Chris Hedges's Blog, page 263

Trump’s Abortion Lies Are Going to Get Somebody Killed

In examining the flood of lies that spills out of President Donald Trump’s mouth on a daily basis, arguably the most egregious are his claims about abortion—and specifically, about so-called “late-term abortions.” Trump has repeated several times in the past a myth created by anti-abortion activists. For example, during his State of the Union address in January, he said, “Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments from birth.” He also claimed that Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam “stated he [Northam] would execute a baby after birth.” In February, Trump tweeted, “The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth.”

Last Saturday, Trump embellished the lie some more, claiming during a political rally in Wisconsin that doctors and parents conspire to murder babies after birth. “The baby is born,” said Trump. “The mother meets with the doctor. They take care of the baby. They wrap the baby beautifully, and then the doctor and the mother determine whether or not they will execute the baby.”

Not surprisingly, these wild and dangerous claims were met with shock and anger by members of the medical community. “Abortion later in pregnancy is not used as an alternative to delivering healthy women’s full-term, viable pregnancies,” said Dr. Barbara Levy in an interview on CNN. Levy, who serves as vice president of health policy at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, explained, “Additionally, it’s callous to suggest that healthy women with viable pregnancies at term abruptly change their minds and seek abortion care as the solution.”

Trump wants us to believe that people undergo elective procedures to terminate perfectly healthy pregnancies well after fetuses are viable outside the womb. But that is simply not the case. There is no such thing as a “late-term abortion.” There are only very small percentages of pregnancies in which a fatal health problem arises with the fetus or mother in the second or third trimester, resulting in doctors and parents having to make incredibly difficult and painful decisions about birth and palliative care before death.

One former NICU nurse named Julia Pulver wrote on April 27 a series of tweets about her direct experience serving on a “bereavement team” that offers care for infants who are certain to live only a few hours. She ended her viral thread by asserting that “NO ONE ever, in any hospital, nor any mother who has just given birth, is conspiring with a doctor on whether or not to commit infanticide,” and added, “This is perhaps one of the sickest accusations levied by this deranged dictator yet. Don’t believe a word he says about anything important.”

What Trump and his anti-abortion allies are doing is politicizing the worst day of a parent’s life, purposefully conflating palliative care for a dying baby with murder, as if homicide were not already illegal. In order to expose Trump’s lies about “late-term abortions,” women who have experienced the pain of losing a baby just before or after birth have publicly shared their experiences in an effort to debunk his irresponsible rhetoric. One of those women is Dr. Jen Gunter, an obstetrician and gynecologist who lost a son when her water broke at only 23 weeks. Dr. Gunter wrote a deeply moving and disturbing description of the horror she experienced.

It isn’t just Trump and his evangelical anti-abortion supporters who are guilty of spreading propaganda. Much of the Republican Party has staked its political future on the desperate gasp of anti-abortionists to overturn Roe v. Wade by introducing and passing bills banning “late-term abortions”—again, not a thing—in order to foster a strong correlation in the minds of their voters: Abortion equals murder equals Democrats. A bill banning late-term abortions is like a bill banning voter fraud by undocumented immigrants—a ban on a fictitious phenomenon created in order to conjure up an imagined reality on top of which to build political power.

Republicans want political power and appear willing to do anything to get it. But the anti-abortionists have set their sights on ending through the Supreme Court the constitutional right of women to choose abortion. Pamela Merritt, co-director of Reproaction, explained to me in an interview that that with a 5-4 anti-choice majority on the Supreme Court—engineered by evangelical influencers through Trump—“The only thing standing between the constitutional right to abortion and not having that is Chief Justice John Roberts.” She added, “I don’t know very many people in this country who want their civil rights and their constitutional rights in the hands of somebody who is that conservative.”

Beyond potentially losing women’s right to control their bodies, Trump’s lies about “late-term abortions” offer a thinly veiled green light for violence against medical providers and abortion clinics. Merritt explained that Trump’s rhetoric “quite literally puts people’s lives in danger. It’s absolutely unacceptable for the president to spout these lies but particularly within 24 hours of somebody fueled by his hateful rhetoric carrying out a hateful act in a synagogue.” She worried that Trump’s lie that doctors and mothers conspire to kill babies is exactly “the kind of thing that gets spouted by anti-abortion terrorists.”

But these lies have been circulating in Trump’s anti-abortion evangelical base for years. Last year at a social gathering, I happened to be discussing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing with a friend when I was overheard by a woman who turned out to be an anti-abortion activist and lawyer. This highly educated woman began practically frothing at the mouth, berating me for supporting abortion rights and rattled off exactly the kind of lies Trump told during his State of the Union address and at his Wisconsin rally. Entering my personal space aggressively, she explained to me how babies are ripped out of mothers’ wombs and killed because the mothers wanted an abortion.

It was the first I had ever heard of such claims, and all I could say was that such a thing could not possibly be true. Afterward, when I researched it, I realized anti-abortion activists had created a dangerous myth in order to criminalize abortion. Now that myth is gaining legitimacy from the highest authority in the nation: the president.

I wonder: Do they really believe the lies? Any sane person who hears Trump’s description about a cold and calculating decision by health care providers and parents to murder a newborn in a hospital would ask why such actions were not already illegal—they are. They would question the veracity of a tale so far-fetched that it becomes apparent that its only purpose is to incite violence among the easily swayed and well-armed, goading them to commit violence against doctors, nurses and abortion providers.

There are laws criminalizing homicide in this nation, and there are laws protecting women’s constitutional right to an abortion. But there are also laws against inciting violence, and Trump ought to be reminded of that before his lies get someone killed.

