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The crucially important points ESG critics are missing

“What is a cynic?  A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.” 

Oscar Wilde

Recently, the notion that investment funds do good in the world by using their considerable influence to steer the for-profit firms that they invest in towards helping combat societal ills came under new and severe criticism. 

The attorney general of Arizona, along with attorneys-general from 18 other states, wrote an open letter to BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, suggesting that its reliance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria in its investment decisions puts the funds that they manage for their clients (including many state employee retirement funds) at unnecessary risk. The “Wall Street Journal” editorial board co-signed to this position in an I-told-you-so-style editorial titled, “The ESG investing backlash has arrived.” Florida governor, and potential Republican presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis even publicly presented new legislation that would prohibit Florida’s state fund managers from considering ESG information when investing state money.

For three years now, the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics and the Council for Supply Chain Management Professionals have conducted an annual survey of global supply chain managers regarding their firms’ sustainability efforts. From what we see in the research, what critics of ESG investing get right is that (1) investors are a leading driver of pressure on firms to improve their sustainability, and (2) that ‘sustainability’ means very different things to different people.  

From 2020 to 2021, we observed that investors were by far the fastest-growing driver of sustainability pressure on firms. At the same, the understanding of what exactly ESG and supply chain sustainability entails changes depending on the geography, industry and year that we ask. For instance, is corporate sustainability just climate change mitigation, or does it also include human rights protection and diversity, equity and inclusion? Put simply, executives and investors around the world are not in agreement on what business sustainability entails and how best to practice it. In that sense then, it’s reasonable to assume that some firms might feel investor pressure steering them towards an ESG vision that seems to them foreign or unclear.

But thinking more deeply, this criticism misses two important points. First, that these critics themselves disagree with BlackRock’s or others’ prioritization of ESG measures — or can imagine constituents, or readers of theirs who might disagree — does not on its own merit total rejection from investors. Nor does it merit, as some ESG critics suggest, a single-minded return to solely prioritizing bottom-line profit. 

Individual attitudes about ESG and sustainability aside, inattention to supply chain sustainability leaves for-profit firms vulnerable to precisely the kinds of public relations disasters and supply chain disruptions that ESG and sustainability efforts endeavor to eliminate. These are the human rights scandals and environmental transgressions that make headlines, diminish brand value and negatively affect both stock price and continuity of supply. Critics who only see how ESG efforts cost the firm are in this sense, too myopic for modern practice. They fail to see that an equally strong case can be made that supply chain sustainability efforts actually protect a firm and its brand, and therefore, its investors. ESG investing is, in this sense, practical insurance, not some high-minded dalliance as the growing chorus of ESG critics suggest.  

Second, while the cynics are correct to point out that sustainability prioritizations change with time — our survey clearly confirms their observation here — it is not necessarily correct to imply, as the cynics have, that this transience reveals that ESG and sustainability goals are themselves some kind of unserious scam. Eager critics like the attorney general of Arizona cite the example of European governments now forgoing their environmentally motivated closures of coal — and nuclear-fired power plants in order to prepare for the threat of Russia withholding its natural gas for heating this winter. This unfortunate geopolitical after-effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is presented by the cynics as some kind of proof that the ESG stuff is all fluff and no substance when push comes to shove.  But this is an incomplete picture of how sustainability efforts appear to be affected by crisis. 

For the last two years, our study has directly asked supply chain management professionals worldwide how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their commitment to supply chain sustainability. For two years in a row now, approximately 80 percent of respondents have answered that their firm’s commitment to supply chain sustainability stayed the same or even increased during the global pandemic. In interviews with executives, we heard repeatedly that the COVID-19 crisis brought with it important new opportunities to rethink old systems. In times of crisis, prudent managers adapt, and they innovate with sustainability and resilience in mind. Sure, European governments are currently stalling their plans to shelve coal. But they are also taking unprecedented action to rationalize their overall energy demand too by identifying and eliminating wasteful consumption where they can. The ESG critics are misreading signals here, mistakenly interpreting helpful adaptation and innovation as weakness and capriciousness.

In any disagreement, it is important to grant that your interlocutor comes to his or her point of view in good faith.  Or, as 2nd century Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius put in his Meditations, “to take into consideration … that no one does the wrong thing deliberately.”  I certainly intend the same grace here and I freely admit that the critics have a point regarding the vexing ambiguity of ‘ESG’ and sustainability. But in the end, all of us share the same plight: stuck on this imperiled planet, hoping that both our ecosystems and our retirement plans suffice for the rest of our mortal lives.  

