Chris Hedges's Blog, page 25

Bloomberg Makes Debate Stage, Facing Democratic Rivals for 1st Time

Billionaire Mike Bloomberg has qualified for the upcoming Democratic presidential debate, marking the first time he’ll stand alongside the rivals he has so far avoided by bypassing the early voting states and using his personal fortune to define himself through television ads.

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll published Tuesday shows Bloomberg with 19% support nationally in the Democratic nominating contest.

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The former New York City mayor, who launched his presidential campaign in November, will appear in Wednesday’s debate in Las Vegas alongside former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Fellow billionaire and philanthropist Tom Steyer is still hoping to qualify.

Bloomberg’s campaign said that it was seeing “a groundswell of support across the country” and that qualifying for Wednesday’s debate “is the latest sign that Mike’s plan and ability to defeat Donald Trump is resonating with more Americans.”

“Mike is looking forward to joining the other Democratic candidates on stage and making the case for why he’s the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump and unite the country,” Bloomberg campaign manager Kevin Sheekey said in a statement.

The Democratic National Committee recently changed its rules for how a candidate qualifies for the debate, opening the door for Bloomberg to be on stage and drawing the ire of some candidates who dropped out of the race for failing to make prior stages. The candidates were previously required to receive a certain number of campaign contributions to qualify, but Bloomberg, who is worth an estimated $60 billion, is not taking donations.

The prime-time event will be a stark departure from Bloomberg’s highly choreographed campaign. He’s poured more than $300 million into television advertising, a way to define himself for voters without facing criticism. While he’s campaigned in more than two dozen states, he does not take questions from voters and delivers a standard stump speech that lasts less than 15 minutes, often reading from a teleprompter.

He encounters the occasional protester, including one who jumped on stage recently in Chattanooga, Tennessee, yelling, “This is not democracy. This is a plutocracy!” But his friendly crowds usually quickly overwhelm the protesters with chants of “We like Mike!”

Bloomberg is likely to face far more direct fire in the debate. His fellow Democratic contenders have stepped up their attacks against him in recent days, decrying him for trying to “buy the election” and criticizing his support of the “stop-and-frisk” tactic while mayor of New York City that led police to target mostly black and Hispanic men for searches.

Bloomberg has barely crossed paths on the trail with his fellow Democrats. He decided to skip the first four voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina in favor of focusing on the 14 states that vote on March 3 and the contests that come afterward.

He rarely mentions his rivals by name, though his campaign is centered on the idea that none of them can beat President Donald Trump. And Bloomberg, more than anyone, has predicated his campaign on a potential Biden collapse. He’s been aggressive in targeting African American voters in the South, a core demographic for Biden’s campaign.

Biden said he doesn’t think “you can buy an election.”

“I’m going to get a chance to debate him on everything from redlining to stop and frisk to a whole range of other things,” Biden told reporters last week.

The poll released Tuesday shows Sanders leading in the Democratic primary contest, at 31% support nationally. After Bloomberg at 19%, Biden is at 15%, Warren at 12%, Klobuchar at 9% and Buttigieg at 8%. Steyer is at 2%, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is at less than 1%, with 5% undecided.

The telephone survey of 527 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents was conducted by the Marist Poll at the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.4 percentage points.

Extreme Weather Could Trigger a Recession Unlike We’ve Ever Seen

New research published Monday warns that extreme weather driven by the climate crisis could bring about an economic recession “the likes of which we’ve never seen before” if markets don’t do a better job assessing climate risks.

Paul Griffin, an accounting professor at the University of California, Davis Graduate School of Management, wrote in a paper for Nature Energy that financial markets have not sufficiently accounted for the major economic risks posed by the global climate crisis, even as extreme weather—from destructive hurricanes to prolonged drought—wreaks havoc across the globe.

“Unpriced risk was the main cause of the Great Recession in 2007-2008,” Griffin wrote. “Right now, energy companies shoulder much of that risk. The market needs to better assess risk, and factor a risk of extreme weather into securities prices… Without better knowledge of this risk, the average energy investor can only hope that the next extreme event will not trigger a sudden correction to the market values of energy firms.”

Griffin continued:

This past summer, the United States and Europe experienced record-breaking heat. Now linked reliably to climate change, excessive high temperature is among the deadliest of weather extremes. Not only can it disrupt agriculture, harm human health, and stunt economic growth, it can also overwhelm—and temporarily shut down—large parts of a state’s or a nation’s energy system, as in the case of the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) in California.

Extreme heat events can create uncertain and longer duration power outages, threaten critical infrastructure, exacerbate energy supply and demand imbalances, and trigger significant legal liability for energy firms. Newer reports of an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, moreover, amplify those risks for energy firms.

Despite these obvious risks, investors and asset managers have been conspicuously slow to connect physical climate risk from extreme weather events to company market valuations.

Griffin is not the first financial expert to raise alarm about the potentially calamitous economic impacts of the climate crisis—which would come in addition to the emergency’s incalculable effects on humans, animals, plants, insects, and the planet as a whole.

