Chris Hedges's Blog, page 285

Facebook, Google Face Crackdown on Disturbing Content

LONDON (AP) — Tech giants like Facebook and Google came under increasing pressure in Europe on Monday when countries proposed stricter rules to force them to block extreme material such as terrorist propaganda and child porn.

Britain called for a first-of-its-kind watchdog for social media that could fine executives and even ban companies. And a European Union parliamentary committee approved a bill giving internet companies an hour to remove terror-related material or face fines that could reach into the billions.

“We are forcing these firms to clean up their act once and for all,” said British Home Secretary Sajid Javid, whose department collaborated on Britain’s proposal.

Opponents warned the British and EU measures could stifle innovation and strengthen the dominance of technology giants because smaller companies won’t have the money to comply. That, in turn, could turn Google and Facebook into the web’s censors, they said.

The push to make the big companies responsible for the torrent of material they carry has largely been driven by Europeans. But it picked up momentum after the March 15 mosque shootings in New Zealand that killed 50 people and were livestreamed for 17 minutes. Facebook said it removed 1.5 million videos of the attacks in the 24 hours afterward.

The U.S., where government action is constrained by the First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of the press, has taken a more hands-off approach, though on Tuesday, a House committee will press Google and Facebook executives on whether they are doing enough to curb the spread of hate crimes and white nationalism.

Australia last week made it a crime for social media platforms not to quickly remove “abhorrent violent material.” The offense would be punishable by three years in prison and a fine of 10.5 million Australian dollars ($7.5 million), or 10% of the platform’s annual revenue, whichever is larger. New Zealand’s Privacy Commissioner wants his country to so the same.

The British plan would require social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter to protect people who use their sites from “harmful content.” The plan, which includes the creation of an independent regulator funded by a tax on internet companies, will be subject to public comment for three months before the government publishes draft legislation.

“No one in the world has done this before, and it’s important that we get it right,” Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright told the BBC.

Facebook’s head of public policy in Britain, Rebecca Stimson, said the goal of the new rules should be to protect society while also supporting innovation and freedom of speech.

“These are complex issues to get right, and we look forward to working with the government and Parliament to ensure new regulations are effective,” she said.

Britain will consider imposing financial penalties similar to those under the EU’s online data privacy law, which permits fines of up to 4% of a company’s annual worldwide revenue, Wright said. In extreme cases, the government may also seek to fine individual company directors and prevent companies from operating in Britain.

Under the EU legislation that cleared an initial hurdle in Brussels, any internet companies that fail to remove terrorist content within an hour of being notified by authorities would face similar 4% penalties. EU authorities came up with the idea last year after attacks highlighted the growing trend of online radicalization.

The bill would apply to companies providing services to EU citizens, whether or not those businesses are based in the EU’s 28 member countries. It still needs further approval, including from the full European Parliament.

It faces heavy opposition from digital rights organizations, tech industry groups and some lawmakers, who said the 60-minute deadline is impractical and would lead companies to go too far and remove even lawful material.

“Instead, we call for a more pragmatic approach with removals happening ‘as soon as possible,’ to protect citizens’ rights and competitiveness,” said EDIMA, a European trade group for new media and internet companies.

Opponents said the measure also places a bigger burden on smaller internet companies than on giants like Facebook and Google, which already have automated content filters. To help smaller web companies, the bill was modified to give them an extra 12 hours for their first offense, a measure opponents said didn’t go far enough.

Mark Skilton, a professor at England’s Warwick Business School, urged regulators to pursue new methods such as artificial intelligence that could do a better job of tackling the problem.

“Issuing large fines and hitting companies with bigger legal threats is taking a 20th-century bullwhip approach to a problem that requires a nuanced solution,” he said. “It needs machine learning tools to manage the 21st-century problems of the internet.”

Wright said Britain’s proposed social-media regulator would be expected to take freedom of speech into account while trying to prevent harm.

“What we’re talking about here is user-generated content, what people put online, and companies that facilitate access to that kind of material,” he said. “So this is not about journalism. This is about an unregulated space that we need to control better to keep people safer.”

Runaway Inequality Is a National Emergency, Billionaire Banker Warns

In 2019, billionaires have more wealth than ever before while “almost half of humanity have barely escaped extreme poverty, living on less than $5.50 a day,” international charity Oxfam found in its latest survey of global inequality.

Such wealth disparity is a crisis for the future of capitalism and the United States’ economic and political standing worldwide, Ray Dalio, billionaire and co-chairman of Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund, said in a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday. “If I was the president of the United States,” Dalio told “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker, “what I would do is recognize that this is a national emergency.”

In a LinkedIn essay elaborating on the connection between capitalism and income inequality, Dalio warns that conditions in America today are scarily similar to those in the 1930s, when countries like Germany fell into the hands of authoritarian governments. “There has been little or no real income growth for most people for decades” and “prime-age workers in the bottom 60% have had no real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) income growth since 1980,” he notes.

Dalio also sounds the alarm on the potential for conflict that results from major gaps between the haves and have-nots: “Disparity in wealth, especially when accompanied by disparity in values, leads to increasing conflict and, in the government, that manifests itself in the form of populism of the left and populism of the right and often in revolutions of one sort or another.”

While he advocates for higher taxes on the wealthy in general, public-private partnerships, and encouraging politicians to consider return on investments rather than focusing simply on budgets, Dalio is light on specific policy ideas for how to achieve these goals and prevent the revolution he refers to.