I’m sure that even those I disagree with on this point share my hope that what we have now will survive for future generations of all our loved ones too. Based on the extensive data that I’ve personally collected and analyzed, it is clear that ESG investing is an important — albeit perhaps imperfect — tool, to help us achieve that kind of long-term sustainability.

David HC Correll, Ph.D. is a research scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics  (MIT CTL) and lead investigator for the State of Supply Chain Sustainability, an annual report co-presented with the Council of Supply Chain Management professionals (CSCMP).  These opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of MIT CTL, CSCMP, or the report’s sponsoring companies or project staff. 

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Pilot threatening to crash small airplane into Walmart in Mississippi

A pilot flying over Tupelo, Miss., has threatened to intentionally crash into a Walmart location in the city, police said. 

The northeastern Mississippi city’s police department said in a Facebook post on Saturday that police were notified the pilot was flying over Tupelo around 5:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time. The pilot contacted E911, an enhanced 911 system that shows a caller’s location to dispatchers, when he threatened to crash into the Walmart, the department said.

The post states the airplane may be a King Air type, a two-engine utility aircraft. 

The Tupelo Police Department has worked with the Walmart and a local Dodge’s, a convenience store, to evacuate the stores and disperse people “as much as practical.” Police have also been directly speaking with the pilot. 

The department is asking civilians to avoid the area until an “all clear” is given. It said in the post that the area in danger is much larger than just Tupelo given the mobility of the airplane. 

Police said more information would be made available when appropriate. 

A video reportedly of the plane has circulated on Twitter, appearing to show it flying relatively low to the ground.

Source: TEST FEED1

Artemis I rocket leaks hydrogen fuel before second launch attempt

NASA engineers on Saturday detected a liquid hydrogen leak in the Artemis I rocket before its second launch attempt.

The Space Launch System rocket was originally set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Monday but was delayed after one of the rocket’s engines failed to condition to the correct temperature. A hydrogen leak also occurred on Monday, but the issue was resolved. 

NASA said in a blog post on its website on Saturday morning that engineers have stopped flowing the liquid propellant into the core stage, which serves as the backbone of the rocket, while they address the issue. 

Launch controllers are attempting to warm up the quick disconnect fitting, which is used to provide easy connection and disconnection of fluid and air lines, to get a tight seal. NASA is has continued to flow liquid oxygen into the rocket. 

The launch is scheduled to occur between 2:17 p.m. and 4:17 p.m. ET Saturday. It is unclear if the leak will impact the launch.

The Artemis program plans to send people back to the moon for the first time since 1972 in subsequent missions. 

The Orion exploration spacecraft, which will be unmanned, is planned to travel more than 40,000 miles past the moon before returning to Earth. NASA hopes to send astronauts, including the first woman and person of color to set foot on the moon, to the moon’s surface by 2025 or 2026.

Source: TEST FEED1

Stakes have never been higher: runaway inflation puts American food security at risk

Recent headlines might give the impression that inflation is under control, but inflation and other threats to agriculture are putting our farms and our food security at risk. Farmers need strong federal farm policies. The stakes have never been higher. 

Summer is beautiful on the farm. Our crops are planted, and we normally get to take this season to enjoy the hard work that comes with growing the food that feeds America. This summer, though, we can’t sleep at night.

We both grow sugar crops — sugarbeets in North Dakota and sugarcane in Texas — among other commodities. We are certainly no stranger to the challenges that come with trying to navigate Mother Nature or cyclical crop markets. But this year, the disasters keep piling on. 

It started with planting. In North Dakota, we were a month late in getting seed into the ground, due to an unseasonably cold and wet spring. The planted crop is looking promising, but the loss of crop protection tools has made growing sugarbeets more challenging and increased the cost of controlling pests, as we have to use less effective products more often. We also had to hire additional labor to even come close to planting our expected number of acres, which meant additional costs.

Texas, on the other hand, is dealing with such bad drought conditions that some of our neighboring farmers gave up entirely on trying to plant a crop this year. On our farm, we had to purchase additional water to irrigate our crops, adding as much as $700,000 to our farm expenses this year. 

Now, our bills for tractor and truck fuel, along with the fertilizer we need for our crops, are skyrocketing. Some of our costs have increased upwards of 100 percent. In North Dakota, our fuel costs are projected to be up $280,000 over 2021 and fertilizer costs are up more than $500,000 over 2021. 

