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Supplying freedom in Ukraine

There’s an old saying in military affairs: Amateurs talk tactics, while professionals talk logistics. If so, then the truly hardcore pros talk about boots. After all, infantry can’t “ground-pound” without sturdy footwear. 

Meet Jonas Ohman, head of Blue/Yellow, an NGO, based in Lithuania, that has been aiding Ukraine since 2014. Ohman was born in Sweden, but settled in Lithuania, where he was struck by the contrast: “In Sweden, we’ve had two centuries of peace and freedom, and yet nearby, it’s been war and tyranny. So I wanted to help.”  

The catalytic moment came in 2014, when Russia invaded the Ukrainian territory of Crimea. Actually, that invasion was more like an occupation — or just a simple moving in — as the Ukrainian defense was so inept and half-hearted that a province with a population of 2.4 million changed hands with a mere three fatalities.  

The problem for Ukraine, as Ohman saw it, was that its ability to defend itself was crippled by the persistence of Soviet-style fatalism, regional jealousies, and gangster levels of corruption. In such a murky environment, the central government simply was not capable of distributing needed military supplies. So Ohman established Blue/Yellow to help: Over the eight years of Russian-instigated “sitzkrieg” in the eastern part of Ukraine, as well as the last three months of Russia’s attempted blitzkrieg. “We go straight to the front lines,” Ohman says, “just like Amazon.” 

In fact, there’s a long tradition of private support for a war effort. Here in the U.S., for example, the frigate Essex was commissioned into the Navy in 1799, having been paid for by a subscription of the people of Essex County, Mass. During the U.S. Civil War, Clara Barton led a private volunteer effort that ultimately grew, of course, into the American Red Cross. And during World War One, the American Field Service began as pro bono ambulance drivers, aiding the French and British military, even while the U.S. itself was still neutral in the conflict. 

Blue/Yellow focuses on the non-“glamorous” essentials of warfare, including protective equipment, medical supplies — and boots. Although Ohman adds with a wry smile: “The Ukrainians have shown you can do a lot with a regular commercial drone.” 

At a recent meeting at the Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C., I asked Ohman how he manages all these supply-chain issues. He answered by pulling out his iPhone: “This is the greatest weapon.” He showed me how he uses it to receive and process requests — I can see PDFs and spreadsheets, typed out in Ukrainian, listing needs and orders-in-process.

Ohman’s phone also includes myriad photos of him with Ukrainian troops in full battle rattle. 

Ukrainian soldiers are fighting infinitely better in 2022 than they did in 2014 — nothing like a humiliating loss to spur a nation onto the path, these past eight years, of reform. Ohman carries in his pocket an orange-and-black Ribbon of St. George, carried by many Russian soldiers into harm’s way; this one features a bloodstain. Says Ohman of the ribbon’s former owner: “He doesn’t need it anymore.” No doubt Blue/Yellow and other similar NGO’s deserve their share of credit for what has proven to be, for Volodymyr Zelensky and 41 million Ukrainians, Ukraine’s finest hour.  

Indeed, it’s now possible to glimpse the prospect of Ukraine winning the war against its Russian tormentor. However, a single Russian defeat — no matter how signal — might not be enough to guarantee Ukraine’s security. After all, the Russian bear has lost many battles, and yet still won many wars.  

So, what should American policy be, going forward? Here, Ohman shifted from in-the-dirt logistician to big-picture Clausewitzian: “What are U.S. objectives?” he asked. Are they to simply push Russia back, or to truly guarantee Ukrainian security? “Just as important as knowing who’s your enemy is knowing who’s your friend.”

And so, the U.S. will have to sort out these matters — everything from the continuation of sanctions on Russia to Ukraine’s potential membership in some sort of new security system — alongside the United Kingdom, the European Union, and other interested parties. 

Of course, the fighting in Ukraine is far from over, and the outcome is hardly assured. And, in the meantime, Ohman goes about his work, doing his bit to supply the warriors on the ramparts of freedom and civilization. 