Unemployment Hits 49-Year Low as U.S. Employers Step Up Hiring

WASHINGTON—U.S. employers added a robust 263,000 jobs in April, suggesting that businesses have shrugged off earlier concerns that the economy might slow this year and now anticipate strong customer demand.

The unemployment rate fell to a five-decade low of 3.6% from 3.8%, though that drop reflected a rise in the number of people who stopped looking for work. Average hourly pay rose 3.2% from 12 months earlier, a healthy increase that matched the increase in March.

Friday’s jobs report from the Labor Department showed that solid economic growth is still encouraging strong hiring nearly a decade into the economy’s recovery from the Great Recession. The economic expansion is set to become the longest in history in July.

“The broader economy remains on solid footing, meaning that coming months will see continued job gains and faster wage growth,” said Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial Corp.

Trump administration officials insisted that the job market’s gains were a result of the president’s tax cuts and deregulatory policies.

“We have entered a very strong and durable prosperity cycle,” said Larry Kudlow, director of the White House’s National Economic Council.

President Donald Trump has also pressed the Federal Reserve to cut short-term interest rates because inflation remains low. But most economists said the healthy jobs picture, against the backdrop of low inflation, would reinforce the Fed’s current wait-and-see approach. The Fed raised rates four times last year but has signaled that it doesn’t foresee any rate increases this year.

Stock investors welcomed Friday’s jobs data. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 135 points, or 0.5%, in mid-day trading.

The brightening economic picture represents a sharp improvement from the start of the year. At the time, the government was enduring a partial shutdown, the stock market had plunged, trade tensions between the United States and China were flaring and the Fed had just raised short-term rates in December. Analysts worried that the economy might barely expand in the first three months of the year.

Yet the outlook soon brightened. Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the Fed would put rate hikes on hold. Trade negotiations between the U.S. and China made some progress. The economic outlook in some other major economies improved. Share prices rebounded.

And in the end, the government reported that the U.S. economy grew at a 3.2% annual rate in the January-March period — the strongest pace for a first quarter since 2015. That said, the growth was led mostly by factors that could prove temporary — a restocking of inventories in warehouses and on store shelves and a narrowing of the U.S. trade deficit. By contrast, consumer spending and business investment, which more closely reflect the economy’s underlying strength, were relatively weak.

But American households have become more confident since the winter and are ramping up spending. Consumer spending surged in March by the most in nearly a decade. A likely factor is that steady job growth and solid wage increases have enlarged Americans’ paychecks.

Businesses are also spending more freely. Orders to U.S. factories for long-lasting capital goods jumped in March by the most in eight months. That suggested that companies were buying more computers, machinery and other equipment to keep up with growing customer demand.

Many businesses say they’re struggling to find workers, yet each month they seem to add a substantial number. Some have taken a range of steps to fill jobs, including training more entry-level workers, loosening educational requirements and raising pay sharply.

Years of steady hiring have sharply lowered unemployment for a range of population groups. The unemployment rate for women fell last month to 3.1%, the lowest point since 1953. The rate for Latinos dropped to 4.2%, a record low since 1973, when the government began tracking the data.

For Asians, joblessness has matched a record low of 2.2%. And the unemployment rate for veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars dropped to 1.7%, also a record low.

Most of last month’s job growth occurred in services, which includes both higher-paying jobs in information technology and lower-paying temporary work. Manufacturers added just 4,000 jobs. Construction firms gained 33,000, mostly on public infrastructure projects.

Professional and business services, which include IT networking jobs as well as accountants and engineers, led the gains with 76,000. Education and health care added 62,000 jobs, while a category that mostly includes restaurants and hotels gained 34,000.

Retailers, however, continued to cut jobs, shedding 12,000 in April, the third straight months of cuts. The sector has eliminated 49,000 jobs in the past year even as the economy has picked up.

Retailers are suffering from broader changes in the economy as more Americans are shopping online and stores close after decades of overexpansion. Also to blame is an aging U.S. population that no longer needs to buy as much clothing and other goods.

Why Won’t the Mainstream Media Call It a Venezuelan Coup?

It’s Groundhog Day again in Venezuela, as the local conservative opposition has launched another attempt to oust President Nicolás Maduro from power. Surrounded by a few hardcore supporters, Washington-backed self-appointed president Juan Guaidó on April 30 called on the military to rise up and overthrow the democratically elected Maduro. Guaidó, a man who has never even stood for president, attempted the same thing in January, and the opposition has attempted to remove Maduro, and his predecessor Hugo Chávez, on many occasions, including in 2017, 2014, 2013, 2002 and 2001.

Despite bearing the clear hallmarks of a coup—defined as “the violent overthrow or alteration of an existing government by a small group”—US media have overwhelmingly supported it, as they have past attempts (FAIR.org, 1/25/19, 5/16/18, 4/18/02). CNN (4/30/19) told the United States that it must “root for the people” of Venezuela, before explicitly stating, “Rooting for the Venezuelan people means hoping that Maduro will step down”—thus underlining the phenomenon noted by FAIR (1/31/19) that to corporate media, “the people” of Venezuela are whoever agrees with the US government. CNN (4/30/19) also used images of Guaidó’s paramilitaries (identifiable by their blue armbands) to illustrate a report claiming the forces of “socialist dictator” Maduro were “mowing down citizens in the streets.”

Not a Coup, but a…

Framing how readers see an issue is an incredibly powerful tool of persuasion. It’s not carpet bombing, it’s surgical strikes. And people are more likely to accept advanced interrogation techniques than they are torture.