In Texas, our fertilizer costs have risen from $180 per ton in 2021 to more than $700 per ton this year. We are making sacrifices everywhere just to pay the bills. 

We are both members of grower-owned sugar cooperatives so when we harvest our crops this fall, that sugarcane or sugarbeet will head to our respective cooperatives, where the sugar will be extracted. Higher transportation and production costs at our cooperatives will reduce the prices we receive for our crop. We’re all working hard this year to just break even.

Like all of America’s farmers, we’re willing to do what it takes to get the job done and feed people across our nation. But as the number of farmers in America continues to dwindle, we need to take our food security seriously, especially as other nations are confronted by growing food scarcity and hunger. 

The past few years have dealt agriculture some heavy blows, but thanks to the stability provided by federal farm policies and a sugar policy that costs taxpayers nothing, we have been able to navigate these challenges — so far. Both of our farms have been in our families for several generations, and we want to keep the legacy of farming alive for our children. 

If we value a strong food supply, we need America and Congress to continue supporting our farmers, now and in the future.

Jason Schatzke farms sugarbeets, corn, soybeans, black beans, sunflower and wheat in North Dakota. 

Lance Neuhaus farms sugarcane, citrus, cotton, corn, onions and vegetables and raises cattle along the Rio Grande River in South Texas. 

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Russia delays resumption of natural gas exports to Germany, citing oil leak

Russia announced that it has delayed exporting natural gas to Germany through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, citing an oil leak Friday.

The development comes after a group of Western countries, including the United States agreed to a price gap on Russian oil amid its war with Ukraine.

The Russian state-run energy company Gazprom said in a post on Twitter Friday that an oil leak was discovered during scheduled maintenance within a gas compressor unit.

Workers detected the oil in the detachable cable connection of a mounting plate that makes up part of the engine and near the cable line in the outer terminal cabinet of the automated control system, Gazprom said. 

The pipeline has been shut down since Wednesday for maintenance work. 

Russia’s environmental, technological and nuclear supervision agency, Rostekhnadzor, warned that the faults make ensuring the safe operation of the gas turbine engine impossible. 

The statement says similar oil leaks have been detected in the past at gas compressor units in three engines, requiring major repairs and that they be taken offline.

Gazprom said Siemens, a German multinational industrial manufacturing company, requires repairs for these types of leaks at a specialized repair facility. 

“Gas transmission via the Nord Stream gas pipeline has been fully shut down until the operational defects in the equipment are eliminated,” the statement reads. 

The news comes as members of the group of seven (G-7) agreed to place a price cap on Russian oil, prohibiting “services which enable maritime transportation” of oil from Russia if it is sold at a price higher than the cap. The move is an attempt to limit Russian profits amid the country’s war in Ukraine. 

A Kremlin official said in response that Russia would not sell oil to any countries that participate in the cap. 

Russia is the world’s third-largest producer of oil in the world, and Nord Stream 1 is the largest pipeline for sending natural gas from Russia to the rest of Europe. Some countries, like the United States, have said they will not import Russian oil amid its war with Ukraine, but others like China and India have continued to purchase it. 

CNN reported that Gazprom has cut its flows through Nord Stream 1 to just 20 percent of its capacity since June, citing maintenance problems and a missing turbine that has been restricted through sanctions the West has placed on Russia. 

The New York Times reported that a European Commission spokesperson said Russia is limiting its gas deliveries in retribution for Europe opposing the war in Ukraine.

Source: TEST FEED1

Does working still work?

It’s hard to believe Labor Day is right around the corner — we just got through Memorial Day. Summer cannot end yet. But since the calendar ignores our most fervent wishes, it is a good time to reflect on labor.

Labor Day celebrates the men and women of this country who fought hard for the rights of workers. It became a U.S. federal holiday in 1894 as a product of the labor movement. But some states officially recognized Labor Day even earlier to pay tribute to the achievements of their workers.

On Sept. 5, 1882, New York City union leaders organized what is now considered the country’s first Labor Day parade, according to National Geographic. But beyond parades and parties, labor is a serious subject worth reconsidering this year.

Firstly, labor conditions in America in the 1800s were terrible and led to the formation of the Labor Day holiday following the Pullman Strike, a nationwide railroad boycott that turned fatal and revealed the horrific conditions for many workers.