James P. Pinkerton served as a domestic policy aide in the White Houses of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

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‘Eco-fascist’ violence targets old scapegoats for new fears

Mass shooting suspects, including the man arrested for the recent Buffalo, N.Y., grocery store massacre, are increasingly invoking the so-called eco-fascist movement, which launders racist and anti-immigrant conspiracy theories through the lens of environmentalism.

The Buffalo suspect, who has been charged with the murder of 10 predominantly Black shoppers at a grocery store, identified as an eco-fascist. Similar sentiments can be found in the writings of shooters in New Zealand and El Paso, Texas, who targeted Muslims and Latinos, respectively.  

As the climate crisis intensifies and leads to increased migration and political instability, experts say the problem is likely to get worse. 

In practice, the term refers to “a kind of political ideology that combines fascism with some kind of environmental or ecological focus,” said Matthew Lyons, author of “Insurgent Supremacists: The U.S. Far Right’s Challenge to State and Empire” and co-author with Chip Berlet of “Right-Wing Populism in America.” 

Typically, Lyons said, this equates to scapegoating groups like immigrants and nonwhites for the climate crisis, environmental degradation and the depletion of natural resources. 

Eco-fascism is at heart simply a rebranding of a much older “murderous political strategy,” said Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, and uses environmental concerns as a sort of Trojan horse for extremist ideas. 

“This is a movement that is looking for any avenue that it can get recruits or to enter larger political conversations,” she said.  “And the language of environmentalism, especially at a time of climate disaster, is a very clear way to do that.”  

Rough versions of the same idea date back decades. The early 20th century conservationist Madison Grant, an associate of Theodore Roosevelt and the founder of the Bronx Zoo, also promoted an early version of the racist “great replacement” theory in his book “The Passing of the Great Race.”

Grant, a devoted follower of eugenics, saw the theory as part of his conservationism, writing “the laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit, and human life is valuable only when it is of use to the community or race.” 

Later in the 20th century, Ted Kaczynski, who killed three people and injured 23 more with a series of bombings, wrote a manifesto decrying the Industrial Revolution and calling for a return to nature; however, he also railed against feminists, gay rights activists and animal welfare advocates in the same document.

Although Kaczynski also blasts conservative politics in his writings, in recent years, far-right spaces online have semi-ironically celebrated Kaczynski as “Uncle Ted.”  

John Tanton, a white nationalist who founded several anti-immigration and pro-eugenics organizations before his death in 2019, was another major player in linking the issues, Miller said. 

“He used both environmental organizations and especially the panic in the 1970s and the 1980s about overpopulation to push the anti-immigrant agenda and really to argue that immigrants were the main source of environmental degradation, and therefore they needed to push back against immigration,” she said. 

These interpretations frame conservation efforts not as a shared responsibility with universal benefits, but as maintaining an explicitly racial and cultural connection to land, Miller said.

“The way that they package it is the idea that the land shapes a specific culture,” she said.

Adherents of eco-fascism, she added, believe that “culture is biological and culture is shaped by the geographic environment, and so by damaging the environment, you’re also damaging this apparently authentic European or European American culture.” 

This worldview, she says, frames sources of environmental degradation such as modernity and industrialization as threats to racial purity, while also placing immigration and individual immigrants in the same category. 

Despite the long history of these ideas, Lyons said, many on the far right see particular opportunity as the consequences of climate change become increasingly impossible to ignore.

Conditions like extreme weather, extreme heat and droughts are “a reality that people across the political spectrum one way or another are having to contend with,” he said, and eco-fascism “is a way to speak to people who have fears about climate change and other environmental problems … and then take those concerns and distort them and channel them in a harmful direction.” 

“As long as we have these unfolding and intensifying environmental crises, it’s only going to fuel that kind of dynamic,” he warned.  

To avoid allowing this framing to take hold, Miller said, it’s vital to emphasize that many of the people most drastically affected by the climate crisis are the same people scapegoated by the eco-fascist worldview and acts of terror committed in its name. 

