Chris Hedges's Blog, page 186

Commonsense Gun Control, the U.S. Army Way

In my lifetime, incidents of gun violence in the U.S. have progressed from rare anomalies to seemingly everyday occurrences. Over the past week, the attack on Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, the atrocious massacre in El Paso, Texas on Saturday, Tuesday’s shooting at a Mississippi Walmart, and the Gilroy Garlic Festival shooting in California last weekend have left 36 Americans dead and nearly 70 injured.

These tragic events, unfortunately, add to the growing tally of more than 250 mass shootings in the U.S. this year alone, according to the nonprofit research group Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot, not counting the perpetrator, in roughly the same place at the same time. That is more than one a day.

These mass shootings, often perpetrated by shooters using assault rifles, consistently leave us looking for safety solutions to stop the next catastrophe from occurring. Prior to joining the military, I often wondered: What if there were a way to put military-grade restrictions on military-grade assault rifles? And, if so, would the restrictions actually reduce gun violence?

Spoiler alert: there is, and they do. Preventing improper storage and the civilian use of military-grade weapons is straightforward: We must thoroughly examine situations in which they are properly stored and employed.

For nearly the past eight months, I have served as the U.S. Army’s primary Physical Security Manager for 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Germany. One of my chief responsibilities in this role is to conduct inspections on my unit’s arms rooms, which serve as storage facilities for military-grade assault rifles, machine guns and other equipment. To pass the inspection, the storage facility must comply with a strict set of standards. Furthermore, the person charged with issuing weapons, as well as the end user, must meet a comprehensive set of criteria.

The weapons storage facilities in my squadron each consist of one small room that contains approximately 50 to 100 M4 assault rifles along with other weapons and equipment. The facilities are equipped with a motion-sensor intruder detection system, a General Services Administration-approved vault door and a high-security lock that provides resistance to physical attacks and even protects against liquid nitrogen exposure. Failure to meet those standards is unacceptable; in the event of a breach in established security protocol or established security requirements, the unit is held liable and ceases operations until the deficiencies are corrected.

Conversely, in the civilian world, very few Americans who own firearms comply with standards anywhere close to those of a military-grade arms room. This is also unacceptable. Yet in many states, firearm owners are not held liable for crimes that occur as a result of improper weapon storage. In short, U.S. civilian firearm policy should follow the military’s example of consolidated weapons storage facilities with multi-layered security measures to avoid weapons falling into improper hands.

Each of the six weapons storage facilities in my unit is managed by an “armorer”—a soldier charged with maintaining the facility and issuing weapons to soldiers. To serve as the facility “armorer,” the soldier must conduct a security screening that is signed by his or her unit commander, security clearance manager, medical provider, provost marshal and non-military local law enforcement. All of these checks ensure that the person is reliable and will not abuse his or her privilege. Although a great amount of confidence is placed in the “armorer,” that soldier does not maintain the keys to the weapons facility. Instead, the keys are maintained, inventoried, locked and kept under 24-hour surveillance by an independent entity. That entity only issues the keys to the “armorer.” Comparatively, the keys to access locked firearms in a private residence are rarely, if ever, constantly watched. Independent, trustworthy weapons issuers, sellers, distributors and key guards would prevent unauthorized access to deadly assault rifles.

Nearly 600 soldiers in my squadron have access to military-grade assault rifles. Many of these personnel are soldiers who undergo a strict background check. After a substantial review period, many obtain a valid security clearance, and thus are entrusted with our nation’s most sensitive information. In other words, a security clearance is an intangible badge of significant and considerable trust.

However, even the immense trust granted to those soldiers does not extend to their handling of a military-grade assault rifle. No soldiers are permitted to store their assigned assault rifle at their personal residence, nor do they have permission to transport their weapon in a personal vehicle. Soldiers are also limited to possessing one rifle at any given moment for a training exercise. What’s more, even the most reliable soldiers must specify to the weapon issuer what is the intended reason for, and duration of, their weapon use.

The military established these important guidelines for soldiers because military-grade assault rifles are killing machines. Yet everyday Americans with a less thorough background check, or even none at all, are held to a lesser standard than our nation’s trusted military personnel. Firearm policy solutions must target and resolve this paradox.

While strict, U.S. Army weapons storage regulations are clear, easily understood, efficiently implemented, multi-layered and enforceable. The U.S. Army is a standard-bearer of safe firearm policy. Ironic, isn’t it, that conservative gun rights advocates tend to be reflexively pro-military but would never agree to the application of any of that same military’s gun-safety standards? Consider it hypocrisy of the highest order.

U.S. Army practices show that strictly regulated weapons facilities, access to firearms and training for assault rifles directly promote proper and safe firearm use. “Heavy hearts” and “thoughts and prayers” are not enough for family and friends who have lost loved ones to gun violence, and we should not continue to pretend that they are. If the U.S. Army is consolidating the storage of military-grade weapons and requiring strict background checks for those personnel issuing and receiving such weapons, why doesn’t the government adopt the same policy guidelines for civilians?

One last spoiler alert: It should.

‘Cesspool of Hate’ 8chan Knocked Off Web After Mass Shootings

Before opening fire, killing 22 people, and injuring 26 at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the alleged shooter posted a racist screed on an anonymous online message board. So did the shooters at a Christchurch New Zealand mosque, and a San Diego-area synagogue. The online board is called 8chan and, as Drew Harwell writes in The Washington Post, it is “one of the web’s most venomous refuges for extremist hate.”

On Monday morning, 8chan went dark. The New York Times reports the outage was not due to the site’s owner or administrator, the father and son team of Jim and Ronald Watkins. 8chan founder Fredrick Brennan joined a public outcry for the shutdown, telling the Post “the board is a receptive audience for domestic terrorists,” but he is no longer involved with the forum. 8chan’s outage was due to Matthew Prince, the chief executive of Cloudflare, a company that protects sites from cyberattacks and allows them to load faster.

In a company blog post, Prince said he decided to drop 8chan because it  “has repeatedly proven itself to be a cesspool of hate,” adding, “we reluctantly tolerate content that we find reprehensible, but we draw the line at platforms that have demonstrated they directly inspire tragic events and are lawless by design.”