There was a time when the average American put in a 12-hour workday and seven-day work week to make basic wages. Conditions were hazardous. Workers were exploited — especially women and children who labored in sweat shops and mills. 

The first question: Have labor conditions changed over the years? Yes. Laws improved along with regulation of the workplace and a culture of respect for work. Today, we are discussing the possibility of a four-day work week, working from home and other revolutionary labor concepts that were unthinkable in the last century. We should celebrate some of those freedoms, although not every worker can enjoy them.

The second serious question today: Who wants to work, and where? In 2021, a record number of workers left their jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, over 47 million Americans voluntarily quit their jobs — an unprecedented mass exit from the workforce. Worker shortages appeared everywhere, from doctors’ offices to pizzerias. 

What is called the “Great Resignation” reflected something broken in the relationship between workers and work. Many complained about work-life balance; others felt uninspired and unsatisfied in their jobs. Many wanted more flexibility in where and when they worked. That is something we still need to address. What has driven people to change jobs so often?

A Harvard Business School study warns companies and businesses to think about the factors that shifted the labor market before sickness did: “retirement, relocation, reconsideration, reshuffling and reluctance.” These are impulses that are now baked into the workforce.

Where financially possible, people want more time with family and friends, and want the freedom to explore places to live and work. Social mobility, transportation and the evolution of work have led to people moving in and out of jobs for years leading up to the COVID-19 outbreak, which exacerbated and accelerated those trends.

Work is often a partnership between the employer and the employee. Some of these agreements are legislated; others are informal. Work is a human commitment between people, a kind of social contract that makes life possible.

Work is also a reflection of economic conditions and what people can “afford” to do. When layoffs are at low levels, and demand for employment is high, workers gain leverage to demand higher pay and better conditions — a good thing. Wage growth for the average worker in America was up 6 percent in April, relative to last April — the largest yearly increase in over 20 years, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.

But the more complex work phenomenon then becomes how hard someone wants to work at the expense of doing other things. A new phenomenon is “quiet quitting,” which is essentially staying at your job but dialing back on the hours. In short, it means deciding not to hustle too much to avoid burnout. 

The job market today is robust and resilient, despite harsh inflation. But human impulses to work have changed, and the economy is changing. If experts are correct, the job market may shift in a downward direction. Experts say job growth is slowing and unemployment claims are rising. Companies are beginning to consider layoffs, and many report planning to freeze positions. 

This Labor Day will test the willingness of people to stay in jobs and resist the temptation to find workarounds to work. We need workers in every sector, from health care to commerce. We need pilots to fly planes and assembly workers to keep us competitive and supplied.

We also need freedom from work to enjoy our free time. We need to work and not to work. That is going to be a difficult balancing act, as it’s always been.

Tara D. Sonenshine is the Edward R. Murrow Professor of Practice for Public Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

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Tucker Carlson on 2022 GOP candidates: Don’t ‘emulate’ Lindsey Graham

Fox News host Tucker Carlson advised Republican candidates this year not to “emulate” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), telling them that their job is to “make fun” of him. 

Carlson said on his show on Friday that Republicans who focus on foreign policy and the Russia-Ukraine war as Graham has done will lose their races this year because voters do not care as much about these issues. 

“Your job is to make fun of Lindsey Graham and to disavow Lindsey Graham,” Carlson said. “Your job is not to emulate Lindsey Graham and steal his talking points, and if you do emulate Lindsey Graham and steal those talking points, you will lose, and the losing candidates did just that.” 

Carlson pointed to the special election for New York’s 19^th Congressional District last month in which Democrat Pat Ryan defeated Republican Marc Molinaro. The district is considered a swing district and narrowly favored President Biden in the 2020 presidential election. 

Carlson said Molinaro, who is the county executive of Dutchess County, which includes the 19^th district, told the county office building in February to illuminate its facade in Ukraine’s colors. He added that Molinaro also sent fundraising emails to voters to tell them that more aggression against Russia is needed and that Biden is weak on the issue. 

In the past, Graham has been outspoken about foreign policy issues, specifically on U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan one year ago and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

During an interview with Fox News in 2021, Graham said that his relationship with President Biden was at a “breaking point” over the administration’s bungled and chaotic withdrawal from the country.

“I’ve known Joe Biden for a long time, I had a good personal relationship with him. He’s a decent man. But what he did in Afghanistan I will never forgive him for, he has blood on his hands, and he’s made America less safe,” Graham said at the time.