“I think that there needs to be a focus on who is harmed the most by climate change,” Miller told The Hill. “We know that if we allow climate change to get worse, the people who are going to be most impacted are those who are poor and nonwhite [and] living in the Global South.” 

The effects of climate change are already driving immigration from those areas, and as it increases far-right extremists will likely cite it as a means of recruitment, she added. While climate refugees themselves are not “inherently negative or harmful,” she said, “there’s an increasingly large wing of the political right that will say it is, and then they’ll use that to create this violent panic.” 

“The problem now is that we’ve created this very unstable political and environmental climate and it gives the far-right a big toehold, and climate change getting worse is only going to further that,” she said.  

Lyons noted that even against the backdrop of violence with self-proclaimed eco-fascist motives, “the concept of environmental justice is an important principle that’s gained significant attraction or visibility.” 

If environmental advocacy emphasizes the particular risk to the very people eco-fascism seeks to blame for the crisis, “it’s both more effective in getting at the roots of the problems and it also makes it much more difficult for fascists and others on the far right to gain entry,” he said.  

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Harris at Buffalo funeral: 'We will not be afraid to stand up for what is right'

Vice President Harris on Saturday made a surprise address at the funeral for a victim of the Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket shooting, saying such violent acts will not stop America from speaking out.

“I think we all know that a true measure of strength is not based on who you beat down. It’s based on who you lift up,” Harris said at the funeral for Geraldine Chapman Talley. 

“Who you lift up. And it means then also, in that strength, understanding we will not allow small people to create fear in our communities that we will not be afraid to stand up for what is right, to speak up even when it may be difficult to hear and speak.”

The funeral comes after the May 14 shooting at a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, N.Y., that left 10 dead and three others injured. Authorities say the shooter purposely targeted an area with a large Black population and espoused racist rhetoric such as the “great replacement theory,” a conspiracy theory that asserts there is an intentional effort to replace white Americans with people of color by encouraging immigration.

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia called the shooting a “straight-up racially motivated hate crime.” 

The White House said Harris “didn’t want to speak” at the funeral and just to attend, but that the Rev. Al Sharpton insisted she did. 

“There’s a through line to what happened here in Texas, in Atlanta, in Orlando, what happened at the synagogues … and so this is a moment that requires all good people who are loving people to just say we will not stand for this,” Harris said. “Enough is enough.”

Several prominent political figures attended the funeral along with Sharpton and Harris, including Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.).

Sharpton delivered the eulogy at the service, focusing on the need for action after the shooting. 

“We are in a national crisis and we can’t act like it’s not happening, it’s happening,” Sharpton said.

Democrats are pushing for stricter gun control legislation following the Buffalo attack and another mass shooting at a Texas elementary school this week, while Republicans have been resistant to such measures.

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Without summits, a West Asia 'Quad' makes progress

President Biden’s participation in a summit meeting of the Indo-Pacific “Quad,” which groups Australia, Japan, India and the United States in competition with China, demonstrates the importance of East Asia and the South Pacific in current U.S. policy. But it is a different group of four countries that seems to be making greater progress.

The West Asia Quad – a grouping of India, Israel, the UAE and the United States –  was launched in October 2021 with a lot less fanfare than what accompanies the Indo-Pacific partnership. But it has already resulted in a free trade agreement and multiple cooperative arrangements. Unlike the Indo-Pacific Quad, which avoids hard security questions, the West Asian partnership embraces a realistic assessment of shared threats. 

The idea for the West Asia Quad came from Israel and the UAE with strong support from the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke of the four countries leveraging each other’s “complementary capabilities” in the Middle East while Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid emphasized the “synergy” in “infrastructure, digital infrastructure, transport, maritime security.”

Instead of focusing on the challenge from a single rising power, the West Asia Quad is brought together, in the words of UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed, by the special bonds that “distinguish” relations between these countries. Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has noted that UAE, Israel, and the United States are India’s “closest relationships,” and these close ties make the four countries more willing to work together.