Some of the objectionable content was posted soon after the El Paso shooting. As Harwell reports, “One of the most active threads early Sunday urged people to create memes and original content, or OC, that could make it easier to distribute and “celebrate the [gunman’s] heroic action.” The screed attributed to the alleged El Paso shooter railed against what the writer called a “Hispanic invasion.”

Cloudflare has previously been hesitant to police its clients’ speech, and Prince called himself “almost a free-speech absolutist,” at a 2017 speaking engagement at the New America Foundation. That position was tested after the white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Va., during which counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed. The Daily Stormer, a white supremacist website and client of Cloudflare, published a post mocking Heyer. That post inspired massive backlash and Cloudflare dropped the Daily Stormer.

“Without the kind of protection that Cloudflare offers,” the Times reports, “8chan can be barraged by automated, hard-to-prevent attacks from its critics, making it nearly impossible to stay online.”

That does not mean it’s not trying. Ronald Watkins tweeted Monday morning that 8chan was moving to BitMitigate, a division of Epik Inc., a web services company that also serves Gab.com, a social network that’s a favorite of the far-right, including the alleged San Diego shooter. However, as The Wall Street Journal reported Monday, BitMitigate “had its content blocked by its cloud-services provider Voxility.”

Maria Sirbu, an executive at Voxility, told the Journal, “We take a firm stance against hate speech.” It could be merely a brief setback until 8chan finds a new service. The Daily Stormer, as the Post points out, is back online, and Prince thinks 8chan could be too.

“Today, the Daily Stormer is still available and still disgusting. They have bragged that they have more readers than ever. They are no longer Cloudflare’s problem, but they remain the Internet’s problem,” Prince explained in his blog post. “I have little doubt we’ll see the same happen with 8chan.” Plus, one of Jim Watkins’ additional companies, books.audio, sells its audiobooks on Amazon. As reporter Judd Legum points out on his site popular.info (as reprinted in The Daily Beast), Amazon’s own policies say it prohibits the sale of hateful content, but it still allows Watkins’ company to sell audiobooks, which in turn helps grow 8chan’s profits.

Ronald Watkins didn’t respond to the Journal’s requests for comment. Jim Watkins, who lives in the Philippines, respond to the Post with a message saying “I hope you are well.”

 

GateHouse, Gannett to Create Newspaper Giant With Merger

NEW YORK—Two of the largest U.S. newspaper companies have agreed to combine for roughly $1.4 billion, creating a new industry giant that hopes to manage the crisis of print’s decline through sheer size.

GateHouse Media, a fast-growing chain backed by an investment firm, is buying USA Today owner Gannett, promising to speed up a digital transformation as readers shift online. The companies say they are committed to “journalistic excellence” — while also cutting $300 million in costs every year.

The resulting company would be the largest U.S. newspaper company by far, with a print circulation of 8.7 million, 7 million more than the new No. 2, McClatchy, according to media expert Ken Doctor.

Local papers, faced with the complex and expensive process of building digital businesses to replace declines in print ads and circulation, have been consolidating madly in recent years. Although papers with national readerships like The New York Times and The Washington Post have had success adding digital subscribers, local papers with local readerships find it much more difficult. Hundreds of such papers have closed, and newsrooms have slashed jobs.

According to a study by the University of North Carolina, the U.S. has lost almost 1,800 local newspapers since 2004. Newsroom employment fell by a quarter from 2008 to 2018, according to Pew Research, and layoffs have continued this year.

Both GateHouse and Gannett are known as buyers of other papers. Bulking up lets companies cut costs — via newsroom layoffs and other measures — and centralize operations. The combined company would have more than 260 daily papers in the U.S. along with more than 300 weeklies.

Those cuts could give the owners “a cushion of time” to figure out how to improve their digital businesses, longtime industry analyst Rick Edmonds of the Poynter Institute wrote Sunday.

But it’s no panacea. “I don’t think, just by these companies merging, they’re going to somehow magically find a new business model, make everything all right and produce robust journalism at a local level,” Butler University journalism professor Nancy Whitmore said. Still, a bigger, combined newspaper company could sell more national ads and boost their ad revenue, she said.

GateHouse’s owner, New Media, is taking on new debt to get the deal done — a $1.8 billion loan from private equity firm Apollo Global Management. That will have to be paid back.

“We’ve been hearing for years and years about the glories of cost efficiencies,” said Northeastern University professor Dan Kennedy, a proponent of local ownership for media outlets. But it’s unclear, based on past media mergers, whether those savings will benefit the papers, its employees or their readers, he said.

He wonders whether combined companies make more or fewer cuts than they would have if they had remained separate.

Several experts said they do not expect the Justice Department to have an issue with the deal, as the two companies have papers in different markets. The companies expect it to close this year.

The combined company would take the Gannett name and keep its headquarters in Gannett’s current home of McLean, Virginia. GateHouse’s owner New Media is buying Gannett Co. for $12.06 a share in cash and stock.

Consolidation is nothing new to either company. Gannett’s last big U.S. print purchase was in 2016, when it bought papers in the Journal Media Group chain for $280 million, including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Commercial Appeal in Memphis. Gannett also owns dailies in major cities such as the Detroit Free Press and Arizona Republic.

Its more recent merger efforts have been unsuccessful. It failed in an unsolicited bid for newspaper chain Tribune. Gannett then fended off an unwanted bid by MNG Enterprises, better known as Digital First Media, a hedge-fund backed media group with a slash-and-burn reputation for cutting jobs and letting papers wither.

GateHouse, a little-known name to U.S. readers, is also controlled by an investment company, but it doesn’t have the same scalding reputation as Digital First. It is owned by the publicly traded New Media Investment Group, which is managed by investment firm Fortress Investment Group. Fortress, in turn, is owned by Japanese tech giant SoftBank. Gannett and New Media said Monday that Fortress will no longer manage New Media after 2021.