As writer Mark Niquette describes in Bloomberg, one example of the kind of programs Dalio supports is the partnership between Dalio Philanthropies and Ned Lamont, the Democratic governor of Connecticut. Niquette reports that the two “announced a partnership on April 5 to improve public education and economic opportunity, with $100 million from the state matched by $100 million from Dalio plus $100 million from other philanthropists and business leaders.”

Dalio is concerned not only about the inequality and social divisions capitalism causes, but whether those divisions will break the system that allowed him to become a billionaire in the first place. “It doesn’t need to be abandoned,” he said in his “60 Minutes” interview. “Like a car, like anything—a plane, a school system, anything—it needs to be reformed in order to work better.”

He elaborates on this in his LinkedIn essay, writing:

I think that most capitalists don’t know how to divide the economic pie well and most socialists don’t know how to grow it well, yet we are now at a juncture in which either a) people of different ideological inclinations will work together to skillfully re-engineer the system so that the pie is both divided and grown well or b) we will have great conflict and some form of revolution that will hurt most everyone and will shrink the pie.

Growing up, he writes, “I was raised with the belief that having equal opportunity to have basic care, good education, and employment is what is fair and best for our collective well-being. To have these things and use them to build a great life is what was meant by living the American Dream.” Now, Dalio explains on “60 Minutes,” “The American dream is lost.”

Watch Dalio’s “60 Minutes” interview here.

Bernie Sanders Has a Simple Message for Fox News Viewers

Distinguishing between Fox News’ massive audience and its extremist on-air personalities, Sen. Bernie Sanders said he agreed to attend a town hall hosted by the right-wing network because he wants to make the case to Trump voters that the president lied when he promised healthcare for all, no cuts to Medicare or Medicaid, and a tax bill that benefits the working class.

“When I go on Fox, what I will say is, ‘Look, many of you voted for Donald Trump, but he lied to you. He told you he was gonna provide healthcare for everybody. Yet his policies are to throw 30 million people off of the health insurance they have,'” the Vermont senator and 2020 presidential contender said in an interview with HuffPost‘s Amanda Terkel.

“He told you he wasn’t gonna cut Medicare and Medicaid. He lied to you,” Sanders continued. “Massive cuts in his budget for Medicare and Medicaid. We’re not going to let him do it, but that’s what he wants to do. Told you his tax plan would not benefit the wealthy. He lied again. Of course, 83 percent of the benefits go to the top one percent. How do you explain that to people who voted for Trump if you don’t talk to people who voted for Trump?”

The Fox town hall will take place Monday, April 15 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and it will be moderated by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. The town hall’s central focus will be on the economy and jobs.

Sanders—who has emerged as the early Democratic front-runner with strong grassroots enthusiasm and a massive first-quarter fundraising haul—said his campaign’s strategy of reaching as many people as possible is not just about an appearance on Fox News, which he acknowledged is effectively a “propaganda arm” of the Trump White House.

“If you check where I go, and where I will go into this campaign, I’m not just going to go into blue districts. You’ve got to go into areas where people are,” Sanders said. “Working people need to know the truth, and that is that Donald Trump betrayed them, lied to them. And I intend to do that.”

While some criticized Sanders for agreeing to the town hall, the Vermont senator argued it would be political malpractice to ignore an audience of millions of people.

“For better or for worse—and it is for worse—for whatever reason, you know, Fox has a huge viewing audience,” Sanders said. “And to simply say that we’re not going to talk to millions of people who watch that network, I don’t think is smart.”

U.S. ‘Terrorist’ Designation Amps Up Pressure on Iran

WASHINGTON—The United States on Monday designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a “foreign terrorist organization” in a move to increase pressure on the country that could also have significant military, diplomatic and economic implications throughout the Middle East and beyond.

It is the first time that the U.S. has designated a part of another government as a terrorist organization. The designation could spark Iranian retaliation as well as open hundreds of foreign companies and business executives to U.S. travel bans and possible prosecution for sanctions violations. It may also affect the ability of American diplomats and military officers to engage with key Mideast actors, notably in Iraq and Lebanon.

“This unprecedented step, led by the Department of State, recognizes the reality that Iran is not only a state sponsor of terrorism, but that the IRGC actively participates in, finances and promotes terrorism as a tool of statecraft,” President Donald Trump said.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the move is part of an effort to put “maximum pressure” on Iran to end its support for terrorist plots and militant activity that destabilizes the Middle East. Speaking to reporters, he rattled off a list of attacks dating to the 1980s for which the U.S. holds Iran and the IRGC responsible, beginning with the attacks on the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983.

“With this designation, the Trump administration is simply recognizing a basic reality,” Pompeo said.

The designation blocks any assets that IRGC entities may have in U.S. jurisdictions and bars Americans from any transactions with it. When it takes effect next week, it will allow the U.S. to deny entry to people found to have provided the Guard with “material support” or prosecute them for sanctions violations. That could include European and Asian companies and businesspeople who deal with the Guard’s many affiliates.

“It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the IRGC,” Trump said. “If you are doing business with the IRGC, you will be bankrolling terrorism.”

Pompeo said the action should serve as a warning to corporate lawyers to ensure any business their companies do in Iran is not with any entity affiliated with the Guard. “If you’re the general counsel for a European financial institution today, there is more risk,” he said.

The IRGC is a paramilitary organization formed in the wake of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution to defend the government. The force answers only to Iran’s supreme leader, operates independently of the regular military and has vast economic interests across the country. The U.S. estimates it may control or have a significant influence over up to 50% of the Iranian economy, including non-military sectors like banking and shipping.