The South Carolina senator also previously voiced support for a no-fly zone over Ukraine in May if Russia were to use chemical weapons and has been a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday night, Carlson showed a clip from an interview with Joe Kent, the Republican nominee for Washington’s 3^rd Congressional District, in which he said members of Congress need to tell their constituents about the “ramifications” of supporting Ukraine and why foreign nations “always come first.” 

Carlson said Americans should feel “sorry” for Ukrainians but have a right to want to focus on fixing the problems in their own country.

Source: TEST FEED1

We need better unions

Workers have been trying to unionize Starbucks, Amazon, news groups and automakers, sometimes successfully. This has caused commenters to wonder — again — whether this means unions in America are back.  

They aren’t. They won’t be until they drop their ideological shtick that has hurt their prospects for decades. 

The unions that exist right now are built around hostile relationships with companies, and are uninterested in finding “win-win” situations that protect workers by adding value to companies. We need better unions. But we’ll have to change unionization laws for them to have a chance to emerge.  

The current approach to unionization relies too heavily upon a victim narrative. Under this view, those who are not in a union are at risk of oppression by employers, and only collective bargaining can even the scales.  

These assumptions underlie current union practices. Managers empowered to reward performance might abuse that power through favoritism, so all wages must follow single salary schedules based on seniority rather than performance. The precise length of breaks, and their frequency, must be spelled out in detail. Leave time is categorized and classified, with fixed accrual rates and maximums based on seniority. Where applicable, collective bargaining agreements often specify the type and number of uniforms to be provided to employees, as though an employer would not otherwise provide them.  

These practices are not in response to management problems in union shops. They are instead based on union leaders’ assumptions that managers are abusers who can only be cowed with precise bureaucracy. In that kind of oppressive world, only the union can be trusted. 

Their assumptions bleed into union politics. To union leaders, there’s a corporate bogeyman behind every policy and every problem — and only the union can combat them to ensure that the working man gets a fair shake.  

The fact that typical household income continues to increase as unionization rates fall is a demonstration that the world is more complicated than the oppressive union economic model.  

This isn’t because the concept of unionization is unpopular — far from it. Unionization as a concept remains broadly popular, including across party lines. The problem is simpler: Unions continue to operate based on a decades-old approach to labor relations. That might be the kind of rhetoric that works when labor is cheap and people don’t have many options outside of the big industry in town. But it doesn’t fit in today’s economy.  

Unions continue to operate in an outdated model of hostility between workers and management. And they continue to bleed members as a result.  

If unions wish to reverse the trend of declining membership, they need to fundamentally reorient their approach to labor relations. Either that, or new unions need to spring up without the ideological baggage of existing labor groups. 

They need to leave behind the model where they treat all members as oppressed cogs and move to a model where they provide valuable services to their members and find ways to make union membership valuable for companies. It would be better to shift to an approach where unions serve as professional organizations, advocating for their members’ interests and providing tools for members to collaborate. Unions could train their members, award voluntary certifications, offer insurance, and provide assistance to employees negotiating their own terms and conditions of employment. In short, unions need to step forward into the 21st century. 

Congress should revise the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to allow for workers and unions to work with managers, without the assumption that the relationship will be adversarial. This includes amending the NLRA to eliminate the requirement that employers be forced to bargain against their will, while at the same time allowing multiple unions to serve the needs of employees within the same bargaining unit.  

These steps would create the legal framework necessary for unions to step forward into a modern approach to labor relations. But unions also would need to forgo their traditional approach of negotiating on behalf of all employees, instead choosing to negotiate only on behalf of their members. Unions then would need to demonstrate why membership is beneficial by providing value that workers consider worth their dues, rather than forcibly representing those workers. The end result would be more competition, better representation, and increased worker freedom.  

Unions leaders must drop their assumptions that everyone is out to get their members. And if they do, labor law can change in a way that supports voluntary, mutually beneficial association. But until they drop their ideology, union activists shouldn’t expect things to change.   

James M. Hohman is the director of fiscal policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, where Steve Delie is the director of labor policy.  

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Biden earns plaudits from progressives after anti-Trump speech

Progressives say President Biden finally used his words.

Democrats who have wanted the president to go hard against conservatives ahead of the midterms are praising his speech Thursday, in which he blasted “MAGA Republicans” and suggested former President Trump and those aligned with him pose “a threat to this country.”