In their efforts to refrain from using the negative—but accurate—term “coup” to describe events they support, the media have sometimes had to go to bizarre, roundabout and garbled lengths to dance around it. The Washington Post (4/30/19) used the clunky phrase “opposition-led military-backed challenge.”  The Post (4/30/19) also published an article in support of Guaidó headlined “Is What’s Happening in Venezuela an Attempted Coup? First, Define ‘Coup,” arguing that there were such things as “noble” and “democratic coups.”

Other outlets also refused to use the most logical word to describe events. CBS (4/30/19), Reuters (5/1/19) and CNN (5/1/19) chose the word “uprising,” NPR (4/30/19) and the New York Times (4/30/19) “protest,” and Yahoo! News went with the phrase “high-risk gamble” (5/1/19). Meanwhile, the Miami Herald (4/30/19) insisted that the “military rebellion” in Venezuela “can be called many things. But don’t call it a ‘coup attempt.’”

Even international organizations like the BBC (5/1/19), the Guardian (5/1/19) and Al-Jazeera (5/1/19) only used the word “coup” in quotations, characterizing it as an accusation attributed to government officials media have been demonizing for years (Extra!, 11–12/05; FAIR.org, 5/28/18, 4/11/19). This despite the fact that Al-Jazeera (4/30/19) reported on the day of the coup that Erik Prince, CEO of the private military contractor Blackwater, tried to persuade Donald Trump to let him send 5,000 mercenaries to Venezuela to “remove” Maduro.

Stenographers for Power

The reasons for the reluctance of the media to use the word “coup” can be found in official announcements from the government. With all the credibility of an armed man in a mask repeatedly shouting “this is not technically a bank robbery,” national security advisor John Bolton told reporters on April 30, “This is clearly not a coup,” but an effort by ”the Venezuelan people” to “regain their freedom,” which the US “fully supports.” Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that what we are seeing in Venezuela “is the will of the people to peacefully change the course of their country from one of despair to one of freedom and democracy.”

Soon after Bolton’s comments, Bloomberg published a series of articles (4/30/19; 4/30/19; 4/30/19), all by different writers, on why the events did not constitute a coup attempt. This, despite Bloomberg’s reporter Andrew Rosati revealing that coup leader Leopoldo Lopez told him and the rest the international media core that he wants the US to formally govern Venezuela once Maduro falls.

Pompeo made waves in April after publicly admitting at an event at Texas A&M University that he was a serial liar, cheat and thief. As CIA director, he declared, “We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses [on it]!” Nevertheless, the media credulously repeated his astonishing claims, made in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (5/1/19), that Maduro, who has survived multiple coup attempts and assassinations, had been on the airport tarmac on his way to Cuba, “ready to leave” Venezuela for good, only for Russia to tell him to stay. This dubious, unverified and officially contestedassertion made headlines around the world (Daily Beast, 4/30/19; Newsweek, 4/30/19; Times of London, 5/1/19; Deutsche Welle, 4/30/19), with few questioning its credibility.

This is not the first time the media have lined up behind the government on a Venezuelan coup. As detailed in my book, Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting, the US media also endorsed the April 2002 coup against Chavez, using euphemisms such as “popular uprising” (Miami Herald, 4/18/02), “unrest” (New York Times, 5/23/02) or “Chavez’s temporary downfall” (New York Times, 4/29/02) to frame events more positively. Only after an official White House spokesperson used the word “coup” on April 15, 2002, was the word frequently used in the media, suggesting a close synergy between government officials and those supposedly employed to hold them to account.

After barely 12 hours, the most recent coup attempt appeared to have failed under the weight of its own unpopularity. According to the New York Times (4/30/19), Guaidó failed to attract meaningful support from the military, his co-conspirator Leopoldo Lopez had sought refuge first in the Chilean then in the Spanish embassy, and 25 of his paramilitaries had done the same in the Brazilian one. Guaidó did not win over the Venezuelan majority, who had previously chased his motorcade out of a working class district when he tried to enter. Ordinary Venezuelans continued their lives, or even rushed to the defense of the government. As USA Today (5/1/19) summed up:

Guaidó called it the moment for Venezuelans to reclaim their democracy once and for all. But as the hours dragged on, he stood alone on a highway overpass with the same small cadre of soldiers with whom he launched a bold effort to spark a military uprising.

It appears that the main base of support for the coup was the US government…and the media. The press’s extraordinary complicity, lining up with the State Department’s version of the world in the face of empirical evidence, highlights the worrying closeness between media and government. When it comes to foreign policy, there is often no difference between deep state and fourth estate.

As Israeli Group Expands, Palestinian Houses Face Demolition

JERUSALEM—For 20 years, Hala Kashour has lived with her husband in what she called “paradise,” a bucolic meadow that rolls through a Palestinian neighborhood of east Jerusalem.

The coveted pasture, which Israel calls the “Peace Forest,” lies in the crosshairs of a long-simmering conflict between the city government and its Palestinian residents that flared up on a recent spring morning as Kashour, 47, was jolted awake by the sound of bulldozers crushing her neighbor’s house.

Some 60 houses in the grassy quarter, known to its 500 residents as Wad Yasul, are facing demolition by Israeli authorities. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court declined to hear the residents’ appeal against demolition orders, saying the structures were built without required permits in a municipally designated green space.

“God willing, we won’t be next,” said Kashour, who claims she built the neighborhood’s first house, a stone cottage ringed with rose bushes, on land her family has owned for 50 years.