In early May, UAE’s minister of economy led a 70-member business delegation to Delhi and Mumbai to discuss ways to further promote trade and investments in India and the UAE. This was a follow up to the February 2022 free trade agreement that both countries signed and that came into force on May 1. A similar free trade deal already exists between Israel and the UAE, while one between India and Israel is in the pipeline.

The UAE is already one of India’s top trading partners, just behind the U.S., China and the European Union in trade volume. Bilateral trade between the two countries was $59 billion last year, and Emirati companies have invested $18 billion in India. The UAE also hosts 3.4 million Indian workers, whose remittances are an important component of India’s $83 billion hard currency earnings in remittances. The UAE has helped address India’s concerns about oil security by contributing to India’s strategic oil reserves.

The Israel-India partnership is also robust, and Israel is one of the top three suppliers of defense equipment to India. Forty-three percent of Israel’s arms exports are sold to India. India’s bilateral trade with Israel, currently at $4.14 billion, is growing. Israel exports agricultural technology, cyber technology, health care technology and defense equipment to India, while India sells mineral products, machinery and textiles to Israel.

The West Asia Quad is brought together by shared interests and complementary capabilities. This differs from the Indo-Pacific Quad, where, notwithstanding American enthusiasm, the partners do not always offer what the other needs. The four countries do not have free trade agreements like Israel, India and the UAE seem to have worked out. Each of them knows they must work together against China, but they seem to be taking time in figuring out what they might get from one another. Japan, for example, wants to replace China as Australia’s major trading partner but is unable to offer any security advantage to Australia in return.  

There is no such ambiguity in the West Asia Quad. While the U.S. brings its military prowess to the table, other partners are able to make significant contributions to each other’s security or economy. The UAE’s strategic pragmatism provides a glue for the grouping while assuring India of energy supplies and employment opportunities for a vast population. The UAE sees India as an external power that balances China and is not viewed by the U.S. as a threat.

Israel’s technological and economic muscle, and military-intelligence prowess, partners well with India’s ability to provide manpower and access to a large market. The UAE’s bold move to recognize Israel, and its firm commitment to the Abraham Accords, has drawn it close to Israel.

This puts the UAE in a position to influence Israel in protecting Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, while also being the staunchest Muslim opponent of radical Islamist extremism. India, which is home to 200 million Muslims and has been a victim of terrorism like the November 26, 2008, Mumbai attacks, appreciates Israeli and Emirati support against terrorists

The West Asia Quad works because it brings together two key economies of the Middle East – Israel and the UAE – with a more assertive India and the resident external power, the United States. If the Indo-Pacific Quad is to succeed, it too will have to find complementarities among its members similar to those members of the West Asian Quad have successfully identified.

Husain Haqqani is director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute. He served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., 2008-11. Aparna Pande is fellow and director of the Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

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Congress’ power over treaties preempts the president’s

Last March, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee favorably reported S.J. Res. 17 to preclude the president from terminating United States membership in NATO without a two-thirds Senate vote or act of Congress.

The bipartisan joint resolution easily passes constitutional muster and would begin to restore the dominant role of Congress in foreign policy contemplated by the Constitution. The resolution would be improved by further declaring that Congress, not the president, is entrusted with the responsibility for deciding how to respond to aggression against a NATO member under the Constitution and under Article 11 of the North Atlantic Treaty.

Congress, at any time, may terminate our membership in NATO by act or by concurrent or joint resolution. American empire requires a Caesar as well as the abandonment of the separation of powers to make liberty subservient to world domination. Accordingly, the Constitution is routinely tortured to accommodate unchecked executive power. 

One modest example is the bogus constitutional claim that only the president is endowed with the authority to withdraw from treaties. For starters, Congress is empowered by statute to override treaties that “can become the subject of judicial cognizance in the courts of the country,” as the United States Supreme Court held more than a century ago in The Head Money Cases.

The reasoning for the Senate ratification of treaties applies equally to treaty revocations. Alexander Hamilton, the loudest proponent of a muscular executive, explained in “The Federalist Papers: No 75” that with sole power, the president would be tempted to sell out national interests in favor of personal ambition in international relations. That temptation is present as much in negotiating as in revoking treaties.

