Ben van Beurden
Ben van Beurden

Say what? Shell CEO Ben van Beurden hit back at critics who characterize the company’s $9B first-quarter net income as a “war profit.”

Perhaps that does sound a tad mercenary.

How about we take a cue from Vladimar Putin and call the energy giant’s obscene earnings a “special military operations” profit?

Van Beurden wants people to believe that Q1’s profit tripling was due to “the performance of Shell, which strengthened in the run-up and also during the pandemic.”

Shall we then call the $9B net a “COVID-19 dividend?”

Van Beurden called the invasion of Ukraine a human tragedy that triggered a “significant disruption to global energy markets.”

By the looks of Shell’s bottom line, it handled that disruption very nicely.

Shell’s PR team is going to be hard-pressed to counter demands for a windfall profits tax.

The embarrassment of riches spelled out in Shell’s Q1 financial statement works against it.

Corporate America may not be as “woke” as right-wingers claim that it is.

That’s evident by the deafening silence of Big Business to news that Supreme Court associate justice Sam Alito wants to strip half the nation of the right to control their own bodies because abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution.

While you are at it Sam, the word “women” also is not mentioned in the nation’s founding document. You can have all kinds of fun with that one.

To be fair to Big Business, Alito’s document is just a draft that may wind up where it deserves, which is the shredding machine.

That paragon of all things ESG, The Business Roundtable, is among the mum.

It made quite a splash three years ago when BR revised its “statement of purpose” to say companies exist to benefit customers, employees, suppliers and communities, not just stockholders.

BR may be holding its tongue on Roe v. Wade, hoping the Supreme Court does the right thing in June.

Corporate America and the rest of us assumed the abortion issue was settled in 1973 when Roe v. Wade made it the law of the land.

Richard Edelman told the Financial Times: “If you think business people want to get involved with abortion, you need your head examined.”

He’s right but the leaked Alito document has created a new ballgame. Business now has no choice but to make a decision on the hot button issue of abortion, according to Edelman.

PR teams better have their talking points in place well before the Supreme Court’s blockbuster ruling in June

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene needs to bone up on her New Testament before attacking US Catholic bishops as “satanic” and “destroying our nation” through their support of immigrants from South America.

In an April 27 tweet, she said bishops are using taxpayer money to advocate for the illegal invasion across our borders. “They dare to dress up Democrat vandalism and lawlessness as somehow ‘religious,’ which perhaps explains their distaste for me.”

The social teaching of the US Catholic Church, an immigrant church, says support for migrants is heeding Christ’s call to “welcome the stranger among us.”

Greene, who calls herself a “cradle Catholic” surely recalls the teachings of Jesus in Matthew 25:35: “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.”

It seems to me the bishops are doing their job in supporting desperate people trying to enter this country in search of better lives for their families.

Greene says she stopped going to Mass after becoming a mother because she couldn’t trust the Church’s leadership from protecting her kids from pedophiles.

Her attack on the bishops is nothing more than a PR smokescreen.

A year ago, she introduced the Protect America First Act to halt all immigration for four years, fund and build a wall across the southern border, expedite the deportation of undocumented people and kill the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Dreamers) program.

WWJD: He’d opt for the bishops over Greene.