Demolition of unauthorized Palestinian-owned structures in east Jerusalem is not unusual. The municipality contends it cracks down on zoning violations. Palestinians say it is nearly impossible to receive building permits, and that Israel is severely restricting their ability to build on land they claim for the capital of their future state.

But the Peace Forest demolitions have drawn particular attention because of accelerating construction by a nationalist Jewish organization in the same park.

With the support of Israel’s Tourism Ministry, the City of David Foundation has set up lodging structures, operates a Segway tour through the woodland and is advancing plans for several tourist attractions, including a visitor center and what it bills as the country’s largest zip line. The foundation said it has leased 4% of the park’s total area from the government.

Although city regulations forbid construction of any kind in designated parks, the municipality confirmed it was working to alter zoning restrictions and retroactively authorize City of David’s construction and facilitate its expansion.

“The City of David hasn’t yet received final approval for everything, but its efforts to build up public space with sports and tourist facilities are being considered positively,” said an official in the Jerusalem mayor’s office, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. “We are not eager to evict Palestinian residents in a brutal way, but we have a green light from the highest court.”

Activists and Palestinian residents say the case of the Peace Forest highlights discriminatory Israeli policies that have propelled a housing crisis in overcrowded east Jerusalem.

“The government zoned this area in an intractable way to prevent Palestinian construction, and now we can see the designation being altered to serve Jewish settlement,” said Aviv Tatarsky from Ir Amim, an Israeli group that advocates equality in Jerusalem.

The Supreme Court’s dismissal of the case brought an end to the residents’ costly decade-long legal battle to get their houses, in many cases built decades ago on inherited family land, authorized by Israel.

Structures belonging to two families were destroyed immediately following the decision, and two more homes were demolished on Tuesday. Pending demolition orders for the rest of the area can go into effect at any time, said Zyad Kawar, lawyer for the Palestinian residents.

Many residents view the park zoning as a government ploy to force Palestinians out of east Jerusalem, which Israel considers an indivisible part of its capital.

“They don’t want to give us permits, that’s the bottom line,” said Nasser Burqan, 42, whose cousin owned a house demolished this month. “It’s displacement.”

Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed it, a move not internationally recognized. Since then, Israel has boosted the Jewish presence there, building neighborhoods where over 200,000 Jews now live.

The Peace Forest sits in the larger Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, long a focal point of Jewish settlement for its proximity to some of the world’s most sensitive religious sites in the walled Old City.

The City of David Foundation runs popular archaeological and touristic sites in and around Silwan — spots that archaeologists describe as centerpieces of ancient Jewish civilization. The foundation’s sites are situated on what many believe to be the ruins of the biblical King David’s ancient capital from thousands of years ago.

In the Peace Forest, “the City of David has transformed what was once a derelict crime-ridden site” into a space used freely by the public, said the foundation’s vice president, Doron Spielman. “We are confident that it too will become a major tourist attraction.”

The City of David projects are not planned on the ruins of the demolished homes, and the foundation says the city’s demolition plans go back long before it began work in the area. It calls complaints about its activities in the Peace Forest “purely politically motivated.”

But critics say the demolitions on one hand, and the green light to City of David on the other, illustrate two sets of standards for Jews and Palestinians in the city. The organization has also drawn sharp criticism for helping to settle Jewish families in Arab neighborhoods, fueling suspicions that its tourism projects mask efforts to erase the line between east and west Jerusalem, and with it, hope for an independent Palestinian state.

The two-state dream seems more distant than ever after newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised on the campaign trail to annex West Bank settlements. He is poised to form a governing coalition with right-wing parties that reject Palestinian sovereignty.

His re-election comes a year after the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. Embassy to the city. Though Trump says his move does not determine the city’s final status, it was seen by the Palestinians and others as recognizing Israel’s claim to the city, including its eastern sector.

With the Trump administration providing unprecedented support for Israel, there are fears in Jerusalem that the government could step up its pressure on Palestinian residents.

“What’s next? What will we do?” said Kashour, standing in her rose garden among some of the recently evicted children from the neighboring Burqan family. “I don’t have anywhere else.”

Facebook Bans Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones for Hate Speech

SAN FRANCISCO — After years of pressure to crack down on extremist content, Facebook has banned Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and other extremists, saying they violated its ban against hate and violence.

The company also banned right-wing leaders Paul Nehlen, Milo Yiannopoulos, Paul Joseph Watson and Laura Loomer, along with Jones’ site, Infowars. The latest bans apply to both Facebook’s main service and to Instagram and extend to fan pages and other related accounts.

Decried as censorship by several of those who got the ax, the move signals a renewed effort by the social media giant to remove objectionable material — and individuals — promoting hate, racism and anti-Semitism.

Removing some of the best-known figures of the U.S. political extreme takes away an important virtual megaphone that Facebook has provided the likes of Jones, Yiannopoulos and others over the years.

Critics praised the move, but said there is more to be done on both Facebook and Instagram.

“We know that there are still white supremacists and other extremist figures who are actively using both platforms to spread their hatred and bigotry,” said Keegan Hankes, senior research analyst for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups in the U.S.

Facebook has previously suspended Jones from its flagship service temporarily; this suspension is permanent and includes Instagram.

Facebook says the newly banned accounts violated its policy against dangerous individuals and organizations. The company says it has “always banned” people or groups that proclaim a violent or hateful mission or are engaged in acts of hate or violence, regardless of political ideology.

For years, social media companies have been under pressure from civil rights groups and other activists to clamp down on hate speech on their services. Following the deadly white nationalist protests in Charlottesville, South Carolina, in 2017, Google, Facebook and PayPal began banishing extremist groups and individuals who identified as or supported white supremacists.

A year later, widespread bans of Jones and Infowars reflected a more aggressive enforcement of policies against hate speech. But Facebook instituted only a 30-day suspension (though Twitter banned him permanently).

It is not clear what events led to Thursday’s announcement. In a statement, Facebook merely said, “The process for evaluating potential violators is extensive and it is what led us to our decision to remove these accounts today.”

Facebook has been under heavy pressure to rid its service of hate and extremist content. Last month, it extended its ban on hate speech to prohibit the promotion and support of white nationalism and white separatism. It had previously allowed such material even though it has long banned white supremacists.

Asked to comment on the bans, Yiannopoulos emailed only “You’re next.”

Jones reacted angrily Thursday during a live stream of his show on his Infowars website.

“They didn’t just ban me. They just defamed us. Why did Zuckerberg even do this?” Jones said, referring to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Jones called himself a victim of “racketeering” by “cartels.”

“There’s a new world now, man, where they’re banning everybody and then they tell Congress nobody is getting banned,” he said.

Watson, meanwhile, tweeted that he was not given a reason and that he “broke none of their rules.”

“Hopefully, other prominent conservatives will speak out about me being banned, knowing that they are next if we don’t pressure the Trump administration to take action,” he wrote.

Farrakhan, Nehlen and Loomer did not immediately return messages for comment.

___

Associated Press Writers Tali Arbel in New York and Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, contributed to this story.

Pentagon: Sexual Assault in the Military Rose 38% in 2018

There were 20,500 reported sexual assaults in the military in 2018, according to a new Pentagon report, a 38% increase in the number of assaults since 2016. The results, as ABC News reports, represent “a setback for the U.S. military’s efforts to reduce sexual assault in the military.”

These numbers come from an anonymous survey the Pentagon conducts every two years. Respondents include Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine personnel. The survey defines assault as “rape, sexual assault, forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual contact, abusive sexual contact and attempts to commit those offenses,” according to ABC News.

Over 85% of the victims reported knowing the perpetrators.

Nathan Galbreath, deputy director of the Pentagon’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, told USA Today that women between the ages of 17 and 24 were most at risk for unwanted sexual contact. “We’re very concerned about that,” he said.

The results are a setback, at least in part because sexual assault seemed to be decreasing at the time of the last survey in 2016, when ABC News reported, “Pentagon officials were encouraged by the significant drop in the estimate of sexual assaults to 14,900.” That number seemed to represent progress, because in 2006, 34,000 service members reported assaults.

In general, reports of sexual assaults in the military have trended downward since 2006, but as USA Today points out, “Concerns rose anew in 2013 when the Pentagon released a report that estimated the number of sexual assaults increased 35% from 2010 to 2012, to 26,000 victims.

At the time, Congress held a hearing with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, demanding an explanation. Military leaders announced a “zero tolerance” policy on sexual assault. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 included mandated anti-sexual assault training. Impacts of the prevention methods have been mixed, according to some experts.

As Col. Don Christensen told Task and Purpose in 2018, “Each year since 2013, we’ve seen changes passed by Congress to the [Uniform Code of Military Justice], an acknowledgement that things aren’t where they should be. … But we still haven’t gotten a major change.”

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick M. Shanahan responded to the latest report in a statement saying, “It is clear that sexual assault and sexual harassment are persistent challenges.” He added, “To put it bluntly, we are not performing to the standards and expectations we have for ourselves or for each other. This is unacceptable. We cannot shrink from facing the challenge head on.”

In addition to the latest survey, the Pentagon is also scheduled to release the recommendations of a task force on sexual assault in the military, convened at the request of Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., a former Air Force officer and pilot who shared during an Armed Services Committee hearing in March that she was raped by a superior officer.

The exact recommendations of the sexual assault task force have not yet been revealed, but ABC News reports that “acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan tipped his hand at what the Task Force may have recommended when he told a House panel that ‘We’re going to criminalize certain activities in this next year to reflect the seriousness that we’re going to take on certain behaviors.’ ”

Baltimore Mayor Resigns Amid Scandal

BALTIMORE — Baltimore’s mayor resigned under pressure Thursday amid a flurry of investigations into whether she arranged bulk sales of her self-published children’s books to disguise hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks.

Mayor Catherine Pugh’s resignation came exactly a week after her City Hall offices, homes and multiple other locations were raided by FBI and IRS agents. She is the second mayor in less than a decade to step down because of scandal. She came to office contrasting her clean image with her main opponent, ex-mayor Sheila Dixon, who was forced to depart office in 2010 as part of a plea deal for misappropriating about $500 in gift cards meant for needy families.

“I am sorry for the harm that I have caused to the image of the city of Baltimore and the credibility of the office of the mayor,” Pugh said in a written statement read by her lawyer, Steven Silverman.

A federal grand jury has been empaneled and state and local inquiries are also underway into the roughly $800,000 Pugh made over the years in exchange for her “Healthy Holly” paperbacks about health and nutrition.

Since the book scandal erupted in late March, Pugh’s fractured administration has lurched from one crisis to another and various aides have been fired or left City Hall.

Her resignation provides a measure of resolution after weeks of uncertainty and mounting pressure for her to step down. Maryland’s Republican governor and numerous Democrats had pressed for her resignation, saying she was no longer fit to lead Baltimore.

“This was the right decision, as it was clear the mayor could no longer lead effectively,” Gov. Larry Hogan said in a statement Thursday afternoon. “Baltimore City can now begin to move forward.”

Now that Pugh has resigned, acting Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young automatically becomes the permanent mayor and will not need to be sworn in. Young, a Democrat and longtime City Council member, is currently in Detroit for a conference about economic development and will return to Baltimore over the weekend.

“I am confident that I have left the City in capable hands for the duration of the term to which I was elected,” Pugh wrote in a letter to Young.

In a statement, Young thanked the thousands of city employees who came to work each day under uncertain circumstances for weeks.

“Although I understand that this ordeal has caused real pain for many Baltimoreans, I promise that we will emerge from it more committed than ever to building a stronger Baltimore,” he said.

Citing deteriorating health following a bout of pneumonia, Pugh took a paid leave on April 1 and hasn’t been seen in public since. The 69-year-old abruptly retreated to her home the same day that Hogan asked the state prosecutor to investigate public corruption accusations against her.

In recent days, Silverman had repeatedly gone in and out of Pugh’s city home to discuss “options” with her while also asserting that she was so fragile physically and mentally that she was unable to make “major decisions.” Last week, Silverman had told reporters that she might be “lucid” enough to make a decision this week.

At issue for multiple investigators are questionable financial arrangements she negotiated over years selling her hard-to-find “Healthy Holly” books. The books were meant to be provided to schools and day care centers, but it’s unclear where tens of thousands of copies ended up.

Hogan has called the accusations against Pugh “deeply disturbing,” and the state’s accountant described the book-selling arrangements as “brazen, cartoonish corruption.” The City Council called for Pugh’s immediate resignation, as did numerous state lawmakers and an influential business group, among others.

The scandal erupted when it came to light that the University of Maryland Medical System, one of the state’s largest private employers, paid Pugh $500,000 for 100,000 copies of her children’s books. There was no contract behind the deal and the hospital network described some of the purchases as “grants” in federal filings.

Before she became mayor, Pugh once sat on a state Senate committee that funded the major health network. She started serving on the system’s board in 2001. Pugh was not the only one who benefited: Roughly one-third of the system’s board members received compensation through the medical system’s arrangements with their businesses. As she became the public face of the scandal, however, she stepped down from the board and returned her most recent $100,000 payment.

Pressure on Pugh to resign ratcheted up dramatically after Kaiser Permanente disclosed that it paid her limited liability company about $114,000 between 2015 and 2018 for roughly 20,000 copies of her illustrated books. Pugh became Baltimore’s mayor in 2016. The next year, Baltimore’s spending board, which is controlled by the mayor, awarded a $48 million contract to the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic States Inc. When asked who Kaiser bought the books from, company spokesman Scott Lusk said: “We purchased the books from Healthy Holly, LLC.” That is Pugh’s company.

Others then came forward, including Maryland financier J.P. Grant. He acknowledged writing a roughly $100,000 check to buy Pugh’s “Health Holly” books but insisted he expected nothing in return.

At a rambling news conference days before retreating from public view, Pugh described her book deal worth $500,000 with the university-based health care system as a “regrettable mistake.” She has not publicly addressed the other lucrative arrangements that have come to light.

If Our Planet Has a Future, It’s Thanks to Greta Thunberg

“When I first heard about something called climate change … I remember thinking that it was really strange that humans, who are an animal species among others, could be capable of changing the earth’s climate,” says 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg in a TedX speech that has been viewed over a million times. “Because if it were, and if it was really happening, we wouldn’t be talking about anything else.”

Thunberg certainly doesn’t want us to talk about anything but climate change—she’s even scolded European leaders for obsessing over Brexit, the United Kingdom’s separation from the European Union, instead of taking urgently needed action to address the climate emergency at hand. The TedX talk, which the Swedish activist gave in Stockholm in late 2018, came after months of protesting her government’s climate inaction by skipping school and sitting in front of the steps of the Swedish Parliament. Little did Swedish leaders or perhaps even Thunberg herself know that her seemingly simple act of civil disobedience would spark a worldwide youth activist movement.

Not only did students around the globe follow in Thunberg’s footsteps by staging their own school strikes, but entire movements such as Extinction Rebellion, which essentially brought the city of London to a standstill in April, have been inspired by the young activist’s “plain-spoken, no-holds-barred chastising of world leaders over their inaction on climate change [with] signature calm,” as Truthdig’s Sonali Kolhatkar writes.

The young activist’s message isn’t necessarily new or groundbreaking. In fact, as she explains in her talk, she’s not here to offer hope in the form of solutions for one crucial reason: They already exist. And she’s right. The public has known for many years that we were doing possibly irreversible damage to our planet. More importantly, political leaders have also known this, yet have done little to enforce goals like those of the Paris Agreement, which came late in the game anyway. What’s more, heads of companies such as Shell, Exxon and others in the fossil fuel industry have known the facts for decades, and have willfully deceived consumers. Climate scientists have been warning us and also coming up with an abundance of green solutions.

“I want you to panic,” Thunberg says. For the young woman with her whole life ahead of her, the rest of us are acting far too calmly about a full-on crisis that will determine her future and that of her children and grandchildren, as she reminds us.

Perhaps one of the most inspiring things about Thunberg is that she practices what she preaches. The Swedish youth is a vegan, based on the numerous studies that have shown how meat consumption is responsible for a large portion of harmful methane emissions, and she has given up air travel completely.

