Democrat Politics

Cartoon by Clay Bennett.

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Not Donald Trump. Not Ted Cruz. But a little known Republican from West Texas ranks as the top recipient of fossil fuel money.

By Marcus Baram, Capital and Main

August Pfluger, an Air Force veteran and member of the U.S. House representing a small district in West Texas, isn’t exactly a household name on the national political scene, with little press coverage in the last two months outside a recent Fox News appearance.

But he is the country’s top recipient of campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry—out of all federal candidates, including President Biden, Donald Trump, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz—receiving $573,721 during the current 2024 election cycle, according to campaign finance data compiled by Open Secrets. Pfluger is running for reelection, though it’s not a competitive race in the strongly Republican district, which includes part of the Permian basin, the largest oil-producing region in the country.

He’s a criminal defendant, a businessman, and a politician. But to his most loyal supporters, Donald Trump will always be Mr. President. As for the guy currently serving in the White House, they call him Biden, or maybe just Joe.

That’s the conclusion from research that did a deep dive into political ads on Facebook and Instagram that found a sharp divide in how Americans refer to the two contenders for the White House. In pro-Trump ads, Trump is still “President Trump,” even though he left the White House three years ago.

It was déjà vu all over again for me on April 30, when the NYPD removed pro-Palestinian protesters sitting in at Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall. That brought back memories of April 30, 1968, when the NYPD forcibly broke up sit-ins at Hamilton Hall and other campus buildings by students protesting plans to build a de facto segregated gym on public parkland. The students were also protesting the Vietnam War by demanding that Columbia cut ties with the Institute for Defense Analysis, a consortium that provided strategy and weapons research for the Pentagon.

Then as now, I was living in an apartment just a block from the Columbia campus. But in 1968, the police intervention was far more brutal and undisciplined. The screams of students resonated in my ears while I watched from my window as club-wielding police officers chased young people down the block toward Riverside Park.

That night marked the start of a radicalization process that left me, like many others, alienated from the system. There was no way I could support the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey. Only years later did I realize that I was mistaken, and we missed an opportunity to have a president who might actually have made America great by championing racial justice, labor rights, and the war against poverty.

I hope that today’s campus protesters don’t repeat our mistakes by abandoning President Joe Biden, who already has a proven record of accomplishments in his first term. The anti-Vietnam War protests were much larger and more widespread than this year’s demonstrations on campuses. And the passions were possibly more intense back then because U.S. troops were directly involved, and the draft loomed over young American men.

RELATED STORY: How student journalists are tested while covering campus protests

It’s a Mother’s Day tradition here on Black Music Sunday to celebrate mothers and other nurturing folks with music from multiple genres. This Mother’s Day installment will be no different. Our fourth annual maternal music exploration will include both jazz and blues tunes about mothers—loving them, treasuring their advice to us, and sadly, how it feels when we lose them.

Mother’s Day has been criticized as a commercialized event, but I enjoy listening to how mamas play a role in music across the spectrum.

”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly series highlighting all things Black music, with over 200 stories covering performers, genres, history, and more, each featuring its own vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll find some familiar tunes and perhaps an introduction to something new.

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich.

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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup is a long-running series published every morning that collects essential political discussion and analysis around the internet

New York Times:

Trump May Owe $100 Million From Double-Dip Tax Breaks, Audit Shows

A previously unknown focus of an I.R.S. audit is a dubious accounting maneuver that effectively meant taking the same write-offs twice on a Chicago skyscraper.

The issues around Mr. Trump’s case were novel enough that, during his presidency, the I.R.S. undertook a high-level legal review before pursuing it. The Times and ProPublica, in consultation with tax experts, calculated that the revision sought by the I.R.S. would create a new tax bill of more than $100 million, plus interest and potential penalties.

From the start of Russia’s illegal, unprovoked invasion, the Ukrainian government’s goal has been clear: not just pushing Russia back beyond the boundaries that existed on Feb 24, 2022, but recovering the land stolen by Russia in an earlier 2014 invasion. Using Google Maps to view Ukraine’s boundaries, the borders don’t just include recently captured locations like Avdiivka and Bakhmut. They also include cities like Donetsk and the whole of Crimea, which fell to Russia almost 10 years ago.

That border is the official Ukraine, the boundaries of the nation as recognized by international law. And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is determined to reclaim those boundaries.

However, as The Economist reports, the failed counteroffensive in spring 2023 and the slow but steady Russian advance that began over the winter have many people—even people in Ukraine—rethinking whether the lines on the map are achievable. Starved for both equipment and manpower, Ukrainian soldiers have been conducting a slow retreat. More U.S. supplies are on the way, but their arrival won’t reverse Russia’s advantage in raw numbers. As Ukraine digs in to weather the storm, restoring the country to its 1991 borders seems more of a dream than ever.

But that doesn’t mean Ukraine is ready to concede defeat—or another centimeter of ground.

Cartoon by Pedro Molina.

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Dominoes has a new promotion that rewards customers for tipping. For every $3 that customers put into a tip, they’ll get $3 off a future order. The ad campaign for this promotion is meant to play off the big attention given to stories about “tipping fatigue” and so-called “guilt tipping.”

But what Dominos isn’t doing, is the one thing that might actually help. They are not increasing the pay to their workers. Though the company says that it considers this promotion a labor recruitment strategy, what they’re pointing out to potential workers is how they’re encouraging customers to tip, not how they’re raising pay.

The solution to tipping fatigue isn’t encouraging more tipping. It’s paying workers a living wage.