While Biden has signaled over the past week or more that he plans to escalate his rhetoric against the GOP heading into Labor Day and the post-holiday sprint to November, liberals are cheering the tactic as long overdue — even if its impact is uncertain.

“He was just calling out the truth,” said Vicki Miller, who leads the Philadelphia chapter of the grassroots group Indivisible. “The voters I talk to at the doors here in Pennsylvania, they all see what’s happening.”  

“If the president had sugarcoated what he’d said, they’d see it as politician-speak,” she said. “President Biden is just saying what a lot of these voters already know: that everything is on the line.”

Biden’s address from Independence Hall set into rapid motion the countdown to the fall, when Democrats say democracy itself will be fought over in critical races, with several Republican candidates running explicitly on messaging that denies the results of the last presidential election.

“MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution,” Biden said during his prime-time speech, one of just a handful that he has delivered during his first term in office. “They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election.”

Leading up to the event, administration officials said the speech was meant to send a message to all Americans, not just their own side. The White House circulated excerpts in advance that used language stressing personal responsibility for helping to protect the country’s existing governing rules and contended that there are forces working in the other direction.  

After he spoke, many Democrats were relieved that Biden used the bully pulpit to address their top concern and argued that it may have also provided a useful boost to the base. 

“He set the table for the midterms in a way that frames it perfectly for Democrats,” said Michael Starr Hopkins, a veteran Democratic campaign strategist. “Either we defeat Trump and his acolytes or democracy as we know it is over.” 

Biden had been in a slump for much of the spring and summer, with a series of problems creating a dark cloud over his presidency. But after a run of recent legislative and executive successes, things started to turn around for the incumbent leader, giving what Democrats hope are incentives to come out and vote for his party’s slate in the fall.

The speech, timed to the unofficial kickoff to the final dash to the general election, helped crystallize Biden’s commitment to the public, country and office he serves, some Democrats said, not just to spotlight more traditional issues like the economy. 

“This isn’t a policy debate,” said Starr Hopkins. “This is a debate about who we are as a country and where we want to go moving forward. Biden and his White House finally understand that. You see it in his rhetoric, you see it in the White House social media account, but most importantly you feel it in his words.”

Those who argued Biden needs to be harsher toward the Trump wing of the opposing party, which includes both rank-and-file members and lawmakers who explicitly sought to overturn the 2020 presidential election, are counting on voters responding to a leader who stands up for their basic guaranteed rights. 

The failure of the 50-50 Senate to pass voting rights legislation last year was a gut punch to many liberal lawmakers and activists who warned about the imminent threat that could come as soon as the next elections. And absent those legislative protections, Democrats see the sharper rhetoric from the president as at least a step in the right direction.

It comes as he transitions from hashing out the more granular details of his policy agenda on Capitol Hill to becoming the top surrogate for the Democratic Party on the campaign trail. 

“No one speech is going to decide the midterms,” said Eddie Vale, a Democratic operative and partner at New Paradigm Agency. “But that speech and the issue of democracy is not just about governance. We are also seeing that there are a lot of independents and Republicans who see it as an important issue in the election.”

Biden, a lifelong moderate, attempted to differentiate the most fervent right-wing strain of the GOP that supports white nationalism and seeks to invalidate elections from Republicans he admires and has in some cases worked with across the aisle for decades. The latter camp ranges from moderate officeholders to people who may check “R” on their voter registration but who gave the current president a chance to defeat Trump last cycle.

For all his effort to balance the harshness with unity, many Republicans interpreted the speech differently. They criticized Biden for what they saw as grandstanding and not getting at the core issues of the country, including the cost of living and crime. 

Some even sought to frame the dramatic backdrop Biden’s advance team chose to frame the president — dark, shadowy red lights and an American flag between uniformed Marines — as reminiscent of a grim time in world history under authoritarianism.

Conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson, a staunch Biden critic who regularly praises the Trump movement, went as far as to say that the Democratic president was evoking imagery of Nazis, while attempting to defend those in the MAGA movement who he said the president sees as problematic. 

“Yeah, they’re a threat, says the guy with the blood-red Nazi background and Marines standing behind him,” Carlson said. “It’s totally immoral.”

On Friday, Democrats weren’t as concerned with Republicans’ assertions. Some pointed to the escalating problems in Trump World, which came to the surface after the FBI entered the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida during an ongoing investigation, as more motivating for their own base. 

While that is happening, Trump, too, is hitting the trail, campaigning and endorsing candidates that fit his own vision for the country. Over the holiday weekend, he’ll be in Pennsylvania, setting up perhaps the starkest contrast to date between the two former presidential rivals in the state that Biden narrowly won. 

Two critical races there are likely to serve as a temperature check on where voters stand. Mehmet Oz, the Republican Party’s Senate nominee, and Doug Mastriano, who is running for governor, have both adopted Trump’s ideology, while the Democratic candidates skew more towards the progressive side of their party. 

“The midterms are Round 2 in the fight between Biden and Trump,” said Starr Hopkins. “The current president is hitting his stride while the former president could be indicted any day now.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Serena Williams’s five biggest moments of cultural impact

Serena Williams’ swan-song reached its apparent finale on Friday evening.

After two emotionally charged victories in the opening rounds of the U.S. Open, Williams was defeated over three sets by Australian Ajla Tomljanovic.

Williams is expected to retire after her defeat in the Open, a competition she first won in 1999 at the age of 17. 

In August, Williams said she would “evolve away from tennis” after this year’s tournament.

Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles — more than any other player, female or male, in the open era. Her record gives her a stronger claim than anyone else to be the greatest tennis player of all-time.

But she has always been more than just a sports star. A generation of women, especially Black women, have seen in her an inspiration and role model. And some of the most explosive issues in American life, especially relating to race and gender, have swirled around her for years. 

Here are five of her biggest cultural moments.

Backing Black Lives Matter 

Williams does not align herself with party politics and has said in the past that she doesn’t vote. In 2016, she said her non-voting stance “goes back to my religion.” She is a Jehovah’s Witness.  

But she has not avoided politics in the broader sense. 

In 2015, she declared her support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and her solidarity with its activists. 

“To those of you involved in equality movements like Black Lives Matter, I say this: Keep it up. Don’t let those trolls stop you,” Williams wrote in Wired magazine. “We’ve been through so much for so many centuries, and we shall overcome this too.” 

She cast those views in the context of a bigger battle for equality — and her own status as a trailblazer. 

“I’m a black woman, and I am in a sport that wasn’t really meant for black people,” she wrote.  

In 2020, months after the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked mass protests, Williams told British Vogue that a broader public beyond the Black community now saw “things that have been hidden for years; the things that we as people have to go through.” 

She told the magazine that in the immediate aftermath of the killing of Floyd, “I had so many people who were white writing to me saying, ‘I’m sorry for everything you’ve had to go through’.   

“I think for a minute they started — not to understand, because I don’t think you can understand — but they started to see,” Williams added. “I was like: well, you didn’t see any of this before? I’ve been talking about this my whole career. It’s been one thing after another.” 

Abuse at Indian Wells — and the 14-year boycott that followed 

The Indian Wells Masters, held each spring in California, is considered the second-biggest tennis tournament in the United States after the Open. It’s sometimes known as the “fifth Grand Slam.” 

But it has bad connotations for Williams and her family. 

The story goes back to 2001.  

Serena and Venus Williams were both competing in that year’s singles tournament. They ended up scheduled to meet in the semi-final.  

A short time before the match, Venus withdrew, citing tendonitis. Deepening the controversy, a vanquished opponent of Venus’s, Russian pro Elena Dementieva, had implied that matches between the sisters were fixed by their father, Richard. 

Serena won the final — but was booed by the crowd throughout. Richard Williams, watching the match, said he heard racial slurs being hurled. 

In a 2015 article for Time magazine, Serena recalled the experience:  

“The false allegations that our matches were fixed hurt, cut and ripped into us deeply. The under­current of racism was painful, confusing and unfair. In a game I loved with all my heart, at one of my most cherished tournaments, I suddenly felt unwelcome, alone and afraid.” 

In that same article, she portrayed herself as haunted by the experience, saying she had a hard time forgetting “spending hours crying in the Indian Wells locker room….driving back to Los Angeles feeling as if I had lost the biggest game ever — not a mere tennis game but a bigger fight for equality.” 

The 2015 Time magazine article was also a way to announce her return to the tournament.  

She said that the widespread condemnation of a Russian official who had made “racist and sexist” comments about her had “reminded me how far the sport has come, and how far I’ve come too.”  

There was to be no fairytale ending, however.  

Williams never won the tournament again, and its name still carries the stain from the way she and her family were treated in 2001.  

Pregnancy highs and lows — and the importance of “being heard” 

Most of Williams’s achievements have been played out in the full glare of the world’s media

That was only partially true when she won her 23rd grand slam title, the Australian Open, in early 2017. 

What Williams knew but the rest of the world did not was that she was pregnant at the time.  

She had found out about her pregnancy two days before the tournament began. Aged 35, she won every match in straight sets, defeating Venus in the final. Her daughter Olympia was born in September 2017. 

The aftermath of the birth was traumatic — and eye-opening. 

Williams, who had previously suffered from blood clots, recalled in an essay how, immediately after Olympia’s birth, “I couldn’t get out of bed because my legs were still numb.” 

She began passing out, and, in moments of semi-lucidity, asked medical staff for a particular kind of drip — heparin — used to treat blood clots. 

In her essay, reprinted in Elle magazine in April this year, Williams described her pain intensifying and being wracked with coughs.  

She swore that one nurse told her she was talking “crazy” when she demanded to get a CAT scan and that “another doctor was supposed to be checking in but I didn’t see him very much. In fact, I saw him only once.” 

Williams plainly believes her concerns were dismissed, despite her exalted status, in a way that put her life in danger.  

“In the U.S., Black women are nearly three times more likely to die during or after childbirth than their white counterparts,” she wrote in Elle.  

“Many of these deaths are considered by experts to be preventable. Being heard and appropriately treated was the difference between life or death for me; I know those statistics would be different if the medical establishment listened to every Black woman’s experience.” 

Fighting for equal prize money for women 

Williams has seen real change over the arc of her career. 

She has strongly advocated that prize money for women should be the same as for men — a goal that was distant when she began as a pro.  

Equity in tennis prize money has been improving — Wimbledon instituted equal prize money in 2007, a push that was, in large part, spear-headed by her sister Venus. By 2007, Serena Williams had already won the grass-court competition twice. The U.S. Open had instituted equal pay a generation before.  

But disparities remain outside of Grand Slam tournaments — and Williams’ focus is broader than tennis in any case. 

In a 2016 interview with Glamour magazine, she was asked about the quest of the USA’s women’s soccer team for equal pay.  

“These sports have a lot of work to do. And I really hope that I can be helpful in that journey because I do believe that women deserve the same pay,” Williams said.  

“We work just as hard as men do. I’ve been working, playing tennis, since I was three years old. And to be paid less just because of my sex — it doesn’t seem fair.” 

A New York Times story the same year reported that women playing professional tennis earned about 80 cents to every dollar their male counterparts were paid. 

Williams had already talked about the disparities back in 2012, in a post-match press conference at Wimbledon. 

“I deserve to get paid the same amount. I don’t deserve less ‘cos I have boobs and they don’t. That’s definitely not the case. I worked just as hard since I was three,” Williams said. “I definitely know my whole life has been dedicated toward being a top athlete, and I shouldn’t get paid less because of my sex.” 
 

Calling out double standards 

Williams’ cultural import can’t only be measured out in specific moments.  

Her entire career has had a long-term impact on a whole host of complex topics, from body image to racial and gender stereotyping. 

As her career has gone on, she has become more willing to frontally attack what she sees as double-standards or basic inequalities — including about her imminent retirement. 

In the Vogue story where she announced her shift away from tennis — a shift motivated in part by a desire to have more children —  she wrote:  “Believe me, I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair. If I were a guy, I wouldn’t be writing this because I’d be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family.”  

On the court, Williams has sometimes got into verbal altercations with umpires and line judges — episodes that she and her fans believe get undue attention and punishment because of her race and gender. 

In March of this year, Williams noted that a male player, Alexander Zverev, had recently hit an umpire’s chair with his racket. 

“I would probably be in jail if I did that,” Williams told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “Like, literally, no joke.” 

She returned to the subject of sexist double-standards just before the Open began, in a podcast interview with Meghan Markle.  

“I have to win being Serena. And sometimes that’s more fierce,” she told Markle. “But is it fierce when guys are saying ‘come on’ and pumping their fists? It’s pretty exciting, but for me it’s ‘aggressive.’” 

In that same interview, Williams offered a farewell of sorts as she prepared to bring down the curtain on her epic career.  

“I’m just from Compton. I never envisioned that this would be me, you know?,” she said. “I was just the youngest of five in a two-bedroom home.” 

Source: TEST FEED1