Donald Trump

With $75 Million Gift, Musk Joins Right-Wing Billionaires Bankrolling Trump Campaign

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends a campaign rally with Republican nominee Donald Trump on October 5, 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

In the third quarter of 2024, Elon Musk, Miriam Adelson, and Richard Uihlein donated a combined $220 million to super PACs supporting the Republican nominee.

Prominent members of the United States’ billionaire class have shelled out massive sums in the final stretch of the 2024 campaign to elect one of their own, Republican nominee Donald Trump, to the White House, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk donating nearly $75 million in recent months to a super PAC supporting the former president’s bid for a second term.

According to federal filings made public Tuesday, at least six other billionaires joined Musk in donating to pro-Trump super PACs in the third quarter of 2024: Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; businessman Richard Uihlein, the heir to a brewing fortune; David Millstone, co-CEO of Standard Industries; Diane Hendricks, co-founder of ABC Supply; Kelcy Warren, the chair of Energy Transfer Partners; and financier Ike Perlmutter.

Combined, Musk, Adelson ($95 million), and Uihlein ($49 million) funneled around $220 million over the past three months to super PACs supporting Trump, whose campaign has also received huge financial support from reclusive GOP megadonor Timothy Mellon.

Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of the critical social media platform X, sent roughly $75 million in donations to his pro-Trump America PAC, which has been accused of voter deception. The Guardian‘s Hugo Lowell noted that Musk’s PAC is “doing the bulk of the Trump campaign’s ground game work across the battleground states,” and the billionaire has been using his social media platform to incessantly promote the former president.

As The New York Times reported earlier this month, America PAC has offered to pay $47 to those who help the organization “find Trump voters.”

Trump—whose campaign has focused heavily on delivering more billionaire-enriching tax cuts—has said that, if he wins next month’s election, he would put Musk “in charge of cost-cutting.”

The head of the American Federation of Government Employees expressed alarm last month over Trump’s push for a “government efficiency commission” headed by Musk, warning that the two billionaires only “care about one thing: lining their own pockets.”

In an X post early Wednesday, Musk announced that he “will be giving a series of talks” throughout the key battleground state of Pennsylvania over the next several days as part of his effort to boost the Trump campaign, whose fundraising operation has struggled to keep up with that of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

CNN noted Wednesday that Harris, who has also received support from prominent billionaires, “has set a blistering pace—raising $1 billion since she became the Democratic standard-bearer in late July—a milestone achieved faster than any other presidential contender.”

“Tuesday’s filings show that a high-dollar fundraising committee that channels money to her campaign and aligned Democratic committees, took in $633 million during the third quarter—four times the amount raised by Trump’s equivalent fundraising arm in that time,” CNN added.

The Washington Post emphasized that “a full picture of the financial strength of the Trump and Harris efforts will not be available until Sunday, when the campaigns and parties file detailed reports with the Federal Election Commission.”

This year’s election is on track to be the most expensive in U.S. history, according to the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets, with at least $15.9 billion flowing to candidates for federal office and super PACs—an outgrowth of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.

A report published last month by the progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) estimated that by the end of August, just 150 billionaire families in the U.S. had spent nearly $1.4 billion attempting to influence the outcome of the 2024 election.

“Billionaires are making their ‘voices’ heard—make sure theirs don’t drown out yours,” ATF wrote in a social media post on Tuesday, urging people to turn out to vote next month.

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingWith $75 Million Gift, Musk Joins Right-Wing Billionaires Bankrolling Trump Campaign

‘Reckless Conduct’ of Big Oil Caused Milton—And Now They Should Pay

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Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.
Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London. (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

“The failure by our political class to deal with this completely solvable issue is staggering and shameful,” wrote one journalist.

As Hurricane Milton’s 145 mile-per-hour winds began closing in on Southwest Florida on Wednesday and people crowded into makeshift shelters across the state, climate advocates and other observers said the life-threatening storm and massive disruption to millions of people’s lives should make Americans “furious” at those who have helped make extreme weather more frequent and dangerous.

As Nathan J. Robinson wrote in Current Affairs, climate scientists and meteorologists have unequivocally told oil companies and policymakers that fossil fuel extraction is causing planetary heating, which has led to higher temperatures in oceans and bodies of water including the Gulf of Mexico, where the rapidly strengthening hurricane formed.

But despite the knowledge that fossil fuel giants like ExxonMobil and Shell had decades ago that drilling for oil and gas would cause “violent weather” and “potentially catastrophic events,” the industry’s profits have only grown as the U.S. has continued to subsidize their pollution-causing activities.

