The Tarbabys Blog – Page 237 – Read About The Tarbaby Story under the Category: About the Tarbaby Blog

Opinion: MAGA Republicans a bitter, lonely, violent bunch

Asherville Citizen – Times

Opinion: MAGA Republicans a bitter, lonely, violent bunch

Pat Brothwell – November 6, 2022

“Violence of any kind against anyone, even elected officials or a member of their family simply cannot be tolerated in our great country. The attacker of Paul Pelosi should be prosecuted to the full extent the law will allow.” NC-11 Republican congressional candidate Chuck Edwards tweeted this on Oct. 28 in response to the physical attack via hammer of Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

Chuck Edwards can say he condemns violence until his face turns blue, but that doesn’t mean it’s true. He’s aligned himself with a party whose ethos is cruelty. I genuinely want to believe that more people than not are fundamentally good, that they can think for themselves and reject cruelty and violence. However, as much as I want to believe this, I don’t know that I can, not the way things are going, where so many people and politicians are complicit in allowing hate and violence to thrive. Are you OK with it? It’s something you’ll have to ask yourself when voting this week.

Merriam-Webster defines violence as “intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force.” So while yes, a hammer attack on an elderly gentleman is an unequivocal act of violence (and easy to denounce), any action that perpetuates the destruction is violent.

Chuck Edwards seems OK with the violence of the Jan. 6 insurrection, where police officers were beaten unconscious and people were killed. He’s never denounced Trump’s “Big Lie.”

Edwards seemingly tolerates the vitriol of our Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. Edwards has campaigned with Robinson, who regularly engages in violence-inspiring hate speech — the same day Edwards tweeted about “not tolerating” violence, Robinson posted on Facebook, “I’m sorry Paul I don’t believe you or the press!!!!” No prominent NC Republicans denounced Robinson’s callousness.

Edwards prides himself on being pro-life, but anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that if abortion is criminalized in North Carolina, many women and girls may meet violent ends. He’ll tolerate that violence, though, because he belongs to a religion more concerned with sanctimony than empathy or people.

And lest we forget, on the afternoon that 19 children and two teachers were violently torn apart by the bullets of an AR-15, Edwards’s Republican State Senate colleagues held a press conference to introduce a North Carolina version of Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would lead to increased violence towards LGBTQ+ students. Edwards voted affirmatively for that bill and has neglected to address gun control — the kind that would make it harder for mentally disturbed young men to obtain and perpetrate violence with semi-automatic weapons — in any meaningful way because that might dent his income.

Edwards isn’t the worst of the bunch by any means, but his complicity is emblematic of today’s MAGA right.

On Oct. 29, also in response to the Pelosi attack, U. S Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) tweeted, “Almost all my family are Republicans. We’ve disagreed about a lot throughout the years, but I never thought they were cruel. This isn’t my parents’ Republican party. MAGA-Republicans are a bitter, lonely, and violent bunch. When we need compassion they choose cruelty.” This resonated with me.

Like Swalwell, I grew up in a very conservative area and often disagreed politically with my mostly Republican family. However, while I think many are guilty of not thinking critically enough about why they believe what they believe, I don’t think most are cruel and maintain close relationships with many.

My father, one of my favorite people in the world, and cliche as it may be, still my hero, had always been a Republican, the type Swalwell alludes doesn’t have a place in this new order. After Trump was elected and made abject cruelty and violent rhetoric under the guise of “telling it like it is” an accepted norm, I watched my father become just as disturbed and disgusted with the flagrant hypocrisy and cruelty of the MAGA right as I was. My father and I might have once disagreed politically, but we’ve always shared the same values, those he taught me: treating others with kindness, making people feel welcome, fairness, integrity, and that as long as people aren’t hurting you, their personal choices aren’t any of your business.

At one point, my father and Chuck Edwards probably had similar political views, but my father actually doesn’t tolerate violence, and he doesn’t just say this, his actions and shifting votes show so. I hope more people show that they don’t tolerate violence this election day. There’s nothing weak about changing your point of view.

Pat Brothwell is a former high school teacher, and current writer and marketing professional living and working in Asheville.

Russia’s ‘catastrophic’ missing men problem

The Week

Russia’s ‘catastrophic’ missing men problem

Peter Weber, Senior editor – November 5, 2022

Fleeing Russia. Illustrated | Getty Images

“Where have all the flowers gone?” asks the famous 1960s antiwar song. In Moscow today, The New York Times reports, the question is: Where have all the men gone?

The answer to both questions is, in part, the same: To the graveyards of soldiers. But a lot of the missing men of Moscow have also fled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s draft for his war in Ukraine. In fact, demographers say Russia may not recover for generations, if ever.

“Putin spent years racing against Russia’s demographic clock, only to order an invasion of Ukraine that’s consigning his country’s population to a historic decline,” Bloomberg News reports. Here’s a look at what demographer Alexei Raksha calls Russia’s “perfect storm” of demographic decline:

So where have all the young men gone?

Putin says his recent mobilization drafted about 300,000 men, 82,000 of whom are already in Ukraine. Another 300,000 Russians are believed to have fled to other countries to avoid the draft. The Pentagon estimated in August, before Kyiv’s autumn counteroffensive, that Russia had incurred about 80,000 casualties in Ukraine, including wounded troops. “I feel like we are a country of women now,” Moscow resident Stanislava, 33, told the Times. “I was searching for male friends to help me move some furniture, and I realized almost all of them had left.”

Aleksei Ermilov, the founder of Russia’s Chop-Chop barber shop empire, tells the Times you “can see the massive relocation wave more in Moscow and St. Petersburg than in other cities, partially because more people have the means to leave there.”

The urban professionals who could blithely avoid thinking about the war over the summer did get a rude awakening when the Kremlin started pressing them into military service. The ranks of Moscow’s “intelligentsia, who often have disposable income and passports for foreign travel,” have “thinned noticeably — in restaurants, in the hipster community, and at social gatherings like dinners and parties,” the Times reports. But ethnic and religious minorities in some regions have it worse.

