
“My team will work with Congress to look at these options that are available to us and others,” Biden said. “It’s time for these companies to stop war profiteering, meet their responsibilities in this country and give the American people a break and still do very well.”
Over the last two quarters, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, and TotalEnergy earned over $100bn more than they earned all of last year, and more than two-and-a-half times what they earned in the same quarters of 2021.
The president took particular aim at ExxonMobil which last week reported earnings of $19.7bn in the third quarter alone. He said the company used its record profits to provide shareholders with hefty dividends and stock buybacks but failed to invest in production improvements that would benefit consumers at the pump.
“Oil companies’ record profits today are not because of doing something new or innovative,” Biden said. “Their profits are a windfall of war, a windfall for the brutal conflict that’s ravaging Ukraine and hurting tens of millions of people around the globe.”
High prices at the pump have exacerbated inflation and have taken a toll on Biden and Democrats’ standing among voters.
In July, petrol prices rose to an average of $4.80 for a gallon of regular. They’ve since fallen to an average of $3.76 nationally, but the White House says they should be lower, given declines in global oil prices over the same period.
“Can’t believe I have to say this but giving profits to shareholders is not the same as bringing prices down for American families,” Biden tweeted on Friday.
Biden’s threat of windfall taxes on energy companies follows calls from progressive Democrats, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Last week, California Governor Gavin Newsom added his voice to the call for Congress to tax the profits of oil companies.
“Crude oil prices are down but oil and gas companies have jacked up prices at the pump in California. This doesn’t add up,” Newsom said on Friday. “We’re not going to stand by while greedy oil companies fleece Californians. Instead, I’m calling for a windfall tax to ensure excess oil profits go back to help millions of Californians who are getting ripped off.”
Congress would have to approve any additional taxes on the energy producers. Some attempts this year to increase regulation of energy companies have stalled in the Senate.
“This is exactly the type of leadership we’ve been waiting for from President Biden,” said Jamie Henn, spokesperson for the group ‘Stop the Oil Profiteering.’ “Big Oil has made nearly $300bn in excess profits this year by gouging us at the pump. A windfall profits tax can provide immediate relief by redirecting that money into the pockets of hardworking Americans.”
Industry groups have condemned the prospect of a windfall tax, with American Exploration … Production Council CEO Anne Bradbury saying it “would likely backfire by further driving up energy costs for American families and businesses.”
“Rather than taking credit for price declines and shifting blame for price increases, the Biden administration should get serious about addressing the supply and demand imbalance that has caused higher gas prices and created long-term energy challenges,” said Mike Sommers, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.