GateHouse has grown quickly in recent years, and its buying spree includes the Palm Beach Post, bought last year for $49 million, and the Austin American-Statesman, on which it spent $47.5 million. It publishes 154 daily newspapers, most in small- and mid-sized towns.

Gannett shares added 29 cents, or 2.7%, to close at $11.04. New Media stock lost 81 cents, or 7.6%, to $9.89.

___

AP Business Writer Mae Anderson contributed to this story.

Stocks Plunge 3% in Worst Loss of Year as Trade War Escalates

NEW YORK—U.S. stocks plunged to their worst loss of the year Monday and investors around the world scrambled to sell on worries about how much President Donald Trump’s worsening trade war will damage the global economy.

China let its currency, the yuan, drop to its lowest level against the dollar in more than a decade, a move that Trump railed against as “currency manipulation.” It also halted purchases of U.S. farm products. The moves follow Trump’s tweets from last week that threatened tariffs on about $300 billion of Chinese goods, which would extend tariffs across almost all Chinese imports.

The escalating dispute between the world’s largest economies is rattling investors unnerved about a global economy that was already slowing and falling U.S. corporate profits.

The S&P 500 dropped 87.31 points, or 3%, to 2,844.74 for its worst loss since December, when the market was wrapped in the throes of recession fears. It was down as much as 3.7% in the afternoon.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 767.27, or 2.9%, to 25,717.74, and the Nasdaq composite fell 278.03, or 3.5%, to 7,726.04.

“A 3% drop in a day is very significant, and you’re seeing sizeable moves in every major foreign market,” said Rich Weiss, chief investment officer of multi-asset strategies at American Century Investments.

“I am surprised at the market’s surprise at China’s retaliation,” he said. “We started a fight, and when the opponent punches back, I’m not sure why we’re surprised.”

The sell-off began Monday in Asia, where indexes lost more than 1%, and intensified as it swept westward through Europe to the Americas. Investors in search of safety herded into U.S. government bonds, which sent yields plunging.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which rises with expectations of stronger economic growth and inflation, fell to its lowest level since Trump’s 2016 election energized markets, down to 1.72% from 1.85% late Friday. The yield on the two-year note, which is more influenced by interest-rate moves from the Federal Reserve, sank to 1.58% from 1.71%. Both are unusually large moves.

A warning light of recession in the bond market also began shining more brightly, which traders said may have added to the selling pressure on stocks. When short-term Treasury yields are higher than long-term rates, a rule of thumb says a recession may arrive in about a year. The three-month yield was at 2.00% Monday afternoon, 0.28 percentage points higher than the 10-year’s yield. A month ago, it was 0.21 points higher.

“The market sell-off is showing that there is a severe lack of confidence that this is going to work out for us economically, at least in the short term,” Weiss said.

Of course, the U.S. economy is still growing, the unemployment rate remains close to its healthiest level in nearly half a century and U.S. stock indexes set record highs just over a week ago. But the escalating trade tensions and investors’ disappointment that the Federal Reserve didn’t commit to a lengthy series of interest-rate cuts at its meeting last week have since sent the S&P 500 on a six-day losing streak, its longest since October. The S&P 500 is 6% below its record.

“A recession is still unlikely, but the probability of it is higher, still at less than 20%,” said Nate Thooft, head of global asset allocation at Manulife Investment Management.

The biggest threat coming out of the past week, he said, is that all the uncertainty about trade will scare CEOs and shoppers away from spending. That would threaten the expected ramp up in growth that economists have been expecting later this year. He expects U.S. economic growth to muddle along. It may fall as low as 1% and make things feel like a recession, he said, but a real recession remains unlikely in part because interest rates are low.

Technology stocks bore the brunt of Monday’s selling, and Apple slid 5.2%. It not only depends on Chinese factories to assemble its iPhones, but China is also the only country aside from the United States that accounts for more than 10% of its sales.

Companies are in the final stretch of the latest round of quarterly earnings reports, and results haven’t been as bad as initially feared, though still down from year-ago levels. Profit for companies in the S&P 500 is now expected to contract by roughly 1%. That’s better than the nearly 3% drop expected earlier. More than three quarters of the S&P 500 have reported financial results.

Meat producer Tyson Foods jumped 5.1% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500 after it reported profits that were better than Wall Street expected. It was one of only 11 stocks in the S&P 500 able to eke out a gain.

Gold rose as investors sought safer ground. It added $19.00 to $1,464.60 per ounce. Silver rose 13 cents to $16.35 per ounce, and copper fell 3 cents to $2.54 per pound.

Benchmark U.S. crude fell 97 cents to settle at $54.69 a barrel. Brent crude oil, the international standard, fell $2.08 to $59.81 a barrel. Wholesale gasoline fell 6 cents to $1.72 per gallon. Heating oil declined 5 cents to $1.84 per gallon. Natural gas fell 5 cents to $2.07 per 1,000 cubic feet.

In Asia, where tensions between Seoul and Tokyo are worsening in a trade dispute entirely separate from Washington’s and Beijing’s, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 1.7%, and South Korea’s Kospi lost 2.6%. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong dropped 2.9%.

In Europe, France’s CAC 40 fell 2.2%, and the German DAX lost 1.8%. The FTSE 100 in London dropped 2.5%.

The dollar fell to 106.02 Japanese yen from 106.55 yen on Friday. The euro strengthened to $1.1202 from $1.1113.

___

AP Business Writer Damian Troise contributed.

Do Police Face Less Discipline Than U.S. Soldiers?

This article originally appeared on antiwar.com.

I lost my temper. In retrospect I was out of control. Waving my pistol around like a damn cowboy and screaming at a frail old man who didn’t know anything. It was New Year’s Eve 2006, just south of Baghdad, and yet another roadside bomb had just exploded near my platoon’s patrol, in broad daylight on a main street. No one was seriously hurt, this time at least, but I, a young lieutenant, was livid. See we almost never caught the “triggermen” who set off these IEDs, and bystanders always “saw nothing.” Just two weeks earlier one of my favorite sergeants had been shot in the back – paralyzed – barely a football field away from this latest attack. So I snapped.