In the remote far north of Russia and along the Mongolia border, in the regions of Sakha and Buryatia, mobilization rates are up to six times higher than in Russia’s European regions, according to Yekaterina Morland at the Asians of Russia Foundation. Indigenous people in those regions were “rounded up in their villages” and enlistment officers scoured the tundra and “handed out summonses to anyone they met,” Vladimir Budaev of the Free Buryatia Foundation told The Associated Press.

How has the male exodus affected Russian demography?

Russia already had a huge gender imbalance before the Ukraine invasion, dating back to massive battlefield losses in World War II, Paul Goble writes at Eurasia Daily Monitor. Results from the 2021 census are expected to show that Russia has 10.5 million more women than men, almost the same disparity as a decade ago — the double blow being that Russian men at “prime child-bearing age” are dying in Ukraine or fleeing Putin’s draft, which will “further depress the already low birthrates in the Russian Federation and put the country’s demographic future, already troubled, at even greater risk.”

“The mobilization is upending families at perhaps the most fraught moment ever for Russian demographics, with the number of women of childbearing age down by about a third in the past decade” amid the country’s broader population decline, Bloomberg reports. “While demographic traumas usually play out over decades, the fallout of the invasion is making the worst scenarios more likely — and much sooner than expected.”

Continuing with the Ukraine war and mobilization efforts until the end of next spring would be “catastrophic” for Russia, Moscow demographer Igor Efremov tells Bloomberg. It would likely bring birth rates down to 1 million between mid-2023 and mid-2024, dropping the fertility rate to 1.2 children per woman, a low mark Russia hit only once, in the 1999-2000 period. “A fertility rate of 2.1 is needed to keep populations stable without migration,” Bloomberg adds, and currently Russia is facing “immigration outflows” and serious questions about its “ability to attract workers from abroad.”

The war is bad for Ukraine, too, right?

Yes — and like Russia, Ukraine was already hurting demographically even before the invasion, Lyman Stone, a research fellow at the conservative Institute for Family Studies, wrote in March. “Both Russia and Ukraine have low fertility rates, but in recent years, Russia has implemented pro-natal policies that have helped the country avoid extreme fertility declines,” while Ukraine has been relatively lacking in such policies as it struggled through 15 years of war and political and economic upheaval.

Given Russia’s much larger population and less severe recent population decline, “Ukraine’s position compared to Russia’s is steadily eroding,” and “this trend will continue at an even greater pace in the future as the gaps in fertility rates between the two countries grow wider,” Stone predicts. But “core demographic factors like birth rates and migration rates,” while important, “are not destiny,” and Ukraine has “turned demographic decline into military rejuvenation” through alliance-building and the “sharp willingness” of Ukrainians to fight.

Moreover, if Russia succeeds in annexing significant parts of Ukraine, Putin will have succeeded in bulking up Russia’s population — but he’ll also be adding Ukraine’s “unfavorable demographics” to his own problems, Bloomberg notes.

Might there be a Russian post-war baby boom?

It’s possible. Sometimes wars “lead to higher fertility,” as when “sudden bursts of conception” occur as men deploy for battle, Goble writes at Eurasia Daily Monitor. “For example, monthly birth data from the 1940s clearly shows that U.S. baby boom began not as the G.I.’s returned from war, but as they were leaving for war.” After the fighting stops, he adds, “wars may trigger a surge of nationalist ideas making people susceptible to pro-natal ideas and policies, even as so-called ‘replacement fertility’ often leads families to ‘respond’ to high-casualty events by having ‘replacement’ children.'”

In the short term, though, “it is likely that in conditions of uncertainty, many couples will postpone having children for some time until the situation stabilizes,” Elena Churilova, research fellow in the Higher School Economics’s International Laboratory for Population and Health, tells Bloomberg. “In 2023, we are likely to see a further decline in the birth rate.”

And in the meantime, “downloads of dating apps have significantly increased in the countries to which Russian men fled,” the Times reports, noting sharp rises in downloads in Armenia, Georgia, Turkey, and Kazakhstan. “All of the most reasonable guys are gone,” said Tatiana, a 36-year-old Muscovite. “The dating pool has shrunk by at least 50 percent.”

Is there any way Russia can reverse its demographic spiral?

The most likely outcome is that “Putin’s war will cast a shadow on Russia for a long time to come — one growing ever darker the longer the war carries on,” Goble writes. Not only will the loss of Russian men to emigration and battlefield death “leave a huge hole in Russian society,” but “those Russian men who do indeed manage to return will experience enormous problems,” from PTSD and other health struggles to participating in a “proliferation of crime waves similar to those that followed the Afghan and Chechen wars.”

The shape of “Russia’s population pyramid” means “the birthrate is almost destined to decline,” Brent Peabody wrote at Foreign Policy in January. Putin has said he’s haunted by that fact, and “Russia’s need for more people is no doubt a motivating consideration for its current aggressive posture toward Ukraine,” even as “the idea that Ukrainians would sign up to be good Russians is largely delusional.”

Ukrainians may not sign up to be good Russians willingly, but thousands of Ukrainian children have been spirited off to Russia to be placed in Russian “foster families,” AP reports.

Ukrainian authorities say they are launching a criminal case against Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova, who said in mid-October that she herself had adopted a boy sized by Russian forces in Ukraine’s bombed-out Mariupol, AP reports. U.S., British, and other Western nations sanctioned Lvova-Belova in September over allegations she masterminded the removal to Russia of more than 2,000 vulnerable children from Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk provinces.

Demography, and assumptions about how nations will react to demographic changes, are not exact arts, Rhodes College professor Jennifer Sciubba wrote at Population Reference Bureau in April. For example, “for years, one common argument in the U.S. policy community was that Russia’s demographic troubles would curtail its ability to project power outside its borders.”

Obviously, the “geriatric peace theory” was not a good fit for Russia, Sciubba adds. But more broadly, “population aging and contraction are such new trends that we know little about how states conduct foreign policy under these conditions, and we shouldn’t expect aging states to act like aging individuals.”

Republicans Are Bad for the Economy. Here’s Why.

