Editorial Roundup: United States

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

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Aug. 30

The Washington Post says as EV sales stall, focus on hybrids

The recent announcement by Ford Motor Co. that it was abandoning plans to roll out a large electric SUV seems like another warning flag that the early electric vehicle craze has hit a roadblock.

There have been other signs. Last year, Tesla, the EV trendsetter, was forced to offer deep discounts, as vehicles sat unsold. General Motors announced it was delaying its plans for an EV pickup, and Hertz began offloading electric vehicles. Carmakers are losing millions as customer demand appears to have flatlined after an initial burst of interest.

There was never going to be a straight-line highway from all-gas vehicles to all-electric, and some of the early EV promise suffered from hype — including among some state and federal policymakers who envisioned a massive, rapid shift. But while Detroit’s automakers are making plans to scale back their EV offerings, they are also not going back to entirely internal-combustion vehicles. Most are opting for electric and fuel hybrids, which is a sensible response to market demand. Plug-in hybrids, which operate as electric vehicles within a limited range, provide most of the environmental benefits of all-electric cars, even as they assuage “range anxiety” by switching to gas once the battery runs down.

Those state and federal policymakers writing auto industry mandates should leave room for plug-in hybrid sales in the medium term. Meanwhile, before the eventual all-EV transition, they should avoid making mistakes that could make the EV shift harder than it already is.

The industry is now in the phase that researchers call the “technology-adoption life cycle” or cross-industry adjustment. When a new technology enters the market, there is a chasm between the enthusiastic early adopters who embrace it right away and the critical mass of consumers who need longer to be convinced. In that chasm, traditional industries often struggle to adjust, while newcomers without legacy baggage claim a toehold.

Most of the early EV adopters have already purchased their vehicles. It might take time to bring along the critical mass of wait-and-see consumers. Offering electric-fuel hybrids is a way to ease that transition while providing practical solutions to some common concerns.

The first is price. Most electric vehicles are still relatively expensive, giving some potential buyers sticker shock, even after federal subsidies. As technology and production methods improve, prices will come down. Along with allowing for more plug-in hybrids, the United States needs to avoid an escalating trade war that could keep prices high.

China, which makes most of the world’s electric vehicles, has been able to make them cheaper and sell them at lower prices, thanks partly to generous government support and lower labor costs. But even China is seeing a market slowdown, raising concerns in the United States, Europe and Canada that it is preparing to dump its overproduction of vehicles overseas at lower prices, further undercutting domestic carmakers.

Canada recently announced it was following the United States in imposing a 100 percent tariff on Chinese EV imports starting Oct. 1. The European Union earlier imposed tariffs of as much as 38 percent, but lower for Tesla and Chinese carmakers in joint ventures with E.U. companies. China has criticized these moves as trade protectionism and threatened to retaliate. A green-tech trade conflict that could complicate sales of finished cars as well as critical materials and parts would do neither consumers nor the environment any good.

In the United States, the other main problem with EVs is concern over the availability of public charging stations. That’s a real worry, especially for urban car-buyers who might not have a garage or private parking space. The Biden administration has tried to ramp up construction of public charging stations. But so far, the effort is falling short.

Encouragingly, Detroit automakers have announced plans to make their charging stations compatible with Tesla’s. That makes sense, since charging an EV should be as easy as pulling into a gas station to fill up the tank — easier, even, as chargers should be in places drivers are already going, such as parking lots. Yet the industry still depends on a massive federally backed build-out of charging infrastructure that is only just accelerating.

In the face of these headwinds, Detroit’s automakers need to adapt and get more creative. They need to offer more lower-cost compact cars and sedans in addition to larger trucks and SUVs, and make cars that can compete with the even less expensive Chinese imports without relying on protectionist tariffs. If they react to this moment of industry challenge with sense and flexibility, state and federal regulators should give them the leeway they need.

ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/08/28/google-doj-kanter-antitrust-judge/

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Aug. 30

The Wall Street Journal on judicial ethics and double standards

Progressives have made ethics scandals out of conservative judges mixing with conservative friends or speaking at Federalist Society events. So what are we to make of the Climate Judiciary Project (CJP) working to enlist judges in its anti-fossil-fuel campaign, as detailed by the American Energy Institute in a new report?