Iran immediately responded with its Supreme National Security Council designating the U.S. Central Command, also known as CENTCOM, and all its forces as terrorist, and labeling the U.S. a “supporter of terrorism.”

The Council denounced the U.S. decision as “illegal and dangerous” and said the U.S. government would be responsible for all “dangerous repercussions” of its decision. It defended the IRGC, which has fought Islamic State fighters, as being a force against terrorism.

Reaction from those who favor tougher engagement with Iran was quick and welcoming.

“Thank you, my dear friend, US President Donald Trump,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a tweet, a day before what could be a close election. “Thank you for answering another of my important requests that serves the interests of our countries and of countries in the region.”

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the action an “overdue” but essential step that should be followed by additional sanctions.

Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the designation “ends the facade that the IRGC is part of a normal military.”

However, critics of Trump’s hardline Iran policy denounced the decision as a prelude to conflict.

“This move closes yet another potential door for peacefully resolving tensions with Iran,” said Trita Parsi, the founder of the National Iranian American Council. “Once all doors are closed, and diplomacy is rendered impossible, war will essentially become inevitable.”

American military commanders were planning to warn U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the region of the possibility of retaliation. Aside from Iraq, where some 5,200 American troops are stationed, and Syria, where some U.S. 2,000 troops remain, the U.S. 5th Fleet, which operates in the Persian Gulf from its base in Bahrain, and the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, are potentially at risk.

In addition to potential retaliation, the designation may also complicate U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. No waivers or exceptions to the sanctions were announced, meaning U.S. troops and diplomats could be barred from contact with Iraqi or Lebanese authorities who interact with Guard officials or surrogates.

The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies had also raised concerns about the impact of the designation if the move did not allow contact with other foreign officials who may have met with or communicated with Guard personnel. Those concerns have in part dissuaded previous administrations from taking the step, which has been considered for more than a decade.

The U.S. special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, and the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Nathan Sales, said the decision was reached after consultation with agencies throughout the government but would not say in a news conference if the military or intelligence concerns had been addressed.

“Doing this will not impede our diplomacy,” Hook said, without elaborating.

The State Department currently designates more than 60 organizations, including as al-Qaida and the Islamic State, Hezbollah and numerous militant Palestinian factions, as “foreign terrorist organizations.” But none of them is a state-run military.

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Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates contributed to this report.

Secret Service Director Out in Latest White House Shake-Up

WASHINGTON (AP) — Kirstjen Nielsen said Monday she still shares President Donald Trump’s goal of securing the Mexican border, a day after she resigned as Homeland Security secretary amid Trump’s frustration and bitterness over a spike in Central American migration.

At the same time, the White House announced Monday that Trump was replacing Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles, the latest development in the shake-up in the upper echelon of Nielsen’s department. Alles’ departure, to be replaced by career Secret Service official James Murray, is unrelated to Nielsen’s resignation, according to administration officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss the personnel matter. Yet it is part of a DHS turnover that began last week when Trump withdrew his Immigration and Customs Enforcement director’s nomination to stay on permanently.

Nielsen had traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday with Trump to participate in a roundtable with border officers and local law enforcement. There she echoed Trump’s comments on the situation at the border, though she ducked out of the room while Trump spoke. As they toured a section of newly rebuilt barriers, Nielsen was at Trump’s side, introducing him to local officials. She returned to Washington afterward as Trump continued on a fundraising trip to California and Nevada.

But on Sunday, she wrote in her resignation letter that “it is the right time for me to step aside.” She wrote that she hoped “the next secretary will have the support of Congress and the courts in fixing the laws which have impeded our ability to fully secure America’s borders and which have contributed to discord in our nation’s discourse.”

Trump announced on Sunday in a tweet that U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan would be taking over as acting head of the department. The decision to name a top immigration officer to the post reflects Trump’s priority for the sprawling department founded to combat terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

On Monday, Nielsen told reporters outside her Alexandria, Virginia, home that she continues to support the president’s goal of securing the border.

“I will continue to support all efforts to address the humanitarian and security crisis on the border,” she said in her first public remarks since the surprise resignation, thanking the president “for the tremendous opportunity to serve this country.”

Yet Nielsen had grown increasingly frustrated by what she saw as a lack of support from other departments and increased meddling by Trump aides on difficult immigration issues, according to three people familiar with details of her resignation. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

She went to the White House on Sunday to meet with Trump not knowing whether she’d be fired or would resign. She ended up resigning, though she was not forced to do so, they said.

Though Trump aides were eyeing a staff shake-up at the Department of Homeland Security and had already withdrawn the nomination of another key immigration official, the development Sunday was unexpected.

Still, it was unclear how McAleenan would immediately assume the role. The agency’s undersecretary of management, Claire Grady, is technically next in line for the job, and she will need to resign — or more likely be fired — in order for McAleenan to assume the post.

White House spokesman Hogan Gidley spoke of McAleenan’s “extensive” knowledge of immigration issues and said the change in leadership would hopefully lead to “massive changes” at the border.

Nielsen is the latest person felled in the Trump administration’s unprecedented churn of top staff and Cabinet officials, brought about by the president’s management style, insistence on blind loyalty and rash policy announcements.

She was also the highest profile female Cabinet member, and her exit leaves DHS along with the Pentagon and even the White House staff without permanent heads. Patrick Shanahan has held the post of acting defense secretary since Jim Mattis was pushed out in December over criticism of the president’s Syria withdrawal plans. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has held his post since January, following John Kelly’s resignation last year.