Daily Beast

Republicans Are Bad for the Economy. Here’s Why.

David Rothkopf, Bernard Schwartz – November 4, 2022

Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast

According to a wave of recent polls, the economy is the dominant issue on the minds of Americans going into next week’s elections.

A recent Pew poll concluded nearly eight in 10 voters said the economy will be “very important” to their voting decisions. Another such poll, by ABC News and Ipsos, showed that almost half of respondents cited either the economy or inflation as the issue about which they were most concerned. The poll indicated that concerns about the economy and inflation are “much more likely to drive voters towards Republicans.”

But that impulse is not only ill-considered, every bit of available evidence makes clear that the GOP is the wrong party to which to turn if you seek better U.S. economic performance in the future.

In fact, it is not close. When it comes to the economy, the GOP is the problem and not the solution. If anything, it is a greater obstacle to our economic well-being today than it has ever been.

What Ron DeSantis’ Silence on Antisemitic Messages Says About the GOP

At the same time, the economic record of President Joe Biden and the Democrats is not just consistent—in creating jobs, reducing the deficit, and enhancing our competitiveness—during the past two years their record has been one of extraordinary, often record-breaking success.

History tells a very stark tale. Ten of the last 11 recessions began under Republicans. The one that started under former President Donald Trump and the current GOP leadership was the worst since the Great Depression–and while perhaps any president presiding over a pandemic might have seen the economy suffer, Trump’s gross mismanagement of COVID-19 clearly and greatly deepened the problems the U.S. economy faced. Meanwhile, historically, Democratic administrations have overseen recoveries from those Republican lows. During the seven decades before Trump, real GDP growth averaged just over 2.5 percent under Republicans and a little more than 4.3 percent under Democrats.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Drew Angerer/Getty</div> — Drew Angerer/Getty

Republicans have also historically presided over huge expansions in the U.S. deficit, while Democrats (since Bill Clinton’s administration) have overseen dramatic deficit reduction. Ronald Reagan more than doubled the deficit from $70 billion to more than $175 billion. George H.W. Bush nearly doubled that to $290 billion. Clinton ended his administration with a $128.2 billion surplus.

George W. Bush inherited that… and left office with a record deficit of more than $1.4 trillion. Obama reduced that by very nearly $1 trillion. Each of Donald Trump’s last two years in office saw federal budgets with deficits of over $3 trillion. In fact, in total, the national debt rose almost $8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. According to ProPublica, it was the third biggest such increase in U.S. history—after George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War years.

What about job creation?

The U.S. lost jobs under Trump and created relatively few under George W. Bush. Of the 14 presidents since World War II, seven were Democrats and seven were Republican. Of the seven with the highest job creation rates, six were Democrats. Of the seven with the lowest job creation rates, six were Republicans.

There’s No Democrat Equivalent to GOP Election Deniers’ Scumbaggery

What about now? Biden and the current Democratic Congress have created more jobs than the past three Republican administrations combined.

<div class="inline-image__credit">Saul Loeb/Getty</div> — Saul Loeb/Getty

The job creation rate in 2021 was the most ever in a single year. GDP growth in 2021 was the highest since 1984. This year, the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, its lowest level in 50 years. As part of that, we are seeing record low unemployment for Blacks and Latinos.

Ok, you might say, but what about inflation?

Rising prices are a real problem for many Americans. But the origins of inflation have very little to do with the Biden administration or the Congress. Inflation is a global problem that is related, according to economists, primarily to supply chain problems associated with COVID, Vladimir Putin’s escalation of the war in Ukraine, and corporate profiteering.

Dems Do Big F*cking Deals, the GOP Does Fake Big Dick Energy

What makes the Republican focus on this issue so shockingly hypocritical is that Trump’s mismanagement of the COVID crisis, his support for Putin, and Republicans’ protection of Big Oil (and big businesses) actually helped create the conditions that have driven prices up. Further, Republicans unanimously opposed every single measure by the Biden administration to reduce prices and help those hit by inflation—including the landmark Inflation Reduction Act’s efforts to lower drug costs and to help those hardest hit.

Meanwhile, the U.S. just reported stronger than expected growth in the last quarter and the price of gasoline, an oft-cited sign of inflation, has been falling for months.

At the same time, a substantial majority within the GOP have sought to block virtually every single new economic measure proposed or passed by Biden and the Democratic Congress. That includes the America Recovery Act that lifted millions out of poverty and drove job creation, the Chips and Science Act to enhance competitiveness, and even the so-called “Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill” which garnered the support of fewer than half of the GOP caucus in the Senate.

You might assume that if the GOP opposed these initiatives but were critical of what Biden was doing, that they had alternative plans that they have presented to the American people. But, you would be wrong. In fact, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has bragged that he would not even discuss his agenda until after the election. They have no inflation plan. And the plans they’ve said they admire—like that of the United Kingdom’s prime minister-for-a-second Liz Truss—have been a catastrophe.

The last time the Republicans were in charge, during the Trump years, they passed precisely one significant piece of economic legislation, a tax cut that benefited the very rich at the expense of everyone else and, as we have established, helped explode the federal budget deficit.

Putin’s Last Hope to Win in Ukraine Is a GOP Victory in November

Republicans are just plain bad at managing the economy. They have been for as long as anyone who is alive can remember. And they continue to be—although they are achieving previously unattained new levels of cynicism and obstructionism that make the current crowd of Republicans look even worse than their very unsuccessful predecessors.

History and data make it clear that Democrats are good for the economy—while Republicans, especially the current Republicans in Congress, are not.

Up next for the Republicans are plans to cut Medicare and social security, plans to increase costs for average Americans on a wide variety of fronts, and they’re even contemplating reducing support for Ukraine—at a critical moment in its war to defend its democracy and stop the Russian aggression that threatens not only them, but the West.

Republicans have done a great job fooling voters into thinking that their simplistic economic philosophies of tax cuts and minimal regulation are “good for business.” But facts, history, and logic show otherwise.

If you care about the economy, want to fight inflation, want to create jobs, want a better life for your family, want to preserve democracy, and want to defend your fundamental rights, then you should vote for the Democrats.