The 55-year-old Environmental Law Institute (ELI) touts itself as a nonprofit that educates attorneys and judges about such subjects as endangered species, energy and climate science. It also “partners” with the Federal Judicial Center, which is the official education and research shop for federal courts and whose titular head is Chief Justice John Roberts.

In 2018 the ELI launched the Climate Judiciary Project with the stated goal of providing judges with “authoritative, objective, and trusted education on climate science, the impacts of climate change, and the ways climate science is arising in the law.” You can guess how it defines “objective.”

As ELI director of “judicial education” Sandra Nichols Thiam explained in 2022, the Climate Judiciary Project’s goal is the “development of a body of law that supports climate action.” Translation: Use the judiciary to support or even impose climate policies that climate alarmists can’t enact through the political branches.

The CJP doesn’t disclose the identities of judges who have attended its colloquiums. But its website boasts testimonials from unidentified judges and says that more than 2,000 judges have attended more than 44 of its events, including one at a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals conclave in 2019. The Ninth Circuit is a hot spot for climate-related lawsuits. Notably, the outfit’s “curriculum” has been developed by law professors assisting lawsuits by local governments against oil and gas companies.

It’s fine with us if judges attend seminars to learn more about the climate and environmental science. Judges aren’t monks and need to be familiar with important scientific facts and debates. One reason jackpot jury verdicts are so common in product-liability suits is jury ignorance about basic science.

The problem is the left’s double standard. Progressives and the press corps claim that judges who speak to conservative groups or attend their seminars are guilty of conflicts of interest. They even made an effort through the Judicial Conference to bar Justices from attending meetings of the Federalist Society, a legal organization that espouses constitutional originalism. But they are mute about the easy access to judges by the Climate Judiciary Project.

Progressives and their friends at ProPublica and the New York Times say Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are tainted by their social connections with conservative donors and interactions with constitutional lawyers. They demand that the Justices recuse themselves from cases, despite no evident conflict of interest.

But under the left’s ethics standard, every judge who attends a Climate Judiciary Project event should have to step aside from climate-related cases. Democrats Sheldon Whitehouse and his Senate sidecar Dick Durbin are trying to use ethics as a political weapon against conservative Justices, but watch out: It’s a double-edged sword.

ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/climate-judiciary-project-judges-environmental-law-institute-supreme-court-dick-durbin-sheldon-whitehouse-5256997a?mod=editorials_article_pos8

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Sept. 2

The Los Angeles Times says it's time to raise the federal minimum wage

It’s been 15 years since workers earning the federal minimum wage got a raise. The cost of living has gone up more than 45% since then, with rents and home prices rising faster than incomes in most regions of the country. Yet the nation’s wage floor has stayed stuck at $7.25 an hour.

That is poverty pay, and an increase to the federal minimum wage is long overdue. It’s mind-boggling that Congress has gone so long without making even modest adjustments to help the lowest-paid workers. This is the longest stretch of time without an increase to the federal minimum wage since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which established the right to a minimum wage.

Certainly there have been some attempts to lift the wage floor. Most recently Democrats floated the Raise the Wage Act of 2023 that would have gradually increased minimum pay to $17 by 2028. Republicans countered with $11 phased in over four years. Neither proposal has moved forward.

As part of her economic plan, Vice President Kamala Harris has called on Congress to send her a bill raising the minimum wage. She supported $15 an hour during the 2020 election, but hasn’t named a number this time.

Donald Trump, not surprisingly, has sent conflicting messages on raising the minimum wage over the years. In 2016, he said he wanted to raise the federal rate to at least $10, but later said minimum wage hikes should be left to the states, which is effectively what’s happening now.

Some 30 states and the District of Columbia have enacted higher wage floors, and many cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City, have adopted higher base pay than their states in recognition that it is more expensive to live in urban areas. In Seattle and some surrounding cities, the minimum wage is almost $20 an hour.

Still, 20 states, bowing to politics and business lobbying, have kept the federal $7.25 an hour as their pay floor. That’s why Congress needs to act, and the next president should commit to signing a wage hike.

The minimum wage is supposed to ensure workers can afford the basic necessities. It’s hard to imagine, even in less expensive regions, how an adult can pay for housing, food, healthcare and transportation on a full-time minimum wage salary of $15,000 a year. That is below the poverty line for a single parent with one child. When working people earn so little that they could qualify for Medicaid and food stamps, taxpayers end up subsidizing their employers.