The Switzerland-based Bank for International Settlements warned in a 115-page report (pdf) last month that the “increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events could trigger non-linear and irreversible financial losses.”

“Climate change poses unprecedented challenges to human societies,” the report stated, “and our community of central banks and supervisors cannot consider itself immune to the risks ahead of us.”

Boy Scouts’ Future Uncertain After Bankruptcy Filing

Barraged with sex-abuse lawsuits, the Boy Scouts of America filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday in hopes of working out a potentially mammoth victim compensation plan that will allow the 110-year-old organization to carry on.

The Chapter 11 filing in federal bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware, sets in motion what could be one of the biggest, most complex bankruptcies ever seen. Scores of lawyers are seeking settlements on behalf of several thousand men who say they were molested as scouts by scoutmasters or other leaders decades ago but are only now eligible to sue because of recent changes in their states’ statute-of-limitations laws.

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Bankruptcy will enable the Scouts to put those lawsuits on hold for now. But ultimately they could be forced to sell off some of their vast property holdings, including campgrounds and hiking trails, to raise money for a compensation trust fund that could surpass $1 billion.

The organization encouraged all victims to come forward to file claims.

The bankruptcy petition listed the Boy Scouts’ assets at between $1 billion and $10 billion, and its liabilities at $500 million to $1 billion.

“Scouting programs will continue throughout this process and for many years to come,” the Boy Scouts said in a statement. ”Local councils are not filing for bankruptcy because they are legally separate and distinct organizations.”

The Boy Scouts are just the latest major American institution to face a heavy price over sexual abuse. Roman Catholic dioceses across the country and schools such as Penn State and Michigan State have paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years.

The bankruptcy represents a painful turn for an organization that has been a pillar of American civic life for generations and a training ground for future leaders. Achieving the rank of Eagle Scout has long been a proud accomplishment that politicians, business leaders, astronauts and others put on their resumes and in their official biographies.

The Boy Scouts’ finances have been strained in recent years by declining membership and sex-abuse settlements.

The number of youths taking part in scouting has dropped below 2 million, down from a peak of more than 4 million during the 1970s. The organization has tried to counter the decline by admitting girls, but its membership rolls took a big hit Jan. 1 when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — for decades a major sponsor of Boy Scout units — cut ties and withdrew more than 400,000 scouts in favor of programs of its own.

The financial outlook worsened last year after New York, Arizona, New Jersey and California passed laws making it easier for victims of long-ago abuse to file claims. Teams of lawyers across the U.S. have been signing up clients by the hundreds to sue the Boy Scouts.

Most of the newly surfacing cases date to the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s; the organization says there were only five known abuse victims in 2018. The Boy Scouts credit the change to an array of prevention policies adopted since the mid-1980s, including mandatory criminal background checks and abuse-prevention training for all staff and volunteers, and a rule that two or more adult leaders be present during all activities.

Many of the lawsuits accuse the organization of negligence and cover-ups, mostly from decades ago.

“We are outraged that there have been times when individuals took advantage of our programs to harm innocent children,” said Roger Mosby, the Boy Scouts’ president and CEO. “While we know nothing can undo the tragic abuse that victims suffered, we believe the Chapter 11 process, with the proposed trust structure, will provide equitable compensation to all victims while maintaining the BSA’s important mission.”

Among other matters to be addressed in bankruptcy court: the fate of the Boy Scouts’ assets; the extent to which the organization’s insurance will help cover compensation; and whether assets of the Scouts’ 261 local councils will be added to the fund.

“There are a lot of very angry, resentful men out there who will not allow the Boy Scouts to get away without saying what all their assets are,” said lawyer Paul Mones, who represents numerous clients suing the Boy Scouts. “They want no stone unturned.”

Amid the crush of lawsuits, the Scouts recently mortgaged major properties owned by the national leadership, including the headquarters in Irving, Texas, and the 140,000-acre Philmont Ranch in New Mexico, to help secure a line of credit.

Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts have kept confidential files since the 1920s listing staff and volunteers implicated in sexual abuse, for the avowed purpose of keeping predators away from youth. According to a court deposition, the files as of January listed 7,819 suspected abusers and 12,254 victims.

Until last spring, the organization had insisted it never knowingly allowed a predator to work with youths. But in May, The Associated Press reported that attorneys for abuse victims had identified multiple cases in which known predators were allowed to return to leadership posts. The next day, Boy Scouts chief executive Mike Surbaugh wrote to a congressional committee, acknowledging the group’s previous claim was untrue.

James Kretschmer of Houston, among the many men suing for alleged abuse, said he was molested by a Scout leader over several months in the mid-1970s in the Spokane, Washington, area. Regarding the bankruptcy, he said, “It is a shame because at its core and what it was supposed to be, the Boy Scouts is a beautiful organization.”

“But you know, anything can be corrupted,” he added. “And if they’re not going to protect the people that they’ve entrusted with the children, then shut it down and move on.”

Critics of the Boy Scouts charged that the bankruptcy filing is aimed in part at the preventing the disclosure of further damning details.

