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Can Donald Trump retain the allegiance of the key voter groups that swung his way in 2024? Perhaps none of those voter shifts were as dramatic and consequential as the defection of youth – long a mainstay of the Democratic base. Gen Z voters, fueled by despair over student debt and mounting joblessness, fled en masse to the GOP last November, helping to drive Trump over the top. The defection was especially strong among Gen Z men, who felt alienated by the female-centric messaging of the Harris campaign. The final numbers came as a shocker to Democrats: Harris won youth by paltry 10 points, compared to Biden’s 20, and Trump crushed her among young men by a whopping 14 points. With Gen Z and millennials now occupying such a dominant place in the electorate, it’s an ominous storm cloud on the horizon.

But that was eight months ago. While still publicly jubilant, many of Trump’s allies, including the very strategists that helped design and carry out his youth mobilization campaigns, are beginning to get worried. None of these strategists is more worried than Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, which started as a conservative campus youth group back in 2012 but soon morphed into a major Trump presidential campaign arm. Kirk was one of the leading proponents of the “low-propensity” voter strategy aimed at convincing deeply disaffected and apathetic conservatives to register and show up to vote for Trump – and despite widespread skepticism among traditional Republicans, the strategy paid off, as millions of voters who hadn’t cast ballots consistently since 2016, did so in 2024.

While youth voting has actually improved since 2016, Kirk saw an opening to convert this youth voter surge to Trump, exploiting a latent antipathy towards feminism and abortion to drive men especially to swing conservative in record numbers. And so they did.

But Kirk is now busy sounding the alarm that youth may not stay in the GOP camp. He’s seen the latest polls showing rising youth sympathy for “socialism,” and he’s especially disturbed by the prospect of a victory by Zohran Mamdani in the New York Mayor’s race. Youth are fickle, Kirk, says, and easily swayed by emotional issue appeals on social inequality and climate change. On the issues, they’re simply not Republicans, not yet at least. Without Trump to inspire them, they may well vote Democrat again, he warns.

In a little-noticed op-ed in USA Today published last month, Kirk laid out his case in some detail. “[2024] was a big win. But it was also impermanent. It could be a one-off,” he argues. “It could easily be explained by the aftermath of COVID or the incredible political charisma of Donald Trump himself. The youth vote of 2024 wasn’t so much a win as it was an opportunity: A clear demonstration that conservatives actually can compete to win the votes of American young people, rather than writing them off.”

But Trump’s going to pass from the scene, and conservatives like Kirk know it. His biggest fear? Conditions for youth won’t substantially improve over the next two to three years, leading to more frustration and another swing of the political pendulum. And that could well open the door to a mass embrace by youth of a candidate like Zohran Mamdani in New York and AOC nationally, Kirk argues.

“Most of Gen Z is ideologically fluid. They’re happy to give Republicans a shot, then turn around and elect a Marxist two years later,” he warns.

“The challenge for Republicans now is seizing this Gen Z opportunity,” Kirk says. “Because Gen Z won’t become lifelong conservatives thanks to a good campaign or slick online memes. They’ll only become lifelong supporters if we’re able to deliver for them on the big issues that matter.”

Evidence of youth disaffection has already shown up in the polling. Trump’s approval rating with young voters was roughly 55% in February, but fell to 28% in May, according to CBS. That fall was more than twice as high as the next age group. The main reason? Anxiety over the state of the economy, Including the stock market and the job market. Trump’s youth approval rating may have rebounded somewhat since then, but the deterioration from his high water mark remains. One authoritative source, the Pew Research Center, estimates that Trump has lost 30% of his youth support since his victory last November.

In theory, all of this is good news for progressives – in theory. But there isn’t much evidence that Democrats, at least, know how to rebound with resonant youth-based strategy. A top Senate Democrat – Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) – has called for more “alpha energy” but no one really knows what that might consist of. More tacky gun-toting ads with the likes of Tim Walz? A Joe Rogan-style podcast? In July Democrats sponsored a Gen-Z “summit” – at a fancy high-end hotel no less – to discuss their “young male crisis” and the event quickly foundered. Kirk covered the event, as a curious bystander, and lampooned it as “cringe-worthy,” convinced that Republicans still have the upper hand.

What’s the upshot? The youth vote isn’t diehard conservative — or diehard progressive; it’s actually extremely volatile, and potentially up for grabs. After last November’s humiliation at the polls, that’s some cautionary good news. But only if Democrats figure out what to make of it. The bad news: They still haven’t, not as a national party.

However, the Mamdani campaign in New York – just as Kirk fears – may contain some important clues for Democrats, if they heed them. One is that youth are just as focused – in fact, even more so, perhaps – on bread and butter or kitchen table issues than older voter groups. Mamdani isn’t playing up issues like climate change, reproductive rights, or even the plight of immigrants – issues whose visibility may have cost Harris and the Democrats mightily last year. He’s focused on “affordability,” which includes not just high rents and grocery prices but also joblessness. Youth unemployment in NYC is nearly 14%, more than double the general population’s. And Black unemployment is nearly 24%. These are unacceptable conditions and make affordability at any price a difficult proposition

The important point is that these problems aren’t necessarily rooted in partisan policies. Mamdani, a Democrat, is running against a Democrat-led establishment that has failed the voters by becoming hostage to Big Money interests – the banks and corporations – to which both parties – with some variation in emphasis – are largely beholden. He’s attracting youth by running as a de facto independent, while the badly tarnished establishment Democrats are now trying to recoup their position by running as independents. It’s an astounding turnaround, but it’s allowed him to become the “mainstream” candidate, even as an avowed “socialist.”

It may also be suggestive of what matters most. Youth are looking for unabashedly bold new leadership, a generational champion perhaps, as in Mamdani, but not necessarily, as suggested by Trump. As the two parties look ahead to 2026 and especially 2028, they’ll need to ask themselves whether they are actually listening to young voters, and meeting them where they are. Where they are may not be obvious, and preaching to them about where they should be at, based on pre-existing ideological positions and policy planks favored by entrenched constituency groups, however PC, is unlikely to be a recipe for success. It’s also possible to have a full panoply of issue concerns, but it’s important to win, and you win with the issues that will bring the most people to the table, and with the most energy to vote.