Herschel Walker’s Senate run is a stain on American democracy

USA Today

Herschel Walker’s Senate run is a stain on American democracy

Rita Omokha – November 4, 2022

So much has been said about Herschel Walker’s gross incompetency as he takes aim at securing a seat in the U.S. Senate. As I looked at the recent nail-biter polling – Walker and incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock are even at 46.4% on Thursday night – my first thought was: How could this race be this close?

Then, I felt enormous shame for this country. A place my family and I, Nigerian immigrants who became naturalized citizens more than 20 years ago, have always viewed as a symbol of true democracy. A country where we proclaim justice and freedom and fight fiercely to uphold those signature markers. A nation fervently striving, still, for common decency.

But in recent years, there has been a trend away from these American hallmark qualities. Since the rise of Donald Trump, the pursuit and upkeep of democracy is slipping away before our eyes, morphing into his vision of totalitarianism by way of misinformation indoctrination. Walker’s ascending candidacy, endorsed by Trump, has proved just that.

Issues driving voters this election: What matters more – abortion rights or the price of bread?

Here is a verifiable unqualified man following the same playbook of the former, similarly inept president who willfully and gleefully incited a takedown of democracy on Jan. 6, 2021, and God help us all, Walker may just break through in Georgia.

Shame on you, America

Much like Trump with the presidency, when Walker threw his hat into the Senate race, people scoffed at the idea. There was no way a man who can barely form a coherent sentence could convince reasonable citizens that he, over a well-respected, educated pastor, was the better choice. And, much like Trump, I strongly doubt, given his rambling speeches and cringe gaffes, that Walker knows what the Constitution is, let alone grasp his duties to protect it. The celebrity-turned-politician based on popularity and name recognition needs to end. Walker is the most dangerous embodiment of this.

Walker shows fake badge at debate: C’mon Georgia voters, give Herschel Walker what he really wants. Elect him sheriff!

The requirements to run for Senate ought to be more than that, no? The actual prerequisite is that the nominee must be 30, a U.S. citizen and a resident of the state. That’s it.

Perhaps after this embarrassment of a candidate and the slew of election deniers we’ve seen throw their hats into races, we ought to have stricter rules. Perhaps testing their knowledge of the Constitution? The founding of democracy? A standard qualifier that serves as a screening of those seeking to be responsible for preserving America’s self-governing system.

And no, neither Walker’s former quick feet on the field of the University of Georgia (where he did not graduate) and later in the NFL nor his Heisman Trophy are qualifications.

And not his faith. As someone of Christian faith, and a staunch one at that, it’s infuriating to see Walker use God as a guise for his numerous depravities. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in “being born again,” being repentant, and receiving grace. I’m all for it. That’s the core principle of the Bible – to aspire to walk and live like Christ. But, when someone who clearly doesn’t understand being “saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus,” as the Ephesians scripture promises, and all but uses the faith as a prop to blind voters, to cover up lie after lie, to bend reality, where is the integrity in that? Where is God in that?

With 64% of Americans practicing the faith, Christianity is the dominant religion in the nation. In Georgia, among the most religious states, 80% of the population practices the faith. It’s a con people like Walker have realized help their candidacy, and voters, mostly white evangelicals, are none the wiser.

Walker-Warnock debate: Herschel Walker beat expectations in Georgia U.S. Senate debate. Will it matter in election?

Republican U.S. Senate Herschel Walker campaigns in Cumming, Ga., on Oct. 27, 2022.

Similar to Trump, who before the presidential election had an audio leaked where he bragged about sexual assaults and his pervasive objectification of women, yet, voters – overwhelmingly, white evangelicals – overlooked this, and this man who knew and knows nothing about American democracy, the Constitution and the urgent need to protect it became president because … God. Because religion. Shame on you, America.

Token Black puppet of the GOP

This, I’m afraid, is the Republicans’ new playbook. Bad people behaving badly has become on brand with American conservatism.

And much like Trump taking the highest office in the land, Walker could follow suit in Georgia. A man prone to violent outbursts, with a track record of domestic violence and sexual abuse, who once talked about “having a shoot-out with police” and threatened his former wife’s life with a gun, is who Georgians see as the best man to represent them in the U.S. Senate? A man who flashed a phony law enforcement badge as a campaign prop? The token Black puppet of the GOP who doesn’t know the supreme law of the land from the Bill of Rights, who, because of a famous name, has voters seriously thinking, yes, he can represent the state because he’s run down a football field?

Herschel Walker’s senate campaign shames Black Americans: Herschel Walker embodies every negative stereotype Black Americans have fought against for decades

Walker symbolizes the stereotyped Black man, forever misunderstood. He’s being paraded around by GOP leaders as a pervasive caricature of who Black Americans, specifically men, have been typecast to be – illiterate, lazy, only good at being an athlete, absent father and a dunce. And he wears it like a prize. And Georgia voters – predominantly white Americans – love all of it. This is the kind of Black candidate they want – the antithesis of Warnock.

This combination of photos shows Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, left, and Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker.

That is exactly what the GOP has been banking on. Walker resembles Warnock in skin tone alone but is an empty vessel – an instrument they can contort to get Republicans one more vote in the Senate. It’s all about the vote.

A threat of fascism swirling

To be clear, this is not a knock on American conservatism. American conservatism is intended to preserve the principles of this nation and its Founding Fathers. Founders who were rebelling against tyranny.

Now, conservatism is synonymous with tyrannical oppressors and criminals.

Is GOP’s ‘big tent’ shrinking?: Traditional conservatives find themselves without a home

It’s a stain, like Walker’s candidacy and ascent, on America’s storied legacy that has long been the pride of many. For immigrants like me, knowing that America is our beacon of hope and a land of endless opportunities, we fight to hold on to what America has always symbolized. A hope-against-hope type of faith in its still-young democracy, remembering still and always what the fight up to this point has been for. When ill-equipped, dishonest people like Walker threaten America’s path forward with their baseless candidacy, it fractures the hard-fought foundation of this country.

