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15 people joined chatroom set up by Buffalo suspect just before shooting

The Buffalo shooting suspect set up a chatroom on Discord just before he shot and killed 10 people at a grocery store, according to an invitation for the room reviewed by The Washington Post.

An invitation from alleged shooter Payton Gendron titled “Happening: This is not a drill” right before he walked into a supermarket on Saturday and shot 13 people was obtained by The Post.

A person familiar with the matter told the outlet that 15 people joined the room, prompting investigators to look into the possibility of if the shooter was encouraged by online friends. 

The discovery means more people were able to watch the shooting then initially believed, with authorities aware shortly after the shooting that the suspect had live-streamed the event on the social media platform, Twitch. 

The Post says a review of the shooter’s Discord server shows a number of racist messages and planning for the mass shooting going back as much as six months. 

The shooter espoused racist theories such as the “great replacement theory” and drove hours to commit the shooting in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Eleven of the 13 victims were Black individuals. 

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

The source told The Post authorities are unaware of what the 15 Discord members who accepted the shooter’s invitation did after they went to his server. 

Discord issued a statement on Wednesday saying they are working with law enforcement to assist the investigation. 

The Hill has reached out to Discord and the Eric County police department for comment.

Source: TEST FEED1

This Older Americans Month, let’s see bipartisan success on seniors’ priorities

The theme for this year’s Older Americans Month — “Age My Way” — presents a golden opportunity to ask: are seniors able to age the way they want to in the 21st century, and how can we help them achieve that goal? For many seniors, ‘aging my way’ means remaining in their homes and communities — or what is commonly referred to as ‘aging in place’ — a choice that preserves their dignity and independence. There is a growing consensus that aging in place is both mentally and physically healthier than institutional care. Among other benefits, it enables seniors to remain active members of — and contributors to — the communities where they live.   

The issue as we mark Older Americans Month 2022 is whether there is sufficient infrastructure and funding to achieve this goal. Though seniors’ champions, such as Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) have been pushing to expand the nation’s in-home and community care capacity, the answer is still “No.”  There currently are not sufficient resources to provide these services for every senior who wants or needs them.   

This Older Americans Month, we call upon Congress to boost funding for Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), which are provided through the Medicaid program. Each state administers its own HCBS services (though they are optional at this point) and not all states have robust programs. There are long waiting lists for HCBS throughout the country. The demand clearly is there; it’s the funding (and political will) that’s lacking. The president’s original Build Back Better plan included an additional $400 billon for HCBS, which was later scaled back to $150 billion. Ultimately, the entire Build Back Better bill stalled when it could not garner sufficient votes in the Senate.    

In addition to bolstering HCBS through Medicaid, lawmakers should expand the In-Home Support program under the Older Americans Act. This program also is underfunded and has long waiting lists for services. Again, every senior who needs long-term care but hopes to avoid living in a nursing home deserves the opportunity — and shouldn’t be turned down for a lack of federal funding.    

Of course, seniors cannot receive care in their homes and communities without caregivers. The federal government should do whatever it can to support our nation’s caregivers — whether they are trained professionals or family members who find themselves caring for older loved ones. Professional caregivers are notoriously underpaid (earning an average of only $14.83 per hour), while many family members forgo paying jobs to provide care. Congress can and should provide more support for family and professional caregivers.    

Rep. John Larson’s (D-Conn.) bill, Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, would provide family caretakers with caregiver credits, so that their future retirement benefits aren’t lowered from taking time out of the workforce. Meanwhile, the ill-fated Build Back Better legislation would have required states to sufficiently compensate HCBS providers to ensure that professional caregivers are properly trained and fairly paid. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare endorsed both the Build Back Better plan and Rep. Larson’s Social Security 2100 bill and urges Congress to enact these commonsense measures.    

Of course, aging in place also requires access to proper nutrition. Not every senior who chooses to remain at home or in the community can afford groceries — especially with inflation raging. Fortunately, seniors can receive hot, healthy meals from Older Americans Act (OAA) nutrition programs funded by federal, state, and community grants. Meals on Wheels delivers nutritious food to seniors’ homes, providing not only sustenance but social interaction. The Congregate Meals program serves older adults in various community settings, offering healthy meals, social engagement, and access to vital resources.    