“The failure by our political class to deal with this completely solvable issue is staggering and shameful,” wrote Robinson. “Many of them have children and grandchildren. Presumably they would like their descendants to inherit a world worth living in. And they could make that happen. Unfortunately, it would require challenging the power and profits of some of America’s most influential corporations.”

In the Substack newsletter Heated, Arielle Samuelson explained on Wednesday how fossil fuel extraction and planetary heating “mutated” Hurricane Milton, which stunned weather experts this week as its wind speeds grew at a record-breaking pace, from 60 miles per hour to 180 miles per hour in just 36 hours.

It was the second time in recent weeks that a hurricane in the region has intensified quickly; areas that are expected to take a direct hit from Milton are still overwhelmed by the destruction left by Hurricane Helene.

Hot temperatures in the planets’ oceans and gulfs fuels hurricanes, and as Samuelson noted, scientists say the “extremely hot” Gulf of Mexico “was made far more likely by heat-trapping pollutants from the fossil fuel, agriculture, chemical, and cement industries.”

She continued:

In the past two weeks, ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were about 30-31° Celsius (86-88°F)—about 1 to 2° Celsius above average. The climate crisis made these extraordinarily high ocean temperatures at least 400 to 800 times more likely over the past two weeks, according to a rapid attribution study from Climate Central.

[…]

The science is also extremely clear that heat-trapping pollution causes sea-level rise and heavier rainfall, both of which make hurricanes more dangerous. Rainfall rates for tropical cyclones are expected to rise with the planet’s temperature, causing deadly flash floods like those found in Asheville, North Carolina. Sea level rise also means that coastal communities, and communities further inland, are more likely to be flooded during a storm.

That’s an objectively scary reality. But we know the primary source of greenhouse gas pollution, scientists note, so we also know how to slow the problem.

The lingering destruction of Helene and the impending landfall of Milton come, noted Fossil Fuel Media director Jamie Henn, weeks after three Democrats in Congress introduced legislation to require fossil fuel companies and oil refiners that do business in the U.S. to pay into a $1 trillion Polluters Pay Climate Fund, with their contributions based on a percentage of their global emissions.

The fund would be used to finance climate adaptation and other efforts to confront the impacts of the climate crisis.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, President Joe Biden noted how the damage done by Helene and the rapidly evolving news about Milton has left overwhelmed Americans vulnerable to misinformation, with some urging them to direct their anger at the White House or the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has made baseless claims that FEMA funds were spent on funding for immigrant shelters, while U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on social media that an unnamed “they” can control the weather and suggested the federal government is deliberately keeping emergency aid from people in states controlled by Republicans.

As fossil fuel firms and political leaders march “us toward the tipping points,” wrote Robinson, “many people won’t understand what is happening to them.”

“In a chaotic information environment filled with endless falsehoods, they’ll conclude that the president is manipulating the weather, or FEMA is trying to kill people,” he wrote. “The real story, however, is straightforward: We have a political class that is vastly more committed to sending weapons to war criminals than funding emergency management, and which will not acknowledge the basic facts of the problem (and the known solutions) because some large economic actors benefit in the short run from the destruction of the planet.”

“Truly, it’s revolting,” he added. “What an absolute disgrace our failure to deal with climate change is.”

Candice Fortin, U.S. campaigns manager for 350.org, said that fossil fuel executives and the politicians that support them have “blood on their hands” and called on Biden to unequivocally stand on the side of hurricane victims by declaring a climate emergency.

“This is a climate emergency,” said Fortin. “Every time we repeat that, countless more lives have been lost or upended by the fossil fuel industry. How many more times will it take? We call on President Biden to use his executive power to declare a climate emergency so we can finally protect frontline communities.”

At Newsweek, organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg wrote that oil companies’ contributions to the climate emergency have been compounded by their vast efforts to spread misinformation and hide their knowledge that fossil fuel extraction was heating the planet.

Exxon CEO Darren Woods, he wrote, pushed for a surge in the company’s extractive activities while “overseeing a substantial portion of the company’s climate deception efforts,” and received $198.9 million for his “climate crimes” from 2015-23, as well as owning Exxon shares worth $371.1 million.

“Regular people are paying the ultimate price for this sociopathic greed,” wrote Regunberg. “The families made homeless, the wives and husbands and parents and children who lost loved ones to Helene—these victims deserve justice no less than victims of street-level crimes, and the companies and corporate executives responsible for their pain and suffering deserve criminal punishment at least as much as, if not far more than, the average street-level offender.”

“Climate victims have paid so much for Big Oil’s reckless conduct,” he added. “It’s time to make the polluters pay.”

Original article by Julia Conley republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Continue Reading‘Reckless Conduct’ of Big Oil Caused Milton—And Now They Should Pay

Ex-Israeli PM Says Netanyahu Wants to Draw US Into ‘Reckless’ War With Iran

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

U.S. President Joe Biden was pictured with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on July 25, 2024.  (Photo: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“I’m afraid that if Israel will start a war, a comprehensive war against Iran… America will join in to help Israel,” said former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. “And that is what Netanyahu believes.”

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the British outlet Channel 4 on Monday that he believes current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to drag the U.S. into a war with Iran, an effort that the ex-Israeli leader called “reckless.”

Asked whether he thinks Netanyahu “wants to draw the United States into a confrontation with Iran,” Olmert replied, “I suspect that he does.”

“I think that’s reckless because I’m afraid that if Israel will start a war, a comprehensive war against Iran, and it will expand and Israel will not be in a very comfortable situation, America will join in to help Israel. And that is what Netanyahu believes to be the case,” said Olmert, who served as Israel’s prime minister from 2006 to 2009 and was succeeded by Netanyahu.

Olmert expressed support for Israel’s killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah—a move that prompted Iranian retaliation earlier this month—and said that “something needs to be done” with regard to Iran.

“What needs to be done needs to be done with care, with sensitivity, with responsibility, and with a sense of proportion,” Olmert added. “And I’m not certain that Netanyahu wants this proportion. He looks at the leadership of the international community, the Western world, and he says, ‘Who are they? I’m Bibi Netanyahu.'”

Watch the interview:

Olmert’s remarks came amid growing concern that the U.S.-armed Israeli military could be preparing to bomb Iran’s nuclear energy facilities in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack last week. The New York Timesnoted Monday that “there is a rising call inside Israel, echoed by some in the United States, to seize the moment” and strike Iranian nuclear facilities.

Former president Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP nominee, said over the weekend that Israel should “hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later.”

Speaking to reporters last Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden said that the U.S. and Israel are “discussing” a possible attack on Iranian oil infrastructure. The president has said he would oppose an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Iran has pledged to retaliate against an Israeli attack with a “crushing” blow, heightening fears of a full-blown regional war as Israel continues its devastating assault on Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said Monday that “President Biden needs to decide if he is finally going to rein in and end his unconditional arming of Netanyahu, or if he will let Netanyahu draw the United States and its forces into war with Iran—a country that is nearly four times the size of Iraq and has twice the population.”

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, has done nothing to distance herself from Biden’s unconditional support for Israel despite vocal calls for her to back an arms embargo against the country.

In a closely watched “60 Minutes” interview that aired late Monday, Harris said that “Israel has a right to defend itself” while conceding that “far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”

But she did not say she would be willing to use U.S. military aid to Israel as leverage to secure a cease-fire agreement.

Harris also named Iran when asked which country she considers to be the United States’ “greatest adversary”—an answer that CBSdid not air as part of its televised broadcast of the “60 Minutes” interview.

Harris went on to say that one of her “highest priorities” as president would be to “ensure that Iran never achieves the ability to be a nuclear power.” Asked whether she would take military action in the face of “proof that Iran is building a nuclear weapon,” the vice president responded that she is “not going to talk about hypotheticals.”

Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, called Harris’ answer on Iran “completely out of touch” and said it underscores “the irrational U.S. obsession with Iran, which is driven by politics and donor money, not U.S. interests.”

Last week, a coalition of more than 80 advocacy organizations warned the Biden-Harris administration that “it is not in the national interest for the U.S. to be led into a war with Iran by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel.”

“It is in the strong national interest to utilize diplomacy, backed by full American leverage—including withholding further offensive weapons transfers to Israel’s military—to move all the parties back from the brink and toward a ceasefire that ends the devastation of Gaza and Lebanon and reverses the slide to regional war,” the groups added.

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingEx-Israeli PM Says Netanyahu Wants to Draw US Into ‘Reckless’ War With Iran

Interview: Harris or Trump doesn’t matter for Gaza genocide

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Original article by Nandini Naira Archer republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Pro-Palestine protest outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024. | Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images

A year on and no end in sight to genocide – thanks to US support for Israel, which will continue beyond election

A year on from the outset of Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli forces have killed more than 42,000 Palestinians – and this is just the confirmed death toll. A recent study by the Lancet medical journal projected that the death toll could exceed 186,000 when counting indirect deaths – from starvation and diseases due to the Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid, food, water and medicines.