Racing out of my HMMWV, my local interpreter trailing, I cornered this old man nearby and started screaming questions in his face:

“Who did this?”

“Tell me the name of the bomb maker in this neighborhood!”

“Don’t you dare tell me you don’t know!”

Out came my pistol. I didn’t put it to his head or anything, but my message – and veiled threat – was clear. That’s when my translator – who we called “Mark” – intervened, telling me to calm down and that the old man didn’t know anything. I knew Mark was right, deep down, and I snapped out of it then and there. I let the old man be, mounted my truck, and continued the day’s “mission,” such as it was. When we returned to base I apologized to my subordinate sergeants for my behavior. They didn’t think it was a big deal, and they told me so, but knew I was wrong, felt obliged to admit it, and thus set a good example. They knew, I think, that I wouldn’t accept such behavior (or worse) from them.

Look the U.S. Army is highly flawed. It’s leadership is more than capable of covering up a scandal. Still, by the books and as enforced by most leaders, the military sets strict guidelines on how soldiers must interact with locals and even prisoners. No torture, no physical abuse of any kind, and no “muzzle-point” threats are allowed. Under my command, and that of many of my peers, such behavior was not tolerated and we treated Iraqis and Afghans with a fair degree of respect. And make no mistake, many troopers (though few leaders, unfortunately) have been disciplined in a variety of ways for infractions of human rights. It’s imperfect but at least there’s some standard of behavior.

The problem is that the US military missions, themselves, are inherently aggressive. America’s professional imperial soldiers occupy the streets and villages of several Greater Mideast locales and fan the flames of unrest, intolerance, and Islamist extremism. That military – usually through airstrikes – also kills many many civilians. And here’s the rub: that martial chauvinism abroad has come home to roost in the form of militarized police – a disproportionate number of whom are veterans – and their militarized tactics swiped from US wars and counterinsurgencies overseas.

What’s more, ironically, America’s highly lauded police face far less scrutiny – or consequences – for their behavior in impoverished, usually minority, communities than do their military counterparts. It’s a veritable perfect storm: Utilizing US military tactics – and increasingly outfitted with surplus military gear – today’s cops often treat the neighborhoods they police like occupied territory, “Indian Country,” as some have cheekily admitted. Black and brown people are shot and often killed in shocking numbers by law enforcement personnel across this country. Of course that’s always gone on, but in today’s YouTube generation the incidents are disturbingly visual, caught, as they are, on camera. Almost no cops go to jail or face much, if any, consequences for this extreme behavior, and even less for their everyday banality of abuse and harassment. Sure, it’s not all cops who act thus; but it’s far too many.

No case better illustrates my point than the murder by asphyxiation of Eric Garner by the police, specifically Officer Daniel Pantaleo. It happened in 2014, in a rough section of my home borough of Staten Island. Garner was a black man, allegedly selling loose cigarettes, and he slowly died whilst audibly exclaiming “I can’t breathe,” eleven times as his head was pressed to the concrete. The reality, though, was that Garner was little more than the wrong color, on the wrong corner, at the wrong time. For that, Pantaleo – a white cop from the affluent South Shore of the Island – took Garner’s life via a banned chokehold.

To date, some five years later, there has been little justice for Garner and no discipline for Pantaleo. A biased, conservative district attorney failed to indict the officer. Then the federal Trump-era Justice Department declined to press civil rights charges. But this past week, a senior NYPD judge finally recommended administrative charges – essentially the firing of Pantaleo. That seems scant price to pay for unnecessarily taking a man’s life, but at least its something. Still, it’s not over yet. The New York City Police Commissioner will have the final say within a month. And, mark my words, the city’s top cop will be under intense pressure from his rank-and-file, as well as white New Yorkers, to spare Pantaleo.

The latitude given to men like Pantaleo is mind-boggling. And, paradoxically, if he’d been a soldier patrolling Samara instead of Staten Island, and if Garner was named Mohamed, Pantaleo would likely face far swifter and harsher punishment for his actions. I know, personally, soldiers who’ve lost their careers for far less: smoking marijuana, failing a fitness test, an excessive drinking incident, etc. Yes, there are cover-ups, and yes these are unforgivable, but many soldiers and officers have been fired, punished, or imprisoned for the abuse of locals in America’s post-9/11 wars; far more, in fact, than their police counterparts at home.

It’s all related, foreign and domestic policy. Even if few recognize it. Militarized policing and the senseless murder of innocents like Garner is precisely what happens when empire comes home. To be truly antiwar is to be against all forms of warfare both at home or abroad. The core disease is aggressive war, but its symptoms include militarized policing and racist atrocities. This is no time to avert one’s eyes and look the other way. Imperialism is creeping ever deeper into the fabric of our society. So much so, in fact, that my own lewd behavior in yelling at an old Iraqi now seems mild compared to the regular actions of local police at home. Baltimore, so to speak, becomes the new Baghdad…

Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and regular contributor to Antiwar.com. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet.

Copyright 2019 Danny Sjursen

NPR Has Disgraced Itself in Its Venezuela Coverage

The Reagan administration in 1982 coerced National Public Radio (NPR) to cover more favorably the US terrorist war then being waged against Nicaragua.

As Greg Grandin writes, Otto Reich, head of the administration’s Orwellian propaganda outfit known as the Office of Public Diplomacy, informed the public network that his office had contracted “a special consultant service [to listen] to all NPR programs” on Central America. Dependent on state funding, NPR promptly buckled under pressure, reassigning reporters viewed as “too easy on the Sandinistas,” and hiring conservative pundit Linda Chavez to provide “balance.”

Today, NPR needs no state coercion to toe Washington’s regime change line on Venezuela.

NPR published an exclusive interview on May 30 with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, in which the self-proclaimed “interim president” was described as “a fugitive in his own country” confronting “authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro.”

The article went on to state that Venezuela “is suffering from hyperinflation, power outages, and chronic shortages of food, medicine and fuel.” Strangely absent is any reference to illegal US sanctions, which have played an indisputable role in severely exacerbating the country’s crisis to the detriment of ordinary Venezuelans.