“This bankruptcy is not about finances,” said Scott Coats, who sued in New York last month over abuse he claimed to have suffered in the 1970s. “This bankruptcy is about the reputation of the Boy Scouts of America and about silencing victims and keeping the truth away from the eyes of the public.”

Mike Pfau, a Seattle-based attorney whose firm is representing scores of men nationwide, said that while the Boy Scouts’ local councils are not included in the bankruptcy filing, the plaintiffs may go after their property holdings, too.

“We believe the real property held by the local councils may be worth significantly more than the Boy Scouts’ assets,” he said. He said one question will be whether the Boy Scouts transferred property to its local councils in hopes of putting it out of the reach of those suing the organization.

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Associated Press video journalist John Mone in Houston contributed.

Chinese Health Report Says 80% of Virus Cases Have Been Mild

Health officials in China have published the first details on nearly 45,000 cases of the novel coronavirus disease that originated there, saying more than 80% have been mild and new ones seem to be falling since early this month, although it’s far too soon to tell whether the outbreak has peaked.

Monday’s report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention gives the World Health Organization a “clearer picture of the outbreak, how it’s developing and where it’s headed,” WHO’s director-general said at a news conference.

“It’s too early to tell if this reported decline will continue. Every scenario is still on the table,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

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The new disease, called COVID-19, first emerged in late December in Wuhan, the capital of China’s Hubei province, and has spread to more than two dozen other countries. China says more than 70,000 people have been infected and 1,770 have died in mainland China, but numbers are squishy because the country is counting many cases based on symptoms rather than the methods WHO uses.

The new study reports on 44,672 cases confirmed in China as of Feb. 11. The virus caused severe disease such as pneumonia in 14% of them and critical illness in 5%.

The fatality rate for these confirmed cases is 2.3% — 2.8% for males versus 1.7% for females.

That’s lower than for SARS and MERS, two similar viruses, but COVID-19 ultimately could prove more deadly if it spreads to far more people than the others did. Ordinary flu has a fatality rate of 0.1% yet kills hundreds of thousands because it infects millions each year.

The COVID-19 cases include relatively few children, and the risk of death rises with age. It’s higher among those with other health problems — more than 10% for those with heart disease, for example, and higher among those in Hubei province versus elsewhere in China.

Cases seem to have been declining since Feb. 1, but that could change as people return to work and school after the Chinese holidays, the report warns.

Also Monday, Chinese officials said they may postpone the country’s annual congress in March, its biggest political meeting of the year. The standing committee for the National People’s Congress said it believes it is necessary to postpone the gathering to give top priority to people’s lives, safety and health, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The standing committee said it would meet Feb. 24 to deliberate on a postponement. The meeting is due to start March 5.

Japanese officials, meanwhile, confirmed 99 more people were infected by the new virus aboard the quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess, bringing the total to 454. The Health Ministry said it has now tested 1,723 people on the ship, which had about 3,700 passengers and crew aboard. Outside China, the ship has the largest number of cases of COVID-19.

On Sunday night and Monday, 328 American cruise ship passengers, including 14 who tested positive for the virus, arrived at military bases in California and Texas, and at hospitals in California and Nebraska.

One charter plane dropped off 170 passengers at Travis Air Force Base in the San Francisco Bay Area, while another took about 145 passengers to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas for a two-week quarantine.

Four of the Americans who tested positive for the virus were taken to California hospitals. Ten others, along with three spouses, were flown to Omaha, Nebraska, to get care at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, officials said.

Chris Kratochvil, an official at the Nebraska medical center, said 12 are in quarantine with no current symptoms. One man is in a different area getting a higher level of care because he had a cough and other symptoms plus a chronic illness that raises his risk for complications. All will remain at the university hospital for at least 14 days.

During the flights, t he 14 cruise passengers who tested positive for the virus were placed in isolation in the tail of the planes, said William Walters, director of the State Department’s operational medicine staff, a unit created to respond to emergencies such as those requiring large-scale evacuations.

Walters said none of the 14 showed symptoms when they were checked by American personnel before disembarking the cruise ship. While headed to Tokyo’s Haneda airport, officials were informed a test for the coronavirus done by Japanese authorities two or three days earlier had come back positive.

“When we received the results, these people were already on a bus and they were already on a pipeline,” Walters said Monday. “The next step was to move them to an isolation area and frankly once they were in an isolation area it was safest to keep them in that isolation area and complete the evacuation.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Scott Pauley said in a statement that the group of passengers who arrived at Lackland Air Force Base will remain quarantined there for 14 days and will have no contact with Department of Defense personnel as the CDC is responsible for all parts of the quarantine operation.

Any of the quarantined passengers who shows symptoms of the virus will be taken to a hospital off the base “for containment and specialized care,” according to the statement.

In Asia, with fears of the virus spreading further, Chinese and residents of nearby countries and territories have begun hoarding supplies of everything from masks and other personal protective gear to instant noodles, cooking oil and toilet paper.

New cases in other countries, meanwhile, raised concerns about containment of the virus. Though only a few hundred cases have been confirmed outside mainland China, some recent cases lacked obvious connections to China.