Her transportation choices haven’t stopped her from traveling widely and more sustainably to the likes of Davos, the COP24 conference, the European Commission, European Parliament and, most recently, the U.K. parliament. In all these houses of power, the teenager looked at the people surrounding her, all many years further into their lives and careers than she and did nothing to hide her disappointment in her elders.

At the World Economic Forum held in Davos in January, Thunberg told those present, “Our house is on fire, I am here to say our house is on fire. According to the IPCC we are less than 12 years away from not being able to undo our mistakes.”

In the Houses of Parliament in London, she began, “I speak on behalf of future generations. I know many of you don’t want to listen to us — you say we are just children. But we’re only repeating the message of the united climate science. … Many of you appear concerned that we are wasting valuable lesson time, but I assure you we will go back to school the moment you start listening to science and give us a future. Is that really too much to ask?”

These are just some highlights of her incredibly eloquent, powerful speeches, which you will soon be able to read in a book aptly titled, “No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference.” Thunberg, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, views it as a “gift” that has allowed her to see things in “black and white.” As writer Ian Birrell argues in the Guardian, “Greta Thunberg teaches us about autism as much as climate change.” Recently, the now-household name was also nominated for a Nobel Prize.

But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Thunberg’s activism is that it’s having a measurable impact. U.K. opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon have led the U.K. Parliament to declare a climate emergency, due to pressure from Thunberg and the Extinction Rebellion movement. Thunberg’s message continues to spread and inspire activism and action across this ailing planet, and not a second too soon, given, as she reminds us, that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction and are just a few years away from the point of no return when it comes to our planet’s survival.

For all she has already accomplished in her short years on earth to help save it, Greta Thunberg is our Truthdigger of the Month.

Trump Fed Choice Stephen Moore Withdraws Amid Controversy

WASHINGTON — Stephen Moore, a conservative commentator whom President Donald Trump had tapped for the Federal Reserve board, withdrew from consideration Thursday after losing Republican support in the Senate, largely over his past inflammatory writings about women.

Trump tweeted the news of Moore’s withdrawal, only hours after Moore had told two news organizations that he was still seeking the board seat and still had the White House’s support.

Trump announced otherwise Thursday afternoon.

“Steve Moore, a great pro-growth economist and a truly fine person, has decided to withdraw from the Fed process,” the president tweeted.

He added:

“Steve won the battle of ideas including Tax Cuts and deregulation which have produced non-inflationary prosperity for all Americans. I’ve asked Steve to work with me toward future economic growth in our Country.”

In a note to Trump that he released later, Moore said the “unrelenting attacks on my character have become untenable for me and my family and three more months of this would be too hard on us.”

“I am always at your disposal,” he concluded.

Numerous Republican senators had said they objected to Moore’s disparaging past writings about women or had sidestepped questions about whether they would back him. In recent weeks, Moore had said he regretted the writings and said they were meant as humor columns.

The Senate’s second-ranking Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, had said Wednesday that Moore “has issues” in the Senate, which must confirm any nominees for the Fed’s board.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., had said it was “hard to look past” Moore’s previous statements, while Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said his comments were a topic on which she would have questioned him.

In 2000, in a column for the Washington Times, Moore wondered why women “showed up in droves in tight skirts” at college parties if “they were so oppressed and offended by drunken, lustful frat boys.”

He also said women should not cover basketball games on television unless they wore revealing clothes.

“The only thing less funny than some of Mr. Moore’s tasteless, offensive, sexist ‘jokes’ was the idea that President Trump would even consider him for a seat on the Federal Reserve,” Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the top Senate Democrat, said in a statement. “Now President Trump must nominate two serious candidates who will strengthen our economy.”

Yet finding someone who fits the mold Trump seems to be seeking in a Fed governor is problematic. The president appears to be aiming for a reliable political ally who will push the Fed to cut short-term interest rates. Most traditional right-leaning economists, though, have pushed for higher interest rates for most of the past decade. Any, like Moore, who have reversed themselves to embrace the dovish approach favored by Trump might have a hard time winning Senate support.

Trump had also named Herman Cain, a former presidential candidate and business executive, for a second open seat on the Fed’s board. But Cain withdrew last week after coming under renewed scrutiny for allegations of sexual harassment and infidelity which first surfaced during the campaign.

Some experts say that David Beckworth, a research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, might fit what Trump is seeking — a right-of-center economist who has pushed for low rates for most of the past decade.

Beckworth has declined to comment.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, suggested that Moore’s defeat reflected the proper functioning of the political system and the key role of the news media in illuminating Moore’s written commentaries.

“This is an example of the system working as it should,” Jamieson said in an interview. “Republicans spoke up.”

As an adviser to Trump’s presidential campaign, Moore helped design the 2017 tax cuts. Yet his candidacy immediately met widespread skepticism about whether he was qualified for a Fed board position and concerns about his background as a highly politicized commentator on economic issues.

He had called for the Fed to raise rates in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, just when the central bank and other agencies were cutting rates or taking emergency actions to help resuscitate the economy and the banking system. After Trump’s election, Moore reversed course and argued for rate cuts even though the economy was much healthier by then.

Sung Won Sohn, a finance and economics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, said Thursday that he thought Moore’s withdrawal was a positive development for the Fed.

“The most important asset a central bank has is its reputation and credibility,” Sohn said. He contended that putting Moore on the Fed board would have imperiled those standards.

After Trump named Moore as a potential nominee in late March, Gregory Mankiw, a Harvard professor who was a top adviser to President George W. Bush, observed that Moore “does not have the intellectual gravitas for this important job” and urged the Senate to keep him off the Fed.