To take stock of where we’re at and whether this nightmare is likely to end any time soon, openDemocracy spoke to Tariq Kenney-Shawa, a foreign policy analyst based in New York and US Policy Fellow at Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network.

openDemocracy: It’s been a year since this latest iteration of Israel’s war on Gaza commenced. Is the end in sight? What’s Israel’s end game?

Tariq: Unfortunately, I don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel here. There is no end in sight to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. And that’s mainly because Israel hasn’t faced an ounce of accountability or pressure to de-escalate from the international community (the US and other western benefactors) to end this.

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I’ve tended to be doubtful when people insist that Israel doesn’t have a plan in Gaza and is just destroying and killing for the sake of it. Israel does have a plan and it has been acting on it. It truly sees this moment in history, as well as the blank check from the US, as a golden strategic opportunity to take leaps towards its ultimate goal of ‘maximum land with minimum Palestinians’ and wider regional domination through brute force.

Israel’s end game in Gaza is erasure, and for the last 12 months, they’ve been laying the foundation for a new reality in Gaza for us all to see. In addition to “thinning out the population,” as Netanyahu said, through genocide, collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing, Israel has been effectively chopping up the Strip into smaller, more controllable enclaves that will come to represent the new “facts on the ground.”

openDemocracy: Has anything about the conflict surprised you?

Tariq: I think one of the most surprising aspects about both the genocide in Gaza and now Israel’s escalation across the region is that it has gone on uninterrupted and without international intervention for so long, despite the fact that just about every massacre has been broadcast for the world to see on social media.

As someone who is part of a generation that grew up being taught that the phrase “never again” really meant something, this is what I have found most jarring. Of course, Gaza is not the first time the international “rules-based” order has been exposed as a crutch for Western hegemony. From Vietnam to Iraq, the West’s selective application of international law has long been exposed for what it is. But Gaza is the first postwar genocide both entirely perpetrated by a Western ally and funded, facilitated, and justified by the West itself, not to mention the first to be so thoroughly recorded for the world to see.

openDemocracy: Now with recent escalations including Iran, do you think realistically we’re on the verge of all-out war in the region?

Tariq: I think we are already seeing an all-out regional war by every definition of the term. Israeli fighter jets are bombing Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. This is not to mention the strikes the US, UK, and other Israeli benefactors have carried out on Israel’s behalf.

It boils down to this: Israel will continue to escalate across the region in hopes of achieving its extremist, expansionist goals as long as the US taxpayer continues to foot the bill and US assets and personnel are off the coast of Haifa to come to Israel’s defence if need be.

openDemocracy: It seems that the Biden administration actually gave Israel the green light to mount large-scale attacks on Lebanon. Has the US ever really been interested in stabilising the region? Does the US want an all-out war?

Tariq: The Biden Administration has either explicitly or implicitly (through uninterrupted weapons transfers and diplomatic shielding) given Israel the green light for a year of genocide and regional escalation.

I believe it is clear that the US ultimately shares the same strategic objectives as Israel, which range from silencing Palestinians once and for all to destroying groups like Hezbollah to causing significant damage to Iran. These are all outcomes that the US would celebrate (just take the public statement the US made following Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah as one example).

Does the Biden Administration wish Israel could go about some of their operations differently? Perhaps. But at the end of the day, the costs of Israel’s unparalleled violence, the mass death of Arabs and the destruction of their lands, is a price the US is willing to accept. If the US didn’t want an all-out war, they would stop giving Israel all the weapons and diplomatic space to keep escalating at will. Because while every US administration has been pro-Israel, other US presidents have stood up to Israel when they felt US interests were at risk.

openDemocracy: Do you think things will change after the US elections on November 5?

Tariq: Nothing will fundamentally change, regardless of who wins the elections on November 5. For Palestinians, the genocide will continue because neither candidate has exhibited any indication that they intend to hold Israel accountable for war crimes and genocide or use any of the ample leverage that the US has to influence Israel’s conduct.

In fact, it’s the opposite. Donald Trump insists he would let Israel “finish the job” in Gaza, while Kamala Harris promises that she will continue the Biden Administration’s policy of giving Israel “everything it needs” and continues to make it clear that she intends to be a carbon copy of the Biden Administration. The truth is, both Harris and Trump spell continued disaster for both Palestinians and the wider region, and there is no “lesser evil” here.

The truth is, the Biden administration’s resume on Israel-Palestine, even long before October 7, has in many ways mirrored that of Trump’s.

If Biden wanted to make good on his commitment to a “two-state solution,” he would have at least started by reversing the norm shattering pro-Israel policies of his predecessor. The Biden Administration has actually given Israel more military and diplomatic assistance than any previous administration.