Additionally, the exclusion of Chavista voices is likewise endemic to NPR’s coverage of Venezuela, in gross violation of the outlet’s own ethics handbook.

An abused adjective

When it comes to covering Venezuela’s elected Maduro government, it appears that NPR’s favorite adjective is “authoritarian.”

The public news network has referred to President Nicolás Maduro and his administration as “authoritarian” and/or a “regime” no less than 26 times since December, with no explanation why the Venezuelan government merits an editorialized moniker that ideologically justifies US intervention.

Moreover, when the fact that Maduro was reelected last year is mentioned, it is generally accompanied by a vague reference to “fraud.”

Usually no effort is made to elaborate on the fraud allegations—which the opposition never presented substantive public evidence to support—and when additional context is provided, it generally amounts to a reference to NPR’s mendacious 2018 election reporting.

At the time, NPR’s Phillip Reeves (5/20/18) denied the legitimacy of the vote by claiming, “Nicolás Maduro controls most of the media, the electoral authorities.” He ignored the fact that most Venezuelan media is private and pro-opposition, while the National Electoral Council is headed by the same officials who oversaw the opposition’s 2015 landslide parliamentary victory.

Similarly, NPR’s Scott Neuman (5/21/18) wrote, “The opposition’s most popular leaders…were barred from running,” in reference to Leopoldo López and Henrique Capriles. The claim that these were the most popular potential opposition candidates is false: Datanalisis, the international corporate media’s most widely cited pollster, at the time had opposition presidential candidate Henri Falcon polling significantly above Capriles and López, at around 38%, in May 2018. By comparison, a Pew Research study conducted later in the year amid accelerating hyperinflation found that 33% of Venezuelans “trust their government,” roughly equivalent to the 31% of the electorate that voted for Maduro on May 20, 2018.

NPR suggests that López and Capriles were barred for extralegal political reasons, neglecting to mention that López was convicted of inciting violence during the 2014 protests aimed at ousting the government, while Capriles was previously indicted for allowing opposition supporters to lay siege to the Cuban Embassy in 2002, and was later barred from office by the comptroller general over alleged corruption, for which he is also being investigated by the opposition.

Moreover, NPR and other mainstream outlets do not regularly refer to Brazil’s 2018 presidential election as “fraud-marred,” despite the country’s most popular politician, Lula da Silva, having been jailed and banned from running in a baseless, politically motivated court case, as Glenn Greenwald has exposed. Lula did not participate in violent foreign-backed coup attempts, unlike López and Capriles, both of whom were active in the 2002 coup against Chavez.

This myth of electoral fraud embraced by NPR was “made in USA,” when the Trump administration threw its weight behind an opposition boycott, preemptively refusing to recognize the vote and threatening to sanction the independent opposition candidate. But no amount of US interference invalidates an election in the view of Western journalists, as the classic example of Nicaragua’s 1990 election of Violeta Chamorro illustrates. In 2018—as in Venezuela’s 2013 presidential election, which was recognized by every government in the world except the Obama administration—it would seem that a vote is only “free and fair” when Washington’s candidate is elected.

This systematic bias ridicules NPR’s professed commitment to “stick to facts and to language that is clear, compelling and neutral,” while the omissions and blatant factual distortions compromise its accuracy and completeness.

Lying by omission: US sanctions

NPR’s ethics handbook states:

Errors of omission and partial truths can inflict great damage on our credibility, and stories delivered without the context to fully understand them are incomplete.

While NPR has made scattered but repeated reference to US economic sanctions—predominately in the wake of the Trump administration’s January 28 oil embargo—nowhere does NPR bring up the fact that the unilateral measures are illegal under both US and international law, while only in a few cases does the public encounter a passing acknowledgement of the negative humanitarian toll. In the vast majority of stories, NPR rarely dedicates more than one line to US economic sanctions, which are routinely presented as “aimed squarely at [the] Venezuelan government” (8/25/17), ignoring the repercussions for ordinary Venezuelans. In no case does NPR present the public with perspectives opposing US sanctions as a matter of principle.

In a report on the nationwide March blackouts, NPR’s Sasha Ingber (3/8/19) manages to avoid naming sanctions as one of the key factors behind the outages, relegating them to an insignificant tertiary element “likely to increase the country’s economic plight,” but in no way responsible for Venezuela’s dramatically worsening crisis since Trump imposed direct economic sanctions in August 2017. In fact, according to economist Francisco Rodríguez of Torino Capital, sanctions not only prevented Venezuela from paying foreign companies for vital maintenance work on its electrical grid, but also barred it from importing sufficient diesel fuel needed to power thermoelectric generators.

The pattern is repeated in NPR’s coverage of Venezuela’s economic crisis through the lens of out-migration (6/21/19, 6/7/19), school truancy (6/29/19) or alleged “intimidation” of private charities (6/11/19). Here sanctions—which are set to cause Venezuela’s economy to contract by 37% this year—are either completely ignored, or their devastating social impact is  presented as a dubious “claim” by Caracas officials.

Like virtually every other mainstream international outlet (FAIR.org, 6/26/19), NPR has yet to cite—let alone actually report on—a recent study by acclaimed economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs, which found US sanctions on Venezuela to constitute a form of “collective punishment” responsible for as many as 40,000 deaths through 2018. This omission is not surprising, given that NPR had previously joined major corporate outlets in systematically censoring the impact of Trump’s August 2017 financial sanctions, which cost the country at least $6 billion in lost oil revenue over the subsequent twelve months.

Exhibit A of this erasure is an article headlined “Venezuela’s Health System Ready to Collapse Amid Economic Crisis” (NPR, 2/1/19), in which Samantha Raphelson treats sanctions as a conspiracy theory on which “Maduro blames the country’s growing crisis,” despite the fact that US financial blacklisting, as well as plummeting revenue due to sanctions, hampered Caracas’ ability to import vital medicine and medical  equipment. At this point, NPR can easily cite the US government itself as a source for the claim that Washington is exacerbating the Venezuelan crisis, with the State Department publishing (and subsequently hiding) a fact sheet that boasted that “key outcomes” of US efforts included the freezing of “roughly $3.2 billion of Venezuela’s overseas” assets, and a 36% reduction in Venezuelan oil production in February/March 2019 (Venezuelanalysis, 5/6/19).