Moore has argued that the Fed should follow changes in the prices of commodities, such as oil or farm goods, and raise rates if those prices rose, to stem inflation. Yet that approach would have caused the Fed to raise rates in 2008 as oil prices spiked, which would have worsened the Great Recession.

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AP Business Writers Martin Crutsinger and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.

Barr Skips House Hearing; Pelosi Accuses Him of Lying

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr skipped a House hearing Thursday on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia report, escalating an already acrimonious battle between Democrats and President Donald Trump’s Justice Department. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Barr had already lied to Congress in other testimony and called that a “crime.”

Barr’s decision to avoid the hearing, made after a disagreement with the House Judiciary Committee over questioning, came the day after the department also missed the committee’s deadline to provide it with a full, unredacted version of Mueller’s report and its underlying evidence. In all, it’s likely to prompt a vote on holding Barr in contempt and possibly the issuance of subpoenas, bringing House Democrats and the Trump administration closer to a prolonged battle in court.

Democrats convened a short hearing that included an empty chair with a place card set for Barr. Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler of New York said that if the attorney general doesn’t provide the committee “with the information it demands and the respect that it deserves, Mr. Barr’s moment of accountability will come soon enough.”

Shortly afterward, Pelosi increased the tensions further. In a reference to the attorney general’s testimony last month, Pelosi said Barr “was not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States — that’s a crime.”

University of Chicago professor William Howell says Attorney General William Barr’s performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was impressive for its calm, but corroded public perceptions of independence. (May 2)

At a hearing on April 9, Florida Rep. Charlie Crist asked Barr about reports that members of Mueller’s team believed he had failed to adequately portray their findings in a four-page memo that was released before the full report.

Crist asked at the hearing, “Do you know what they are referencing with that?” Barr responded, “No, I don’t,” and went on to say Mueller’s team probably wanted “more put out” about what they had found.

Democrats have raised questions about that testimony since it was revealed this week that Mueller had written Barr two weeks earlier, on March 27, complaining that the attorney general’s memo “did not fully capture the context, nature and substance” of his work.

Barr said Wednesday his answer was not misleading because he had been in touch with Mueller, rather than members of his team, and that the concerns were mostly about process and not substance. Within minutes of Pelosi’s comments, Justice Department Spokeswoman Kerri Kupec called her words “reckless, irresponsible and false.”

Pelosi also said the administration’s refusal to respect subpoenas by a House committee is “very, very serious” and noted that ignoring congressional subpoenas was one of the articles of impeachment against former President Richard Nixon.

As Democrats portrayed Barr as untruthful, they sought to speak to Mueller. Nadler said the panel hoped the special counsel would appear before the committee on May 15 and the panel was “firming up the date.”

It’s unclear whether Barr will eventually negotiate an appearance with the House panel. Nadler said he wouldn’t immediately issue a subpoena for Barr’s appearance but would first focus on getting the full Mueller report, likely including a vote holding Barr in contempt of Congress.

While a contempt vote would make a strong statement, it is unlikely to force the Justice Department to hand over the report. A vote of the full House on contempt would send a criminal referral to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia — a Justice Department official who is likely to defend the administration’s interests. But even if the U.S. attorney declines to prosecute, Democrats could pursue other avenues in court or even issue fines against witnesses who fail to appear.

“In the past they had a House jail,” said Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., a member of the Judiciary panel. “I don’t think we’re going to go that far, but courts have upheld that.”

At Barr’s no-show hearing, Democratic members of the committee had fun with the spectacle, passing around fried chicken and placing a prop chicken by Barr’s unused microphone to underscore their contention that he was afraid to appear. One lawmaker jokingly looked under the desk to make sure Barr wasn’t there.

Republicans were not amused by the antics or Nadler’s tough talk.

“The reason Bill Barr isn’t here today is because the Democrats decided they didn’t want him here today,” said the top Republican on the panel, Georgia Rep. Doug Collins. Nadler had demanded that staff attorneys, in addition to lawmakers, be allowed to question Barr. Barr said he wouldn’t attend under that condition.

The attorney general’s cancellation meant he would avoid another round of sharp questioning after testifying Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Democrats on the panel contended that Barr was protecting Trump after he assessed Mueller’s report on his own in the early memo and declared there wasn’t enough evidence that the president had committed obstruction of justice. Mueller didn’t charge Trump with obstruction but wrote that he couldn’t exonerate him, either.

Barr strongly defended himself against those criticisms and also Mueller’s, saying at one point that Mueller’s March letter to him was “snitty.”

The attorney general’s confrontational approach is in line with the White House, which argued in an April 19 letter that Trump has the right to instruct advisers not to testify before congressional oversight probes. The letter from White House legal counsel Emmet Flood to Barr, which was obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday, argues that Trump would, if necessary, assert executive privilege to prevent advisers from testifying.

Trump has vowed to battle “all of the subpoenas” as multiple committees have sought to speak with administration officials or obtain documents relevant to his policies and finances. The president, his business and his administration have already filed lawsuits to prevent the turning over of Trump’s financial records and have declined to comply with a deadline to provide his tax returns.

Democrats have signaled they won’t back down and will take steps — including in court — to get the White House to comply.

But advisers to the president have suggested that any legal fight, even one that ends in defeat, would likely extend well into the 2020 campaign and allow them to portray the probes as political.

In the April letter, Flood blasted the Mueller report as defective and political. He called the 448-page report a “prosecutorial curiosity — part ‘truth commission’ report and part law school exam paper.”

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Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire, Alan Fram, Michael Balsamo, Eric Tucker, Laurie Kellman, Jill Colvin and Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.