Inactive voters have power in midterms: Poor, low-income voters can’t afford to sit out this election. There’s too much at stake.

Trump’s presidency cracked open this setback. Since then, there has been a threat of fascism swirling. If this trajectory of tyranny and misinformation continues, the regression is far worse than any of us could’ve imagined. Just this year alone, we’ve seen glimpses of it: the reversal of Roe v. Wade, and the legal challenges to same-sex marriage, contraception and affirmative action.

It’s a stain on America’s legacy that we’ve allowed election deniers, demonstrated idiots and outright criminals to hold any power. Walker may very well become the U.S. senator of Georgia, and that’s on you – on us – America.

Rita Omokha, an adjunct at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is an award-winning Nigerian American journalist and essayist.

Midterm elections will leave us even more divided — the ‘Disunited States of America | Opinion

Miami Herald

Midterm elections will leave us even more divided — the ‘Disunited States of America | Opinion

Andres Oppenheimer – November 4, 2022

If Republicans win the Nov. 8 midterm elections by a wide margin, as several polls are forecasting, the U.S. Congress will be virtually controlled by legislators who have not accepted the results of the 2020 elections, including many who have supported the violent takeover of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

A Congress controlled by election skeptics and coup-mongers — people who are not willing to accept their rivals’ victory — may turn an already politically divided country into an even more polarized one.

Worse, it may lead to greater political violence, prompting more incidents like the recent attack on the 82-year-old husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by a right-wing extremist. We may soon become known as the Disunited States of America.

According to a Washington Post investigation, 51% of Republican candidates running for Congress, governorships and attorney general positions in Tuesday’s elections have either challenged or questioned President Biden’s victory in 2020. Many of those candidates are likely to be elected, and will be in charge of certifying the votes in the 2024 presidential elections.

A similar study by the New York Times found that 70% of Republicans running for Congress on Nov. 8 have echoed former President Trump’ s false claims that Biden’s election was rigged.

For the record, virtually all of Trump’s lies about the 2020 elections have been proven wrong by numerous vote recounts.

In addition to the Electoral College, the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court, more than 60 lower courts, Trump’s then-Vice President Mike Pence and former Trump Attorney General William Barr looked into Trump’s fraud claims and concluded that Biden was legitimately elected in 2020.

Biden won the Electoral College by 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232 and the popular vote by 7.5 million votes. By comparison, Trump had won the Electoral College in 2016, but lost the popular vote by 3 million votes.

Even the conservative Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, after supporting Trump during his term, concluded after the 2020 elections that the former president’s fraud claims were rubbish. The newspaper said that isolated disputes over mailed ballots did “not add up to a stolen election.” It added that even if Biden’s victory had been overturned in one of the contested states’ vote recounts, Biden would have won in the Electoral College by a comfortable margin.

And yet, despite all of this, Americans are likely to elect many Republicans who reject the basic foundation of democracy: the sanctity of the vote.

Historically, the opposition party tends to win U.S. midterm elections. And polls suggest that the same will happen on Tuesday, with Republicans almost sure to retake the House of Representatives and, perhaps, also the Senate.

Many voters are more concerned about inflation than about the future of democracy.

Although 71% of Americans say they are worried about the future of democracy, only 7% say this is the most important issue facing the country, a recent New York Times -Siena poll shows.

But the Republican Party has been successful in pushing the narrative that the high U.S. inflation rate is all of Biden’s fault and not an international problem mainly caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In fact, America remains one of the world’s strongest economies. The country’s 8.1 annual inflation rate is below Germany’s 10.2%, or Great Britain’s 11.3%, according to International Monetary Fund data.

And Biden has done a good job countering Russia’s invasion, which is the biggest current threat to world peace. Biden managed to revamp U.S. ties with the European Union, which Trump had crippled when he threatened to withdraw from the NATO military alliance, and added Japan and other Asian countries to the trans-Atlantic bloc that is helping defend Ukraine.

Still, I’m pretty pessimistic about the future of America’s democracy. I’m afraid that despite the fact that many moderate Republicans don’t believe Trump’s election lies and are true believers in the rule of law, they will cast their votes based on other issues, and will elect a new generation of extremists who are not ready to play by the rules of democracy.

We are heading toward a more divided, and probably more violence-ridden country.

Americans among dozens held hostage by Indigenous group in Amazon

CBS News

Americans among dozens held hostage by Indigenous group in Amazon

CBSNews – November 4, 2022

A photo posted online by Angela Ramirez on November 3, 2022, shows a group of tourists, including Ramirez, being held on a boat in Peru's Amazon region by an Indigenous group protesting what they say is the government's failure to help after an oil spill. / Credit: Angela Ramirez/Facebook — A photo posted online by Angela Ramirez on November 3, 2022, shows a group of tourists, including Ramirez, being held on a boat in Peru’s Amazon region by an Indigenous group protesting what they say is the government’s failure to help after an oil spill. / Credit: Angela Ramirez/Facebook

A group of Indigenous people in Peru’s Amazon region has taken dozens of foreign and Peruvian tourists hostage as they made their way through the area on river tour boat. The Indigenous group says it took the action to protest the lack of government aid following an oil spill in the area, according to local media and members of the tour group.

“(We want) to call the government’s attention with this action, there are foreigners and Peruvians, there are about 70 people,” Watson Trujillo Acosta, the leader of the Cuninico community, told the country’s national RPP radio network.

The tourists include citizens from the United States, Spain, France, the U.K. and Switzerland.

Lon Haldeman, one of the Americans held captive, said in a statement shared with CBS News on Friday by his wife that the group had been held “for the past 26 hours.”

He said that the hostage-takers were demanding “medical help and clean water and food” after an oil spill in the area “contaminated the wells and river.”

“The villagers are peaceful toward us but they did take over the boat with spears and clubs,” Haldeman said in the statement. “No one had guns. We were parked near an island last night and the villagers took the battery from the boat motor. The captain and drivers are being held in a village jail. The village wants to keep the big boat for ransom. We might get some small rescue boats. There is new action every hour.”