That may require patience and humility, a willingness to trim the ideological and issue banner, and a strict discipline in messaging. Not always a strong suit for youth or any other group with a grievance, but the alternative – driving away potential supporters, and defeat – won’t leave any aggrieved constituency happy in the end.

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I first saw it as a boy in a schoolyard in 1965: the coward who grew strong in a group and chose his victim. Sixty years later, I see that same pattern—this time in the leaders of Israel, and in the president of the United States.

Tonight I am tired. As always, I end my day by reading the news: Haaretz, DN, Expressen, Dagens ETC. The stories are the same—genocide in Gaza, images of suffering and death. I feel despair, I feel hopelessness. But tonight, I also feel anger.

When I close the computer, an old memory comes back. I am twelve, standing in the schoolyard. A boy older than me—timid when alone, but emboldened by four others—chooses his target. The beating only stops when a teacher intervenes. His strength came not from courage but from fear, and from the pleasure of seeing his victim collapse.

That same dynamic plays out now. Netanyahu is not a strong leader. He is insecure, hungry for control, lacking empathy, dependent on others to hold him up. A coward with too much power. And, like the boy in my schoolyard, he surrounds himself with others just like him—men willing to support ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The coward fears truth. That is why international journalists are barred from Gaza, why local reporters are silenced, even shot at. Recently, the Israeli military bombed a press tent. It was not a mistake. The order came from above. Six journalists were killed that day, six who gave their lives so we might know what is happening. They join the more than 200 journalists already murdered.

Trump’s return has only made Netanyahu bolder. With him came weapons, political cover, and a partner who mirrors him: the same lack of empathy, the same cowardice disguised as strength. Together, they have unleashed one of the world’s most advanced militaries on a people who have nothing with which to defend themselves.

And yet, Gaza does not surrender. Two million people, trapped behind walls and fences, refuse to disappear. They have lost homes, water, schools, and hospitals. But they hold on to something their oppressors lack: dignity.

It is tempting to call this war. The language of soldiers and weapons, casualties and ruins, suggests war. But this is not war. This is genocide. Gaza has become a concentration camp, and the message from Israel is clear: leave or die.

It is always the coward against the brave. And we know who the cowards are.

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The Darien Gap on the border of Colombia and Panama is the only stretch of the Pan-American Highway that is not a highway. Instead, it is a dangerous area of jungle filled with swamps, wildlife and rivers. It is also a major part one of the world’s migration routes. This means that the area is made extra dangerous due to criminal gangs, traffickers and other human predators populate and profit from those who traverse it. A late friend of mine used to hitchhike and hustle rides from California to Brazil every winter in the late 1970s and 1980s. When he talked about his journeys, he always mentioned this stretch of land as the one place he would take a boat; sometimes he had the money to pay for a spot and other times he would convince a boat captain to hire him on for a week or two as long as was able to get to the other side of the Darien Gap. Needless to say, his tales told of adventures well outside middle America’s experience and comfort zone.

Journalist Belén Fernández’s new book, *The Darién Gap: A Reporter’s Journey through the Deadly Crossroads of the Americas,*is also a tale of adventures well outside of middle America’s experience and comfort zone. It’s also a critique of the role US capitalism plays in maintaining, exploiting and intensifying migration from South America to its neighboring continent to the north. Indeed, Fernández’s reportage makes it quite clear that the main reasons people risk their lives and the lives of their children to migrate to the United States are cartel violence, government repression and poverty, not necessarily in that order. Despite the proclamations of anti-immigrant forces in the United States—from the White House to Congress to local police forces and residents of the communities they serve—virtually nobody takes this path for a lark or to steal someone else’s job.

Fernández clarifies this at the beginning of her text when she quotes a Cuban woman she was in Siglo XXI prison with in Mexico: “Cubans,” she writes. “say no one leaves their country and walks through the selva for a week if they don’t have to.”(4) The selva in this instance is, of course, the rainforest jungle in which the Darien Gap lies. As she tells the story within these pages, the author also provides historical background, political analysis of the anti-imperialist kind, all the while detailing the travels of a group of Venezuelan men she has befriended, the ups and downs of her own quests and discussions with various migrants, law enforcement types and locals. The reader is introduced to families hanging on to their dignity in the face of heartless indifference, legal interference, fear and violence. Gangs run by cartels and local individuals extort, rob and rape while the state and private individuals try to profit from every potential exchange between a migrant and themselves. It’s not that the officials and the merchants harbor the same mentality as the killers and rapists, they just see an opportunity to make a few dollars. Nonetheless, Fernández tells the reader, the migrant journey through the Gap is something like a scene from a horror movie: corpses litter the route, dangerous animals from insects on up are a constant, the rivers are unpredictable making for difficult crossing and the terrain is challenging, to say the least.

It’s not all doom and gloom in these pages. A constant in these pages that defies the general atmosphere of tragedy and hopelessness is a certain type of romance she finds herself in. Johann, one of the seven young Venezuelan men the reader meets at the book’s beginning, catches her eye. The interest is returned and it is somewhere between the time the seven first meet and the two respond to their mutual interest that Fernández makes it her project to get the men into the United States. This task is not a simple one and involves numerous setbacks and hopes dashed, while also providing the narrative with a connecting thread injected with a certain hope and delight that love brings no matter what the circumstances.

As noted above, although politics are rarely mentioned in the text, they underline and inform the entire story. When they are mentioned it is usually Fernández who brings them up, often in terms of Washington’s imperial policies being the foremost reason there’s a massive migration even taking place. For example, US sanctions against Venezuela are the primary reason the Venezuelan economy struggles and why so many of that nation’s residents risk almost everything to go north. Despite Washington’s knowledge of this fact, it rejects any attempts to remove any of them. Haiti suffers directly from Washington’s ceaseless interference, supporting thugs and armed gangs to enforce the starvation wages US corporations pay Haitians who can find work. A similar scenario exists in Honduras, where Washington seems to move governments in and out of power at whim. The actual nature of US economic and political power in the world kills many, many more humans than all of the drug and human trafficking done by the cartels might ever do. Meanwhile, the cartels make deals with US agencies in the name of security or some such thing that both benefit from.