Furthermore, the Senate is authorized to condition a treaty’s ratification upon changes in treaty language or understandings. If the latter is not forthcoming, the Senate can kill the treaty. The Lodge Reservations to the Versailles Treaty submitted by President Woodrow Wilson are illustrative and constitutionally dispositive. The reservations provided, among other things, that Congress be authorized to withdraw the United States from the treaty by “concurrent resolution.”

President Wilson, an archenemy of Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge (R-Mass.), attacked the reservations with every weapon in his arsenal. But Wilson never questioned their constitutionality, including the reservation endowing Congress with authority to give notice of withdrawal.  The Lodge Reservations were no novelty. As early as July 7, 1798, Congress enacted a law “to declare the treaties heretofore concluded with France, no longer obligatory on the United States.” The statutory language is unambiguous, and decisively shows the treaty power is subservient to Congress:

“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the United States are of right freed and exonerated from the stipulations of the treaties, and of the consular convention, heretofore concluded between the United States and France; and that the same shall not henceforth be regarded as legally obligatory on the government or citizens of the United States.”

In a recent piece in The American Conservative, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) counter-historically argues that the president’s sole power to terminate treaties is necessitated by the need for quick action. President George W. Bush provided six months’ notice to exit the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and President Donald Trump provided the same in exiting the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty. Six months is leisurely, not mercury footed. NATO requires 12 months’ notice to withdraw. Further, it is not self-evident that terminating treaties necessarily requires greater speed than entering them. Pearl Harbor created an immediate need for the United States to collaborate with other nations in fighting Japan and Nazi Germany.

Paul wrongly insinuates that the president acting alone is required for the quickness and unity required to negotiate a treaty. The Treaty of Ghent of 1815, which ended the War of 1812, was negotiated in part by Federalist Sen. James Bayard (Del.) The United States delegation to negotiate the United Nations Treaty featured members of the House and Senate.

Finally, Paul observes that most treaty terminations during the 20th and 21st centuries were effectuated by the president alone. But recidivism does not legalize constitutional wrongs, including multiple wars launched by presidents since at least the Korean War. The Supreme Court invalidated the legislative veto in the Immigration and Nationality Act, notwithstanding its 50-year lifespan, in Chadha v. INS in 1983 and renounced a century of federal judicial usurpation of state power in Erie Railroad Company v. Tompkins in 1936.

The Supreme Court in Myers v. United States strongly emphasized the constitutional understandings of the earliest Congresses, many of whom attended the constitutional convention. And from 1798 to at least the Lodge Reservations in 1920, Congress asserted authority to terminate treaties without challenge by presidents.  S.J. Res. 17 is a positive step against misinterpreting the Constitution today or the original document as a bow to empire.

Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and is the author of “American Empire Before The Fall.”

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Texas Lt. Gov. Patrick: 'We were not told the truth' on Uvalde shooting

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) said state officials “were not told the truth” about the time police took to neutralize the shooter at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. 

Speaking on “Fox & Friends Weekend” on Saturday, Patrick said police made a poor decision to wait to engage the gunman, which cost lives.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Friday that he was “misled” about the police response to the shooting and is “livid.” Abbott had previously praised police for their response to the situation. 

Police have come under increasing scrutiny in the past few days over the amount of time they took to engage the shooter, who killed 19 students and two teachers Tuesday. Law enforcement officials gave conflicting accounts of the timeline of the events of the shooting in the days immediately following it. 

Patrick said officials were told that a security guard was at the school when the shooter arrived.

Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said at a press conference Friday that an officer who was responding to a 911 call went to the school but drove past the gunman, who hid behind a car. 

Patrick said state officials were also not informed of the 45 minutes to an hour that passed when police were present at the school, but the shooter was still firing inside a classroom where he had barricaded himself.

Texas law enforcement officials have said that local police were wrong to have waited to engage the gunman. 

McCraw said the on-scene commander thought the status of the incident had shifted from an active shooter situation to a barricaded subject and children were no longer in harm’s way. 