If the federal minimum wage had kept up with inflation, it would be close to $11 an hour now. An estimated 5 million workers earn less than $11 an hour. And let’s not kid ourselves — while earning $11 an hour working full time would lift a single parent out of poverty, it’s probably not enough to pay the bills and save for a rainy day.

There will always be debate over the correct level at which to set the minimum wage to help the most workers with the fewest negative consequences, which could include businesses cutting low-wage jobs to save money. Yet it should be clear that $7.25 is now woefully low and no longer a fair wage floor. Everyone benefits when working people earn a decent living, and raising the federal minimum wage is essential.

ONLINE: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-09-02/the-us-minimum-wage-is-poverty-pay-its-time-to-raise-it

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Sept. 3

The Guardian says wealthier nations should help combat global health crisis

he pandemic may be behind us, but the world still has the jitters about infectious diseases. Covid has left its mark; flu is identified as the next looming terror. Yet when the World Health Organization declared a public-health emergency over mpox last month, the response has been depressingly unjust. None of the African countries affected by the outbreak of a new variant of mpox have received any of the promised vaccines.

Unfortunately, it seems too much of the world considers that if the poor are out of sight, they are largely out of mind. Yet it is the west that is shaping the poor world’s health crises. Its companies push calorie-heavy processed foods and its governments insist on fiscal austerity. The biggest cause of premature death around the world is not infectious diseases, but chronic conditions such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. So-called non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are responsible for three-quarters of all deaths in the world. Of the 41 million total, 17 million are premature – before the age of 70. The heaviest toll is exacted in low- and middle-income countries, where 86% of all the premature deaths from chronic diseases occur.

And deaths from NCDs are going up. When you look at what the experts like to call the risk factors, that’s hardly surprising. These include tobacco, alcohol, air pollution, inactivity and diets high in salt, sugar and the wrong sort of fat. There will still be people who say falling foul of these lifestyle threats is the individual’s fault, but in poor countries where greedy corporations are seeking new markets and there’s little to no education about what’s good for you, the argument is even more specious than it is in rich Europe or the US.

The WHO now talks of the “commercial determinants of health” and, to its credit, has been outspoken about the damage the market can cause, for instance in small island states where most food has to be imported. There need to be curbs on companies’ ability to market and advertise. Countries require money to take on the corporations, but also to run health systems to treat the increasing number of people falling ill with chronic diseases. The irony is that living longer may not mean living healthier.

Just 2% of global funding for health goes into tackling NCDs. But investment repays itself many times over. A 2018 WHO report – Saving Lives, Spending Less – calculated that implementing “best buy” measures to control NCDs – from increasing taxes on tobacco and alcohol to reducing salt, providing drugs for people who have suffered a heart attack or stroke and vaccinating girls against HPV, which causes cervical cancer – would save 8.2 million lives in low- and lower-middle-income countries by 2030 and generate $350bn in economic growth. Every $1 invested in these best buys would yield $7 by 2030.

Six years on, the reasoning hasn’t changed, although it risks being drowned out by post-pandemic noise. In June, the WHO and the World Bank organised a financing dialogue for NCDs ahead of next year’s UN general assembly meeting on their prevention and control. Self-interest as well as decency should encourage funding for programmes that stabilise poorer nations’ health. Cash for NCDs doesn’t have the appeal of eradicating a disease, but it can prevent the family disaster that is the loss of a breadwinner or parent, with all the social and economic consequences that carries with it.

ONLINE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/03/the-guardian-view-on-a-global-health-crisis-living-longer-may-not-mean-living-healthier

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Aug. 28

The Boston Globe on fighting online disinformation and AI this election season

So Donald Trump has had his fun with those AI-generated images of crowds of Taylor Swift fans in “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts, which reportedly sparked a backlash among actual Swifties.

And who didn’t love the AI-generated scenes of Trump and Kamala Harris walking hand in hand along the shore in deep-fake love — a video clip now making its way around the globe courtesy of Elon Musk.

But the use of artificial intelligence, disinformation, and hacking — all the tools of our internet age — are only funny until they’re not, until they are used maliciously by foreign actors to disrupt our democratic processes and to set us against each other for reasons based not in fact but in propaganda.

Users themselves are the first line of defense: We all need to develop stronger skepticism about everything social media companies feed us. But the government and tech companies have to step up, too.

“Iran and Russia have employed these tactics not only in the United States during this and prior federal election cycles but also in other countries around the world,” the FBI said in a statement issued last week in conjunction with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

The statement confirmed in this case that Iran was responsible for recent attempted hacks into the Trump and Joe Biden presidential campaigns.

“The (intelligence community) is confident that the Iranians have through social engineering and other efforts sought access to individuals with direct access to the Presidential campaigns of both political parties,” the statement said. “Such activity, including thefts and disclosures, are intended to influence the US election process.”

In fact it was Microsoft that first went public with its announcement not simply of the campaign hacking but of a major disinformation campaign launched by Iran, especially in key battleground states.

“One Iranian group has been launching covert news sites targeting US voter groups on opposing ends of the political spectrum,” the report said, with one in particular targeting left-leaning groups with anti-Trump messages. “The evidence we found suggests the sites are using AI-enabled services to plagiarize at least some of their content from US publications.”

Another “group may be setting itself up for activities that are even more extreme, including intimidation or inciting violence against political figures or groups, with the ultimate goals of inciting chaos, undermining authorities, and sowing doubt about election integrity.”

This was, of course, in addition to the successful spear-phishing email sent in June to longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone, which netted some vetting materials on Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance. The materials were sent along to several news outlets but not published.

Meanwhile, Russia, which has a long history of disinformation campaigns perfected in 2016, has certainly not been idle.

The Justice Department reported in July that it had disrupted two Russian propaganda campaigns, both largely aimed at justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and disparaging Ukraine, Poland, and the European Union.

It was, however, the first time the United States had disrupted a “Russian-sponsored Generative AI-enhanced social media bot farm,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in the statement announcing the discovery of 968 social media accounts on X. The US operation was carried out in connection with cybersecurity agencies in Canada and the Netherlands.

As for those who had grown fond of the internet rantings of Sue Williamson of Gresham well, sorry to break the news, but she never did exist and now she’s gone. Hers was just one of those 968 accounts now voluntarily closed down by X.

Earlier this month Meta disclosed that working on a tip from the FBI it too had removed “inauthentic” pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram also aimed at disparaging Ukraine and its conduct of the war instigated by Russia.

Meta continues to insist — as recently as its latest quarterly “Adversarial Threat Report” issued this month — that it regulates not content but “coordinated inauthentic behavior” online.

“We view (coordinated inauthentic behavior) as coordinated efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal, in which fake accounts are central to the operation,” it notes in the report. “In each case, people coordinate with one another and use fake accounts to mislead others about who they are and what they are doing. When we investigate and remove these operations, we focus on behavior, not content — no matter who’s behind them, what they post or whether they’re foreign or domestic.”

Russia remains a top violator of the policy and during the past quarter had 139 Facebook accounts and 20 Instagram accounts removed — many of them targeting Ukraine, its neighbors, or other countries in Europe.

Another 96 Facebook accounts originating in the United States and operating domestically were also dismantled by its parent, Meta. Most of the accounts were centered around “a fictitious political advocacy group — the Patriots Run Project” attempting to attract “real conservatives” in such key battleground states as Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.

And while the accounts originated here, as the US Director of National Intelligence warned last month, “Foreign actors continue to rely on witting and unwitting Americans to seed, promote, and add credibility to narratives that serve the foreign actors’ interests,” particularly through social media.

And surely it’s no coincidence that the Justice Department has recently begun to probe Americans who have worked here and abroad for Russian state media.

What used to be a straightforward process of the FBI and social media organizations finding common ground to protect the public from disinformation has been complicated by the recent legal case brought by two Republican attorneys general challenging how far the government could go to fight disinformation on the internet. The US Supreme Court found in favor of the Biden administration but left unsettled where that First Amendment line should be drawn.

The government and social media companies — some brought reluctantly to the party — are slowly working to rebuild a relationship that is critical to the battle against disinformation.

Meanwhile, the most appealing target of all for belligerent foreign actors — the US presidential election — grows closer.

And Meta, however self-serving, offered up a valuable — if obvious — piece of advice in its latest cybersecurity report:

“We encourage influential figures and the public at large to remain vigilant to avoid playing into the hands of deceptive operations attempting to manipulate public debate.”

In other words, don’t believe everything you read online. Disinformation is one of the prices we pay for living in a free and open society — but we don’t have to fall for it.

ONLINE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/08/28/opinion/ai-hacking-disinformation-social-media-election/