Silencing Chavista and critical voicesIn an assessment of NPR’s Venezuela coverage (4/9/19), the network’s public editor, Juliette Rocheleau, recognizes an “imbalance” in which “opposition voices have outnumbered those of Maduro supporters in NPR‘s reporting.” The slant is fairly overwhelming, since Rocheleau can only name four occasions that NPR interviewed government supporters.

The public editor justifies NPR’s pro-opposition “imbalance’” on the grounds of journalists’ safety, quoting senior international editor Will Dobson:

“We want to plunge the depths of the pro-Maduro supporters.” But Dobson said NPR‘s responsibility to keep its journalists and sources safe is the top priority, and reporting safely from Venezuela is extremely difficult: Venezuela ranks 143 out of 180 countries in press freedom, with journalists risking violence at the hands of the state and some of its supporters.

This is a self-serving canard. Various independent outlets such as Venezuelanalysis (where I’m an editor), the Real News and Grayzone—all with far fewer resources than NPR—have frequently interviewed Chavistas from various political walks of life. The notion that Chavista “violence” keeps Western reporters at bay is rather fantastical, given that it’s opposition demonstrations, not pro-government ones, that have been the site of mob lynchings and attacks on journalists, including those from pro-opposition private outlets. Even if we take at face value NPR’s safety concerns, this should not stop the network from interviewing experts opposed to US regime change in Venezuela, such as Noam Chomsky, Mark Weisbrot, Jeffrey Sachs, Alfred De Zayas and Miguel Tinker Salas, whose voices are conspicuously absent, despite making regular appearances in independent progressive media.

Perhaps a more realistic explanation for NPR’s admitted “imbalance” is professional class bias. It seems that Western journalists bear an instinctual aversion to poor black and brown people organizing to defy the US Empire. Their natural sympathies appear to lie with lighter-skinned (preferably English-speaking) professionals or members of the elite who make them feel more comfortable. Despite their “progressive” reputation, NPR journalists are little different than their mainstream corporate counterparts when it comes to repeating Washington and the opposition’s anti-Chavista propaganda, in flagrant breach of their own ethics.

2 El Paso Victims Die at Hospital, Raising Death Toll to 22

EL PASO, Texas—Two more victims of the mass shooting at a crowded Walmart in El Paso, Texas, died Monday at a hospital, raising the death toll for the attack to 22.

The Del Sol Medical Center did not release the names or ages of the patients who died, but hospital officials described one as an elderly woman.

One patient who died had major abdominal wounds affecting the liver, kidneys and intestines. That patient also received a “massive blood transfusion,” Dr. Stephen Flaherty said at a news conference.

Another patient remained in critical condition at the hospital, and five others were in stable condition, two days after the Saturday attack in which more than two dozen people were wounded. Victims were also treated at other El Paso hospitals.

Police still have not released a list of the victims of the attack, which happened hours before a separate mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, that claimed nine lives.

Speaking at the White House on Monday, President Donald Trump condemned the two attacks that killed 31 people and wounded dozens of others. He called for bipartisan cooperation to respond to an epidemic of gun violence, but he offered scant details on concrete steps that could be taken.

“We vow to act with urgent resolve,” Trump said.

Federal authorities said they are weighing hate-crime charges against the suspected El Paso gunman that could carry the death penalty. The suspect, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, has been booked on state capital murder charges, which also carry a possible death penalty.

Mexican officials have said six Mexican nationals were among the dead in the border city where tens of thousands of Mexicans legally cross each day to work and shop.

Investigators focused on whether the El Paso attack was a hate crime after the emergence of a racist, anti-immigrant screed that was posted online shortly beforehand.

Authorities searched for any links between the suspect and the material in the document that was posted online, including the writer’s expression of concern that an influx of Hispanics into the United States will replace aging white voters, potentially turning Texas blue in elections and swinging the White House to Democrats.

The writer denied he was a white supremacist, but the document says “race mixing” is destroying the nation and recommends dividing the United States into territorial enclaves determined by race. The first sentence of the four-page document expresses support for the man accused of killing 51 people at two New Zealand mosques in March after posting his own screed with a conspiracy theory about nonwhite migrants replacing whites.

The shootings in Texas and Ohio were the 21st and 22nd mass killings of 2019 in the U.S., according to an AP/USA Today/Northeastern University mass murder database that tracks homicides where four or more people killed — not including the offender.

Including the two latest attacks, 127 people had been killed in the 2019 mass shootings.

Since 2006, 11 mass shootings — not including Saturday’s — have been committed by men who are 21 or younger.

___

Weber reported from Austin. Balsamo reported from Orlando, Florida. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Amy Guthrie in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Police Seek Motive After Teen Throws Boy From Tate Modern’s 10th Floor

LONDON—British police said Monday they were searching for a motive after a teenager allegedly threw a 6-year-old boy from a 10th-floor viewing gallery at London’s Tate Modern museum.

The boy was airlifted to hospital after the incident on Sunday afternoon. Police said Monday that his condition was critical but stable and his life was no longer in danger.

A 17-year-old boy is being held on suspicion of attempted murder over the incident, which happened while the gallery was packed with visitors.

Nancy Barnfield was at the gallery with her family when she heard a “loud bang,” and then saw a woman screaming “Where’s my son, where’s my son?”

The younger boy had fallen from the open-air viewing platform to a fifth-floor roof.

Barnfield said a man on the platform was restrained by other visitors until police arrived. She said he “just stood there and was quite calm.”

Police say they don’t believe the suspect and victim knew each other.

“This was a truly shocking incident, and people will understandably be searching for answers,” said Detective Chief Superintendent John Massey of the Metropolitan Police. “At the moment, this is being treated as an isolated event with no distinct or apparent motive.”