“Imagine the parent who has to go through this for the rest of their life, and they will be thinking ‘Was my child still alive and could have been saved?’ ” Patrick said. 

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The hamburger is an American staple: Climate change threatens it in profound and subtle ways

Today — May 28 — is National Hamburger Day, and it’s well justified. Most of us savor a burger off the grill, the kitchen skillet, or from one of the 80,000 burger restaurants in the U.S. with a market over $100 billion. The burger is ranked third among America’s popular dishes, right after mashed potatoes and French fries. Why? Because it’s tasty, convenient, relatively inexpensive, comes in dozens of variations — meat to meatless, and with a range of condiments and sides. And when barbecued, the burger brings us together.

It’s hard to imagine America without the hamburger, but change is in the wind. Yes, a changing climate is changing the burger.

Let’s start with the main ingredient in the typical burger — beef. Unfortunately, like humans, the health of beef cattle are at increasing risks from higher temperatures and droughts. Heat stress increases the chance for disease, decreases the rate of growth, and can even cause death in cattle. Droughts, which we are already experiencing, are expected to increase and intensify in coming years — dramatically impacting the vast grazing lands covering about 40 percent of the U.S. land area. Grains needed by cattle are also facing increasing threats — all contributing to higher prices for beef. 

Next comes the bun, which is typically made from wheat. Because of warming, wheat will actually expand production into new areas in the U.S. over the next 30 years, but then level off, only to face a severe global water shortage later in the century. The war in Ukraine is currently causing price increases for wheat, but climate change is its biggest long-term threat. In the U.S., vast stores of groundwater for irrigation are rapidly being depleted, threatening the future of grain production and much more. And one of the hidden changes is the decrease in the nutritional quality of wheat as carbon dioxide levels increase. That’s not necessarily a big deal for a burger bun in the U.S., but it is for the millions of people already on marginal diets worldwide. 

Now let’s consider what we add to our burgers for flavor, juiciness, and texture. Change is happening here too, some good, but most, not so good.

With increasing carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, tomatoes may be sweeter and have more vitamin C. But if too hot, tomato plants produce fewer fruit, or the fruit get sunburned and don’t grow to full size. Heat can also impact onions, which become more pungent when it’s too hot. Lettuce yields are predicted to increase under higher levels of carbon dioxide in the future. It’s possible lettuce might be grown year-round as winter warms. However, when it gets too warm the lettuce can have a strong and bitter taste.  

Ketchup that is used by 310 million Americans is made from processing tomatoes, most of which come from California, where heat and drought have taken a toll. Mustard is in short supply now and getting pricier because of drought and flooding in Canada. Spices like ginger and cloves — sometimes added to these condiments — are at increasing risk, and so is regular sugar and high fructose corn syrup used in ketchup. Hot peppers will get hotter. Finally, the cheese in the cheeseburger will likely take a hit because hot cows produce less milk.

Enough already? 

What can be done to keep the beef burger on the grill? A lot. 

Scientists are working hard to develop crops that can withstand what climate change throws at them and maintain their nutritional quality. They are seeking ways to help reduce emissions from cattle. Farming and ranching are already tough professions and getting tougher, but farmers and ranchers are using climate smart practices to stay in business and produce the food we love and need. They need our respect and support. 

Consumers can also play a role in saving beef burgers by eating fewer of them. It’s better for our health and the climate. Beef generates about 50 times more greenhouse gas emissions than wheat to produce an ounce of protein. Consider a plant-based diet and treating beef as a delicacy and not a staple. 

Let’s celebrate National Hamburger Day but realize that everything we eat is changing in subtle or profound ways, as our climate changes. And keeping our food supply affordable, plentiful, and diverse is going to require everyone. Can we use the common ground of food to work together? We all eat. This could be one step in the right direction to saving not only the hamburger but maybe something much greater — our future. 

Mike Hoffmann is professor emeritus at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a faculty fellow with the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. He is lead author of “Our changing menu: Climate change and the foods we love and need.” He has done a TEDx, “Climate Change: It’s time to raise our voices,” and teaches an eCornell climate change leadership course.