Funding for these crucial programs has been inconsistent. Appropriations for OAA programs declined for more than a decade beginning in FY 2010, but rebounded during the pandemic to reach their highest level in the program’s history. But in FY 2022, the growth in funding slowed with a nominal boost of $28 million. It’s vital that, moving forward, senior nutrition and other Older Americans Act programs are adequately funded to meet current and future demand.    

One way to ensure that seniors’ needs receive more attention on Capitol Hill would be to re-establish the House Select Committee on Aging, which was disbanded under the speakership of Newt Gingrich in 1995. While there are other committees with jurisdiction over seniors’ programs, there is no single committee dedicated to keeping an eye on the big picture for seniors. Last August, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) introduced a resolution (H. Res. 583) to bring back the House Select Committee on Aging. It is past time for this committee to be reestablished, with seniors representing a growing portion of the overall population. By 2030, nearly 75 million people in the U.S. — or 20 percent of the country — will be age 65 and older.   

In recent weeks, some opinion-makers have argued that America is devoting too many resources to the elderly. One New York Times writer labeled the country a “gerontocracy” and declared that “the U.S. has long put a higher priority on taking care of the elderly than taking care of young families,” as if it were a zero-sum game. This devalues the important role that seniors play in our society while needlessly pitting the generations against each other. During the pandemic, many seniors provided daycare for their grandchildren or came out of retirement to serve their communities in health care and education roles, filling job vacancies in critical shortage areas.

Others have spent a lifetime working hard, contributing to society, and raising families. They are our parents, grandparents, friends, and neighbors. The least we can do is help them to ‘age their way’ in good health — with the dignity and respect that our elders deserve.    

Max Richtman is president and CEO of the nonprofit National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. He is former staff director at the Senate Special Committee on Aging.  

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Musk calls report he was accused of sexual misconduct: 'standard (despicable) playbook'

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk late Thursday apparently responded to an article from Business Insider that says Musk was accused of sexually propositioning a SpaceX flight attendant, calling the claims not true.

The report, citing interviews and documents, states that a flight attendant says Musk exposed himself during a massage and ask her for sex, according to a friend of the SpaceX employee. The flight attendant declined his advances and later got a lawyer after she felt she lost opportunities at the company for turning away Musk’s overtures.

Musk on Thursday failed to cite the report, but tweeted “for the record, those wild accusations are utterly untrue.”

“The attacks against me should be viewed through a political lens – this is their standard (despicable) playbook – but nothing will deter me from fighting for a good future and your right to free speech,” Musk said in a tweet shortly after the story was released.

Documents seen by Insider show SpaceX and the flight attendant reached an out of court settlement of $250,000, with her signing on nondisclosure so she could not speak about the event. 

The friend Insider talked to said she felt she had a “responsibility” to tell the story due to the power Musk has as one of the richest people in the world. 

Insider knows the name of the friend but decided not to provide in the report, saying she declined to provide comment for the article. 

Musk initially responded to Insider’s request for comment saying he needed more time to respond.

“If I were inclined to engage in sexual harassment, this is unlikely to be the first time in my entire 30-year career that it comes to light,” Musk told the outlet. 

He told Insider that the article was a “politically motivated hit piece” and said there was “a lot more to this story.” Musk did not respond to further inquiries from Insider.

The article comes after Musk announced he would be switching from the Democratic to the Republican Party.

“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold … ,” he said Thursday. 

Musk has also recently reached a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion, a move that has been largely denounced by Democrats and praised by Republicans. 

The Hill has reached out to SpaceX for comment.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democrats must reach across the diploma divide

Having lost the white working class decades ago, Democrats now see erosion in their support among Hispanic and even Black voters without college degrees. It’s a mortifying turn of events for a party that historically has defined its mission as standing up for working families.

It’s also the biggest threat to the party’s ability to enlarge its tenuous governing majority and prevent the Trump-mesmerized Republicans from taking power. If Democrats don’t find a way to do better among the two-thirds of registered voters who don’t graduate from college, even superhuman efforts to “mobilize the base” won’t save them.