Angela Ramirez, a Peruvian national who said she was among the hostages, said in a Facebook post on Thursday afternoon that there were children, pregnant women and disabled people among those seized on the boat.

Ramirez also said the Indigenous community was treating them with kindness and respect, adding that holding the tourists was “the only way they have found to look for solutions for their community” after oil spills that allegedly led to the deaths of two children and one woman.https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fpermalink.php%3Fstory_fbid%3Dpfbid02yScfATG6Qmr29TXQNkKMV8bBK6EV45qzSrrcmG8d2GrJkjjmJ791JQDJNJMqzR6Wl%26id%3D100005041500479&show_text=true&width=500

“The sooner they are heard, the sooner they will let us go,” said Ramirez in the online post. “Help me help them be heard.”

Acosta said his group had taken the “radical measure” in an effort to put pressure on the government to send a delegation to assess the environmental damage from a September 16 incident that spilled 2,500 tons of crude oil into the Cuninico River. He said the detainees would spend the night inside the vessel while awaiting a resolution to the situation.

Susan Notorangelo, Haldeman’s wife, told CBS News her husband had been sending sporadic updates to let her know he was OK, but not responding to many questions, which she suspected was an effort to conserve battery power on his iPad. Notorangelo said she had been told the U.S. State Department was sending a boat with food and water, but didn’t believe it had yet arrived at the remote location.

Haldeman is a tour guide, but was not running the tour that was detained. Notorangelo said her husband and the other tourists were supposed to have ended their boat ride at noon on Thursday and then ridden bikes to the nearby town of Iquitos. She said her husband has an airline ticket to leave Peru on Tuesday, and hopes he and the other hostages will be released in time for him to make the flight.

Ramirez told RPP that the Cuninico community had said it was prepared to hold the hostages for six to eight days, until it receives a response from the government.

She said they were “physically fine,” but in a new post on Friday morning she said the sun was strong, babies were crying and they were almost out of water.

Local media indicated no public comment from the Peruvian government or police on the incident, which took place on a tributary of the Maranon River.

Environmental activists protest outside the headquarters of the Peruvian Petroleum Company (Petroperu) in Lima, Peru, August 22, 2016. / Credit: Getty

Indigenous communities had already been blocking the transit of all vessels on the river in protest against the spill, which was caused by a rupture in the Norperuano oil pipeline.

On September 27, the government declared a 90-day state of emergency in the impacted region, which is home to about 2,500 members of the Cuninico and Urarinas communities.

The roughly 500-mile-long Norperuano pipeline, owned by the state-run Petroperu, was built four decades ago to transport crude oil from the Amazon region to the ports of Piura, on the coast.

According to Petroperu, the spill was the result of an eight-inch cut made deliberately in the pipeline, which the company said had suffered over a dozen similar attacks in the past.

CBS News’ Maddie Richards and April Alexander contributed to this report.

About 150 tourists are reportedly being held hostage in Peru. Locals are demanding a response to oil spills that have polluted their river.

Insider

About 150 tourists are reportedly being held hostage in Peru. Locals are demanding a response to oil spills that have polluted their river.

Paola Rosa-Aquino, Natalie Musumeci – November 4, 2022

A man shows oil contamination inside Block 192, a dormant Amazon oil field in Peru.Reuters

Locals from a Peruvian area of the Amazon rainforest have reportedly taken up to 150 tourists hostage.
Those detained reportedly include citizens from the US, UK, Spain, France, and Switzerland.
Locals took the hostages in protest of repeated oil spills plaguing the region, RPP Noticias reported.

Locals from an Indigenous tribe in a Peruvian area of the Amazon rainforest have taken up to 150 tourists, including Americans, hostage in protest of repeated oil spills plaguing the region, according to a local report.

Ángela Ramírez, who was among those taken hostage on Thursday while traveling by boat near Cuninico in the Loreto province of Peru, told local media that those taken captive include elderly people, pregnant women, and a one-month-old baby.

“They told us that it was because they wanted attention from the state, in search of a solution for oil spills that have happened 46 times, which led to the death of two children and a woman,” Ramírez told RPP Noticias.

The people being held include Peruvian nationals as well as citizens from the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Switzerland, Ramírez told the news outlet.

The woman said that it has been indicated that the hostages could be held for up to eight days. No one had been harmed.

Ramírez’s mother, Araceli Alva, told RPP Noticias that her daughter had been traveling with cyclists through the Peruvian jungle last week. Ramírez decided to leave by boat via the river on Thursday and was taken, Alva said.

Ramírez issued a plea on her Facebook story, saying, “The sooner they’re heard, the sooner they’ll let us go. Help me share, we are well physically. Help me help them be heard,” according to the news outlet.

Watson Trujillo Acosta, the leader of the Cuninico community behind the action, told RPP Noticias that the tourists were taken hostage “in a radical and indefinite manner” in order “to be able to attract the attention of the government.”

“They are in a safe place on the banks of the Marañón River gorge in front of the native community of Cuninico,” said Acosta, who claimed 70 tourists and nationals were taken, according to the news outlet.

Acosta said that his community is seeking “a state of emergency [to] be declared due to the constant [oil] spills that have been taking place in our territory.”

He also wants the Peruvian government to lead an investigation into the matter.

The US Department of State and Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the situation by Insider on Friday.

It’s an outrage that Saudis use Arizona’s water for free. I’ll work to stop it

AZ Central – The Arizona Republic

It’s an outrage that Saudis use Arizona’s water for free. I’ll work to stop it

Kris Mayes – November 4, 2022

Arizona should not be giving its water away to the Saudi Arabians, or anyone else for that matter. Yet, for the past seven years, the attorney general and governor have allowed a Saudi company to pump out more than $38 million worth of groundwater from La Paz County for free.

That’s right. Arizona is giving away its groundwater for nothing to one of the richest nations on Earth – and to the severe detriment of Arizonans.

It is an outrage and a scandal at a time when the Saudi government is deliberately raising the price of gasoline for U.S. citizens by cutting back OPEC oil supplies.

As attorney general, I will work to put an end to these sweetheart Saudi deals.