Belén Fernández’s The Darien Gap is a work that is timely, disturbing and engaging. Her seamless integration of personal stories (hers and those she meets), history, politics and economics makes for a captivating read. If one wished to read only one book on the issues of the current migration to the United States, The Darien Gap should be among the shortlist of those books they considered.

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It is a curious feeling to see a government, let alone any politician, suddenly find their banished backbones and retired principles.  The spine, on being discovered, adds a certain structural integrity to arguments otherwise lacking force and credibility.  The recent spat between Israel and Australia suggests that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s often insecure, and often overly cautious administration, is starting to show some muscle and certitude.

The cancellation of Simcha Rothman’s visa by the Albanese government was something of a minor revelation.  Rothman is a member of Mafdal-Religious Zionism, a party led by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that has made its position on Palestinians unmistakably clear.  (Smotrich became the subject of sanctions by Australia along with Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom in June for “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.”)  As a certain garden variety shrub of hate he decries countries for not taking in Palestinians as part of an approved ethnic cleansing program, accusing them of “aiding and abetting a terrorist organisation using them as human shields”.  In an interview with Australia’s national broadcaster, Rothman made his primary colour position clear: “I think the government of Australia needs to decide, do they want to be on the side of Hamas, or do they want to be on the side of Israel?”

The letter of revocation stated that he would be engaged in events that would “promote his controversial views and ideologies, which may lead to fostering division in the community”.  Being in Australia “would or might be a risk to the good order of the Australian community or a segment of the Australian community, namely, the Islamic population”.

Adduced examples of demerit included arguments that Palestinian children were not perishing to hunger in the Gaza Strip, that those children, in any case, were enemies of the Israeli state, along with the notion that the two-state solution had “poisoned the minds of the entire world”.  The nature of such “inflammatory statements” might, were Rothman to enter Australia licensed by the government, “encourage others to feel emboldened to voice any anti-Islamic sentiments, if not to take action to give effect to that prejudice”.

Far from engaging these reasons, Rothman’s enchantingly shrunken worldview was clear in its chiselled simplicity: Australia was behaving undemocratically, its government falsely claiming to argue against “hate and division” despite permitting protestors “to shout on the streets calls for genocide of the Jewish people.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was quick in response, revoking the residency visas of Australia’s diplomatic representatives responsible for affairs concerning the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.  “I also instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel,” Sa’ar fumed on X.

In this apoplectic reaction, no one seemed to recall that Australia had already revoked the visa of a former Israeli justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, at the end of October last year over what Australia’s Home Minister Tony Burke described as “concerns she would threaten social cohesion”.  Shaked had been slated to attend events organised by the Australia Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).  Admittedly, she was a former politician rather than a sitting member of the Israeli parliament.

In an interview with the Erin Molan Show, an otherwise underwhelming program, Sa’ar recapitulated his cranky position.  “This is the opposite of what should be done,” he objected.  “Instead of battling antisemitism in Australia, the Australian government is doing the opposite – they are fuelling it.”

The Palestinian Authority surprised nobody in calling the measure to cancel visas “illegal and in violation of the Geneva Conventions, international law, the United Nations resolutions, which do not grant the occupying  power such authority.”  The statement went on to stress “that such actions reflect Israeli arrogance and a state of political imbalance, and will only strengthen Australia’s and other countries’ determination to uphold international law, the two-state solution, and recognition of the State of Palestine as the path to peace.”

Australia’s foreign minister, Penny Wong, also thought this all a bit much.  Calling the decision to cancel the visas of Australia’s diplomats in the West Bank an “unjustified reaction” to Canberra’s decision to recognise Palestine, Wong felt confident enough to retort that the Israeli decision had been foolish.  “At a time when dialogue and diplomacy are needed more than ever, the Netanyahu Government is isolating Israel and undermining international efforts towards peace and a two-state solution.”

This messiness was appropriately crowned by that grand figure of demagoguery himself, the Israeli Prime Minister.  “History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews,” came the scornful blast from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  The Israeli PM is certainly not wrong about Albanese being weak but mistaken about what he has been weak about.  Most intriguingly, Albanese has found some courage on this front, albeit the sort of courage fortified by allies.  But that’s something.

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Haidar Eid is a Palestinian professor who used to teach postcolonial and postmodern literature at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza. That university no longer exists thanks to the missiles and the Zionist minds that fired and guided those missiles. His book Decolonizing the Palestinian Mind was recently published in Spanish by La Trocha publishing house in Santiago, Chile. I met Haidar earlier this year. His home was completely destroyed, and perhaps we could be ironic and say that he was lucky to have been warned by the criminals who gave him five minutes to evacuate.

Not everyone was so “lucky.” Since 7 October 2023, 60,038 people have been killed, of whom 18,592 are under the age of 18. These figures could be underestimated if we review the assessments reported in the journal The Lancet, which in June 2024 already estimated the death toll at 37,336, to which we should add 14,400 missing persons and so-called indirect deaths, that is, deaths from starvation, which have risen alarmingly in the last month. The aggression carried out by the state of Israel in the Gaza Strip has destroyed more than 70% of homes, displaced some 2.3 million people, and has been openly and selectively directed against the civilian population, attacking and destroying schools, universities, mosques, churches, hospitals, shelters, and even shooting at people at food collection sites. Journalists, health workers, humanitarian workers, UN personnel, and especially children have been killed as part of a plan aimed at wiping out the Palestinian people. This plan unambiguously qualifies as a crime of genocide.

The history of this aggression did not begin on October 7. The Zionist project dates back more than a century. It is a colonialist, racist, and supremacist project that has used murder and forced displacement as policy, all endorsed by a world that looks on with indifference at what is happening there.