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Biden to Delaware graduates: 'No time to sit on the sidelines'

President Biden urged graduates at the University of Delaware to get involved in public life and be part of the future of the nation during commencement remarks on Saturday.

Biden, who graduated from the university in the 1960s, said that the students were graduating at a “defining time.”

“There’s one message I hope you take from me today: This is no time to be on the sidelines. It’s not hyperbole. I mean it from the bottom of my heart,” Biden said to a sea of graduates clad in blue robes. 

“We need all of you to get engaged in public life and the life of this nation.”

Biden addressed the unique challenges he said the 2022 graduating class faced, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing distrust of institutions in the U.S.

“In the last five years since many of you were in high school, America’s faced some of its most difficult tests. A global pandemic ended a million lives in America alone,” Biden said. “And the crisis of faith in institutions, however flawed they may be, serve as the infrastructure for the American experiment.”

“What you’ve been through the past four years … you could not have imagined when you graduated from high school. Campus shutdowns, classes on Zoom, the world turned upside down, but you got through it,” he added.

Biden then reminisced on his time after college when he joined politics to fight for civil rights, and attempted to connect the period in the 1960s to the struggles America faces today.

The president, who spent a chunk of his political career in Congress, touted his achievements as a young senator, like extending the Voting Rights Act 25 years. He said that he thought you could “bury hate.”

Biden then jabbed at “prominent leaders” who breath “oxygen under the rock” where hate is hiding, and it “comes roaring back out.” He then listed a series of events like those in Charlottesville, Va., the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the recent shootings this month that left dozens of people, including children, dead.

“Let’s be clear, evil came to that elementary school classroom in Texas and that grocery store in New York.”

Biden noted his trip to Uvalde, Texas, on Sunday to meet with the parents and families affected by the shooting, saying “as I speak, those parents are literally preparing to bury their children.”

“We cannot outlaw tragedy, I know, but we can make America safer.”

Earlier this month, a gunman shot and killed 10 people in a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket. The supermarket was located in a predominantly Black neighborhood, and the suspect is believed to espouse racist conspiracy theories.

On Tuesday, an 18-year-old gunman, Salvador Ramos, entered an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, with military-grade weapons and killed 19 children and two teachers.

In spite of tragedy, Biden told the graduating class they will be defining America’s future and can make a brighter trajectory for the nation. 

“I call all Americans this hour to join hands and make your voices heard and work together to make this nation what it can and should be,” Biden said.

“Your generation makes me more optimistic. I’ve said it many times … your generation is the most generous, the most tolerant, the least prejudiced, the best-educated generation this nation has ever known and that’s a simple fact.”

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Republicans grow more aggressive in openly defying Trump

Republicans are more aggressively reasserting themselves within the GOP amid signs that former President Donald Trump’s once vise-like grip on the party is starting to weaken. 

In recent weeks, some of the GOP’s biggest names have begun to brazenly take on the former president and the candidates whom he has endorsed. In the runup to the Georgia primaries, for instance, a handful of Republican governors flocked to the state to campaign for Gov. Brian Kemp, who faced a Trump-backed primary challenge from former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). 

Other Republican power players, like Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence, have started to take bolder steps toward potential White House bids of their own, suggesting that they’re no longer willing to put their own plans on hold if Trump decides to mount a comeback campaign in 2024.

“I don’t think [Trump] has ever looked as vulnerable as he does now,” one Republican strategist said. “Naturally, people are going to notice that and take the opportunity to put themselves out there a little bit more.”

The strategist pointed to Trump’s recent string of losses in Georgia, where several of his endorsed candidates failed to emerge from primaries against incumbents whom the former president had vowed to oust. 

In perhaps the most embarrassing upset to Trump so far this year, Perdue lost to Kemp in the state’s closely watched GOP gubernatorial primary by a more-than-50-point margin. Kemp was helped in the final days of his campaign by a triumvirate of influential Republican governors, including Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a one-time Trump ally.