Taiwan on Sunday reported its first death from COVID-19, the fifth fatality outside of mainland China. Taiwan’s Central News Agency, citing health minister Chen Shih-chung, said the man who died was in his 60s and had not traveled overseas recently and had no known contact with virus patients.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened an experts meeting to discuss containment measures in his country, where more than a dozen cases have emerged in the past few days without any obvious link to China.

“The situation surrounding this virus is changing by the minute,” Abe said.

Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said the country was “entering into a phase that is different from before,” requiring new steps to stop the spread of the virus.

Japan has 518 confirmed cases, including the 454 from the cruise ship, and one death from the virus.

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Associated Press writers Yanan Wang in Beijing, David Pitt in Des Moines, Iowa, Maria Cheng in London, Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco and Ken Miller in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

Assad Predicts Victory After Gains in Northern Syria

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syrian President Bashar Assad congratulated his forces Monday for recent gains in northwestern Syria that led to his troops consolidating control over Aleppo province, pledging to press ahead with a military campaign to achieve complete victory “sooner or later.”

Assad, who rarely appears in public, said in a televised address that the onetime economic hub of Aleppo, the provincial capital, will “return stronger than it was before.”

“This liberation does not mean the end of the war, and does not mean the end of the schemes nor the end of terrorism or the surrender of enemies,” Assad said, seated behind an empty wooden desk and wearing glasses. “But it means that we rubbed their noses in the dirt as a prelude for complete victory and ahead of their defeat, sooner or later.”

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The address came amid an ongoing military advance in northwestern Syria that has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe which the U.N.’s humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock warned “has reached a horrifying level.” In a statement, he said the U.N. believes 900,000 people have been displaced since Dec. 1, most of them women and children.

In the past few weeks, government troops backed by Russian air power have captured more than 1,500 square kilometers (580 square miles) in the northwest, consolidating their hold over Aleppo province after capturing over 30 villages and hamlets in the western countryside in a single day Sunday. The advance secured the provincial capital that had for years remained within range of opposition fire.

The new gains, along with securing a key highway through rebel territory, are set to better link northern and southern Syria, including the city of Aleppo, which was Syria’s commercial center before the war. The highway, known as the M5, links the country’s four largest cities and population centers and is key to controlling Syria.

The developments sparked late-night celebrations in the streets of Aleppo that continued through Monday, with state media showing residents waving flags and dancing in roads packed with vehicles.

“We should not rest, but continue to prepare for the coming battles, and therefore the battle of liberating Aleppo countryside and Idlib will continue, despite the empty noise that is coming from the north (Turkey),” Assad said.

Lowcock said “the crisis in northwest Syria has reached a horrifying level,” calling the violence “indiscriminate” and stressing that “the only option is a cease-fire.”

He warned that “the biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st century will only be avoided if Security Council members, and those with influence, overcome individual interests and put a collective stake in humanity first.” He did not identify any countries but the message appeared directed first and foremost to Russia, Syria’s closest ally.

The government’s rapid advances have sparked rare clashes between Syria and Turkey, which backs the rebels and has troops in the region to monitor a 2018 cease-fire deal. Turkey’s president warned Assad to halt the advance, which also risks shattering an alliance forged between Turkey and Russia.

Turkey, which backs the opposition, has sent thousands of troops and equipment into the opposition enclave, to try to stall the Syrian government’s advance. Ankara has also called for an end to the Syrian government offensive. Already home to more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees, Turkey fears a new wave of them may overwhelm its borders.

A Turkish delegation was in Moscow on Monday to discuss the crisis, and Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said the delegations would continue talking Tuesday.

During Monday’s session, the Turkish delegation “stressed the need to quickly reduce tensions on the field and to prevent the further deterioration of the humanitarian situation,” the ministry said. It added that the sides also discussed measures that can be taken to fully implement the cease-fire for Idlib.

Rescuers and a medical aid worker said airstrikes on Darat Izza, a town still in opposition hands in northwestern Aleppo, knocked two health facilities out of service. One hospital was hit directly, wounding two staffers, said Mazen Kewara of the Syrian American Medical Society, which supports the hospital’s dialysis unit. Video from the rescue team, Syrian Civil Defense, showed extensive damage. Another airstrike hit near the other medical facility, some 150 meters (164 yards) away.

Syrian rebels were driven out of the provincial capital’s eastern quarters in late 2016, which they had controlled for years while battling government forces in charge of the western section. However, rebel groups continued to target government forces from outside the city with mortar rounds. They also controlled large parts of western rural Aleppo province, territories that linked them to Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold.

Assad spoke shortly after a statement by the Syrian military praising troops for rapidly taking over rebel-controlled territory in the northwest, vowing to continue to chase armed groups “wherever they are.”

Gen. Ali Mayhoub, spokesman for the Syrian Armed Forces, said in a televised speech that government troops were continuing their ground advances to “eradicate what is left of terrorist groups,” and he congratulated the soldiers for the swift advances in “record time.”

Support from Russia and Iran has enabled Syrian troops to regain control of much of the territory they had lost to armed groups trying to topple Assad.

Over 400,000 people have been killed and half of Syria’s population displaced since peaceful protests in 2011 turned into a civil war.

Separately, state media reported that Syrian authorities on Sunday had uncovered a mass grave containing nearly 70 bodies in eastern Ghouta, an area outside of Damascus that rebel fighters lost control of in April 2018.

The area, which includes the town of Douma and extends into the capital’s suburbs, was widely destroyed as Syrian troops drove out rebel fighters there two years ago.

Ayman Khallou, a forensic doctor at a military hospital, told Syria’s state news agency that most of the remains found in the mass grave were handcuffed. He said most of the bodies appeared to have gunshot wounds to the head, while some were strangled. The official provided no immediate evidence to support the claim. Human rights groups blame both sides in the conflict for carrying out atrocities in the civil war.

Syrian authorities said a woman’s body was among those in the grave. Damascus’ military police chief said a tip had led to the discovery of the mass grave in al-Ebb, a farm area southeast of Douma.

The report led to speculation among Syrians that the body could be that of Razan Zaitouneh. The prominent activist was documenting violations by government and rebel groups in the war when she disappeared, along with two other colleagues and her husband, in December 2013.

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Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.

Michael Bloomberg’s Racism Goes Well Beyond Stop-and-Frisk

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is using his billions to pay for his presidential campaign ads, blanketing television, radio and social media feeds across the country. As pundits, including CNN’s Brian Stelter, suggest, this national visibility blitz may have boosted Bloomberg’s standing in national polls; it rose to 15% in a Quinnipiac survey last week. With that polling boost however, comes an increase in media and voter scrutiny — of his mayoral policy record, his business decisions as head of Bloomberg LP and his long history of speeches and media appearances.

First, audio of Bloomberg’s 2015 comments defending the stop-and-frisk policing strategy at an Aspen Institute event was spread on social media by activist Benjamin Dixon. Now, Vice reports that Bloomberg made disparaging comments on “PBS NewsHour” about black and Latino men while he was promoting the Young Men’s Initiative, a $127 million, three-year collaboration between his own foundation, the Open Society Institute and the city of New York.

The Young Men’s Initiative was designed to improve work opportunities for underserved communities and to “attract industries that can use the people here who are unemployed.” In the PBS interview, however, Bloomberg insulted the same communities his initiative was supposed to be serving.

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“There’s this enormous cohort of black and Latino males, age, let’s say, 16 to 25, that don’t have jobs, don’t have any prospects, don’t know how to find jobs, don’t know what their skill sets are, don’t know how to behave in the workplace where they have to work collaboratively and collectively,” Bloomberg said.

Later in the interview, he added, “If you look at where crime takes place, it’s in minority neighborhoods. If you look at who the victims and the perpetrators are, it’s virtually all minorities.”

Bloomberg has apologized for both the 2015 comments and his general advocacy of stop-and-frisks, but his campaign didn’t respond to Vice’s requests for comment on the 2011 PBS interview.

Just as many reporters are combing through past media appearances, some, like Medhi Hasan of The Intercept, are looking at Bloomberg’s record on surveillance, particularly of Muslim communities in New York following the Sept. 11 attacks. Hasan writes, “Michael Bloomberg oversaw the mass warrantless, suspicionless surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers, as the New York Police Department ‘mapped‘ where they prayed, ate, studied, and worked.”

Hasan points out that Bloomberg derided Donald Trump’s Muslim ban after the 2016 election, but Trump had high praise for Bloomberg’s surveillance work: “You’re going to have to watch and study the mosques, because a lot of talk is going on at the mosques,” candidate Trump told MSNBC. “And from what I heard, in the old days … we had great surveillance going on in and around mosques in New York City.”

That the surveillance Trump mentions was courtesy of Bloomberg is not a newly revealed secret. The Associated Press received a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for its investigation into the New York City Police Department’s clandestine surveillance program. What is new is the national attention on Bloomberg. What remains to be seen is whether he’ll be able to spend his way out of scrutiny and into the Democratic nomination.

Watch the “PBS NewsHour” clip here, and read Hasan’s full article here.

Jeff Bezos Pledges $10 Billion to Fight Climate Change

NEW YORK — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said Monday that he plans to spend $10 billion of his own fortune to help fight climate change.

Bezos, the world’s richest man, said in an Instagram post that he’ll start giving grants this summer to scientists, activists and nonprofits working to protect Earth.

“I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change,” Bezos said in the post.

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Amazon, the company Bezos runs, has an enormous carbon foodprint. Last year, Amazon officials said the company would work to have 100% of its energy use come from solar panels and other renewable energy by 2030.

The online retailer relies on fossil fuels to power planes, trucks and vans in order to ship billions of items all around the world. Amazon workers in its Seattle headquarters have been vocal in criticizing some of the company’s practices, pushing it to do more to combat climate change.

Bezos said in the post Monday that he will call his new initiative the Bezos Earth Fund. An Amazon spokesman confirmed that Bezos will be using his own money for the fund.

Despite being among the richest people in the world, Bezos only recently became active in donating money to causes as other billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have done. In 2018, Bezos started another fund, committing $2 billion of his own money to open preschools in low-income neighborhoods and give money to nonprofits that help homeless families.

Bezos, who founded Amazon 25 years ago, has a stake in the company that is worth more than $100 billion.

300 Cruise Passengers Are Quarantined at U.S. Military Bases

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. — More than 300 American cruise ship passengers, including 14 who tested positive for coronavirus, were being quarantined at military bases in California and Texas on Monday after arriving from Japan on charter flights overnight.

One plane carrying cruise passengers touched down at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California just before midnight Sunday, while another arrived at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas early Monday. The passengers will remain at the bases for two weeks.

Japan’s Defense Minister Taro Kono tweeted earlier that Japanese troops helped transport 340 U.S. passengers on 14 buses from Yokohama port to Tokyo’s Haneda airport. About 380 Americans were on the cruise ship.

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The U.S. said it arranged for the evacuation because people on the Diamond Princess were at a high risk of exposure to the new virus that’s been spreading in Asia. For the departing Americans, the evacuation cuts short a 14-day quarantine that began aboard the cruise ship Feb. 5.

The State Department announced later that 14 of the evacuees received confirmation they had the virus but were allowed to board the flight because they had no symptoms. They were being kept isolated from other passengers on the flight, the U.S. State and Health and Human Services said in a joint statement.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, said Sunday that an infected person who shows minimal symptoms could still pass the virus to someone else.

It’s unclear which base the 14 who tested positive for the virus went to.

Officials said the evacuees who arrived at Travis Air Force Base will be housed at a different location from the more than 200 other Americans who were already being quarantined on the base, in a hotel. Those people have been at the base since early February, when they arrived on flights from China.

No Travis airmen will have contact with the passengers, officials said.

Now that they’re in the U.S., the cruise ship passengers must go through another 14 days of quarantine at the military facilities — meaning they will have been under quarantine for a total of nearly four weeks.

Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Italy were planning similar flights of passengers. Other governments, including Canada and Hong Kong, also will require the passengers to undergo a second 14-day quarantine.

Japan on Monday announced another 99 infections on the Diamond Princess, raising the ship’s total number of cases to 454. Overall, Japan has 419 confirmed cases of the virus, including one death. The United States has confirmed 15 cases within the country. Separately, one U.S. citizen died in China.

Americans Cheryl and Paul Molesky, a couple from Syracuse, New York, opted to trade one coronavirus quarantine for another, leaving the cruise ship to fly back to the U.S. Cheryl Molesky said the rising number of patients on the ship factored into the decision.

“We are glad to be going home,” Cheryl Molesky earlier told NHK TV in Japan. “It’s just a little bit disappointing that we’ll have to go through quarantine again, and we will probably not be as comfortable as the Diamond Princess, possibly.”

She sent The Associated Press a video of her and her husband boarding the plane with other Americans.

“Well, we’re exhausted, but we’re on the plane and that’s a good feeling. Pretty miserable wearing these masks though, and everybody had to go to the bathroom on the bus,” she said.

Some American passengers said they would pass up the opportunity to fly to the United States because of the additional quarantine. There also was worry about being on a long flight with other passengers who may be infected or in an incubation period.

One of the Americans, Matthew Smith, said in a tweet Sunday that he saw a passenger with no face mask talking at close quarters with another passenger. He said he and his wife scurried away.

“If there are secondary infections on board, this is why,” he said. “And you wanted me to get on a bus with her?”

He said the American health officials who visited their room was apparently surprised that the couple had decided to stay, and wished them luck.

“Thanks, but we’re fine,” Smith said he told them.

___

This story has been corrected to show the first flight landed in California at 11:30 p.m. Sunday, not 2:30 a.m. Monday.

___

Associated Press journalists Mari Yamaguchi, Yuri Kageyama and Emily Wang in Tokyo contributed to this report.

___

Read more about the coronavirus outbreak at https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Was a Cover-Up, Not a Cleanup

Deepwater Horizon, called “the worst environmental disaster in American history,” was one of the environmental stories I covered at HuffPost a decade ago.

“On April 20, 2010, a fiery explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had killed 11 workers and injured 17. One mile underwater, the Macondo well had blown apart, unleashing a gusher of oil into the gulf,” Grist reported.

For 87 days, the leak was unstoppable.

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“The damaged Macondo wellhead, located around 5,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface, leaked an estimated 3.19 million barrels (over 130 million gallons) of oil into the Gulf of Mexico — making the spill the largest accidental ocean spill in history,” according to Grist journalist Mark Hertsgaard, in an article written three years after the accident.

“At risk were fishing areas that supplied one-third of the seafood consumed in the U.S., beaches from Texas to Florida that drew billions of dollars’ worth of tourism to local economies, and Obama’s chances of reelection.”

In revisiting the terrible accident, which produced lasting environmental contamination, it’s important to examine the Obama administration’s “pragmatic” decisions that caused, allowed to proceed, and ultimately failed to remediate the disaster by:

Allowing the driller, BP, to cut corners, and to self-regulate
Ignoring well-known corruption within the federal agency charged with oversight
Dismissing concerns posed by its own scientists
Bypassing authentic remediation and instead pouring 1.84 million gallons of a chemical product called Corexit into the Gulf of Mexico without regard for environmental or health consequences.

This was done, ostensibly, to clean up the contamination. The reality is that Corexit did not clean up the over 92,000 miles of spilled oil. Instead, it visually covered up the extent of the damage done by the fossil fuel industry. Protecting the industry’s image superseded the environmentally sound response to the worst environmental disaster in the U.S.

Unsound Environmental Decisions

Ten years later, it’s easier to recognize that such decisions, which elected officials at the time viewed as pragmatic, can produce major, ongoing negative ramifications when the superficial solution fails to address the problem.

Revisiting the now decade-long evolution of the disaster and the cover-up, a recent article in Common Dreams reports on a study published in Science, which reveals that “a significant amount of oil was never picked up in satellite images or captured by barriers that were meant to stop the spread.”

One of the study’s authors notes that “[o]ur results change established perceptions about the consequences of oil spills by showing that toxic and invisible oil can extend beyond the satellite footprint at potentially lethal and sub-lethal concentrations to a wide range of wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico,” with “invisible oil” reaching an area 30% larger than the 92,500 square miles experts identified at the time.

Public officials may exonerate themselves for a bad decision by claiming that the terrible outcome could only be known with 20/20 hindsight. But in this case, that’s not true.

As a health reporter back in 2010, I always read labels, because products sometimes contain understudied toxic ingredients, which are mistakenly regarded by the general public as harmless when diluted or dispersed — a claim made then and now by industry and its media spokespeople, and ignorantly codified even by journalists well-versed in other areas but overly zealous in a unilateral defense of science. I therefore researched Corexit, which, as I reported back then in HuffPost, is a dispersant that its producer, a company called NALCO, claimed on its website was “safer than dish soap.”

My specific concerns were, first, that the use of the product would spread the oil throughout the waters of the gulf, making it harder to pick up and remove the spilled oil. Because Corexit was known as a dispersant, I could not understand why the government chose to use it.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, “Dispersants are chemicals that are sprayed on a surface oil slick to break down the oil into smaller droplets that more readily mix with the water. Dispersants do not reduce the amount of oil entering the environment, but push the effects of the spill underwater.”

I also was concerned about the biological hazards of exposure to Corexit’s proprietary and undisclosed ingredients. The claim that Corexit was safer than dish soap did not account for possible health impacts of ingredients in soap, when used at such scale in combination with the already toxic oil. It turned out that this concern was shared by scientists.

A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Pollution found that crude oil becomes 52 times more toxic when combined with Corexit.

Government scientists also found that the combination of Corexit and crude oil “caused terrible damage to gulf wildlife and ecosystems, including an unprecedented number of seafood mutations; declines of up to 80 percent in seafood catch; and massive die-offs of the microscopic life-forms at the base of the marine food chain.”

The Government Accountability Project noted that “as a result of Corexit’s perceived success, Corexit … has become the dispersant of choice in the U.S. to ‘clean up’ oil spills.”

Protecting the Fossil Fuel Industry and Destroying the Gulf of Mexico

Proper management of the disaster might have entailed curtailing drilling activities, getting sufficient payback from the offending company to undertake complete environmental remediation, and providing aid to affected communities.

Although BP eventually was held “responsible for the oil spill as a result of its deliberate misconduct and gross negligence” by a federal court in 2014, that did not alter the management of the clean-up. The Obama administration accepted BP’s cosmetic solution — something that improved appearances — and silenced concerns. It was a cover-up, not a cleanup.

Fortified by President Obama’s promise that “the buck stops with me,” the gulf oil spill was deep-sixed, and disappeared from headlines and news accounts. Meanwhile, the very real contamination of the Gulf of Mexico continued, worsened and spread.

The government missed addressing — and, in fact, increased — a vast ecological harm. Contaminating water, creating dead zones and killing off wildlife in order to perpetuate an industry exemplifies a profound disorder in priorities. There is nothing pragmatic about it.

Now, like a toxic salad dressing concocted by industry and government, the blend of Corexit and oil has traveled miles beyond the original spill location, killing 50% of all marine wildlife wherever it spreads.

Environmental Talking Points

The ongoing tragedy of Deepwater Horizon is relevant today, because it challenges both people and government. How can citizens move beyond slick buzzwords and cosmetic approaches to environmental dilemmas embedded in systemic infrastructures? Talking points with an environmental theme don’t really reveal much. When politicians fail to define their plans, they use talking points as a protective cover for just about any policy decision. Some people trust or like politicians and don’t look further into what they are being sold. Blatantly partisan media outlets don’t fulfill their traditional journalistic role by delving into policy differences. They tend to focus superficially, on personalities.

For example, based on New Hampshire exit polls, The Washington Post reported that 29% of voters who view climate as their top issue voted for Pete Buttigeig on that basis. This reveals that some people are unable to distinguish between a verbal assurance, such as Buttigeig provides, and Bernie Sanders’ concrete climate plan, which was rated A+ by the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund’s Environmental Voter Guide. The center gave Buttigeig’s proposed environmental policies a C- rating.

While Republicans are blatantly anti-environmental, Democrats come off as well-spoken and dedicated to climate action. But history tells us that posing as an environmentalist while pursuing anti-environmental policies is a Democratic tradition, which Democratic voters need to acknowledge if we really want to act on climate rather than fall for polished phrases and firm assurances. Joe Biden’s climate change adviser is a fossil fuel industry veteran. Michael Bloomberg supported the use of fossil fuels by pouring millions of dollars into scientific research that aimed (unsuccessfully) to remediate fracking infrastructures  from leaking methane. Jay Inslee changed his stance to oppose two gas projects he had previously supported — right before announcing his presidential aspirations. Yet many wrongly considered him the “climate expert” among the Democratic candidates.

The Democratic Party’s track record for timely action in environmental matters can no longer be given a pass. It must be measured by the current state of multiple ecological crises that have taken place under its watch, not merely by comparison to the Republicans’ dire and destructive actions.

It’s time to get real about crucial planning, which Democrats have historically paid lip service to and failed to enact. They defer to industries and billionaires, some of whom like to pose before the life-or-death issue of planetary survival — as if they own that, too.

Ten years after the Deepwater Horizon contamination, the gas and oil industry still has a chokehold on both parties in our political system, the cleanliness of which they pollute.

The Deepwater Horizon spill was a flashing red light to prompt us to stop and reconsider these fossil fuel drilling activities, which had been critiqued a decade ago. But that warning was ignored.

Unless someone at a private dinner records something that was never meant to reach the public, we can never cite evidence of backstage conversations and deals that determine the future of life on this planet.

But more and more people can see the evidence:

A brutal unraveling of sane environmental policies and regulations
A blatantly partisan media funded by corporate interests
A heavy hand on the nomination and electoral process
The condition of the gulf 10 years later
The destruction of Australia right now.

Virginia Lawmakers Reject Assault Weapon Ban

RICHMOND, Va.  — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s push to ban the sale of assault weapons failed on Monday after some of his fellow Democrats balked at the proposal.

Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun advocates.

Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday’s committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.

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The bill was a top priority for Northam, who has campaigned heavily for a broad package of gun-control measures. The governor’s spokeswoman, Alena Yarmosky, said he’s disappointed with the result but determined to continue to press for the measure.

“We will be back next year,” she said.

David Majure, a gun-rights supporter who attended the committee hearing, said he’s glad about Monday’s results but not convinced the bill is dead for the year.

“I’m happy about it, but I don’t trust them,” he said.

Virginia is the current epicenter of the country’s heated debate over guns, as a new Democratic majority seseks to enact strict new limits.

Democrats ran heavily on gun control during last year’s legislative elections when they flipped control of the General Assembly for the first time in more than two decades.

But gun owners, especially in rural communities, have pushed back hard. Last month, tens of thousands of guns-rights activists from around the country flooded the Capitol and surrounding area in protest, some donning tactical gear and carrying military-style rifles. And more than 100 counties, cities and towns have declared themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, vowing to oppose any new “unconstitutional restrictions” on guns.

The proposed assault weapon ban has received the most opposition. Gun owners have accused the governor and others of wanting to confiscate commonly owned guns and accessories from law-abiding gun owners. Northam and his allies have said repeatedly they do not want to confiscate guns, but argued that banning new sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would help prevent mass murders.

“This bill will save lives,” said Democratic Del. Mark Levine, who sponsored the legislation.

Earlier proposals to ban possession of AR-15-style rifles or to require owners to register them with state police have been scrapped. The governor had hoped a watered-down version would win over enough Democratic moderates for passage.

But moderate Democrats in the state Senate have said for weeks they are uncomfortable passing legislation that would affect so many current gun owners.

An estimated 8 million AR-style guns have been sold since they were introduced to the public in the 1960s. The weapons are known as easy to use, easy to clean and easy to modify with a variety of scopes, stocks and rails.

Lawmakers voted to table the bill Monday with little debate, while noting that there was confusion over what types of guns would constitute an assault weapon.

“There are obviously a lot of questions about definitions in this bill. Definitions do matter,” said Democratic Sen. Creigh Deeds.

The Senate has now rejected three of the governor’s eight gun-control measures. Moderate Democrats have already voted with Republicans to kill a bill that would make it a felony to “recklessly leave a loaded, unsecured firearm” in a way that endangers a minor, and a bill that would require gun owners to report the loss or theft of a gun to police.

Lawmakers in both the House and Senate have already advanced several other gun-control measures and should finalize passage in the coming days. Those bills include limiting handgun purchases to once a month; universal background checks on gun purchases; allowing localities to ban guns in public buildings, parks and other areas; and a red flag bill that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from anyone deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.