Massey said police wanted to speak to anyone who “witnessed a male whose behavior seemed out of place, suspicious or worrying, in the hour or two before the incident in or near the gallery.”

Tate Modern, Britain’s leading gallery of modern art, sits on the south bank of the River Thames and was visited by almost 6 million people last year.

The 10th-floor terrace is part of a pyramid-shaped extension that opened in 2016 and offers panoramic views over London.

The gallery reopened Monday, but the viewing platform remained closed.

“Tate is working closely with the police to help with their investigations,” a spokeswoman said. “All our thoughts are with the child and his family.”

Fascist Violence Has Gone Mainstream

As repulsive as it might be to take the manifesto of the El Paso killer seriously, we must shed inhibition aside and take a close look at it. For a 21-year old, it’s quite well articulated, beyond the reach of most American college students in terms of linking cause and effect and describing motivation and rationale. The murderer realizes that his manifesto might well be “meh” at this point (he hasn’t had time enough to deliberate), but thinks it’s better to go ahead with his planned mass murder and to make his political imprint before he “loses his nerve.”

And make no mistake about it, this was an incidence of political violence, not yet another in a series of “gun shootings,” such as Sandy Hook, or Orlando, or San Bernardino, or Las Vegas. There can be no underestimation of the clear political motive, and the intended reaction the shooter aims to derive from his act of political terrorism. So to resort knee-jerkingly to calls for restrictions on gun access, though they must of course be part of the debate, is to prevent the larger deliberation on our part—the citizens who are not swayed to the white nationalist point of view of the killer—from taking place.

The shooter, Patrick Crusius, reveals some crucial gaps in reasoning, but for the most part this is as succinct a statement of the classical white nationalist position—as it has evolved in twists and turns over the course of many decades—as I have ever seen. In addition, he gives a prominent role to widespread automation, to supplement the more usual fear of baby boomers dying off en masse and creating a population crisis that begs, as he sees it, for a domestic terrorist solution.

The classical white nationalist position, as it was presented by Francis Parker Yockey, George Lincoln Rockwell, Willis Carto, William S. Pierce, Richard Butler, Ben Klassen, and others until recently, was that the white race was being sidelined as the rightful owners and rulers of this country by an upsurge of migrants and migrant births. In order to keep America white, this trend must be reversed, by ending immigration from what Trump calls “shithole countries,” and by encouraging (through violence, if necessary) the repatriation of the hordes of dark-skinned foreigners already here (including a certain outspoken Muslim congresswoman). Those who are too well-established to be repatriated, particularly African Americans, might be given sovereign territory within the United States, to claim as their own country. Thus the race-mixing, which elites (Crusius consistently substitutes “corporations” for elites) promote for their own profit-making motives, will come to an end, and white America can be whole again.

Automation enters the picture, for the manifesto-writer, in creating more of a pressure on the native white population than would be created by mass migration alone. Furthermore, he notes that second-generation immigrants typically do not compete for the menial jobs new immigrants are said to be desperate for, and that they outstrip native whites in educational attainment. These two factors are weak links in his argument, because if automation is such an irrepressible force then limiting migration won’t solve the problem for native whites, and if immigrants within a single generation face the same jobs crisis as native whites, then there would seem to be a commonality of interests that is not appreciated.

Nonetheless, it is a serious manifesto, and it must be treated as such. Notice that it doesn’t differ—except for the tirades against China that we hear from Trump—in its basics from what we have become familiar from Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, and many other past and current Trump officials and supporters. Just last week Stephen Miller’s attempt to drastically limit immigration by expanding the scope of the public charge clause came to light. America is under siege—Crusius repeatedly refers to his act of terrorism as being in response to the elite-sponsored “invasion”—by unpatriotic elites, and the way to counter this globalist surge, which benefits foreigners beholden to the meritocratic myth above all, is to cut it off at its sources.

In short, the contemporary white nationalist would like to be seen as only a nationalist, careful as he always is to deny racial animosity toward others, an economic nationalist in other words, a self-description that Trump has been eager to appropriate by way of the Breitbart-Bannon-Miller chain of transmission.

The Democrats, to the extent that they have been compromised by three decades of submission to the same transnational power elite that Crusius objectifies, are powerless to contest this supercharged sense of grievance, even if it’s based on misapprehension of the real enemy. After each of the two Democratic presidential debates, in June and July, liberal opinion makers roundly condemned certain bold promises by the more progressive candidates: health care under Medicare-for-All for undocumented immigrants, free four-year college tuition for all, and decriminalization of border crossings. I am by no means putting New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in the same boat as Crusius, but note the uncontainable anger the columnist summoned in reaction to foundational humanitarian suggestions, almost, we might say, as a coding of nationalism from the liberal perspective.

I am trying to point out continuities between both the Republican Party (because it is now fully Trump’s party) and the Democratic Party (except for the progressive wing, which remains a distinct minority among the twenty candidates assembled for the recent debates) on the one hand, and the grievances, albeit a bit confused, of a strain of political terrorism that is not likely to go away any time soon.

Often over the last twenty years, as I have considered the evolution of contemporary American neo-fascism, I have been careful to note the absence of two factors that have prevented the blossoming of a full-scale fascistic renaissance: the lack of a charismatic leader, and that of a mobilized and empowered militia. We now have both, and as for the second, unless we address the neoliberal rot that has fatally weakened democracy and turned it over to unaccountable capitalism, the spontaneous militia power (the mainstream media is still mistakenly calling their avatars “lone wolves,” as though they had no ideological attachment) is likely to grow exponentially.

I have spent a long time studying the history of white nationalist violence as it has occurred over the last three decades, and I must say that we seem to have crossed some sort of a tipping point here, that this is a manifestation of something new and potentially viral, and far more ominous than the Charlottesville rally, to the extent that the Virginia event was based on a more outmoded self-presentation of white nationalism.

Trump Vows Action After Shootings but Gives Few Details

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday condemned weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio as barbaric crimes “against all humanity” and called for bipartisan cooperation to respond to an epidemic of gun violence. He offered scant details on possible action.

Trump said he wants legislation providing “strong background checks” for gun users, though he has reneged on previous promises after mass attacks. He blamed video games and mental illness for violence but made no mention of more limits on the sales of actual firearms.

“We vow to act with urgent resolve,” Trump said, speaking from the White House about shootings that left 29 dead and dozens wounded. His scripted remarks came after two days of muted response to the shootings, and included a solitary denunciation of white supremacy, a subject he has been reluctant to criticize.

“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy,” Trump said, adding that he had directed the FBI to examine steps to identify and address domestic terrorism. “These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America,” he said.

Trump suggested earlier Monday on Twitter that a background check bill could be paired with his long-sought effort to toughen the nation’s immigration system. But he didn’t say how or why he was connecting the issues. Both shooting suspects were U.S. citizens, and federal officials are investigating anti-immigrant bias as a potential motive for the El Paso, Texas, massacre.

He did not elaborate on that proposal during his 10-minute address from the Diplomatic Reception Room. But Trump has frequently sought to tie his immigration priorities — a border wall and transforming the legal immigration system to one that prioritizes merit over familial ties — to legislation around which he perceives momentum to be building.

Trump’s proposed responses attempt to shift blame away from the heated rhetoric coming from the White House and his own campaign rallies and mostly leave it to Congress, which is on recess, to sort out his solutions.

Trump offered few specific solutions to address violence, and signaled he would oppose large-scale gun control efforts pushed by Democrats, saying, “hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun.”

Trump called for law enforcement and social media companies to do more to combat extremism and spot warning signs of violence online. He also called for a reduction in the “glorification” of violence in American culture, laws to make it easier to commit those with mental illness and “red flag laws” to separate such individuals from firearms.

Trump also directed the Department of Justice to seek and prioritize the enforcement of the death penalty in cases of hate crimes and mass shootings.

Over the weekend, Trump tried to assure Americans he was dealing with the problem and defended his administration in light of criticism following the latest in a string of mass shootings.

“We have done much more than most administrations,” he said, without elaboration. “We have done actually a lot. But perhaps more has to be done.”

Congress has proven unable to pass substantial gun violence legislation this session, despite the frequency of mass shootings, in large part because of resistance from Republicans, particularly in the GOP-controlled Senate. That political dynamic seems difficult to change.

And Trump himself has reneged on previous pledges to strengthen gun laws.

After other mass shootings he called for strengthening the federal background check system, and in 2018 he signed legislation to increase federal agency data sharing into the system. But he has resisted Democratic calls to toughen other gun control laws.

In February, the House approved bipartisan legislation to require federal background checks for all gun sales and transfers and approved legislation to allow a review period of up to 10 days for background checks on firearms purchases. The White House threatened a presidential veto if those measures passed Congress.

At a February meeting with survivors and family members of the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting in which 17 people died, Trump promised to be “very strong on background checks.”

Trump claimed he would stand up to the gun lobby and finally get results in quelling gun violence. But he later retreated, expressing support for modest changes to the federal background check system and for arming teachers.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tweeted that if Trump is serious about strengthening background checks, he should demand Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “put the bipartisan, House-passed universal background checks bill up for a vote.”

With these proposals, Trump is providing a response to the shootings with ideas that many Republicans in Congress can embrace — without confronting the gun lobby and tackling the problems with firearm accessibility that many view as a driver of gun violence.

Trump ally Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, has raised concerns about violence in video games, while another Trump confidant, Sen. Lindsey Graham, tweeted his support over the weekend for his own red flag mental health bill. At the same time, many Democrats oppose the death penalty.

In the El Paso attack, investigators are focusing on whether it was a hate crime after the emergence of a racist, anti-immigrant screed that was posted online shortly beforehand. Detectives sought to determine if it was written by the man who was arrested. The border city has figured prominently in the immigration debate and is home to 680,000 people, most of them Latino.

On Twitter Monday, Trump seemed to deflect from scrutiny over the manifesto, which had language mirroring some of his own. As Democrats have called on Trump to tone down his rhetoric, Trump blamed the news media for the nation’s woes.

“Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years,” he claimed.

As Trump weighs trips to the affected communities — the Federal Aviation Administration advised pilots of a presidential visit Wednesday to El Paso and Dayton, Ohio — local lawmakers signaled opposition to his presence.

Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat who represents El Paso, said Trump is “not welcome” to visit the city.

In recent weeks, the president has issued racist tweets about four women of color who serve in Congress, and in rallies has spoken of an “invasion” at the southern border. His reelection strategy has placed racial animus at the forefront in an effort that his aides say is designed to activate his base of conservative voters, an approach not seen by an American president in the modern era.

Trump also has been widely criticized for offering a false equivalency when discussing racial violence, notably when he said there were “very fine people, on both sides,” after a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of an anti-racism demonstrator.

After a wave of bipartisan condemnation and scathing cable news coverage, Trump issued a cleanup statement at the White House days later denouncing white supremacy. Yet, after watching the response to his reversal, he doubled back to his original position during a wild Trump Tower news conference.

It remained to be seen whether Trump would stick with his forceful denunciation of racism and extremism in the days ahead.

On gun control, a majority of Americans have consistently said they support stronger laws, but proposals have stalled repeatedly in Congress, a marked contrast to some countries that have acted swiftly after a mass shooting.

In March, a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found a majority of Americans favor stricter gun laws. The survey was conducted both before and after a mass shooting at two mosques in New Zealand. It found that 67 percent of Americans support making US gun laws stricter, while 22 percent say they should be left as they are and 10 percent think they should be made less strict.

Less than a week after the mosque shootings, New Zealand moved to ban “military-style” semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines; similarly, after a mass shooting in 1996, Australia enacted sweeping gun bans within two weeks.

The poll suggested many Americans would support similar measures, but there’s a wide gulf between Democrats and Republicans on banning specific types of guns. Overall, 6 in 10 Americans support a ban on AR-15 rifles and similar semi-automatic weapons. Roughly 8 in 10 Democrats, but just about 4 in 10 Republicans, support that policy.