The only substantial difference between Trump and Biden has been their rhetoric. But one could argue that Biden’s lofty, yet empty words actually does more harm than good by distracting us from the fact that he has given Israel everything it needed to get away with genocide right in front of our eyes. If Harris wins in November, it will be more of the same, and you don’t need to take my word for it, she has made it abundantly clear herself.

Original article by Nandini Naira Archer republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.

Continue ReadingInterview: Harris or Trump doesn’t matter for Gaza genocide

Youth Arrested Demanding VP Debate Question on Climate Emergency

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

The Sunrise Movement wants CBS moderator Norah O’Donnell to ask Republican JD Vance “if his prayers outweigh the millions he takes from Big Oil to deny the climate crisis.”

Just hours away from the U.S. vice presidential debate on Tuesday, six members of the youth-led Sunrise Movement were arrested for blocking the street outside CBS News headquarters in New York City to demand moderator Norah O’Donnell ask both candidates what they would do to take on the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency.

The sit-in and blockade came as the death toll from Hurricane Helene, which left a path of destruction across several southeastern states, hit at least 137. Sunrise has responded to the Category 4 storm with renewed calls to hold fossil fuel giants accountable.

“In North Carolina, I have watched buildings in my hometown be submerged in water, have seen entire towns washed away, trees and power lines covering the streets, people asking for help finding their loved ones, and friends reaching out for aid after losing their homes and livelihoods,” Talia Wilson of Asheville said in a Sunrise statement.

“Norah O’Donnell has a huge responsibility to require JD Vance to have a real conversation about the climate crisis on national TV.”

Wilson took aim at the Republican ticket of former President Donald Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who will face his Democratic counterpart, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in Tuesday night’s debate.

“It couldn’t be clearer that we need to act. Big Oil has known for years that its actions would cause disasters like these, but JD Vance and Donald Trump keep promising Big Oil power in exchange for campaign contributions,” the 18-year-old campaigner said. “I know my friends and neighbors want to hear from both candidates on how they plan to address the climate crisis and work to prevent even worse disasters from striking our communities in the future.”

Sunrise’s Jordan Reif said that “my mom sent me pictures from our family in Georgia. Hurricane Helene destroyed roads, yards, and homes. There was damage like we had never seen before.”

“The climate crisis is worsening and climate denier politicians like JD Vance are selling out our communities for donations from Big Oil,” the 24-year-old added. “CBS News and the media must report Hurricane Helene for what it is—Big Oil’s greed destroying our communities.”

Sunrise is circulating a petition that notes Big Oil-backed Vance’s response to the death and devastation. In a Saturday social media post, the Republican said, “Please say a prayer for everyone affected by the storms.”

The petition says, “Sign this letter to demand that CBS News anchor and vice presidential debate moderator Norah O’Donnell add a question to Tuesday’s debate asking JD Vance if his prayers outweigh the millions he takes from Big Oil to deny the climate crisis.”

The group’s letter to O’Donnell highlights Politico‘s recent reporting that “Vance changed his tune on climate change. Oil cash flowed.” As the news outlet detailed:

As recently as 2020, [Vance] spoke at Ohio State University about society’s “climate problem” and said using natural gas as a power source “isn’t exactly the sort of thing that’s gonna take us to a clean energy future.”

Vance’s climate and energy views took a 180 once he was running for the Senate. The oil and gas industry spent more than $283,000 on Vance’s 2022 campaign—more than they gave to all but 18 other members of Congress, according to the campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets.

Trump’s selection of Vance as his VP candidate alarmed green groups that are overwhelmingly backing Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz, given the Republican ex-president’s pledge to roll back Biden-Harris administration climate policies if Big Oil pours just $1 billion into his campaign, and research showing planet-heating pollution would soar if he returned to the White House.

“Donald Trump and JD Vance are responding to the unimaginable devastation of Helene by tweeting prayers and by doubling down on their climate denial. That’s wholly unacceptable,” said Sunrise communications director Stevie O’Hanlon, whose group is working to mobilize 1.5 million swing state voters in support of Harris.

“Scientists have been extremely clear: Climate change made Helene stronger and more deadly, and if we don’t urgently act, storms like this will become the new normal,” O’Hanlon added. “Norah O’Donnell has a huge responsibility to require JD Vance to have a real conversation about the climate crisis on national TV.”

The 90-minute debate is set to begin at 9:00 pm ET on Tuesday, airing on the CBS broadcast television station and streaming for free on CBSNews.com, the CBS News TV and smartphone applications, Paramount+, and YouTube.

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue ReadingYouth Arrested Demanding VP Debate Question on Climate Emergency