McAleenan has helped shape many of the administration’s policies to date and is considered highly competent by congressional leaders, the White House and Homeland Security officials. But it’s unclear if he can have much more of an effect on the issues at the border. The Trump administration has bumped up against legal restrictions and court rulings that have hamstrung many of its major efforts to remake border security.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, the Texas Democrat who is chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, was critical of Nielsen, saying she spent her tenure “championing President Trump’s cruel anti-immigrant agenda,” and he called McAleenan’s appointment “deeply disturbing … based on his record of prioritizing Trump’s harmful policies.”

Tensions between the White House and Nielsen have persisted almost from the moment she became secretary, after her predecessor, Kelly, became the White House chief of staff in 2017. Nielsen was viewed as resistant to some of the harshest immigration measures supported by the president and his aides, particularly senior adviser Stephen Miller, both on matters around the border and others like protected status for some refugees.

The final straw came when Trump gave Nielsen no heads-up or opportunity to discuss his decision to withdraw the nomination of acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Ron Vitiello — a move seen as part of a larger effort by Miller, an immigration hardliner, and his allies at the White House to clean house at the department.

Arrests along the southern border have skyrocketed recently. Border agents are on track to make 100,000 arrests and denials of entry at the southern border in March, more than half of which are families with children. A press conference to announce the most recent border numbers — scheduled to be held by McAleenan on Monday — was postponed.

Nielsen dutifully pushed Trump’s immigration policies, including funding for his border wall, and defended the administration’s practice of separating children from parents. She told a Senate committee that removing children from parents facing criminal charges happens “in the United States every day.” But she was also instrumental in ending the policy.

Under Nielsen, migrants seeking asylum are waiting in Mexico as their cases progress. She also moved to abandon longstanding regulations that dictate how long children are allowed to be held in immigration detention and requested bed space from the U.S. military for 12,000 people in an effort to detain all families who cross the border. Right now there is space for about 3,000 families, and facilities are at capacity.

Nielsen also advocated for strong cybersecurity defense and said she believed the next major terror attack would occur online — not by planes or bombs. She was tasked with helping states secure elections following Russian interference during the 2018 election.

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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.

9 Ways the Media Blew It in Its ‘Russiagate’ Coverage

So many in media got so much so wrong over the past two years as they put all of their eggs in the basket of Trump/Putin collusion in the 2016 election. I asked some Russiagate skeptics to share what they saw as the worst moments or biggest failings during the 22-month spree, and their tips for moving forward.

1. Encourage debate and dissent, not conspiracy theories and clicks. —Aaron Maté, journalist, The Nation

I’ll never forget that Rachel Maddow did a segment where she called some alleged Russian trolls, interfering on Bernie Sanders’ fan club page, “international warfare against our country.” Jonathan Chait came out with a story about whether Trump was a Russian military intelligence agent, and then Chris Hayes put him on his program that night, and they discussed it as if this was a serious prospect.

January 2017, basically right as Trump was taking office, was the last time someone who was skeptical of Russiagate from the left was allowed on MSNBC, because in December of 2016, Ari Melber interviewed Glenn Greenwald. But that was the last time for Glenn. And January 2017 was the last time Matt Taibbi was on MSNBC. That means that basically, throughout this entire affair, throughout Trump’s presidency, MSNBC has not allowed on a single dissenting voice. That’s extraordinary. And what does that say about a political media culture, that it’s somehow a fringe position to question the conspiracy between the president and Russia?

So the only possible victory here for politics and journalism is if there’s accountability: On the journalism front, if we learn how to follow the facts, not a narrative that benefits ratings and gets us clicks; and in politics, if we actually learn to start becoming a real resistance, mounting opposition to Trump based on opposing his policies, not based on believing in this fairy tale.

2. Stop playing into Trump’s hands and stop smearing reporters. — Matt Taibbi , journalist, Rolling Stone

 

People are already writing articles accusing me and other journalists of being smug and taking a “victory lap.” I don’t feel victorious! I’d settle for being able to write about this story without being called a traitor.

Because of the way the modern news landscape is divided, we’re really susceptible to groupthink and orthodoxies. Everyone settles on narratives, and it becomes forbidden to explore any alternative themes being pursued on the “other” media. With Russiagate, it was called “shilling for Trump” to wonder about whether any part of it was untrue. That makes it very hard for young reporters, especially, to challenge this.

The only way we could possibly lose with the public in a contest with someone like Trump is if we completely abdicated the standards of the profession and did what he accused us of doing, which would be politicizing our jobs and using trumped-up evidence to try to make him look bad. That was the one option out of an infinite number of ways we could have pursued covering his presidency. That was the one thing that could have really helped him. And we did it. Not only did we do it, but we did it, basically, to the exclusion of everything else, for years.

3. Stop spreading Russophobic paranoia. — Yasha Levine , journalist,  S.H.A.M.E. Project

The thing is that America’s media obsession with the Russian menace—this idea that Russia is the greatest threat to liberal civilization—predates the Mueller investigation. It predates the 2016 election, and it predates Trump. So this wasn’t a sudden mistake about a single investigation, but something that America’s been moving towards for over a decade. The Russian Menace has been a lucrative racket—paying the mortgages, car loans, kids’ college tuitions, for thousands of think-tankers, military contractors, academics and journalists.