Below-market leases short Arizona schools

As first disclosed in The Arizona Republic last June, the State Land Department has leased state trust land to the Saudi-owned Fondomonte corporation for $25 per acre, so that the Saudi company could grow alfalfa and send it back to Saudi Arabia to feed that country’s cows.

More unbelievably, the state is allowing this company to pump groundwater for free. The $25/acre land lease is well below market rates, and the water being given away comes from the Butler Valley Basin and Vicksburg – areas that Arizona cities may very well need to rely on for their water needs in the near future.

This makes no sense and more than that, it appears to be illegal under the Arizona Constitution’s Gift Clause.

To comply with the Gift Clause, a government expenditure must (1) serve a public purpose, and (2) the consideration the public has paid must not far exceed the value received.

As stated by the Arizona Supreme Court 38 years ago, the deal between the government and the private entity cannot be “so inequitable and unreasonable” that it amounts to providing a subsidy to the private party.

Giving away more than $38 million of groundwater for free is both inequitable and unreasonable. Agreeing to lease state land to a Saudi company for only one-sixth of the market price for similar land is probably inequitable and unreasonable as well. Pursuant to the Arizona Constitution, money that is generated from state trust land leases must go to benefit Arizona K-12 schools.

Wells are going dry, complaints unanswered

Ground water is used to irrigate an alfalfa field, April 7, 2022, at Fondomonte's Butler Valley Ranch near Bouse. — Ground water is used to irrigate an alfalfa field, April 7, 2022, at Fondomonte’s Butler Valley Ranch near Bouse.

Four months ago, the La Paz County supervisors filed a complaint with Attorney General Mark Brnovich concerning the below-market Fondomonte lease and the groundwater giveaway. To date, Brnovich has done nothing, not even respond to the county supervisors.

Moreover, several years ago, more than 500 La Paz County residents signed a petition that they hand-delivered to Gov. Doug Ducey’s advisers, voicing their outrage about the free groundwater giveaway.

That petition, too, went unanswered.

Gallego files bill: To deter foreign governments from using Arizona water

Recently, I traveled to Vicksburg and met with La Paz County Supervisor Holly Irwin, who showed me the Fondomonte farm in that western Arizona community. Alfalfa fields stretch for miles, and commercial wells can be seen from the road gushing the state’s precious and irreplaceable water at thousands of gallons per minute.

Irwin also took me to a nearby Baptist church whose well has been dewatered. She told me that many of her constituents living around the Fondomonte farms have had their wells sucked dry by the Saudi-owned farms.

Records at the Department of Water Resources show that the Saudis are drilling deeper and deeper wells, which will likely cause residential wells to go dry.

In perhaps the greatest outrage of all, in August, the Saudis applied for two new wells in western Arizona. Those applications are pending before the Arizona Department Water Resources.

I will audit leases, work to restore funding

During my first week as attorney general, I will request an auditor general’s audit of all industrial-scale leases of state trust land where water is being pumped to determine if the rates are below market and how much school funding has been lost as a result.

If such abuses have occurred, I will work to ensure that the companies are required to restore the proper funding to the state and our schools.

I will also proactively advise the Arizona State Land Department on an ongoing basis that leasing water at rates that are significantly below market rates could represent a violation of the state’s Gift Clause and that the leaseholders could face efforts to recover undercharges in the future.

Arizona’s water supplies have never been more threatened.

Lakes Mead and Powell are less than 150 feet from “dead pool” status and hydrologists believe they will hit dead pool sometime in 2023. It is time for Arizona’s leaders to act like they care about Arizona more than a country thousands of miles away that is trying to harm America.

I will do that as Arizona’s next attorney general.

Kris Mayes is the Democratic candidate for Arizona attorney general. She served two terms on the Arizona Corporation Commission.

‘Morning Joe’ Host Scarborough Explodes on Lack of ‘Humanity’ in GOP: ‘I’m So Sick and Tired of This Bulls–‘ (Video)

The Wrap

‘Morning Joe’ Host Scarborough Explodes on Lack of ‘Humanity’ in GOP: ‘I’m So Sick and Tired of This Bulls–‘ (Video)

Benjamin Lindsay – November 4, 2022

A week out from the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough became uncharacteristically irate Friday while discussing the Republican Party’s overall response. He even warned viewers at one point to “cover the kids’ ears” so he could curse them out: “I’m so sick and tired of this bulls—!”

The explosive diatribe against the GOP began with Scarborough highlighting the party’s lack of empathy in their response to the attack. Many within the party haven’t responded it all, and of those who have, very few have outright denounced the attack, instead opting to mock Pelosi and spread conspiracy theories about his assailant.

“Here’s a guy who’s in great shape, but he’s 82 years old. He got brutally attacked, he got hit in the head, he had emergency surgery because of a fractured skull. And Republicans and the most powerful people in the world are making fun of this guy and spreading lies,” Scarborough said. “This is not ‘our politics are broken.’ Let’s stop saying, ‘Our politics are broken.’ The Republican Party is broken. The MAGA Right is broken. There is a sickness here.”

The morning show host then acknowledged Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell’s speaking out against the attack, “but not many others spoke out about it.” He also compared the response seen today to how Democrats responded to Louisiana’s Steve Scalise when he was shot in 2017.

Also Read:
‘Morning Joe’: Scarborough Nails Republicans for Pelosi Attack Response: ‘What Is Wrong With Your Soul?’ (Video)

“I’ve gotta say this – cover the kids’ ears – I’m so sick and tired of this bulls— about, ‘Oh but what about Steve Scalise?’ Nancy Pelosi was practically in tears after Steve Scalise was shot, and she said, ‘We’re all one family.’ There is no humanity in the Republican Party. No humanity at all, and this has proven it,” Scarborough said. “Where are these people? They’re mocking Paul Pelosi!

“By the way,” he continued, “the same people who in primetime mocked police officers who wept about Jan. 6 – they wanna support the blue, unless the blue is trying to save American democracy against their most freakish supporters. They wanna support law enforcement – unless it’s the FBI, who’s investigating corruption at the the highest level in the Republican Party. It’s select enforcement. They only support Madisonian Democracy if their side wins. They only support law enforcement if their side gets a free pass. It is a sickness in the Republican Party. It is not a sickness in American politics.”