Party pollsters spend millions trying to divine the mysteries of working-class alienation. But it’s not that complicated.    

Workers who live paycheck to paycheck don’t think the party establishment listens to them or sympathizes with their travails and aspirations. Instead, Democrats in Washington seem more attentive to the priorities of a rarified class of progressive activists, political operatives and interest groups, supported by like-minded donors, foundations, academics and media organs.

Today’s fixation on cancelling student debt is a classic example. Left-leaning activists are pressing hard for it, Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) endorse it and President Biden says he’s looking into it.

Yet there’s no public groundswell for it — the issue doesn’t even register when voters are asked to name their top concerns. Only 13 percent of Americans have federal student debt. For highly educated urban professionals, debt relief may seem like an urgent imperative; from a blue-collar perspective, it looks like more self-dealing among the nation’s political elites.

Most of the relief would go to borrowers who are not especially needy. Over 70 percent of student debt is held by Americans who have above-average incomes. Graduate students account for 37 percent of the loans. Yet most advocates flatly oppose capping relief or limiting it to low-income borrowers.

Because college and grad-school graduates reap higher lifetime earnings, broad debt relief is essentially “a regressive transfer of wealth from low-and middle-income workers to high-income professionals,” says PPI analyst Ben Ritz. It probably has not escaped working families’ notice that no one in Washington is talking about cancelling their mortgage or car payments.

The progressives’ rationale for this $1 trillion giveaway is mainly political. Activists are warning the White House that young voters may not turn out for the midterm elections if they don’t get debt relief.

But the electoral math is all wrong, too. Marginal improvements in youth turnout won’t be enough to prevent a midterm blowout or break today’s deadlock in national politics. To do that, Democrats will need to win back suburban moderates and independents, stem the defection of Hispanic voters (who had a 16-point margin shift toward Trump in 2020) and loosen the GOP’s grip on non-college whites.

Like “free college” – another progressive hobby horse — cancelling student debts would aggravate the already pronounced bias in federal policy in favor of families whose kids go to college. According to PPI calculations, Washington spends about $92 billion a year to help college students, and just $11 billion on job training programs for everyone else.

In short, it’s not just cultural issues that are driving a wedge between Democrats and non-college voters. The party’s economic agenda increasingly seems oriented around the desires of well-educated and upscale professionals, not the majority of Americans who lack college degrees.  

Here’s another example: Some moderate Democrats who represent affluent suburbs in deep blue states are agitating for repeal of “SALT,” the cap on state and local tax deductions included in the 2017 tax bill. That won’t curb inflation, spur growth or lift anyone’s skills, but it’s a big tax break for their upper middle-class constituents.

Or consider climate change. Working class voters worry about it too, but it’s far from their top concern. In a recent Gallup poll, only 2 percent identified it as the nation’s most important problem.

Compare that to the apocalyptic tone of progressive activists who see climate change as the overriding moral challenge of our times. In their rush to ban fracking and spur disinvestment in U.S. oil and gas companies, they offer little reassurance to millions of U.S. workers with good jobs in energy production, or to families worried about skyrocketing fuel costs.

So how could Democrats start reaching across the diploma divide to rebalance their lopsided political coalition?

The progressive left insists Democrats must “deliver” massive new public benefits in the name of social justice. The party needs to stand for “big change” to rein in profiteering corporations that ship jobs overseas, avoid paying taxes and corrupt politicians with big contributions.

But if economic populism were the magic bullet, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would be sitting in the White House instead of President Biden. No one detests big business, the superrich or free trade more than the irascible Vermont socialist. Yet Sanders’s support among working voters is negligible; his most ardent backers are young, college-educated white progressives.

By significant margins, U.S. voters trust Republicans more than Democrats to manage the economy. Instead of peddling tired business-bashing tropes and economic gloom, Democrats should champion U.S. economic dynamism and growth. Working class voters are focused on the rising cost of living, not inequality. They are not opposed to a bigger social safety net, but what they really want is a robustly innovative private economy that creates new jobs and pathways for upward mobility.

They also are patriotic — they want America to excel in global competition, not withdraw from it. President Biden says the United States is locked in a strategic competition for economic and technological primacy with China. He’s right, and Democrats should make economic patriotism the centerpiece of a new growth and opportunity agenda aimed squarely at working Americans.

Will Marshall is president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden vows to deepen US-South Korea ties in first Asia stop

President Biden on Friday toured a Samsung factory in South Korea and vowed to strengthen ties between Washington and Seoul during his first stop on a trip to Asia.  

“We’re standing at an inflection point in history where the decisions we make today will have a far-reaching impacts on the world we leave to our children tomorrow,” Biden said in remarks at the Samsung plant in Pyeongtaek. “This vibrant democracy has become a powerhouse of global innovation by investing in educating its people.” 

“This is the moment, in my view, to invest in one another, to deepen our business ties, to bring our people living closer together,” Biden said.  

Biden cheered Samsung’s plans to build a new $17 billion semiconductor facility in Tyler, Texas, saying it would create 3,000 new jobs in Texas.  

He touted domestic investments of the infrastructure law last year and also expressed hope that semiconductor legislation being worked on in Congress would soon be passed into law.  

The bill is the result of a bipartisan effort to make the U.S. more competitive against China in the tech space.  

On Friday, Biden reflected on the way the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to a global semiconductor shortage and said Russia’s war in Ukraine has deepened U.S. resolve to take action “so that our economic and our national security are not dependent on countries that do not share our values.”  

Earlier, Biden toured an area of the facility producing semiconductor wafers. It was Biden’s first stop on the South Korea leg of his Asia trip.  

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, who spoke before Biden at the plant, called Pyeongtaek the “heart of the Korean semiconductor industry” and said he looked forward to deepening the partnership between Washington and Seoul on advanced technology and global supply chains.  

Biden and Yoon are scheduled to hold a more formal bilateral meeting in Seoul on Saturday, marking the first face-to-face meeting between the two leaders after Yoon was elected earlier this year.  

Source: TEST FEED1

Putin’s war makes a clear case for Ukraine membership in NATO

Russian President Vladimir Putin ironically appears to have greatly increased Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO. He has thereby achieved the opposite of what he claimed was his goal: keeping Ukraine out of the alliance.

Before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, everyone — Americans, Europeans, Ukrainians and Russians — knew that Ukraine had no chance of becoming a NATO member for at least two decades. Putin’s decision to go to war had nothing to do with Moscow’s fear of the supposed threat to Russian security of Ukraine’s theoretical NATO membership. Instead, the aggression was, as Putin admitted in several of his missives, a direct consequence of his imperial ambitions on the one hand and visceral hatred of Ukrainians on the other.

NATO did contribute to the outbreak of the war, but not in the manner that many analysts think. NATO expansion posed no threat to Russian security — even if it entailed broken promises by the West — for three reasons. First, few Europeans would fight to defend Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Second, even if NATO members agreed to fight, the miserable condition of most of their armed forces would do little to push back a possible Russian assault. Third, the famed Article 5 of the NATO Charter does not obligate members to respond militarily. They can, in fact, respond any way they deem necessary — from military assistance to outright intervention to assembling a peace conference to organizing a demonstration.

NATO enlargement contributed to the war by leaving Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine in a precarious no-man’s land between an indifferent Europe and a rapacious Russia. Belarus adapted to these dire circumstances by aligning with Russia; Moldova, by attempting to maintain a balance; and Ukraine, first by balancing and then, after the revolutions of 2004 and 2014, by aligning with the West — which, much to Ukraine’s chagrin, remained more or less indifferent until war broke out in 2022 and Russia’s imperial and genocidal designs became manifestly clear.

In effect, NATO’s mistake was not to have enlarged and thereby threatened Russia, but to not have enlarged enough.

The conditions for Ukraine’s membership have now changed radically, thanks to Putin’s war. The arguments against Ukraine’s membership were severalfold, and none applies today:

• Ukraine’s population was opposed to membership. That was true until the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. Thereafter, the tide turned toward membership. After Russia’s  genocidal war broke out this year, Ukrainians overwhelmingly have supported NATO membership for their country.
• Ukraine had a long way to go to become a rule-of-law state and democracy. The war has changed that. Despite the enormity of the destruction caused by Russian troops and the mobilization of all Ukraine’s resources, Ukraine’s government has performed democratically, liberally and tolerantly — even though wartime conditions might have justified more severe measures. It’s unclear that all NATO members would have responded similarly. Certainly, Hungary and Turkey would not.
• Ukraine’s armed forces were not up to NATO standards. Everyone expected Ukraine to suffer defeat within a few days or weeks. Instead, Ukraine’s armed forces have performed heroically and effectively, demonstrating that they are arguably far better than those in many NATO countries. Ukraine used the years since the 2014 revolution to learn from, and ultimately outclass, NATO.
• Ukraine was unstable. As the war has shown, Ukraine’s political, social and economic institutions have remained remarkably intact. Most of the population supports the government and the war effort. And the number of collaborators and traitors has been remarkably small.
• Russia would attack and start a war, rather than permit Ukraine to join NATO. Russia already has engaged in a genocidal war against Ukraine. Putin may even decide to use tactical nuclear weapons, but if he does it’ll be because of the animus he bears toward Ukraine, and not because of NATO.
• NATO members would have to get involved in Ukraine’s conflicts with Russia. They already are involved, adopting painful sanctions against Russia and providing Ukraine with significant financial, humanitarian and military aid. In effect, if not in intent, NATO members are acting according to the mandate given them in Article 5.
• Countries with territorial disputes are excluded from NATO membership. As a study on NATO enlargement says, “States which have ethnic disputes or external territorial disputes, including irredentist claims, or internal jurisdictional disputes must settle those disputes by peaceful means in accordance with OSCE principles. Resolution of such disputes would be a factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance.” Ukraine’s dispute over Russian-occupied Crimea and the Donbas would be an obstacle to membership, but not an insurmountable one. After all, resolving the disputes “would be a factor,” but not necessarily the decisive one.

Extending immediate NATO membership to Ukraine would not change the geopolitical status quo. The war will continue. Russia will continue to engage in atrocities. Ukraine will continue to drive out the Russian troops from its territory. True, Russia would now be at war with a NATO member, but NATO’s collective decision not to send troops into Ukraine would remain in force, as would the West’s massive financial and military assistance.

So, why include Ukraine in NATO? Partly because it would be a form of NATO’s atonement for placing Ukraine in an untenable security position two decades ago. But mostly because it would accelerate Ukraine’s integration into the West, promote Ukrainian values in the West, and provide Ukrainians with an enormous moral boost as they seek to save their country from Putin’s predations.  

The West has nothing to lose and a loyal member to gain. 

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

The Memo: Trump faces critical popularity test in Georgia

The stakes are growing higher by the day for former President Trump in advance of Georgia’s GOP primaries on Tuesday.

The primaries will be the latest test of Trump’s muscle within the Republican Party. It’s a test he could fail.

The elections come on the heels of key contests this week, particularly in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, where Trump-backed candidates met mixed fates.

In Georgia, Trump has railed against incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp (R) again and again, backing his main opponent, former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). 

Kemp’s main sin, in Trump’s eyes, is his refusal to back Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Earlier this month, taking part in a “tele-rally” for Perdue, Trump blasted Kemp as “a truly horrendous RINO,” the derisory acronym that stands for Republican in Name Only.

But Republican voters don’t seem to be listening. Kemp has a commanding lead in the polls.

A Fox News poll released Wednesday put Kemp ahead of Perdue by more than 30 points, compared to an 11-point edge in March. The new poll had Kemp on 60 percent and Purdue on 28 percent among Republican primary voters.

In the RealClearPolitics polling average, Kemp had a lead of almost 25 points on Thursday evening.

Republicans and independent observers point to one overarching fact to explain Kemp’s strong polling lead. 

The incumbent governor, they note, is very conservative by any reasonable standard. He has solid approval ratings in most polls. That leaves Perdue’s candidacy essentially dependent upon a single argument — that Kemp should have cooperated in Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

“The only thing Perdue is able to point to is, what? That Kemp should have taken probably illegal actions to overturn the election?” said Amy Steigerwalt, a professor of political science at Georgia State University. 

That argument is enough to win over MAGA diehards. But there is no real evidence that it is sufficient to create a winning campaign to oust a powerful incumbent governor. 

“By all markers, outside the Trump stuff, [Kemp] has done a pretty good job,” said Jay Williams, a GOP strategist in Georgia who is not aligned with either candidate.

Trump will likely be assured of at least one victory in Georgia. Former football star Herschel Walker is all but guaranteed to win the GOP Senate primary, setting up a general election match-up with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) in November. 

Trump is a longtime booster of Walker, having endorsed him last September.

The race for secretary of state is less certain. Incumbent Brad Raffensperger, who also resisted Trump’s entreaties over the 2020 election — most infamously a January 2021 phone call in which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to undo President Biden’s victory in Georgia — is running for reelection.

Trump has endorsed Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) in the hope of unseating Raffensperger. Polling in that race has been sparse but appears to show a competitive race with a large number of undecided voters, though Raffensperger is generally seen as less well-placed than Kemp to hold off a Trumpian challenger. 

Raffensperger is, however, mounting a strong fight and has accused Hice of “lying about our election process.”

The Peach State has been vexing territory for Trump, where he lost to Biden by about 12,000 votes out of around five million cast for the two main candidates.

Its primaries also come after results this week that offered a mixed bag, at best, for Trump.

Mehmet Oz, the TV personality whom Trump backed in Pennsylvania’s Senate primary, appears likely to face an automatic recount in a very tight race with businessman David McCormick. Trump has urged Oz to claim victory in the too-close-to-call race but the TV doctor has not yet followed that prescription.

Trump’s backing was not enough to save controversial congressman Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) from a primary defeat in North Carolina’s 11th district. And in Idaho, Republican Gov. Brad Long beat back a challenge from another Trump pick, Long’s own lieutenant governor, Janice McGeachin.

To be sure, Trump candidates scored some wins too. Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) easily won the GOP Senate primary in North Carolina. In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, who backs Trump’s false claims of election fraud and marched to the Capitol on Jan. 6, will be the GOP’s gubernatorial candidate.

Earlier this month, Trump scored a big win when author J.D. Vance won the Republican Senate primary in Ohio.

But Georgia could be a tougher nut to crack.

Some Republicans in the state say Trump risks pushback by being seen as meddling in the state’s politics.

“Georgians tend to be fairly independent. When it comes to endorsements, we tend to look at the individual running rather than who endorses them,” said Andy Garner, a former chairman of the Floyd County Republican Party. “We don’t like folks telling us how to vote.”

There are also concerns, in general, about Perdue’s abilities as a candidate.

Having lost his Senate seat to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), he would clearly be a risk for Republicans as their gubernatorial choice — especially since he would be facing Stacey Abrams, a national figure who is running unopposed on the Democratic side.

Then there is the worry, among some Georgia Republicans, that listening too much to Trump has had baleful effects before. 

In the immediate wake of Election Day 2020, Trump made sweeping — and false — accusations of fraud.

But, at that time, there were still two Senate run-off elections to come in Georgia, where a candidate must win more than 50 percent of the vote to be elected. 

Democrats ended up winning both of those seats — and taking control of the Senate. Some Republicans are still sore about Trump’s role, which they believe sapped conservative turnout.

“Absolutely, I think it depressed turnout but I also think it just took the messaging away,” said Williams, contending that controversy over the election allegations supplanted any scrutiny of Ossoff or Warnock.

Trump wants to demonstrate his own strength, partly for the bragging rights and partly to maintain his position as the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

But Georgia looks like it might buck his wishes, yet again.

When it comes to Trump’s influence, said Steigerwalt, “the further we get away from 2020, the lower down it goes.”

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

Source: TEST FEED1

Export bans abroad threaten to push sky-high food prices even higher

Soaring food prices both in the U.S. and abroad have prompted countries to ban exports of core agricultural commodities, causing domestic food prices to further increase and leading agronomists wondering what additional crops could face supply constraints on their way to grocery stores. 

Food inflation in the U.S. is already at a 40-year high, with the annual index for consumer food prices up 9.4 percent in April — the largest 12-month increase since 1981 —according to the Department of Labor.  

Meat, poultry, fish and egg prices increased by more than 14 percent over the last year, the biggest jump since 1979. 

India’s partial ban on wheat exports announced over the weekend increased the winter wheat crop prices by more than 8 percent before leveling off slightly on Wednesday. The decision compounded a crunch on the commodity set off by the war in Ukraine, often referred to as the breadbasket of Europe. 

“There was some general thinking that India was going to be able to fill a lot of that supply gap that Ukraine historically filled, but it’s less likely to fill it this year,” Mark Jekanowski, a research economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and chairman of its World Agricultural Outlook Board, said in an interview. 

“The news that India banned their exports — that drove prices even higher and suggests global supplies are tightening even more,” he said. 

Ukrainian officials have been calling attention to the country’s ample food stocks that have been rendered inaccessible by the Russian military occupation, now in its twelfth week.

“If you see increasing prices and shortages of flour and grain in your country, the reason is because Russia attacked Ukraine. We have a lot of agricultural products, the entire crop from 2021, in our warehouses ready to be shipped around the world,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said last week.  

“The only reason why we are not doing it is because Russia continues blocking our ports and not allowing exports,” he said. 

But economists are quick to caution that since food prices are set on global commodity markets with many different countries and suppliers, there isn’t a one-to-one correlation between an export ban and a price hike. 

“The impact of a ban on exports of wheat from India, in the aggregate, will be positive, will tend to push prices up, but other than short-run panic responses, in effect, the impact will be very, very small,” Vincent H. Smith, a professor of agricultural economics at Montana State University, said in an interview.  

“Of far greater concern” to the price of bread “would be the price of gas and transportation costs— getting the wheat to the mill, the flour to the baker, the bread to the supermarket, and then stacking the shelves,” Smith said. “A lot of what we call ‘food price inflation’ is inflation affecting labor costs and the particular issue of higher energy prices.” 

Washington insiders and politicians from big farm states have echoed this analysis. 

“Now, I agree with people who say we aren’t going to have a food shortage here in the United States of America. There may be some products that you’ll see [facing shortages] like baby formula, but overall, you’re still going to see that box of Wheaties on the shelf,” former North Dakota senator and noted farming advocate Heidi Heitkamp (D) said in an interview.  

“But increasing transportation costs for commodities is going to be a major factor [in] driving up base commodity prices.” 

India’s wheat export ban was prompted in part by domestic political concerns and fears of unrest following nationwide protests by farmers in 2020 and 2021. The ban is just one of many restrictions that countries have placed on key ingredients for foods, adding to the overall inflationary environment. 

According to a list compiled by the International Food Policy Research Institute, a Washington-based non-profit, 20 countries now maintain export bans on various foodstuffs, contributing to a 30-percent rise in global food prices as measured by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. 

These include export bans on palm oil from Indonesia, pasta from Algeria, beef from Argentina, sugar from Pakistan, wheat and vegetable oil from Egypt, and cereals from various countries in Africa — all of which can contribute to the overall inflationary environment felt by shoppers at U.S. grocery stores.

Experts say there’s risk associated with protectionist policies now proliferating in agricultural trade but extending into other economic sectors and supply chains, as well.

Growing protectionism is “certainly a big danger,” former consultant to the U.S. Trade Representative Claude Barfield said in an interview. “It’s not clear how all this is going to work out.” 

Other regions of agricultural sensitivity now include certain countries in South America as well as China, where “rumor has it the wheat crop may not be great this year,” according to Smith.  

While China could end up a net importer of wheat this year, Smith said, “We never know what China will do, because decisions about importing in China remain essentially done by the ruling party.” 

The corn crop in Brazil is currently a few weeks away from harvest, and economists are keen to see how its size and quality could also affect global prices. 

The export ban on “Indonesia palm oil and India wheat were pretty surprising when they occurred, and they emphasize the unpredictable nature of it,” Jekanowski said. 

Source: TEST FEED1