After Trump, the Russia hysteria hit a new level of paranoia and bigotry. There was a need to blame America’s domestic political turmoil, and the failure of its political establishment, on someone or something—to deflect responsibility for what happened. So suddenly liberal media began to see “the Russians” everywhere—part of a shadowy foreign conspiracy to undermine America from within.

They weren’t just threatening Europe and NATO. They were in the White House, in American voting machines, in American electrical grids, in American children’s cartoons. They were hacking people’s minds. They were controlling both the international left and the international right—against the respectable political center. That’s how sneaky and devious and cynical they are. That’s how much they want to destroy America’s liberal democracy.

The Mueller report may provide us some much-needed respite from this insanity for a few weeks or months, but this focus on the Russian menace isn’t going away any time soon. You can already see Joe Biden’s creepy behavior with women being blamed on a devious Russian plot to help elect Bernie. So as we get closer to the election, this kind of stuff is gonna fire up again big time.

To treat this issue as a media problem that we “can solve” and “get right” in the future is a bit too optimistic, in my opinion. It assumes that our political and media establishment wants to actually “get it right.” What does getting it right mean, when they are the problem that needs to be corrected?  To “get it right,” they’d have to admit that they’ve been wrong — not just about Mueller, but about the decades of bankrupt neoliberal politics they’ve been complicit in pushing on America and around the world. To get it right, our political and media elite would have to voluntarily deplatform itself. And I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Yasha Levine

4. Talk to people with an actual understanding of history and Russia, not fake experts and uninformed  pundits. —Carl Beijer, writer

It’s remarkable how often the problems of Russiagate coverage came down to simple ignorance. From references to Russia as a “Communist” nation to basic translation errors, we’ve seen prominent pundits make mistakes that would embarrass a grade-school Muscovite.

This was in part a problem of people exaggerating their own credentials, but it was also a problem of the media deciding that no real expertise was needed. I don’t want to call for academic entry exams, but I think it’s clear that the media needs to move in the direction of treating Russian studies as a field of knowledge like any other. Do you speak the language? Have you spent more than a few weeks in the country? What and where have you published? Do you have a directly relevant professional background?

There are so many people who could give extraordinary answers to all of these questions, so it says everything about Russiagate when you look at who we heard from instead. From overt operatives to media hacks, corporate news is now overrun by pundits who function as PR professionals for the major parties. All of their professional and social incentives compel them to carry water for their party; if they happen to be right about a given issue, it’s purely by accident.

And with Russiagate, we saw the worst-case scenario play out: Republicans, who will defend Trump over anything, ended up being right—while Democrats, desperate to believe they had caught him in an impeachable crime, got it wrong. The only way around this problem, as far as I can tell, is to talk to pundits who are acting against their own political interests.

In this case, there were plenty of people in liberal-left media who clearly want to see Trump fail, but who were nevertheless Russiagate skeptics. Some of those voices were just being contrarians, of course, but some of them were acting from a place of conviction.

5. Don’t manipulate the truth to justify war. — Rania Khalek , journalist, host of In the Now

From the start, we were warning people that pushing this evidence-free conspiracy theory was ultimately going to empower Trump. But even worse, it actually made the world a more dangerous place. In order to prove he wasn’t in bed with the Russians, the Trump administration pushed some of the most anti-Russia policies in the post Cold War-era, moving us closer to nuclear war and increasing the likelihood of more violence in places like Syria, Venezuela and Ukraine, all to prove that Trump isn’t Putin’s puppet.

This entire affair has also resurrected the careers of the neocons, who, until Trump came along, were largely disgraced for the horrors they inflicted on Iraq. Now they’ve been embraced by liberals for being anti-Trump, and they have more influence than ever. Not to mention the new McCarthyism that frames everything, from the NRA to white nationalism to even progressive advocacy groups that challenge the Democratic Party, as agents of the Kremlin, distorting everyone’s understanding of what’s going on today.

The Russiagate narrative has been a disaster, and it’s going to continue to be a disaster, because, despite being proven to be a sham, the corporate media and the corporate Democrats are still pushing it, distracting everyone from the real reasons for our miserable status quo.

It’s regime change anniversary month for Iraq, Libya and Syria.

These countries were the targets of the US regime change playbook and all are worse off because of it. And now the regime changers have moved on to Venezuela and Iran. Will it ever end? pic.twitter.com/nd58u3VQSV

— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) March 13, 2019

6. Be skeptical toward government officials and other authorities. —Branko Marcetic, journalist, Jacobin

The media seemed to replace caution and wariness with an overeager credulity towards those in power or positions of authority, whether it was the salacious, unproven tales collected by a British spy; the various false and misleading claims disseminated by mysterious, anonymous government officials; or perjury-taintedformer intelligence officials asserting that Trump was being blackmailed or controlled by Putin. They seemed to forget the lessons of the Iraq War, that these people, too, have their own agendas and interests.

Given the dangers, and with allegations this wild—particularly the idea that Trump was wittingly doing Putin’s bidding, which is what this scandal has always been about—there was always good reason to be extra careful. Instead, some of those pushing this narrative actually chided people for being too skeptical.

It also would’ve helped if the press gave weight to countervailing views and to experts (Russian journalists, coincidentally, never bought into the scandal), focused less on Trump’s Putin-curious rhetoric than on his administration’s actual policies, and resisted the temptation to take an explicitly nationalistic standpoint when reporting.

It’s not too late to salvage the media’s reputation, but they’ll have to acknowledge what they got wrong, be transparent about how they plan to rectify it and prevent a repeat, and have at least some accountability. None of that seems to be on the menu right now.