Watch Scarborough’s “Morning Joe” rant in full in the video above.

Wonking Out: Inequality, Mortality, Medicare and Social Security

The New York Times – Opinion

Wonking Out: Inequality, Mortality, Medicare and Social Security

Paul Krugman – November 4, 2022

My Thursday column is about the assault on Medicare and Social Security that is almost certain to follow if Republicans prevail on Tuesday. If the G.O.P. wins control of Congress, we can expect it to hold the economy hostage, most obviously by weaponizing the debt ceiling, in an attempt to force big cuts in Medicare and Social Security.

This isn’t an outlandish scenario. It already happened once. In 2011, after taking control of the House, Republicans sought to extort major cuts in the social safety net from the Obama administration — and they almost succeeded. In fact, President Barack Obama agreed to a rise in the age of Medicare eligibility, from 65 to 67. The deal fell through only because Republicans were unwilling to accept even modest tax increases as their part of the bargain.

This time around, the demands are likely to be even bigger. A report from the Republican Study Committee, which probably gives a good idea of where the G.O.P. will go, calls for upping the retirement age and the age of Medicare eligibility to 70.

The report justifies such a rise by pointing to the long-term increase in the number of years Americans can expect to live after age 65, which it calls a “miracle.”

What the report doesn’t note are two probably related caveats for this miracle. First, the increase in seniors’ life expectancy has actually been much smaller here than in other wealthy nations. Second, progress has been very uneven within America, with much bigger gains for groups with high socioeconomic status — precisely the people who need Medicare and Social Security the least — than for the less fortunate.

Let’s talk first about America’s lagging performance.

In the 2000s, as Democrats were nerving themselves up for another push on health care reform — a push that culminated in the Affordable Care Act — I would frequently encounter people who asserted, not having checked the numbers, that the United States had the world’s highest life expectancy. Not by a long shot. I don’t know how many people still believe that, but my sense is that relatively few Americans are aware just how badly we’ve fallen behind.

Much of America’s shortfall in life expectancy reflects factors that apply only or mainly to the nonelderly: high infant mortality, high rates of shootings and deaths in traffic accidents. Even among seniors, however, we have lagged ever further. Here’s a comparison of life expectancy at age 65 in the United States and France since 1980.

How’s that life, liberty, etc. thing going?Credit…O.E.C.D.

What explains older Americans’ tendency to die younger than their counterparts abroad? It’s not, for the most part, their inability to pay for health care in their later years. For now, at least, all Americans 65 or older are covered by Medicare, a universal, single-payer system, although it doesn’t cover everything, and many seniors still have trouble paying for medical necessities.

So what’s the problem? Inadequate health care earlier in life surely takes a toll, but more broadly, our high mortality probably reflects our society’s extreme inequality — not just in income but also in status, perceived economic opportunity and more. Americans on the losing side of high inequality have trouble affording health care and adequate nutrition; they are also, all too often, demoralized by their position, leading to deaths of despair and unhealthy lifestyles that take a toll over time.

That Republican report calling for Medicare and Social Security cuts mentions “inequality” just twice — both times in footnotes citing articles claiming that government antipoverty programs make poverty worse. That’s only to be expected: Conservatives tend to bristle at any mention of inequality and class, often denouncing anyone who even raises the issue as Marxist.

Yet progress in raising life expectancy has been extremely unequal among income groups. Here are widely cited estimates from Dana P. Goldman and Peter R. Orszag of likely life expectancy at 65 for American men born in 1928, 1960 and 1990, broken out by wage quartile — that is, which quarter of the wage distribution they were in while working. (The numbers for women are similar.)

Prosper and live long, or don’t and don’t.Credit…Goldman and Orszag

Life expectancy has been rising much more for relatively affluent Americans than for the less well off.

It’s not necessarily income per se that is driving these disparities. To some extent, it could reflect other factors that are correlated with income, especially education. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, who famously pointed out the rise of deaths of despair, have shown that mortality for adults — surely including adults over 65 — has been rising for Americans without a college degree but not for those with one.

And there’s also a strong regional element. Woolf and Schoomaker show that overall life expectancy, probably reflected among seniors, too, has diverged between lagging heartland states and coastal states, part of a trend of rising regional disparities as the knowledge economy has favored large metropolitan areas with highly educated work forces.

Here are estimates of life expectancy at birth — again, most likely closely correlated with life expectancy at 65 — for some selected states:

What’s the matter with Oklahoma?Credit…Woolf and Schoomaker

The numbers in parentheses are each state’s rank in 1959, 1990 and 2016. The rise of New York is striking; so is the relative decline of Oklahoma and Kansas, both of which had higher life expectancy than New York as recently as 1990.

How does all this bear on Republican proposals to raise the retirement and Medicare eligibility ages? Because seniors’ life expectancy varies so much by class, an increase in the age of eligibility for major programs will take a much bigger bite out of retirement for Americans with low socioeconomic status, and correspondingly fewer years to collect benefits, than it will on those higher on the ladder.

And because disparities have been rising over time, the disproportionality of that effect has been rising, too.

Look back at the figure on life expectancies by quartile. According to these estimates, American men in the bottom quartile born in 1960 can expect to live only 1.9 more years after 65 than their counterparts born in 1928. That’s slightly less than the increase in the retirement age that has already taken place. And even men in that quartile born in 1990 are expected to have only 3.5 years more time after 65 than those born in 1928; meanwhile, Republicans are proposing a rise in the retirement age to 70, a five-year total increase, and an equal rise in the Medicare age.

One way to think about all of this, which is only a slight caricature, is that Republicans are telling janitors in Oklahoma that they can’t get benefits in their 60s — even though their life expectancy hasn’t gone up by much — because lawyers in New York are living longer.

It’s quite a position to take, and it would surely provoke a huge backlash — if voters knew about it, which most of them seem not to.

Paul Krugman has been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a distinguished professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography.