Cornel West lifted Lisa McCormick's policy idea

Presidential candidate Cornel West called for the nationalization of the oil, coal and natural gas industries in a press release issued 50 days after New Jersey environmentalist Lisa McCormick called for the federal government to take over fossil fuel companies and use their resources to fund a transition to renewable energy sources.

West, who is running as a 2024 presidential candidate with the Green Party, was a New Jersey resident when McCormick challenged hawkish US Senator Robert Menendez in the 2018 Democratic primary election but records from the Mercer County Board of Elections indicate that he did not cast a ballot in that election.

McCormick questioned the professor's feckless candidacy in a tweet that told West, "I support big changes but this seems like an utterly pointless exercise that has no realistic prospect of victory and some potential to distract from the important goal of stopping Fascism in America."

McCormick challenged West to explain "how you plan to win."

Although she has faulted West for running as a third-party contender, McCormick has strongly raised many of the same arguments the former Princeton University professor has made about President Joe Biden and the corporate-controlled political establishment.

McCormick accused the fossil fuel industry of knowingly damaging the planet for decades while misleading the public and influencing Congress to weaken environmental regulations, and she has lambasted the Biden administration for its handling of global warming because "the Inflation Reduction Act allows massive new fossil fuel investments instead of stopping climate change."

West said the climate emergency leaves no time left for “milquetoast reforms” such as Biden’s so-called Inflation Reduction Act.

“These programs are window dressing,” he said West, who excoriated the administration for subsidies to the fossil fuel industry that range from $10 to $50 billion per year. “They will not significantly reduce emissions to avert climate catastrophe.”

Fossil fuel subsidies globally were estimated at $1 trillion last year, even as the Oil giants earned some $4 trillion, according to the International Energy Agency.

"Tribal politics makes people think things are better than before but stupid is stupid whether the president is Biden, Trump, Obama or Bush," said McCormick, who argued that, "Americans don't want the US to be an empire. The Democratic or Republican political establishments are each slave to the corporate oligarchy that has seized control over the democratic republic founded in 1776. This new aristocracy has been in power for more than 40 years!"

While she faults West for pursuing a route that is unlikely to bring about meaningful change, McCormick is no wilting lily when it comes to criticizing Biden as harshly as she attacked the politics and policies of Republicans such as former President Donald Trump, Florida Senator Rick Scott, and other GOP leaders.

The Jersey Journal's Agustin C. Torres said that McCormick "out progressives even former Democratic Party presidential candidate Bernie Sanders" and while many left-wing favorites like Hector Oseguera, and Zina Speckakis her anti-establishment, corruption-fighting campaign is still breaking records for getting votes without raising obscene amounts of money that have made candidates from both parties dependent on oligarchs and corporations.

"Climate change is a consequence of much greater problems with the human race, but it is an emergency that must be addressed now," said McCormick. "Joe Biden has failed to address climate change in an adequate fashion, so he is unqualified for a second term."

"President Biden is calling the Inflation Reduction Act, the most comprehensive climate legislation in US history but the law lacks ambitious clean energy goals & it is insufficient to cure our addiction to fossil fuels," said McCormick. "It's unprecedented because America has done nothing else!"

"Biden's 'unprecedented investment in clean energy' is woefully inadequate and he has continued to approve massive climate killing fossil fuel infrastructure," said McCormick. "President Biden’s agenda to tackle the climate crisis involves offshore drilling in an area the size of Italy, destructive drilling & LNG in Alaska, four times the number of federal oil and gas leases as were issued by Trump, plus financing such international fossil fuel projects as an Indonesian oil refinery."

"I fear Americans take the constitutional crisis as seriously as they have taken the climate emergency and other urgent problems," said McCormick, speaking with sarcasm. "Our people must rise up to the responsibility of citizenship, but they seem satisfied to invite a Biden vs Trump rematch instead."

McCormick also slammed Biden's proposed budget for allocating 18 times as much money for the military than it did to address the climate crisis. She has identified him as the 'War President' in response to his efforts to incite violent conflicts with China and Russia, while continuing to aid the murderous and misogynistic Saudi regime with its bloody massacre in Yemen.