7. Focus on the many actual crimes. —Esha Krishnaswamy, lawyer, host of historic.ly podcast

“Collusion” is a vague word that is not defined as a crime in any federal statute. There are numerous other Trump crimes to focus on, such as soliciting contributions from a foreign national, computer fraud, wire fraud, bribery of a public official, conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to defraud the US, or even a violation of the emoluments clause.

We already know that a Saudi official paid for a “conference” and 500 rooms in Trump hotels. We know about the bizarre ties with a Turkish money-laundering case. Jared Kushner tried to get Qatar to bail him out on a bad building investment, and, when they refused, Trump took aim at Qatar. Trump cut ties with Qatar after the Saudi crown prince bragged that he had Jared Kushner in his pocket.

Since war criminals get a free pass, the media may not notice. But genocide is still illegal under international law (which the US doesn’t really subject itself to) and also under US law. Under 18 USC 1091, “transfers by force children of the group to another group” counts are genocide. During his brutal ICE detentions, Trump separated parents from children, and some of the children were adopted out.

But focusing on “collusion” allowed the media to peddle stories related to Facebook memes instead of talking about the issues, like how our elections are basically auctions to the highest bidder. Trump and Clinton spent nearly $2 billion each but instead of covering this, the media focused on whether or not a random Twitter account with eight followers interfered with bad memes.

The media ignored the brutal bloodbath in Yemen, the Rohingya situation in Myanmar. Domestically, they ignored wage stagnation, the rising prescription drug prices, housing foreclosures, the opioid epidemic.

The media promoted outright bigotry against Russian individuals. Maddow said, “These are the Russians in Davos.” Would she have done the same segment about any other group? “These are the Jews in Davos”?

They also sparked dangerous foreign policy, subjecting Trump to “tests” to prove  that he wasn’t Putin’s puppet. Rachel Maddow encouraged NATO’s build-up in Ukraine. Many Democrats continued to encourage Trump to arm Azov Battalion (Nazis) in Ukraine. The only decent thing Trump tried to do was build peace with North Korea, and the media fear-mongered about that. As usual, they chose to push the “national security consensus” over the truth.

8. Pay attention to whom Trump is actually  colluding  with. — Kyle Kulinski , host of the  Kyle Kulinski Show

I’d say the worst example of media fails would be Maddow saying, what if Russia cut off the electricity to the middle of the country during the polar vortex. That’s just hysterical fear-mongering. I also hate the conflation of “attacking the country” with random low-level troll farms.

There’s also a concerted effort to not discuss the substance of the leaks on the DNC, and simply dismiss them because the source might be Russia. Would they do that if the leaks exposed corruption within the RNC? With 100 percent certainty, we can say no. This also gave Trump credibility, because when he screams “fake news” in the future, people won’t be as quick to reject it.

The media should focus on policy and how it impacts regular people. If they did, they would’ve spoken quite a bit about Trump’s dealings with predatory payday lenders. They donated a lot to his inauguration, and recently have been funneling him money through his golf courses. In return, he dropped an Obama-era lawsuit against them, and blocked implementation of new regulations. They’ll now make $7 billion off society’s most vulnerable. You can almost say it was “collusion” between Trump and the industry. Too bad MSNBC and CNN don’t care—and probably don’t even know—about it.

9. Stop fear-mongering and engaging in “acceptable” bigotry. — Jimmy Dore , comedian, host of the  Jimmy Dore Show

When Keith Olbermann pounded his fist on his table, screaming, “SCUM! RUSSIAN SCUM!!!” I couldn’t help but thinking, that’s the only nationality he could insert there and get away with it. He couldn’t scream “Mexican scum” or “Chinese scum” or “Indian scum.” Russian bigotry is, I think, the only acceptable bigotry among the liberal media. Totally acceptable to the liberal media.

Rachel Maddow telling her audience in the middle of a polar vortex that Russia controls their power grid and could freeze them all to death at a moment’s notice was by far the most egregious example of fear-mongering. But that’s not the only bad thing the media’s done. They’re currently pushing regime-change wars in Syria and Venezuela.

The corporate news will never regain my trust or redeem itself, because they are owned and funded by the people they’re supposed to be investigating and exposing, like the richest man in the world, for instance, Jeff Bezos. He controls 51 percent of all the internet sales in the United States, sits on a Pentagon board and has a $600 million deal with the CIA. That’s the guy running the news!

The One Word the Mainstream Media Maddeningly Refuses to Use

It should go without saying that things we don’t have names for…go without saying. For years, that’s been the deal with corporate media and racism. Actions, policies, statements and ideas that regular people have no trouble identifying as racist become, in elite media hands, “racially tinged,” “racially charged,” “race-related.” And if racism isn’t a thing our famously objective reporters can see, well, maybe it’s not really out there, right?

Things came to a forehead-slapping peak when Rep. Steve King (R.–Iowa) said to The New York Times (1/10/19):

White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization—how did that language become offensive? Why did I sit in classes teaching me about the merits of our history and our civilization?

Endorsing the supremacy of white people—that’s racist, right?

Leaked reports showed NBC News, for one, instructing staffers otherwise (HuffPost, 1/15/19): “Be careful to avoiding characterizing [King’s] remarks as racist,” read the internal guidance, adding “It is OK to attribute to others as in ‘what many are calling racist’ or something like that.” Laugh if you will, NBC is reflecting polite society’s rule that besmirching someone—someone white, that is—with the label “racist” is worse than degrading the humanity of millions.