The occupation of Palestinian lands by European Zionism began with the purchase of land in the early 20th century, supported by the British government. The process of dispossessing the Palestinian population before 1936 was described by the writer and activist Ghassan Kanafani in his book The 1936-1939 Revolution in Palestine, published by 1804 Books. Kanafani recounts that by 1931 some 20,000 peasant families had already been displaced from their lands. This interesting and fundamental text recounts the conditions to which the British Mandate subjected the Palestinian population, which included not only the loss of their lands but also the closure of their productive spaces and the imposition of disadvantageous labor regimes.

The use of terrorist tactics became the modus operandi of Zionism with the aim of displacing the indigenous population of Palestine. Many massacres were committed by Zionism, especially during and after the Nakba in 1948. On April 9, 1948, for example, squads from Irgun (a Zionist terrorist organization) entered the village ofDeir Yassin, killing more than 100 Palestinians, including the elderly and children who were unable to escape. On July 11 of that year, commandos under the command of Moshe Dayan attacked Lydd, killing 426 people. Moshe Dayan would later become Israel’s Minister of Defense. Between October 14 and 15, 1953, the infamous Battalion 101, led by Ariel Sharon, entered the village of Qibya, killing 69 people. Sharon himself, who would become Prime Minister of Israel, would oversee the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982, in which at least 3,500 people were killed.

But it is not only massacres of this kind that Israel has committed. The selective assassination of individuals has been common practice and state policy. These are murders planned and carried out anywhere in the world by Israel’s secret service, the Mossad, known on the streets of Tel Aviv as “the Institute.” Recent examples include the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, spokesperson and official negotiator for Hamas, on 31 July 2024, in Tehran, and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah in Beirut on 27 September 2024.

Israel is not a state, it is a European colonial project whose founders were not native to that land. Theodor Herzl was Hungarian, David Ben Hurion and Shimon Peres were Polish, Golda Meir was Ukrainian, Moshe Dayan was the son of Ukrainians, Ariel Sharon was the son of Belarusians, to give a few examples. The manipulated biblical account is just a convenient excuse that serves to create a mythical narrative that gives a foreign population rights of occupation over a supposed promised land. In practice, what we have is a state founded on massacres, murders, and forced displacement of the original population in permanent violation of international law. An apartheid state that distinguishes between first-class citizens who enjoy rights and second-class citizens with limited or no rights. The aggression that has been taking place since October 2023 is nothing more than the continuation of a project of dispossession, extermination, and replacement of an entire people, endorsed, sponsored, and financed by the US and carried out by Israel. This project is perpetuated because it is also generating extraordinary profits for a significant number of multinational corporations in the Global North, as recently evidenced in the reportA/HRC/59/23 prepared by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese.

How is it possible that such horror can occur and cannot be stopped? How is it possible that the mere veto of the US in the Security Council is enough to prevent action from being taken? How is it possible that even those who support Palestine continue to uphold the “two-state solution” as a solution? Haidar Eid, in the book we referred to at the beginning, seriously questions this “solution.” Two states means that we normalize the existence of a state that uses death as a practice, a state that normalizes and teaches racism and hatred in its schools, a state that does not hide its desire for expansion through violence and the extermination of other peoples. World War II did not end by handing over part of Germany to the Nazis. The conflict will not end by handing over part of Palestine to Zionism.

A ceasefire is imperative, but not enough. A crime is being committed and those responsible must be held accountable. It is time for the money used to kill to be used to repair the damage and begin reconstruction. Palestine has a right to exist and it is obvious that a red line that makes a “two-state solution” unviable, has been crossed. Only a democratic and sovereign Palestinian nation can be considered a solution. A solution that respects the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and right to exist. A nation that allows coexistence, regardless of religion or ethnic origin. It seems like a utopia, but it is utopia that allows us to move forward. Let’s make it our slogan! So far, there has been no progress. The United Nations is proving ineffective, and Palestine cannot wait.

This article was produced byGlobetrotter.

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The tipping point between renewable energy and fossil fuels has been reached, says a new United Nations (UN) report. The UN Secretary-General Antônio Guterres said that we are entering a renewable era and leaving the era of fossil fuels. According to the report, ‘In 2024, renewables made up 92.5% of all new electricity capacity additions and 74% of electricity generation growth’. While almost the entire world has increasingly switched to renewables, the United States stands out as the sole ‘dissident’, with the Trump administration denying climate change and still backing fossil fuels.

Not that they can stop the march of history, but given that we are already out of time, the US, the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases and one of the wealthiest countries in the world, can certainly worsen our transition to a hotter world.

According to the UN report, the cost of renewables has dropped, while their installed capacity has increased significantly; this is particularly the case for solar photovoltaic (PV) plants, which utilise solar panels. Concentrated solar plants (CSPs), which use lenses/mirrors, concentrate solar rays to heat water into steam, and then utilise it in a steam turbine-driven conventional generator. By the end of this decade, the levelised cost of electricity from such solar plants is expected to approach that of fossil plants. However, PV plants with storage have cheapened, making CSPs a much more cost-efficient option today, except perhaps in desert regions. The advantage of CSPs is that their turbines provide inertia, helping the grid remain stable—a crucial issue for grids with many renewable energy plants. As we saw in the recent Spanish grid collapse, the grid’s failure was partly due to a lack of turbines to provide sufficient rotational inertia, thereby increasing the grid’s ability to handle frequency fluctuations.

For the first time, solar and wind energy are now cheaper than coal, natural gas, or oil, and are the quickest options for installing new electricity generation. The difference in the last 3-5 years in this transition from fossil fuels to renewables can be seen below:

Between 2010-2022, solar and wind power became cost-competitivewith fossil fuels—coal and gas.

By 2023, utility-scalesolar photovoltaics (PV) and onshore wind energy had lower generation costs than fossil fuels.

The long-talked-about renewable transition is finally here! The question is, do we have the political will to do what is not only necessary in climate terms but also economically a better option for all of us? Or will the old fossil lobby, particularly in the US, sabotage humanity’s transition to a low-carbon future?