Pence also helped Kemp in the race, traveling to Georgia to campaign with him on the eve of the May 24 primary.

Perdue’s loss was only the latest in a series of defeats for Trump’s endorsed candidates. His picks in the primaries for Georgia secretary of state and attorney general also lost by wide margins, while his preferred candidates in the gubernatorial nominating contests in Idaho and Nebraska also fell in recent weeks.

Alex Conant, a Republican strategist, said that those losses have empowered other Republicans to more directly challenge Trump after years of deference to him.

“Without the White House, social media or a campaign, Trump doesn’t have as much power, and that’s reflected in his mediocre endorsement record, the fact that other Republican leaders don’t defer to him and the decreasing amounts of media coverage,” Conant said. 

“He’s still the most powerful person in the party, but he’s definitely seeing the limits of what he can do post-White House.”

The interventions by top Republicans haven’t been limited to Georgia. 

In the runup to Pennsylvania’s GOP Senate primary earlier this month, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to the Keystone State for a press briefing in which he raised concerns about Trump’s endorsed candidate in the race, Mehmet Oz. Pompeo, who is seen as a potential 2024 presidential contender, had already endorsed Oz’s chief primary rival, former hedge fund CEO David McCormick, in the race.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is also wading into the GOP primary in South Carolina’s 7th District, where he’s set to campaign for Rep. Tom Rice (R-S.C.), one of 10 House Republicans who voted last year to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

Trump has endorsed one of Rice’s challengers, South Carolina state Rep. Russell Fry. 

Doug Heye, a Republican strategist, said there’s little doubt that Trump remains deeply influential within the GOP, but that the power of his endorsements has been greatly exaggerated. He pointed to the Republican Senate primaries in Ohio and Pennsylvania, where Trump’s endorsed candidates notched just about one-third of the total vote.

“You can’t deny that he doesn’t have an influence here,” Heye said. “But we now see where that number is and it’s around a third or a little bit lower.”

Party strategists and operatives said there is growing concern among many in the GOP about the former president’s judgment, especially when it comes to wading into primary contests. 

Trump has shown a propensity to endorse candidates based on their loyalty to him and willingness to echo his false claim that widespread voter fraud and systemic malfeasance robbed him of reelection in 2020.

“Trump really wants to relitigate 2020 and there’s decreasing interest in doing that with Republican voters,” one GOP consultant said. “Republican voters are focused on stopping Biden’s agenda, winning the midterms and ultimately retaking the White House. They’re not focused on 2020, but Trump is.”

The consultant said that Trump’s singular focus on his 2020 electoral loss to President Biden may be creating an opening for other prospective White House hopefuls, who see an opportunity to sell themselves to voters as adherents of Trump’s so-called “America first” political movement, but without the baggage of the former president.

“Most Republican primary voters still really like Donald Trump, but they’re also interested in what’s next,” the consultant said. “Trump was such an omnipresent force for five years and I think we’re finally seeing other Republicans start to get more attention, because it turns out the party’s a lot broader than just Trump and his loyalists.” 

There are already a handful of Republicans positioning themselves as possible alternatives to Trump, though perhaps none as openly as Pence. Trump’s former vice president has maintained an aggressive travel schedule for months, raising speculation about a potential 2024 presidential bid.

In fact, Pence himself hasn’t done much to quell such speculation. In an interview with The New York Times last month, Pence declined to rule out a bid for the White House, even if Trump himself mounts a campaign for the 2024 presidential nod, saying that “we’ll go where we’re called.”

Despite the questions about Trump’s continued influence in the party, however, strategists have little doubt about his legacy, noting that he has fundamentally reshaped the GOP and its platform under his “Make America Great Again” banner. That version of the Republican Party appears likely to stay, one Republican lobbyist said.

“MAGA is still mostly driven by Trump,” the lobbyist said. “Is it becoming its own thing where it is more than Trump? Yes. MAGA is the Republican Party and it’s going to evolve over time but it’s never going to lose that ‘America First’ mindset and that is a complete tribute to Trump.” 

Source: TEST FEED1