Shamed on social media, NBC reversed course, and now the news industry bible, “The AP Stylebook,” is reinforcing the move to Realityland. The 2019 edition tells journalists:

Do not use racially charged, racially divisive, racially tinged or similar terms as euphemisms for racist or racism when the latter terms are truly applicable. Mississippi has a history of racist lynchings, not a history of racially motivated lynchings. He is charged in the racist massacre of nine people at a black church, not the racially motivated massacre of nine people at a black church.

It might seem superficial, but for a press corps that calls itself clever for splintering off “fact-checking” from reporting, that chest-thumps about the First Amendment but doesn’t defend whistleblowers when they go to prison, symbols can mean a lot.

There’s something else new in the new AP guide. It says, “Deciding whether a specific statement, action, policy, etc., should be termed racist often is not clearcut. Such decisions should include discussion with colleagues and/or others from diverse backgrounds and perspectives.” That diverse people need to be in the room, that reporting involves listening to and learning from them—now there’s a radical idea.

Robert Reich: America’s Meritocracy Is a Cruel Joke

Most Americans still cling to the meritocratic notion that people are rewarded according to their efforts and abilities. But meritocracy is becoming a cruel joke.

The Justice Department recently announced indictments of dozens of wealthy parents for using bribery and fraud to get their children into prestigious colleges.

But the real scandal isn’t how far a few wealthy parents will go to get their kids admitted (apparently $1.2 million in illegal payoffs), but how commonplace it has become for them to go almost as far without breaking any laws – shelling out big bucks for essay tutors, testing tutors, admissions counselors, and “enrichment” courses (not to mention sky-high tuition at private schools feeding into the Ivy League).

Inequality is lurking behind all this, and not just because the wealthy can afford it. Researchers Daniel Schneider, Orestes Hastings, and Joe LaBriola found that in states with the biggest gaps between rich and poor, well-to-do parents spend the most trying to get their children into elite colleges.

America’s unprecedented concentration of wealth combined with seemingly bottomless poverty have increased parental anxiety – raising the stakes, and the competition, for admission.

While some entrepreneurs in America’s billionaire class lack a prestigious degree, it’s become harder to become a run-of-the-mill multimillionaire in America without one.

Most CEOs of big corporations, Wall Street mavens, and high-priced lawyers got where they are because they knew the right people. A prestigious college packed with the children of wealthy and well-connected parents is now the launching pad into the stratosphere of big money.

Elite colleges are doing their parts to accelerate the trend.

At a time when the courts have all but ended affirmative action for black children seeking college admission, high-end universities provide preferential admission to the children of wealthy alumni –“legacies,” as they’re delicately called.

Some prestigious colleges have even been known to make quiet deals with wealthy non-alums – admission for their kids with the expectation of a large donation to follow.

Jared Kushner’s father reportedly pledged $2.5 million to Harvard just as young Jared was applying. The young man gained admission, despite rather mediocre grades.

About four in 10 students from the richest one-tenth of one percent of American families now attend an Ivy League or other elite university, according to a recent study based on millions of anonymous tax filings and tuition records.

At some upscale campuses – including Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, Penn, and Brown – more students now come from the top 1 percent than from the entire bottom 60 percent put together.

By contrast, less than one-half of 1 percent of children from the bottom fifth of American families attend an elite college. Fewer than half attend any college at all.

A worse scandal is K-12 education, where geographic segregation by income is leaving poor school districts – partly reliant on local property taxes, which don’t generate much revenue– with fewer resources per pupil than richer districts.

Race is involved. School districts that are predominantly white get $23 billion more funding each year than districts serving mostly students of color.

When it comes to early childhood education – which education experts agree is vital to the future life chances of the very young – the gap has become a chasm.

Wealthy parents spare no expense stimulating infant and toddler brains with happy human interactions through words, music, poetry, games, and art. Too often, the offspring of poorer kids do little more than sit long hours in front of a television.

The monstrous concentration of wealth in America has not only created an education system in which the rich can effectively buy college admission for their children. It has distorted much else.

It has created a justice system in which the rich can buy their way out of prison. (Exhibit A: money manager Jeffrey Epstein, who sexually abused dozens of underage girls, yet served just thirteen months in a private wing of a Palm Beach county jail.)

It has spawned a political system in which the rich can buy their way into Congress (Exhibit B: Reps. Darrell Issa and Greg Gianforte) and even into the presidency (Donald Trump, perhaps Starbuck’s Howard Schultz).

And a health care system in which the superrich can buy care unavailable to others (concierge medicine).

Meritocracy remains a deeply held ideal in America. But The nation is drifting ever-farther away from it. In the age of Trump, it seems, everything is for sale.

Cities Consider a Bold Approach to Counter Opioid Crisis

Several U.S. cities are responding to the ever-growing threat of the opioid crisis by establishing the nation’s first supervised injection site, with Philadelphia moving the closest yet. The controversial sites have found success in Europe, Australia and Canada but do not have the support of most Americans and are vocally opposed by the Trump administration.

At supervised injection sites (also known as safe injection sites, safe consumption sites and safe injection facilities), drug users can take pre-obtained illegal substances under medical and trained staff supervision at legally sanctioned facilities. While staff do not handle or assist with the consumption of illicit drugs, they may “provide sterile injection supplies, answer questions on safe injection practices, administer first aid if needed, and monitor for overdose” according to the Drug Policy Alliance.