Solar and wind have now become the fastest-growing sources of energy and provide electricity at costs well below that of fossil fuels. Increasingly, it is economically cheaper than coal and oil. With the cost of batteries dropping, adding grid-level batteries and short-term hydro-storage schemes to stabilize the grid is again economically attractive. In other words, renewables are now competitive today even without taking into account our climate goals. This is the real inflexion point that we have been talking about since the 1980s, when solar photovoltaics hit the scene.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had two goals. One goal was to bring to all countries the need for quick climate action to prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperature. The other is to provide the means to fund the energy transition, phasing out fossil fuels, particularly for low-income countries. The understanding that drove such climate action was that the rich countries, who had already occupied the bulk of the existing carbon space due to their past carbon emissions, would help the poor countries fund this transition.

How have these dual goals been met? While the rich countries have been willing to talk about climate goals, right from the beginning, they have not been willing to walk the talk about providing funds to poorer countries for their energy transition. While the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom, the biggest occupiers of global carbon space after the US, have been investing in their renewable energy transition, the US has not only twice walked out of the global climate agreements but has also provided incentives to its fossil fuel companies. While President George Bush walked out of global climate change agreements, saying American lifestyles are not open to global negotiations. President Trump has gone even further. He is not only a climate change denier but is providing incentives to fossil fuel companies to burn even more carbon fuels and wants to drill for oil and natural gas even in Siberia.

Carbon credits are simply like blood money: rich countries paying poor countries to create or maintain carbon sinks, for the continued and profligate use by rich countries of carbon fuels—coal, oil and natural gas. These were mostly accounting frauds, in which certain companies issued fraudulent carbon credits, allowing continued carbon emissions in the rich countries. Some of this carbon blood money also reached some partners in the global south, but the bulk of the proceeds of the fraud stayed at home in countries issuing the so-called carbon credits.

A Lot of Hot Air.

With the cost of renewables dropping below that of coal, where does this leave companies that touted carbon capture, not through natural carbon sinks such as compensatory forestry, but actual separation of CO2 from the exhaust gases after burning fossil fuels? This is the other carrot that is being dangled before us for rich countries continuing to burn oil, gas and coal.

Today, the only place that carbon capture still has economic relevanceis in separating carbon dioxide and using it “to enhance oil recovery projects, where it is injected into oil fields to extract additional oil that would otherwise be trapped underground” (Charles Harvey and Kurt House, New York Times, Aug 16 2022). This is why the two authors also describe carbon capture as Big Oil’s Large Grand Scam!

The other use of fossil fuels is in the production of what is called grey hydrogen, where hydrogen is produced for its use in the manufacture of steel, ammonia, petroleum refining, methanol and plastic production. It, however, releases greenhouse gases in the form of CO2 to the atmosphere, so it is called grey hydrogen. Grey hydrogen is used as a chemical and not as a fuel. The key players are oil companies: ExxonMobil, Chevron, British Petroleum (BP), and Shell.

Not surprisingly, an analysis—Li, M., Trencher, G., & Asuka, J., Feb 16, 2022, PLOS ONE*—*of their business activities shows, ‘a continuing business model dependence on fossil fuels…We thus conclude that the transition to clean energy business models is not occurring, since the magnitude of investments and actions does not match discourse’. In other words, oil companies are continuing with their business as usual under the cloak of carbon capture, grey hydrogen, etc., along with a lot of hot air. Incidentally, these four companies alone are responsible for 10% of all global warming in the world since 1965.

Yes, the fall of renewable prices below that of fossil fuels means that renewables today provide not only a cleaner and better alternative to fossil fuels, but also a cheaper one. Whether it is electricity generation or transport, fossil fuel-based solutions are being rapidly replaced by solar and wind in power generation and Electric Vehicles in transport. Even the European Union, held in thrall by Trump and the US, is shifting away from fossil fuels. China and India are bothinvesting heavily in renewables, with India having reached its goal of 50% of installed capacity in renewables well ahead of its goal. For most developing countries, the renewable route is not only more carbon-friendly but also the cheaper option.

The only country acting as the spoiler is the United States, which, though it is no longer competitive in manufacturing, believes that it can extract ‘rent’ from others. This is the new G1’s ‘Trump-based world order’, instead of the G7’s so-called ‘rule-based world order’.

This article was produced by Globetrotter.

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I can’t believe we have to debate some things, but with Trump you never know how ridiculous the discussion can get. The Washington Post tells us that the Trump administration is boasting about the huge surge in native-born Americans who are now working thanks to his policy of beating up on immigrants. The boast tells us more about their ignorance of government data than the success of their policy.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly household survey, from which it gets employment and unemployment rates, has population controls put in place in January of each year. These controls are derived from Census data on the size of the population over age 16. The number rises each month based on projected growth in this population due to 15-year-olds turning 16, minus the projected number of deaths in people already over age 16. This growth is cooked in the data in January.

When BLS calculates the native-born population each month, it uses its survey to estimate the immigrant population. The native-born population is the difference between its population estimates and the number of immigrants it finds in its survey.

Since the total size of the population is fixed by the population controls, the size of the native-born population in these estimates will automatically increase if fewer immigrants answer the survey. That is what we are finding in 2025.

We have a sharp decline in immigrants answering the survey. That could be in part because some have left. It is also in part because immigrants might be scared of answering a government survey. It may also be the case that they just identify themselves as immigrants in the survey.

The reason for the decline doesn’t matter for these purposes. The point is simply that finding fewer immigrants in the survey by definition means BLS will report more native-born people in the population.

The number of native-born people over age 16 has reportedly increased by 4.5 million since December of 2024. Does anyone have a story of how we suddenly get this huge jump in the number of people over age 16? Did older people stop dying this year or did 15-year-olds turn 16 at a faster than usual pace? It would have to be one or the other. I guess we should ask the White House.

Anyhow, the employment data are based on this population count. BLS uses its survey to calculate the employment rate for native-born people and then multiples it by the population count. That ratio was 59.1 percent in July, the exact same ratio as it was in December, but because the population count has soared it implies an increase in employment of the native-born of 2.5 million.

If anyone is familiar with how these numbers are calculated they would know that boasting about this 2.5 million increase in employment is a joke. But apparently, Trump’s White House is clueless about the data and people who do know it are too scared to tell their bosses.