In Philadelphia, the nonprofit Safehouse recently announced lease negotiations to open a supervised injection site in the neighborhood at the heart of the city’s opioid crisis. Philadelphia has the highest opioid death rate of any large U.S. city, with more than 1,000 deaths per year, Philly.com reports. Philadelphia’s mayor and district attorney and a former Pennsylvania governor all support such a facility, but U.S. Attorney William McSwain has filed a lawsuit to block the site.

As immoral as the idea sounds to most Americans, one fact has driven policymakers to advocate on behalf of the sites: They appear to work. A review of more than 75 studies reported by ScienceDirect found the sites met their harm-reduction goals and were not found to increase drug use or crime.

Beyond these findings, the sites were associated with a reduction in syringe litter, drug paraphernalia debris and public injections. A 2018 study found that a site in Vancouver, Canada, would present a cost savings of $14 million over 10 years, in addition to saving 920 years of life.

The Trump administration is firmly against supervised injection sites—a stance that is unsurprising, given its hard-line approach to drug use. In August, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein publicly warned that facilities designated for consumption of illicit drugs are in violation of federal law. He said of Philadelphia’s plans in particular:

[I]f the situation arose where we determine that somebody was in violation of the law, we’d have to evaluate the facts and make a determination about what’s the appropriate approach to take.

Even in the face of such threats, elected officials in New York, Seattle and San Francisco have set policy goals to implement supervised injection sites. While the act of consuming drugs would remain illegal, cities have the capacity to direct law enforcement to not prosecute designated facilities. But as passionate as some officials are about providing supervised injection sites for their communities, they face major hurdles to policy implementation.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced a plan to open four pilot supervised injection sites, and one is under construction in Ithaca, N.Y. The plan currently faces backlash, with Binghamton-area state Sen. Fred Akshar recently introducing a bill to ban such sites.

San Francisco took major steps in February with a vote allowing the city’s Department of Health to move forward with such a facility. Famously liberal San Francisco may be uniquely positioned—two polls of the city’s registered voters show overwhelming support for the sites; the most recent found 67 percent in favor (45 percent strongly and 22 percent somewhat). However, a bill to allow supervised injection sites in the city was recently vetoed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown.

Seattle may also be on its way to safe injection site implementation, as state and city officials approved two facilities in 2017, but no date is available for when these facilities would open. Washington’s King County approved $2.1 million to fund a facility, but progress was halted when an anti-injection site initiative attempted to ban the site. The initiative was later rejected by the Washington State Supreme Court, but the threat of a federal lawsuit looms over the plan.

 

Why Is Barbara Lee Helping Fund Our Forever Wars?

What Barbara Lee did on the House floor three days after 9/11 — speaking prophetic words and casting the only vote against a green light for endless war — remains the bravest wise action in Congress during this century. The contrast was jolting last week when her vote enabled the House Budget Committee to approve a bill with a $17 billion increase in military spending for next year and another such increase for 2021.

Because of the boost to the military, three progressive Democrats on the committee voted against the budget bill: Pramila Jayapal, Ro Khanna and Ilhan Omar. “This is a key philosophical moment for our party,” Khanna said. The second-term congressman told the committee: “We cannot be against endless wars and then fund those wars.”

But, in effect, Barbara Lee voted to fund those wars — plus vast quantities of new weaponry and waste. If she had joined with Jayapal, Khanna and Omar in voting no, the committee would have deadlocked with an 18-18 tie, blocking the bill. (Many deficit-hawk Republicans voted against the bill because it raises the caps on non-military and military spending.)

After the committee vote on April 3, I requested a statement from Congresswoman Lee. “I voted to advance a bill out of committee that sets budget caps for the next two fiscal years,” she said. “To be clear: I do not support the Pentagon spending levels in the bill and voted for an amendment offered by my colleague Rep. Khanna to freeze Pentagon spending at FY2019 levels. Unfortunately, the Khanna amendment failed.”

Lee’s statement added: “I have a long record of fighting to cut bloated Pentagon spending, audit the Pentagon and repeal the 2001 Authorization [for] Use of Military Force. I will continue to fight for these efforts, and to increase domestic discretionary spending as the budget and appropriations process moves forward.”

Certainly, Barbara Lee has been a stalwart opponent of endless war. Her tireless efforts to undo the AUMF have most recently included the introduction in mid-February of a bill titled “Repeal of the Authorization for Use of Military Force” (H.R. 1274).

Yet there’s no getting around the fact that Lee’s vote in committee last week made it possible for a budget bill that further bloats the Pentagon’s spending to reach the House floor. The vote there is expected on Tuesday or Wednesday. (If you agree with most Americans that military spending should be cut instead of raised, you can quickly email your representative about it here.)

This is not the first time in recent years that Lee has succumbed to party-line militarism. Her notable anti-diplomacy tweet in July 2017 from the official “Rep. Barbara Lee” Twitter account — denouncing President Trump for meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin — remains posted to this day. Yet her pivotal Budget Committee vote a few days ago is Congresswoman Lee’s most tangible and disappointing assist to the military-industrial complex.

Barbara Lee’s sincerity and commitment to peace are beyond question. But it’s all too easy for lawmakers to be unduly influenced by party leadership on Capitol Hill, where conformity is vital for the warfare state. Only pressure from the grassroots has the potential to overcome the business as usual in official Washington.

When progressives in Congress go wrong, we must be willing to say so — clearly, publicly and emphatically. With her decisive vote to enable an increase in military spending, Barbara Lee was wrong.