This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

The post Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest: Native Born Employment is Not Surging appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

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Gainesville, Florida

When it comes to Medicare Advantage, “beware of health insurance companies bearing gifts”, just like “beware of Greeks bearing gifts”, is a phrase that serves as a cautionary warning against trusting those who may have ulterior motives, particularly when they present seemingly generous health insurance policy offers. Everyone should be aware that not all offers of help or generosity are genuine and that one should critically and thoroughly assess the intentions and specifics behind such programs and policies. The idiom is particularly relevant in situations where aggressive sales agents of health insurance companies may present themselves as allies while harboring hidden marketing and sales agendas for Medicare Advantage.

After The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) revealed that the number of Medicare beneficiary complaints about private sector marketing for Medicare Advantage (MA) plans more than doubled from 2020 to 2021. The Senate Finance Committee Majority Staff, Chairman Senator Ron Wyden,D-OR, launched an inquiry in August 2022, collected information on marketing complaints from 14 states and found evidence that beneficiaries are being inundated with aggressive marketing tactics as well as false and misleading information.Senator Wyden’s U.S. Senate Committee on Finance report, “Deceptive Marketing Practices Flourish in Medicare Advantage “, outlines how marketing practices by private plans, their agents and brokers need to be reined in. These bad actors are trying to cash in by taking advantage of loopholes and loosened rules around marketing and enrollment to beneficiaries. Aggressive health insurance agents badger seniors on the phone, confuse them on television, and inundate them with mountains of mail. A burgeoning number of marketing materials are fraudulent or deceptive, undermining beneficiary access to care and trust in the traditional Medicare program itself. Vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities have had their health plans changed without their consent by unethical sales agents.MA and Part D health plans and their contractors are engaging in manipulative and aggressive sales practices that take advantage of vulnerable older adults and people living with disabilities. In its survey of state insurance commissioners, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) reports there has been an increase in complaints from seniors about false and misleading advertising and marketing of MA plans.BRIEF HISTORYOur contemporary phrase “beware of health insurance companies bearing gifts” has its roots in ancient history and literature, specifically in the context of the Trojan War, a legendary conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans. The phrase encapsulates the idea that gifts and benefits can often be deceptive and that one should be wary of those who offer them. Caution is always needed because most health insurance companies have hidden profiteering motives, even when they seem to provide something kind, generous or economical, just like the story of the Trojan Horse in Greek mythology, where the Greeks used a deceptive gift to infiltrate and conquer Troy.Originating from the story of the Trojan War and the Trojan Horse episode In Virgil’s epic poem, the Aeneid, the Trojan priest Laocoön, warns his fellow Trojans not to trust the wooden horse left by the Greeks, saying, “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,” which translates to “I fear the Greeks, even when they bear gifts.” The Trojans, believing the horse to be a peace offering, brought it into their city, leading to their downfall when Greek soldiers hidden inside attacked by opening the city gate. The phrase has been referenced in many literary works, speeches, and popular culture,  serving as a reminder to remain vigilant and skeptical of those who may not have our best interests at heart. It has transcended its original context and is now used in a broader sense to caution against manipulation and deceit in various aspects of life, including selling  Medicare Advantage health insurance policies, politics, business, and personal relationships.The Trojan war, which is believed to have taken place around the 12th or 13th century BCE, is a central theme in Greek mythology and literature. The phrase “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts” refers to the strategy the Greeks used to infiltrate the city of Troy. Frustrated by a long, unsuccessful siege, the Greeks devised a plan to construct a massive wooden horse, known as the Trojan Horse. After hollowing out the horse and hiding a select group of their best warriors inside, the Greeks then left the horse at the gates of Troy as a supposed offering of peace, while the rest of the Greek army pretended to retreat. The Trojans, believing they had won the war, brought the horse into their city as a trophy. That night, while the Trojans celebrated their victory, the Greek warriors hidden inside the horse emerged, opened the gates for the rest of the Greek army and launched a surprise attack. This treachery led to the fall of Troy and is one of the most famous tales from the epic poems of Homer, particularly the “Aeneid” by Virgil and the “Iliad.”

Medicare Advantage was established during the Bill Clinton administration with the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, when Congress approved the program initially known as Medicare+Choice. It was later renamed Medicare Advantage (MA) in 2003.

Medicare Advantage history:    * 1965: Medicare was created to provide health coverage for older Americans.

* 1997: The Balanced Budget Act introduced Medicare+Choice; Congress allowed for-profit private health plans to offer Medicare benefits.    * 2003: The program was renamed Medicare Advantage under the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. This act also introduced Medicare Part D, which added prescription drug coverage.    * 2024, approximately 33.8 million people, or 55% of all Medicare recipients, were enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans.    * 2025, over 50% of Medicare beneficiaries now have for-profit corporations in charge of their care through Medicare Advantage (MA).

    * 2025, health insurance companies continue to be paid handsomely for these plans, and much of that money goes to corporate profits instead of care.    * 2025, the companies running MA plans continue seeking full takeover of traditional Medicare, leaving patients with no option but to give their money to private insurers.

Congress has permitted a private, for-profit health insurance option that wraps around traditional Medicare. Medicare Advantage plans may fill some coverage gaps and offer alternative coverage options to make them more attractive to subscribers compared to traditional Medicare. As a result,  private health insurance companies can then exact significant profit from U.S. citizens as Wall Street banks and investors who back Big Insurance, turning public money into a bonanza of private riches. High U.S health insurance costs are the result of a political decision by Congress to essentially allow Big Insurance to do what they want and charge whatever they want.

WHAT IS MEDICARE ADVANTAGE?

Medicare Advantage is a program offering private health insurance industry plans as options to replace public traditional Medicare. Medicare Advantage plans differ from traditional Medicare in that they are paid with capitation (per member), they are required to limit enrollees’ out-of-pocket spending, and can offer extra benefits (e.g. gym memberships, $900 worth of groceries, dental benefits). They almost always offer prescription drug coverage and use a defined and often restricted network of providers that can require enrollees to pay more for out-of-network care. Managed Care/Utilization management techniques, including prior authorization, are utilized. Additionally, they can fund special programs, such as rewards for beneficiaries, to encourage “healthy behaviors”.  In reality, “Medicare Dis-Advantage” is a better, more accurate name for the programs however, as insurance companies push Congress to corporatize all of Medicare, yet keep the name for the purposes of marketing, deception, and confusion.HOW MA PLANS DIFFER FROM TRADITIONAL MEDICARE:* They are owned and operated by for-profit, private insurance corporations ans Wall Street investors.

* Unlike traditional Medicare, Medicare Advantage plans often refuse to pay for treatments and medications physicians prescribe.* Unlike traditional Medicare, many physicians, other healthcare professionals, and hospitals will be off-limits to patients because Medicare Advantage companies create their own proprietary and often skimpy, managed care type “networks” of healthcare providers.* If patients go out of network, they could then be on the hook for thousands of dollars out of their own pocket.

* Patients do not have free choice of their professionals and health care institutions. Medicare Advantage does not allow choices within the entire health care system.* They likely will have to pay extra—often a lot extra—for some of those extra benefits.MEDICARE ADVANTAGE PROFITEERING STATISTICS: (from Wendall Potter, HEALTHCARE UN-covered)

1. Big Insurance revenues and profits have increased by 300% and 287% respectively since 2012 due to explosive growth in the insurance companies’ pharmacy benefit management (PBM) businesses and the Medicare replacement plans called Medicare Advantage.

2. The for-profits now control more than 70% of the Medicare Advantage market.In 2022, Big Insurance revenues reached $1.25 trillion and profits soared to $69.3 billion.That’s a 300% increase in revenue and a 287% increase in profits from 2012, when revenue was $412.9 billion and profits were $24 billion.

3. Big insurers’ revenues have grown dramatically over the past decade, the result of consolidation in the PBM business and taxpayer-supported Medicare and Medicaid programs.

4. What has changed dramatically over the decade is that the big insurers are now getting far more of their revenues from the pharmaceutical supply chain, Medicare, Medicaid, and from taxpayers as they have moved aggressively into government programs. This is especially true of Humana, Centene, and Molina, which now get, respectively, 85%, 88%, and 94% of their health-plan revenues from government programs.

5. The two biggest drivers are their fast-growing pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the relatively new and little-known middleman between patients and pharmaceutical drug manufacturers, and the privately owned and operated Medicare replacement plans marketed as Medicare Advantage.

6. Huge strides in privatizing both Medicare and Medicaid have been made. More than 90% of health-plan revenues at three of the health industry companies come from government programs as they continue to privatize both Medicare and Medicaid, through Medicare Advantage in particular. Enrollment in government-funded programs increased by 261% in 10 years.

7. Health advocate Wendall Potter found that the seven biggest publicly traded health insurance companies collectively made $71.3 billion in profits, up more than half a billion dollars from 2023.

BENEFICIARIES INUNDATED WITH PRIVATE SECTOR AGGRESSIVE MARKETING TACTICS:

With so much money to be made in MA, it’s not surprising that The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) revealed that the number of Medicare beneficiary complaints about private sector marketing for Medicare Advantage (MA) plans more than doubled from 2020 to 2021. Senator Ron Wyden’s Senate Finance Committee Majority Staff launched an inquiry in August 2022, collected information on marketing complaints from 14 states and found evidence that beneficiaries are being inundated with aggressive marketing tactics as well as false and misleading information. Each one of these vignettes represents documented instances of aggressive or deceptive MA and Part D marketing practices that was  found to be widespread, not isolated events:    *** Seniors shopping at their local grocery store are approached by insurance agents and asked to switch their Medicare coverage or MA plan.    *** Insurance agents selling new MA plans tell seniors that their doctors are covered by the new plans. Seniors who switch plans find out months later that their doctor is actually out-of-network, and they have to pay out-of-pocket to visit their doctor.    *** Seniors receive mailers that look like official business from a Federal agency, yet the mailer is a marketing prompt from an MA plan or its agent or broker.    *** An insurance agent calls seniors 20 times a day, attempting to convince them to switch their Medicare coverage.

    *** Widespread television advertisements with celebrities claim that seniors are missing out on benefits, including higher Social Security payments, in order to prompt seniors to call MA plan agent or broker hotlines.**EXAMPLES OF DECEPTION, ‘beware of health insurance companies bearing gifts’ in action:**1) *Fake “IRS Mailers” and “Official Mailers”*Mailers are designed to look like official notices coming from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or the Medicare Program. These mailers are both misleading and serve an important role in lead generation that allow TPMOs to get around many of the marketing prohibitions currently in law, per Section 103 of the Medicare Improvement for Patient and Providers Act (MIPPA) of 2008, that prohibits MA and Part D plans from conducting certain marketing activities, including cold calling. These mailers enable salesmen to circumvent the rules, as CMS regulations stipulate that prohibitions are lifted once the beneficiary responds to an advertisement. Mailers framed as urgent that look like official notices from the IRS or other government entities serve the explicitly misleading purpose of prompting beneficiaries to “initiate contact,” so that MA marketing prohibitions can be circumvented. This loophole allows bad actors to inundate older Americans with unsolicited calls and other aggressive marketing.2) Misleading Information about Provider NetworksFalse or misleading claims regarding in-network and out-of-network providers have been reported, raising significant concerns due to their serious impact on beneficiary health. In response to the March 2022 Advance Notice released by CMS, the National Organization for Rheumatology Management (NORM) submitted a letter describing the provision of incorrect information about MA plan provider networks. In its letter to CMS, NORM reported that “When researching MA plan options, beneficiaries are often told by MA plan enrollment representatives that there will be no disruption in their treatment, and they can continue seeing their current care providers. Some beneficiaries will contact their rheumatology practice for confirmation. The practice administrator can share whether the treating rheumatologist is “in-network,” whether the prescribed medications are on the plan’s formulary and/or subject to prior authorization or step therapy, or whether the patient would need to be “switched” to another option, as well as what their expected out-of-pocket costs would be, if they proceed with MA plan enrollment. Far too often, beneficiaries learn the information shared by the MA plan representative was incorrect.” The letter goes on to say, “practice administrators learn of a patient’s change in coverage at the time the patient requests an appointment (and the practice does not participate in the plan) or visits the pharmacy to request a refill (and learns they either need prior authorization or the medication is now cost-prohibitive). At that time, the damage has been done, as the patient is “stuck” with the new MA plan until the next open enrollment period…. In these situations, the patient’s care is severely disrupted solely as a result of misleading marketing tactics used by the plan to increase enrollment.”3) The Missouri Department of Insurance detailed similar beneficiary stories in a letter stating:“A 94-year-old woman with dementia was sold a MA plan. The consumer lives in a rural area, and the hospital and providers she utilizes are not in-network with the plan chosen for her by the insurance salesperson. The plan did not allow for continuity of care for the consumer and forced her to obtain care (with the help of staff) miles away from her residence.”4) *Television/Internet:*Another example of misleading marketing is the Medicare Coverage Helpline television advertisement campaign, which first aired in 2018 and features former football star Broadway Joe Namath. In the ad, Mr. Namath says, “get what you deserve,” and “the benefit that adds money back to your Social Security check.” After numerous lawsuits, the ad was recently updated to comply with current CMS regulations. However, it still fails to mention basic information about the MA program, including that not all providers are in-network and was only recently updated to mention that benefits vary by zip code.5) Television advertisements can be particularly effective at targeting Medicare beneficiaries. For example, the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance reported instances of consumers “reaching out to insurance agencies after seeing a television advertisement. For example, an elderly consumer in a long-term care facility, who lacks the capacity to make her own decisions, called the number advertised on television. During the call she was switched from one plan to another.”6). Oregon reported a case where a dual eligible Medicare beneficiary and Social Security Income recipient was enrolled in a plan without prescription drug coverage. The beneficiary reported that they “did not remember making any changes to his coverage; however, remembered seeing a TV advertisement and called about it. He said the plan representative mentioned getting $135 more in his Social Security check ([the beneficiary] wasn’t sure what that meant but it sounded good). [The beneficiary] already had the State of Oregon paying his Part B premium. [The beneficiary] was told he would have a gym membership and dental coverage (which he already has dental through his Medicaid benefit). The key issue is that the MA-only plan phone agent did not tell him that the plan does not cover Rx and does not include Part D.”BUYER BEWAREInvestigation shows a toxic pattern of false, misleading advertisements and fraudulent sales practices that go well beyond isolated incidents. Reports from state insurance departments and SHIPs confirm that vulnerable seniors are being flooded by plans utilizing subsidiaries, third-party organizations, and “bait-and-switch” tactics that evade existing Medicare rules on plan marketing and communications to beneficiaries. Unscrupulous actors appear to be taking advantage of the loosening of marketing regulations, which has ratcheted up confusion and pressure on beneficiaries as well as enrollment into different plans without their consent.**HOW TO DEAL WITH HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES BEARING GIFTS:**1).  USE EXTREME CAUTION IF CALLING A TV HELPLINE . The Federal Medicare program does not advertise MA plans or benefits on television. These so-called helplines will connect you with an agent or broker. That agent or broker does not have to tell you about all of your options in the Medicare program, and does not have to ensure that your plan will meet your needs.2).   IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE BEEN ENROLLED IN A NEW PLAN THAT DOESN’T WORK FOR YOU, CALL 1-800-MEDICARE FOR HELP. Seniors and people living with disabilities can also get no-cost counseling from the local State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) or Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) office. In some situations, you may be eligible for a special enrollment period to switch back into your original plan. During the first three months of the year, you can also change your enrollment.3).   BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU CLICK. Third-Party Marketing Organizations are using sneaky tactics to get your information and then sell your information to agents or brokers who can call you. When in doubt, don’t provide your information on unfamiliar websites or unfamiliar people. The Medicare Call Center (1-800-MEDICARE) and your local State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP) office can help you understand your Medicare choices and enroll in a plan that will meet your needs. 4).  JUST DON’T DO IT !  Please do everything you can to stay with (or return) to traditional Medicare and buy a supplemental Medigap policy, because unfortunately, traditional Medicare has some big holes in it. 5).  DENIAL: Medicare Advantage plans look good while you’re healthy. But when you get sick, odds are high they will deny you.6).  REMEMBER  another critical factor: The door will have been slammed behind you if you have been in Medicare Advantage for more than six months and then decide you want to return /re-enroll in traditional Medicare.7).  EXCEPTION: Except four states in this country, if you’re in Medicare Advantage for more than six months and decide you want to go back, and then buy a supplemental coverage, the insurance companies that sells you supplemental coverage can turn you down for supplemental coverage..8).  PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS: If they don’t like the look of your pre-existing conditions, they can also charge you a lot more money.9).  You need to make this decision in a six months enrollment timeframe if you are still fairly new to MA. 10). BASIC RECOMMENDATION: don’t even think about enrolling in Medicare Advantage in the first place!11)  CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATORS asking them to oppose and end Medicare Advantage plans immediately.12). Most importantly, ask them to strongly support new legislation now filed in Congress, “The Medicare for All Act of 2025”13). SPECIAL FYI NOTE ON M4A ACT-2025:        a). The Medicare for All Act of 2025, now filed in Congress, would provide health coverage to every U.S. resident—including comprehensive medical, dental, vision, mental health, and reproductive care—with no out-of-pocket costs, copays, or deductibles.        b).  By eliminating waste and corporate profiteering in health care, the bill would save hundreds of billions annually that could be invested in actual health care, resulting in better, more equitable health outcomes.         c). By covering everyone without the copays, deductibles, and insurance networks that deter care and drive medical debt, M4A would achieve universal and comprehensive coverage, while assuring real choice of physician, mental health / health professional and hospital.         d). By eliminating profiteering and wasteful insurance bureaucracy (plus the administrative costs that bureaucracy inflicts on healthcare providers), it would — according to the Congressional Budget Office — free up $400 billion annually in funds that could pay for the cost of such coverage expansions and improvements.         e). Medicare-for-All could also effect a much-needed shift in the ownership of care away from increasingly dominant private corporations to public ownership by Americans and their communities.

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